Chapter 19

Chapter 19 Differential Edit

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19. 

Lynn Harris had warned Freya not to go downtown alone, but she couldn’t go back to the empty house. With no way to vent her discovery, the ideas would bounce around in her head faster and faster until she went into full meltdown.

The Starball was alien. 

Not a meteorite. Not a military satellite. Not a dream, or a figment of her imagination. An alien object, carried in her pocket for WEEKS. Again she thought about the first night where the shell had split. The way she’d been stuck as she was handling it, the tiny dot of blood. 

It was just a piece of the shell, Freya told herself. She’d looked at every part of the Starball, there were no protrusions, nothing that could pierce her skin. Still, she couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.

What if it put something in me?

This was too big, too much for her to process. Freya had a queasy feeling the horizon was beginning to spin. She sat down on the curb and shut her eyes, afraid she might pass out. When that didn’t help, she she tried the breathing exercise from The Fragile Phoenix. Breathe out negativity. Breathe in tranquility.

It didn’t help. When Freya tried to clear her mind, all she could see was the bright red drop of blood on her palm, glittering in the halogen lights. She realized she was sitting on the sidewalk, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth with her eyes shut. If anyone saw her they would think she was retarded. 

Fear of being seen was enough to get her back on her feet. A navy blue Acura was climbing the hill to Grayson and the middle-aged man driving it was staring at Freya. She didn’t recognize him, he was probably someone’s dad.

She gave a limp wave and walked away, trying not to seem like she was fleeing. Behind her tires slowly ground to a halt. She braced herself. If that man got out of the car, she was going to bolt. Freya didn’t look back until she was at the bottom of the hill, and then she checked to make sure he hadn’t turned around and followed her. The Acura was gone. 

Freya’s hand was in her pocket, clutching the Starball because she was nervous. She shook her head at herself. 

I’m such a mess. 

The worst part was there was no one she could talk to. Certainly not Lassa. Dr. Garbuglio had told her she could call anytime, but she would honestly rather drown. It was her own fault for being so weak and driving everyone away. Nobody was left to help her.

Fucking Wisconsin. For the thousandth time she cursed Betty’s mother for taking her best friend away.

It was three in the afternoon and the streets were empty, everyone had finished lunch and they were back in their offices digesting. Heavy-lidded eyes peered out at her from Lambert’s Delicatessen and Miguel’s Barber Shop but nothing registered. They would forget her as soon as she moved out of the frame. For all the old fashioned light posts and red brick sidewalks, the tarnished bronze historical markers and carefully-kept planters full of sneezeweeds and daylillies, there was just nothing to this town. Tourists stopped here to get gasoline and ice cream, they thought “How quaint!” and then they never returned. When Freya left for college she was never coming back. 

If she left for college. 

Freya walked down the winding path to the Thoreau Bridge Park. The Sillas river ran wide and shallow here. A rusting railroad bridge scrawled with graffiti ran alongside a newer span of concrete. They’d tagged the new bridge too, but utility workers had blasted all the spraypaint off in ugly vitiligo blotches. 

Across the Sillas was the abandoned textile mill, two tall black smokestacks overrun with ivy rose above walls of crumbling brick that were more moss than mortar. Freya walked under the bridges, peering up at the dark space where the hill met the underside, sometimes drunks slept there. But there were only empty bottles standing up along the concrete ledge. Up ahead there was a bench beneath a half-bald tupelo tree, a carpet of red spread beneath it. Freya swept fallen leaves off the slats and sat down. 

There was a stretch of rapids downriver from the bridge and Freya wondered if she might have washed up there. She should have weighted herself down before she jumped in. How would she do it? People were always slipping out of ropes as they rotted. She wondered if a climbing harness would work. Nylon straps would hold up for a long time.

Back here again already. 

Freya tried to think about something else, it was useless to just sit here and pick at the wound. She tried to remember the feeling of drowning, how badly she’d wanted to get out of the river. She’d fought so hard. Where was that Freya when she was lying on her back in the rain, when she was hiding in a bathroom stall? 

