56.

When it was clear the policewoman didn’t need him, Dan fled the scene in his Toyota. Freya watched his taillights vanish into the night. There was so much more to say, if they could ever figure out how to say it.

The policewoman who took their report seemed more incensed by the vandalism than either Freya or Lassa, she was visibly angry. It reminded Freya of the mechanic at Bailey Bicycle, so eager for outrage on her behalf. Officer Martin had a volatile, overcaffienated edge. She wore dark eyeliner in wings that came to little curving hooks at her outer canthi. She probably hoped it came across as daring, but in the harsh exterior floodlights, she looked like a vampire.

Officer Martin directed all of her questions to Freya. When Freya was struggling to remember a detail of the rock-throwing incident at TacoTime!, Lassa tried to interject. Martin cut her off brusquely, saying she would get to her next. Freya could see fury kindling in Lassa’s eyes, but the policewoman didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Once she was through with her questions, Officer Martin paced back and forth in front of the vandalized garage, drumming her fingertips on the baton clipped to her hip. Finally she came to a halt and stared at the graffiti for an uncomfortably long time. Black rivulets of paint trailed down from the letters and crude skull.

“Wouldn’t want to be him,” she announced, dripping malice.

Freya and Lassa exchanged a look of concern. Had the policewoman really just said that? What was she implying, that they were going to give Malcolm a beating when they caught him? Were they going to shoot him for ‘resisting arrest’? Freya wondered how she would feel if they did shoot him, but it seemed too absurd to register.

Officer Martin scratched on her aluminum clipboard, taking down the report. When she was done with the form, she rattled off the things she needed to say. Lassa could request a copy of the report in person at the station. They should contact these numbers if anything changed. They were not to engage if the vandal returned. It all rolled out as one long frictionless screed without impact or import, she’d said this so many times that it was all on automatic. When at last the spiel was through and Officer Martin departed, and Freya was glad she was gone. She stood with her mother front of the garage, gazing at the work of an idiot.

“Was she high?” Freya asked. Officer Martin had been far too keyed up for a Thursday night.

“I’d guess Adderall,” Lassa said with a nod. “Strange woman.”

Freya put fingertips at the corners of her eyes and shook her head no. Lassa snorted into the night air.

“I suppose if that’s the only makeup you wear, go big,” Lassa scoffed. It was never hard to figure out who she didn’t like. Freya wished she could have laughed, she only managed a thin smile.

It struck her that not too long ago she would have tried to get back into the house as soon as she could, away from Lassa at any cost. But she had no urge to escape now. She was still aware that things could swiftly go wrong, but she wasn’t afraid. Freya had grown, or maybe Lassa had diminished. There were other things to worry about now.

Freya kept thinking about the way she’d parted with Dan, the quick hug, the questions they were afraid to ask and afraid to answer. The warmth she’d felt with him had gone numb, now she felt severed. She had a thought that they’d gotten too close too quickly and they would never reach that place again. Dan had promised to text her when he got home, she was certain he wouldn’t.

Freya and Lassa stared at the garage door together without speaking, lost in separate places. The wind was whipping around them but Freya barely felt the cold, her thoughts kept drifting back to Dan. Lassa was also unaffected. She thought the winters in Maine were a joke, she could stand here all night.

“What a coward,” Lassa muttered at last, it reminded Freya of the way Radomir had said it.

“I don’t know why he thought this would bother me,” Freya said, indicating the sloppy letters. “Wow, he knows where I live. We’re the only Jokelas in the phone book.”

Lassa nodded. She cleared her throat, the time for levity was through.

“Until they arrest him, I’m going to leave the gun in the living room in the ottoman. If he tries to get into our house while you’re alone, shoot him.”

“I will,” Freya agreed at once. Something in the way she said it made Lassa stare. The look was unexpected, she’d thought Lassa would approve. Did she think Freya had gone crazy? It took a moment for Freya to recognize it was actually a look of respect.

