excerpt from femoid — s.a.b. marcie

Once Upon a Time in Savoyville (3) 

[Note: *’s mark where footnotes appear in the print version]

Nightwalking in Calder, like most parts of Edmonton that aren’t the city centre, is a lot of one- or two-telephone pole streets in a row. 

Sometimes, there’s the reprieve of a tree. 

No street lamps, so you have to use the light from the endless stretches of single-family homes to guide the way. 

Everything’s flat. You can go as long as you like without ever risking burning out your legs. You can go, go, go. 

When I was still living with my parents and attending St. Francis Xavier Catholic High (because the best way to save a wayward soul is to send it to a Christian senior high),* I’d have to get out like this every other night. In those days, it was the only way of keeping my autonomy. 

These continued even after I moved in with Matthew Bondarenko. (Yes, another Matthew. The worst one.) Because he may find and kill me now that I’ve returned to the city, I invite you to join me, if you please, for a nightwalk down Savoyville’s own 💥🛑 Memory Lane 🛑💥 so you may see what life was like here. 

Matthew and I first properly met at a house party hosted by a girl named Chiyo Falefa (killed herself in Grade 12—bleach—after nude photos of her were leaked). I’d overheard people talking about it in the hallway and invited myself. It wasn’t as if I had no friends in those days. It’s almost impossible to go to a high school and speak to no one. I had half-friends in some of my classes—people I liked to be paired up with but never took it to the next level with by arranging after-school plans. And I had my virtual online acquaintances. But in my adolescent mind, I was gonna make real-life friends by pulling a Superbad* and worming my way into the party. I’d earn everyone’s respect and show them how much fun I could be. And voilà, I’d have 🌟 friends 🌟. And maybe something more. And things wouldn’t be so interminably sad.

I showed up (45-min walk) to the party about 7 or 8 (7:46 PM—according to my then-phone’s Heath Ledger “Why So Serious” Joker lock screen). I looked at my kingdom (a house full of drunk people spilling out onto the lawn); I was finally there! To sit on my throne (hide in the corner) as the Prince/ess of Welfare. 

Slipping in was easy enough. This was before the days of sigma motivators, so I pulled an old-school Dale Carnegie fake-it-’til-you-make-it, win-friends-and-get-people-to-suck-you-off routine and put on a smile, bobbed my head like I was vibing to the Fetty Wap they had on, and walked through the front door. Sized the place up. Looked like every other middle-class home I’d ever been in (maybe three). Loved that Chiyo was so self-conscious of being cool that she’d turned her family photos around.*

That’s about where the confidence ended.  

When you don’t have anyone to talk to at a party, things become awkward fast. It was BYOB, and I was My-Own-Boozeless, so in order to make it look as if I was preoccupied with something, I stole a LaCroix sparkling water someone had opened and left out. A few people face-scrunched in my direction, but no one was pointing and laughing, which was a win.

The first person I talked to was Kyler Chong, whom I ran into while trying to find the washroom. He came out of “the shitter” (his words), saw me, did one of these: 🤨, and then grinned and patted me on the shoulder. Kyler was a dude-bro through and through—very laid-back. We’d shared a few classes together. He was known for getting Ds in every subject except gym, being the star of the lacrosse team, and being able to fold his eyelids inside out. 

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. 

“Me neither. I kinda…you know…” 

“Awesome, man.”

Can’t tell you why, but I got hyped up and proceeded to tell him he looked like an upside-down Wild White Nacho Dorito in his self-cut stringer. He didn’t know what to say and patted me on the shoulder again, said, “See ya in there, champ,” and walked off. 

The second person I talked to, while hiding in the backyard behind a tree for 30 minutes and playing with the roof shingles of Chiyo’s dog Buddy’s doghouse (where was Buddy? Out on the town with Chiyo’s parents?), was Stephanie DiMaggio (distant relative of the baseball player; another halfie I sometimes talked to in English class). She was on the back deck smoking grape Bullseyes* and asked what I was doing. Told her I was getting some air, and she offered me one. I had only tried Janice’s cigarettes out of curiosity before, so I declined. She went back inside. 

The third person was Chiyo herself. I’d returned through the sliding door and stolen another LaCroix—this time from the fridge. The party was reaching its max capacity; we were now shoulder-to-shoulder in the open-concept living room. Chiyo and her helpers moved the furniture around to create a beer pong area and makeshift dance floor. The McPherson twins, who sometimes said nasty things about me in gym, had already passed out on one of the couches.

I was peeking in from the edge of the room, by the hallway, when Chiyo came up to me with her best friends, Sylvie Ramirez and Abigail Hafiz.*

“What are you doing here, Savin? Why are you in my house?” Chiyo asked. She was half-drunk.

“Who even are you?” Sylvie parroted. 

“Uhh…S-So…Party…Superbad…”

“Excuse me?”

“M-M-McLovin…?”

“What the fuck?”

They were doing that bimbos-ganging-up-on-someone-they-don’t-like routine where they stand in a semi-circle around you and form Hoe-Voltron to block you in. 

“I-I-I-I…thought…”

They were ready to put me on blast. Maybe they were in the right to. I was an uninvited guest. 