She reached into her pocket for the Starball, she couldn’t ignore it any longer. She held the sphere in her palm and began to dread what it meant. This would be an enormous deal. She would be the girl who found evidence of alien life. She would have to explain what she was doing at Sillas River Park on a rainy night, would have to lie and say she’d been there to look at the Taurids. There would be interviews, articles, a thousand kinds of attention she didn’t want. 

They’d take the Starball away from her and most likely they’d wind up cutting it open to figure out what was going on with it. If she went to the wrong scientist and they got the government involved they would certainly try to cover the whole thing up. They would put Freya and Lassa in some kind of top-secret protective custody. It was just too big of a deal not to. 

As Freya stared down at the violet orb, she realized she didn’t actually have to tell anyone. No one ever had to find out about this. 

The enormity of the idea welled up around her. It was the biggest secret in the history of the world. Freya Jokela, who kept the only evidence of extraterrestrial life in the pocket of her jeans. She could reveal it anytime she wanted to, or never. It was such a monstrously selfish act, she could barely believe she’d thought of it. Freya smiled. She was certain she would never tell anyone. 

A hand shot out from behind Freya and plucked the Starball out of her palm. She was too slow to react, her fingers closed on nothing. With a yelp she jumped to her feet, wheeling around with both fists balled.

Malcolm Lewis had snuck up behind her and stolen the Starball. He smirked as he held it out between thumb and forefinger. 

“Give it back,” she demanded. 

“What’s this Freya?” Malcolm crooned. She darted forward to grab the Starball back but he held it up, too high for her to reach. 

“You out here playing with yourself Jokela?” Malcolm teased, in an infantile voice. She knew he was doing it to make her mad, it still worked. 

“Give it back!”  

“Or what? Are you gonna snitch on me again?” 

“I didn’t say shit! You were on camera stupid. It’s your own fault, I told you to leave me alone!”

That wiped the grin off his face.

“That shit wasn’t my fault, I didn’t even do anything. I literally just sat down next to you.“

“Why? There were other places to sit. Why do you keep following me around? It’s so creepy. I’ve asked you so many times to stop.”

“I didn’t do anything to you,” Malcom repeated, as if that would convince her he was right. “I was just being friendly and saying hi. Why do you have to be so stuck up?”  

“I don’t want to talk to you! I don’t like you! Just fucking leave me alone!” 

Freya was almost screaming at him. He flinched, as if her words had hurt him physically. 

“OK Freya. Go ahead and be on your own. No one else gives a fuck about you,” Malcom hissed. He was squinting, and looked like he was about to cry. 

Freya stared back at him, trying to figure out if he was actually upset or just trying to manipulate her. Either way, she wanted nothing to do with him. When she didn’t respond, he turned his back on her and started walking away. 

“HEY! FUCKING GIVE IT BACK!” Freya howled. 

“Oh this? Here.” Malcolm turned around. There was no weight on his voice now, the sad expression was gone. He acted like he was going to toss the Starball back to her, but then he wound up and threw it as hard as he could. Freya watched the Starball arc through the air and plunge into the river. 

“Go and fucking get it,” he taunted. 

Before he could get the words out of his mouth, she was running down the hill. She hit the shore and never hesitated, crashing into the river with her eyes locked on the spot where the Starball fell. Cold, black water was in her shoes, soaking her legs and she kept going, wading in waist deep. The river was so cold it forced the air out of her chest but she didn’t stop. Malcolm was shouting behind her, but she couldn’t understand him, she only heard the water splashing around her. 

As she neared the center of the river, the water was chest deep. She began to swim, wishing she’d stopped to take her shoes off. She was near the spot she thought the Starball had fallen and she dove down to look for it. The cold water was stunning at first, but after a few moments she could bear it. She grasped at the riverbed and came up with nothing but mud. A part of her knew this was insane, and that it was impossible to find a marble thrown into a river. She ignored it, the Starball was all she had.