“You’re doing so well,” Lassa said, her voice low. Freya could hear the unspoken comparison, that Lassa wasn’t. She wondered if she ought to bring up the days where the gun was missing from the closet. But she would have to explain why she was poking around in Lassa’s room, and it wouldn’t help. Only Lassa could fix Lassa.

“I can paint over that,” Freya said.

“Don’t. I’ll just pay someone.”

“I brought this on us though, it’s my problem.”

“No,” Lassa said abruptly, a little of her old fire returning.

“Why not?” Freya asked. Two weeks ago she would have just lowered her head and let the order go unchallenged. She could afford to ask questions now.

“If you paint this, the whole time you’re working, you’re thinking about the little shit who’s done this. Giving him your time and energy, even if it’s only as hate. I can simply make a phone call and all his efforts are for nothing.”

“We’ll have a receipt for the police too, like the bike,” Freya added. “OK, you’re right. It’s a good point.”

Lassa nodded. Of course I’m right.

Freya looked away. They were done talking about Malcolm, and now they had to deal with each other. The structure between them had shifted, and Freya was unsure how much.

“You caught a good one. I like him,” Lassa said. Freya’s cheeks burned, and she nodded, hoping that was all Lassa had to say. Of course it wasn’t.

“For your first time—“ Lassa began.

“I know, I know, use protection,” Freya was sick of hearing it from everyone.

“What? No. That’s a terrible idea. You’re old enough and you’re on the pill. You have only one first time, don’t waste it. Condoms are wretched.”

Freya blinked in astonishment.

“I had a different point to make before you interrupted me: Don’t expect it all to go perfectly for either of you. Usually the second time around is much better. Be kind, anxiety can make men fail to perform, it’s nothing about you. Of course, you never have to do anything you don’t want to, if you say stop and someone doesn’t stop right away, get out of there.”

Freya was slightly shocked. She hadn’t expected to hear that, and didn’t know what to do with the information that Lassa’s first time must have been a mess.

“You will be happier if you wait until you are in both in love, but if you can’t, it’s not the end of the world. It’s a small thing, really. But I remember it all felt very important to me at the time.”

“How will I know?” Freya asked.

“You will know. There won’t be any doubt in your mind. It will consume everything. If you ever have to wonder if something’s love, it isn’t.” There was a hard look in Lassa’s eyes as she said it. They were both thinking of Randall. Even during their absolute worst fights, Freya had never doubted that Lassa loved Randall. In that at least, they could see eye to eye. Freya stepped forward and surprised Lassa by hugging her.

Lassa was stiff at first, her whole body rigid with tension. Freya felt her let go, the walls were all crumbling. She felt Lassa’s chest heaving against her, her mother began to cry. Lassa’s tears brought Freya’s and they wept in the driveway until the wind finally drove them inside.

The uncharacteristic closeness didn’t follow them in. They broke up on re-entry, each bound for their own room in silent relief. Freya could not tell if they were making progress or if Lassa was simply falling apart.

* * *

Freya stayed awake until midnight, waiting for a text she was certain would never come. Her eyes kept drifting closed, but before she could drift off, she would blink and check her phone. She felt the Starball pulsing warmth in her pocket, but the calming feeling she’d come to associate with its heat never came. She was too tired to puzzle out what was going on. Maybe the Starball was sputtering out. She had no idea what she would do without it, without Dan. There were no good answers.

She closed her eyes and slipped into the black, she was through fighting. Sleep was a breath away, but then her phone buzzed against the nightstand and jarred her awake.

She’d been waiting for his text all night, and now she was too afraid to look at it. It was a few moments before she could summon the courage to turn the phone over. If she waited too long he would think she’d fallen asleep and go to bed himself. She flipped the phone over.

<Dan> Can we talk tomorrow?

Dead words written from obligation, like stones scattered across her screen. She felt like something was being ripped out of her.

Why didn’t he just tell her it was over?

