It’s like a game except for all the ways it’s not.
“Real or not real?” Taako will say. “That time I got slapped for stealing some gold from the lockbox, when we were traveling with the assholes with the carts, whats their names?”
“Not real,” Lup will say. “That was the Martins. I distracted ‘em while you stole the loot. We bought new shoes and you got the weirdest hat.”
“Fuck you!” Taako will say. “That hat was great. It was flipping fantastic.”
She’s kind enough not to poke at the holes in his memory, the places where fact gets mixed up with fiction, the way he’ll allude to things that never happened. It’s his whole life that’s wrong. He knows that. He remembers parallel tracks. He’s different now, he knows.
“Real or not real? I like black coffee.”
“Not real. Maybe you acquired the taste? I always stole sugar packets and creamer, while you grabbed the coffee and booked it.”
“Real or not real? I got kicked out of school, twice.”
“Real. I got kicked out of school in solidarity, babe.”
“Real or not real? The first thing I remember is waking up, and no one was there.”
“Not real. We shared a bed when we were kids.”
“Oh.”