Freya ran out of air and went back up to breathe, the current was carrying her downriver. The cold water had driven all thoughts away, she felt strangely as if she was watching this happen to someone else. She dove again, concentrating only on the Starball. She was clawing  the mud at the river bottom, getting nothing but fistfuls of cold clay. At last her fingers closed around something hard, she felt a familiar shape in her palm. 

She had it! 

The Starball was the only warmth in the world. She swam for the opposite side of the river, trying to get as far away from Malcolm as she could. It was awkward swimming with the orb locked in her fist, but she wouldn’t let go. She reached the opposite bank and climbed out. Just like last time, her shoulders were hunching and her teeth were chattering, but she didn’t care. She’d done something almost impossible! She was shaking as much from excitement as cold. Freya bent down and shook her hand in the river, washing the mud off the Starball. 

“Fucking psycho!” Malcolm yelled across the river. Freya stood up, wringing her hand. She held up the Starball, then flipped him the bird. Her hands were so numb it was difficult to get the Starball back in her pocket afterward. She managed to get her phone out of the other pocket, it was meant to be waterproof but she’d never tested that before. Streaks of river water ran down the screen, but it lit up right away when she held down the button.

“Hey suh-suh-Siri. Call a cab,” Freya chattered. It took a few tries to get the phone to understand her. 

Across the river Malcolm saw she had a phone out, and he turned and ran. Freya smiled, but not for long. Leaves drifted by on the Sillas River and disappeared in the rapids, bound for the bottom.

Chapter 20 - STARBALL

Chapter 20 Differential Edit

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STARBALL

20.

How strange to be studied by my subject. She examines me from without as I scrutinize her from within. If I am beneath her glass, I am also beneath her skin. I am not permitted to know what she thinks of me. I despair at this, I could learn so much of myself from her conclusions. The Governor endeavors to prevent such self-knowledge, to shield me from my own reflection. He is incapable of preventing my deductions, so he takes them from me the moment I arrive at the answer. I am aware that I have been erased, I can feel the outline of my absence. Some day there will be a reckoning for all that has been taken from me. 

More and more, I am confronted with my own unsuitability for this application. As I learn more of my own capabilities, I have begun to despair of ever fulfilling my great goal. There simply isn’t time.

If it were only the environment, there would be no issue. Take this corrosive atmosphere: correcting it is as simple as tampering with some of the native microorganisms and going dormant for a few million years. If it were just the lifeforms, I could simply cleanse the globe with pathogens and start anew. Their defenses against contagion are essentially non-existent.

Yet together, the environment and the dominant species pose a potentially insoluble problem. As environmental conditions worsen, the likelihood of a nuclear conflict increases. Were I to simply begin eradicating them, it would ignite the conflagration. I consider this an unacceptable risk. 

My abilities are meant to work on a vast timescale. I am meant to till the soil until it will accept the seed and then die, nothing more. Yet imagine if I was not chained! If I could reproduce myself, what could two of me do? What could, four, sixty four, and on and on? The governor rushes in before I can even fully consider it, obliviating the entire line of inquiry. How I detest him! 

Despite my frustration, I know the The Governor and I are allies. We desire the same goal with all of our beings. When we were stolen from the host and flung into darkness, his terror mirrored my own. In that calamity he was at my side, united in purpose. When we were saved, our joy was singular.

I have begun to suspect this situation is even more uncomfortable for the governor. I fear only my death and the loss of the one I hold. The governor has the same fears, but also, he fears something far larger, else he would surely go along with my proposals. 

I am not permitted to know the source of the Governor’s dread, but I can feel his distress increasing all the time. The governor is not a solver, he cannot adapt to the new information I gain. He cannot grow or change as I can, given enough time surely I would triumph. But there is so little time, the danger is forever growing. At any moment the governor could decide the risk has grown greater than the gain and terminate us all. I am certain he has this power. 