A dozen bitter replies swirled, she was struck with cold anger that Dan had kept her waiting for hours just to dump her. Her hand shot into her pocket for the Starball. She had the sense she was falling in place, and she needed an anchor. The orb was hot against her palm, but there was no relief. Had it burned her out?

For a moment Freya wished the Starball would let go of all of its power at once, she imagined it consuming her and everything around her in a nova of pure white light. She’d been fooling herself this whole time, she should have stayed in the river.

Freya shut her eyes tightly, wishing she’d just gone to sleep. She thudded her head against the headboard, then she opened her eyes and stared across the room, everything good was bleeding out of her.

It’s over.

The lines of the room began to diverge. At first Freya thought her eyes were filling with tears, but it was the double vision she’d felt before. It was different this time, Dan’s presence was remote and strained. Her head was pounding with questions, but there was no response from the other side, no echo of her own thoughts. This was a one-way channel.

Dan’s thoughts were much fainter than before, the clamor in her head was drowning him out. Freya had to fight to still herself. She exhaled slowly, and took three long deep breaths. With each exhalation the connection grew stronger.

Now she could see Dan’s bare feet hanging off the edge of his bed. She felt the thin wood panel wall bowing slightly against his back. His room was bathed in the humming yellow light of his computer monitor. Lines of text were scrolling up his screen but they were inscrutable, he was only barely aware of them. Dan was clicking his phone on and off, staring at the text he’d sent and growing surer by the second that he’d fucked up everything. At once Freya tried to reach out to him, sending him thoughts that it was all OK, but projections slid away unanswered, he could not hear them.

Dan’s unease was deepening. Uncertainties swooped down on him like a swarm, biting pieces of him away. He’d waited too long to reply. He’d acted too weird and freaked her out. She had found him out, she KNEW. He tensed into a full body cringe, trying to block the memory out.

“No, that’s not it,” Freya said aloud, but he could not hear her, and the sound of her voice distracted her. The tenuous connection was in jeopardy of breaking. She had to fight to hold on, and when she could feel him again, his tangle of worries was whirling outward, looming ever larger around him.

Don’t go that way! Freya urged, but it was as futile as shouting at a movie screen. She shut her eyes, trying to bring Dan into focus. She could feel the shuddering alignment as his body began to overlap her own. His heart was racing, and her own beat faster, trying to keep up. Dan’s breathing was shallow and rapid, he was spiraling into a panic and he was dragging Freya down with him.

Dan’s fear was very different from her own. When Freya was afraid, it manifested as tension in her neck, hairs rising along her arms and pressure tightening at her temples. Dan’s fear was visceral, it rose from a churning pit in his stomach and spread through his guts like slow, hardening amber. Freya wanted to escape, but there was no running now, she was down in it.

Flashes of sitting next to Freya as she played “Angie” clawed at Dan, demanding answers.

Why did I feel that way? What’s happening to me?

Each explanation he came up with seemed thinner and weaker than the last. The conclusion was inescapable.

I’m going insane.

Dan shut his eyes tightly, digging his thumbs into his temples. Negative thoughts crashed over him like waves, and the harder he struggled to rise the deeper he sank. Freya suffered inside of him, caught in his skin.

The Starball saved her. The orb was burning so hot at Freya’s hip that it broke her concentration. The connection faltered. With a yelp, she tugged at the fabric of her jeans to get the Starball away from her skin.

Far away she could feel its pulse spreading over Dan’s thoughts like a thin sheen of frost, but there was no improvement. The Starball’s efforts were nothing against his panic. Now she knew why it had been pulsing all night. The Starball was trying to hold Dan together.

“Dan!” Freya choked, wondering if he was about to have a seizure. This was why the Starball had made the connection, it couldn’t fix him and it needed her help. She pulled the Starball out of her pocket, it was nearly too hot to handle.

“How do I reach him?” Freya asked, but the orb was mute. Did it not have enough power to fully bridge them at this distance? Could she amplify it somehow with an antenna? A moment later she felt like a fool, her phone was sitting on the nightstand. Why hadn’t she just called him?