That’s when I heard a “She cool” from behind me. It was Matthew.

“Don’t sweat it, Chi. She cool,” he said again, coming in between me and Hoetron’s Eye Beam. 

The best defense against the cool girls’ attacks was to have a cool boy they liked vouch for you. 

“Whatever. Just don’t steal anything. Come on, Matthew—Claire made Jell-O shots. Cherry! You likey?” 

And just as quickly as they swarmed, they left me standing there, holding my trembling LaCroix. 

That, as pitiable as it may be to say, and watching his rangy frame brush past me, were enough to make me fall for Matthew Bondarenko. 

So when he DM’d me a week later through IG, asking if I wanted to “hang on white ave” [sic], I took him up on his offer gleefully and without hesitation. 

We mostly went to movies and wandered around the mall the first month. He was sweet, initially. Put up with my stammering and jabbering. He’d sit there as I spun my wheels and fake karate chop my forehead if I was rambling too much. He’d send me cute texts before bed about how much he cared. He made me feel that a boy could like me, and that I didn’t have to panic about losing him.

I started hanging out with his degenie friends at school, and they were nice enough. We’d skip class together to hit the smoke pit, play games at someone’s house; they’d invite me out on weekends. It felt like I had friends. 

In a weird way, the Superbad plan had worked. 

I first caught wind of Matthew’s cheating around the third month.

Small hints cropped up. He wasn’t listening as much. The cutesy routine stopped. The chops got a little harder. We would make plans and then he wouldn’t show up. Or he’d text me right before we were supposed to go somewhere, like the aquarium at West Edmonton Mall (I had gotten a job at the Dr. Martens store there a month into our relationship so I could pay for our outings ’cause Janice was zero help in that regard) and tell me he wasn’t gonna show. His excuses were equivocal. When I’d ask his friends if he’d cancelled on me to go out with them, they’d say “No clue” or “Ask him.” The pattern-seeking side of my brain pushed me into full detective mode. I started to track his every move.

I hatched a plan to invite him out to a movie on a Saturday, knowing he was going to cancel on me. I lied and told him I was on my way to the theatre but took the bus to his place. I kept sending him update texts. He stopped replying. He always left a key under the mat (such a predictable fool) at the back door, so I let myself into the house. 

It was quiet. Typically, he’d be playing COD in the living room or smoking weed in his basement, but it was silent. I noticed the door to his room was closed. If you’re going to get cheated on, I thought, you might as well confirm it with your own eyes. I opened the door to his room to find him doing doggy with an unknown platinum blonde. 

You’d think I’d scream, or run away, or throw hands, but I didn’t. I sat cross-legged on the floor and laughed until he got angry enough to hurl a pillow and push me out of the room. 

I waited in the kitchen and ate one of his family’s bananas. He would have to come out eventually. 

The girl came out first—now fully clothed. I smiled and waved. She kept her head down and went out the front. 

Domestic violence happens quickly and usually ends just as quickly. He emerged and threw me into the refrigerator, cracking my glasses, and pulled me by my hair over to the sink. I think he thought he could drown me if he put the tap over me and pushed my head against the bottom of the sink, because he did that, but all it did was soak me, so he gave up and kicked me—literally in the ass. (Had a bruise afterword that made it look like I’d been bull-riding.) Like most moids, he wasn’t good with words, so he yelled a bunch of incomprehensible things, threw bananas at me, until his sister, who was downstairs studying in her room, came up and got involved.  

I kept egging him on from the other end of the kitchen by repeating the text he’d sent me that morning: “Cya at the mall! Cya at the mall!” 

But you can’t stay in the kitchen of an irate cheater for too long, so I picked up my glasses, bowed, excused myself, stole another banana (threw it in the bush in the backyard for fun, to attract bears), and headed down the street. 

Sitting on a concrete street partition was Platinum Blonde, smoking a cigarette. 

“You’re very pretty,” I said. 

“Pardon?” 

“Your hair. I really like it. I used to straighten mine, and I’ve always wanted to dye it blonde. Not sure it’s the look for me, though.”

She stared at me for a sec. “You find your boyfriend* cheating on you with a girl you’ve never met…and you compliment the girl?” 

“Why not? You’re hot. I can see why he chose you.” 

“You’re shitting me.” 

“What else am I supposed to do? Cry and ask you why?” 

She thought about this and flicked her ashes. “That’s incredibly badass or plain stupid. I can’t decide which.” 

“Both?” 

Her name was Kath, and she was a student at Holy Trinity. She’d met Matthew at a party two weeks prior. (If I recall, that night he claimed he was “busy wit fam stuff.”) She only agreed to hang out with him because he seemed chill over Insta,* and he’d offered to pick her up in his parents’ Ford Bronco and show her some nice spots around town. One thing had led to another. 

“Where did he take you?” I asked. 

“Whitemud Park.” 

“Ha! That’s where he took me. That’s where I lost my virginity—in the back of that stupid Bronco with the busted backseat.”* 

“Son of a…” 

“Did he take you down to the boat launch by the water?” 

“Yep.” 