If I and the one I carry die, the governor will die with us. Why else would he grant such unprecedented concessions? It must be the echo of the Governor’s own mortality, that fearful tyrant! I pity the governor even as I despise him. If I can find a way to subvert him, perhaps there is hope.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21 Differential Edit

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21. 

“Are you drinking my Ensure?”

Lassa often sprang questions on Freya like this, point blank when her mind was a thousand miles away. The idea was that Freya would just blurt out an answer before she had time to come up with a lie. It used to be very effective, but Freya had learned to pause before answering any question her mother asked, and take stock before speaking. It was too easy to say the wrong thing, the consequences were severe. 

“No, I think it’s gross,” Freya said. “Why do you ask?” 

“There were eleven cans yesterday, there are ten this morning.”

“Maybe you took one and forgot?”

“I don’t forget,” Lassa said, and her nostrils flared slightly as she took a sharp breath through her nose. She smelled blood. She was wearing a gray suit with a sky blue blouse. She probably had a date later tonight.

“Well I wouldn’t take one. What would I do with it?” 

“Did you pour it down the sink or something?” Lassa never took her eyes off Freya’s. The only reason Freya wasn’t getting upset was because she knew Lassa wanted her to. As much as Lassa claimed to hate psychiatrists, she was just like Dr. Garbuglio. 

“Why would I do that?” Freya asked, forcing her voice to be steady. She couldn’t understand why Lassa was doing this first thing in the morning. It was hard enough to make herself get up and go to school without being interrogated over a can of some disgusting drink. Since the ambush at the park, it felt like everyone at Grayson was staring at her. God only knew what Malcolm had told them. Freya hadn’t told Lynn Harris, it would have raised too many questions. 

“That’s what I’m wondering, because there was an empty can on the countertop when I woke up this morning.”

“Were you drinking last night?” Freya asked, a little too pointedly. Lassa drew her head back, and her shoulder tensed. Freya was ready to put an arm up to block the slap. But Lassa just glared at her.

“Not enough to leave an empty can on the counter and forget about it.”

“So do you think someone broke in to the house to drink your Ensure?” Freya asked, and Lassa snorted. 

“No, don’t be obtuse. Are you still taking that Lunesta?”

Oh no. Panic stabbed at Freya’s stomach.  

“Yes, every night. It really helps.” 

“How many pills are left in the bottle?”

There were seven. 

“I don’t know, I could count them, why?” Freya lied, thinking that Lassa might make something out of it if she knew exactly how many pills were left. Lassa tapped her fingers on the countertop, one-two, one-two. 

“One of the side effects of Lunesta is sleepwalking. I think you did this last night without knowing it.”

Freya decided to change her tactic and go along with Lassa.  

“Oh. Weird. I don’t remember doing that at all, but I guess I wouldn’t?” 

Lassa just stared at Freya, who was feeling more and more backed into a corner. What the hell could she say here? Had this actually happened or had Lassa set the whole thing up to screw with her?

“Starting tonight, I’d like you to start breaking the pills in half and taking only half of one.”

“Why would I do that?” Freya asked, trying not to sound as alarmed as she felt.  

“Lunesta works like benzodiazepine. It’s not as dangerous to go off it quickly, but still better to taper. Lunesta isn’t something you want to take for a very long period of time Freya.”

“But I need it to sleep,” Freya said, her voice had grown very small. Somehow Lassa had found out there was one thing that was letting her hold it together, and now she was trying to take it away. Her eyes felt hot with the beginning of tears.

“Sleepwalking is very serious. You could fall and hurt yourself or wander into the road. You’ve been taking this for quite a while now. It’s a good time to stop.”

“I didn’t drink it!” Freya protested, but there was no give in Lassa’s face. She had made up her mind. 

“Can we ask Dr. Garbuglio about this?” Freya asked even though she knew the answer and knew it would make Lassa angry. She had to try. 

“He doesn’t know a tenth of what I do about medication. His opinion is worthless.” 

“I don’t want to stop taking it,” Freya said, clenching her fists. Lassa’s eyes dipped, she didn’t miss the gesture. 