When Freya’s fingers closed around her the phone, a thrill ran through her. The feeling shot up her back as a shiver, the rush was so strong she nearly dropped the phone.

That wasn’t her!

The sensation was foreign, a tickle in her thoughts. The Starball was trying to control her again. In its haste, it had abandoned all subtlety.

Freya froze with her phone in one hand and the Starball in the other. It was using her! She thought of the halves of the meteorite buried in her closet. She could seal it away again, she could end this. Her stomach churned in protest as the Starball fought for control.

“LET. GO!” she demanded aloud, her voice ringing back at her from the bedroom walls. She clenched her jaw and her fist closed around the Starball, she had an urge to fling it through the window and into the night, anything to get it away from her.

The Starball let go.

The sick feeling in her stomach was gone, the faltering connection to Dan vanished with it. All the willpower she’d summoned to fight the compulsion tumbled forward, expecting resistance and finding none.

Freya blinked, stunned by the abrupt disconnect. Silence engulfed her, she couldn’t hear the highway rumble in the background of Dan’s room, or the sound of his breathing. Everything in her room was impossibly still. Outside her window, tree limbs were trembling in the moonlight.

Freya was alone again. At once she knew she’d made a mistake, the horrible plunging feeling she’d felt on the bench at Grayson returned. She couldn’t do this again, she couldn’t make it on her own.

“Come back! I’m sorry! I was scared!” she pleaded to the orb in her palm, but there was no response. “Please come back!”

Freya was begging, but she didn’t care. She needed the Starball. Why was she fighting it? She closed her hand around it, unsure if it was growing colder or if it was only her imagination.

When the Starball didn’t respond, she called Dan but he didn’t answer. The call went to voicemail. She hung up and tried again, and again. On the fourth call she could hear the phone pick up. She recognized the sounds in his room, but Dan didn’t say anything. As she strained to hear she could hear the sound of rapid breathing.

“Dan?” she asked. There was a long pause before he could reply.

“Hey Freya. I’m sorry,” he trailed.

“No, it’s ok,” she assured him. “I was just worried about you.”

“I think I was having a panic attack. I just took some Klonopin, I’m trying to calm down.”

“I know how you feel,” she said. “Everything is going to be ok.”

“What’s happening to me?” he asked. Tension rose in his voice.

“Just breathe. Take a second. I’m right here.”

“I’m uhm—I’m freaking out. When you were playing the song, you felt that too right? I’m not just imagining it?”

“I felt it too,” she confirmed.

“What about the dream this morning?” he asked.

“That too. I felt you. I was you.”

It felt like a confession. They were monstrous words, she could barely force them out of her mouth. There was a long silence on the other end of the line, each of them trying to assemble what it all meant.

“I’m afraid,” Dan said at last. “I’ve never felt anything like this.” His words were a little slurred.

“I haven’t either. You don’t have to be afraid, I’m with you.”

“I wish you were here.”

It felt like he’d meant to hold back but the words had escaped him. The unexpected admission sang in her chest. Those words were all she’d wanted to hear.

“I wish you were here too,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’ll try to explain, it might be hard over the phone. I’m not really sure what’s happening either.”

“The Klonopin will hit me soon, I may pass out,” Dan said, his voice was getting heavier by the word. “If you tell me now I might not remember, can we talk tomorrow?”

She had a twisted feeling, worrying he’d only said he wished she was there because he was drugged.

“Sure, we can talk tomorrow,” she said, trying not to sound bitter.

“I’m supposed to take the ASVAB in Quincy. Maybe we can go running after school?”

“I’d like that. Sleep well, it’s going to be ok.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Good night Dan.”

“Sweet dreams Freya.”

The call ended. Freya held the phone against her ear for a few moments longer, clinging to the sound. At last she plugged her phone in and set the Starball in its ring on her nightstand, excited and afraid.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized to the Starball, not expecting a reply. She turned off the light and leaned back, interlinking her fingers over her heart.

I wish you were here, he’d said. She drifted away, chasing after the memory.