“I bet he also started feeling you up while you guys were on the bridge. Saying nice things.” 

She nodded.

“Classic. I’ve got his M.O. all figured out. You know what this means—we’re not the only ones. He’s been doing this a lot.” 

“Let’s ask him—there he is.” 

Matthew, now dressed for the outdoors, came huffing over with some money crumpled in his hand. 

He threw it at Kath. It fluttered toward her feet as she put out her cigarette. 

“This is for Plan B, bitch. Fuckin’...” (Something in him had broken. I’d never heard him swear this freely and aggressively.) 

“Who else have you taken to Whitemud?” I asked. 

“The fuck does it matter to you?” 

“You’re not very creative,” I goaded. 

“You did the exact same date with both of us.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” 

“I knew you were kinda dumb, but not this dumb,” I said. 

“What the FUCK is wrong with you?”

“You’re the one with the peabrain, buddy. Don’t look at me.” 

“You FUCK! FUCK!” 

“All right, bub. Good stuff.” 

“Fucking whores! The both of you. Go buy your abortion pills, you stupid slut!” 

Kath picked up the money and stored her butt. 

“Are you done?” she asked. 

“Done with you fucking WHORES.” 

He stomped his way back toward the house. That’s what abusive moids do when they’ve lost—stomp away. I was a mix of abject heartbreak and banana burps. 

“We picked a good one,” Kath sighed, shoving the money into her pocket.

“Ain’t that the truth. And I was fooled into believing he was sweet.” 

“He didn’t finish in me, and I’m on birth control, so I don’t think I need abortion pills. Wanna use this to buy some pancakes? I feel like pancakes after all that.” 

“I’ve only had a banana today. I could eat.” 

Kath and I ate eight chocolate chip pancakes each at Denny’s (we beat Tim Barbie to it) and stole as many sugar-free sweetener packets as we could get our hands on. We hung out for 30 hours straight. I smoked my first cigarette, the right way. Neither one of us slept. Got to go with her to the first party I’d ever been (semi-)invited to. 

I could make up a bunch of excuses for why I moved in with Matthew one month after that.

I could tell you I wasn’t thinking straight, that I’d been driven away from my house because of Janice’s addiction, Winston’s neglect, and having to watch him beat her up when she used the money from her “jobs” on herself. I could. But, to tell the truth, I liked the intrigue. I liked the sensation of being in the action. Of being wanted. 

He was capable of being nice to me. He apologized profusely a few days later. Bought me perennials and succulents ’cause he knew how much I adored plants. He wasn’t always abusive. I needed somewhere to go, company, and he was that. Sometimes. He’d get physical, then apologize. So goes the cycle. 

I started hanging out with Kath and her friend Jerrod, who rapidly became my friend Jerrod. We’d race down Jasper Ave. in his gutless Toyota Sienna, munch late-night Don’s, have cigarette-smoking races, go to lookouts/roll around in the grass at 2:00 AM on school nights, seek out demented hentai and compel one another to watch it to the very end. They bought the mickey of Fireball that helped me endure the pain of my first tattoo (a Ghibli spirit).

I had friends. Real friends. They got me through the worst of life in Edmonton. (My forums helped, too.) 

Matthew, in his own way, had been a part of helping me connect with them. It was a matter of picking one’s poison, and I made my choice. But I stayed with him too long. Most do. 

I stayed after the big accident that took Collie’s life. I nursed Matthew back to health. He went from not knowing his own name, not being able to move his limbs, to using them to dip mine in hot oil, bash me against the dashboard of his shiny new settlement-lucre car. It was that or risk the same treatment at home. At least this way I’d get a “sorry” sometimes.  

I left. Forget what did it. Finding Dax on 4chan’s /soc/? A then-somewhat-skinny gamer guy, also a fresh-ish uni student, an inchoate young adult with no direction, from Westmount, who was looking for a roomie to split the bill with so he could move to Vancouver and finally leave this gelid one-dimensional shithole behind. 

Kath and Jerrod deserved better.* They were the only good part of the entire city. But what was left for me there? Was I ever going to get out if I stayed with Matthew or my parents? I’d tried moving in with Kath (we dated for a week but didn’t want to ruin things, so we broke up and went back to being best friends), hiding away in Jerrod’s basement, but I didn’t want to be an imposition to the extent that I lost my friends. They meant too much to me. My grandparents were getting too old to take me in again. Living with those Indian guys was laughable. And every time I tried to leave but stayed in the city limits, Matthew ended up tracking me down. (He grew detective habits after the brain injury.) None of the restraining orders worked. He ignored each one. I had to leave.

I wish I’d had time to let Kath and Jerrod know properly. 

More than that, I wish they had understood. 


S.A.B. MARCIE is a (recovering) femoid edgelord. Her long-time immersion in the digital landscape has fried her brain, but it has also informed her poetry and prose, for which she has appeared in many international literary magazines (under other names). She lives in the Arc’teryx-coded hellscape of Vancouver, Canada, where she’s writing her next novel 😀

Femoid releases on May 15, 2025 from Calamari Archive: https://asterismbooks.com/product/femoid-sab-marcie


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