▸ Column · Modern Earth, the letter read by Nolan Grayson — mild-mannered author, Viltrumite officer
OMNI-MAN replies.
Replied to by Omni-Man, with a rebuttal from Homelander.
The letter
Twelve years ago my college roommate and I became inseparable, and when she asked me to stand as her maid of honor I wept with happiness. Since then the asking has not stopped. There is a $340 dress from one boutique two thousand miles from where I live. There is a four-night bachelorette trip running near $1,800 a head before airfare. Matching robes for the photographs. A salon she's block-booked at $220 a face. Add the shower gift, the wedding gift, the flights — I am near $4,000. I teach art to twelve-year-olds and carry $28,000 in loans. Every time I raise the cost, gently, she smiles and says "I just want everyone to feel special" and changes the subject. Do I find a way to say this without detonating a twelve-year friendship, or do I open a payment plan and quietly resent her for the next ten years?
Omni-Man replies
Think. You have written me four thousand dollars and one real question, and only the question survives the year. The robes will fray. The salon will close. The trip to that beach will be a photograph you barely look at. Measure the dress against twelve years and tell me which one you actually fear losing.
You have named your true error already, and named it as if it were the safe choice: resent her quietly for a decade. That is not peace. That is a wound you carve into yourself and call loyalty. I know the difference. I once chose silence over honesty with the person I loved most, and silence cost me nearly everything.
So speak. Not gently — gentleness is how you've avoided this. Plainly. To her face: "I love you. I cannot afford this, and I will not go into debt to perform a devotion you already have." Then let her answer. A bond twelve years deep either holds the truth or it was never what you believed. Do not bankrupt yourself to keep a friend who would rather have your money than your honesty. And do not, whatever you decide, walk away from her over a dress. That door, once shut, does not reopen the way you imagine.
— Omni-Man
Homelander weighs in
Nolan. Always the speech, always "to her face." You think the dress is the problem. It isn't. The problem is you — yes, you, art teacher — and how badly you need to still be the good one, the chosen one, the maid of honor everyone coos over. That hunger is the leash, and you handed Priya the end of it eight months ago.
Don't have his tearful heart-to-heart. That's just begging with better lighting. Pay for the parts the camera sees, skip the rest, stay smiling and unbothered, and let her wonder. I've stood in a stadium screaming my name and felt nothing. The applause at that wedding won't fill you either. Ask whether you'd still want her if she never clapped for you again. That's your real bill.
— Homelander
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