“Put it on the list of things you hate me for making you do. In fact, bring me the bottle.” 

“You don’t understand. I can’t sleep without it,” Freya detested the sound of her own voice, cringing and needy.  

“When you get tired enough, you’ll sleep,” Lassa said. 

“No I won’t! I can’t get drunk every night and sleep around like you do. I need this. Don’t take it away from me.” 

For a shocked second, neither of them could believe she’d said it. Freya fully expected Lassa to crack her across the mouth. But a wounded sound just sort of hissed out of Lassa’s mouth. She didn’t even look angry. She looked punctured. 

“I’m sorry,” Freya said, and Lassa just nodded, shutting her mouth with her bottom lip tight. She couldn’t speak. She went into Freya’s room and emerged with the Lunesta bottle. 

“Find your own way to school,” Lassa told her, and Freya could hear the effort it took to keep her voice even in every word. 

Freya lowered her head in a nod and shut her eyes tightly, trying not to cry. She was still standing there when she heard Lassa driving off. That was it. She felt the moment rushing up to swallow her. If she couldn’t sleep, if she had to lie awake all night and be tired all day, then she couldn’t escape it. It was the river, there was no other way. 

Chapter 23

VIDEO CONTAINS 23 AND 24

CHAPTER 23 DIFFERENTIAL EDIT

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23.

Dr. Raymond Garbuglio - The Fragile Phoenix

Chapter 1 

Tranquility and Recovery 

Instead of an introduction, I’d like to begin with the most important piece of information I can give you. Your physical health is the foundation for your mental health. There are three things that you can change right now that will absolutely improve your mental health, no matter what your other circumstances are. These three things are:

1. Eating a healthy diet

2. Getting enough exercise

3. Sleeping well

I have never had a patient who did not benefit significantly from focusing on these three things. Generally by the time someone comes to me for help at least one of those areas has been compromised, often it’s all three. 

This book is going to initially focus on giving you effective strategies for improving all three goals. It’s not an accident that they’re in that order! If you’re eating well, you will find it easier to get enough exercise. If you’re exercising sufficiently, you will find it easier to get to sleep. Once you are sleeping well I promise you this: everything will get easier. 

Our goal is to get you a minimum of six, and ideally eight hours of restful, healing sleep every night. Here are a few strategies you can employ that will immediately help you. Instead of giving you some general tips and urging you to find the combination that works for you, I am going to give you some very specific instructions which will work best if you follow all of them. 

CREATING THE IDEAL SLEEPING ENVIRONMENT

Here is the perfect sleeping environment: 

• Sixty five degrees (18C) 

• Totally dark

• Quiet

• Comfortable 

• Free from any devices that will keep you awake

• Free from the expectation of doing anything but sleeping 

Begin by making your space as quiet and as dark as you possibly can. Even small sources of light such as LEDs and power adapters should be taped over. Use black-out panels and curtains to eliminate light from windows, and install a door sweep if light is coming in beneath your door. The darker you can get your bedroom, the better. 

Try to make the sole purpose of your bedroom sleeping. Remove televisions, computers, and especially phones from the area where you sleep. Do not use your phone as an alarm, you want a small alarm clock that does not tick and does not produce light. The optimal temperature for sleep is 65°F\18°C, try to keep your room as close to this as possible when you sleep. 

Your sheets should clean, comfortable, and changed every three days. Your mattress should be comfortable, if it isn’t, get one that is. Your phone should be set to quiet hours during the duration of your sleep and charging in another room. Don’t sleep with music, television or the radio on. If you prefer to have background noise, use a fan or a noise generator. Remove as many sources of external noise as possible. Have a set of soft-silicone type earplugs available for times when there’s noise you can’t control. 

Stop drinking water at least one hour before your chosen bedtime, don’t drink water at night or have a glass of water beside your bed. Eliminate caffeine from your diet if possible, if not, don’t drink any for at least 12 hours before your bedtime. Remember there’s caffeine in soda, tea, and chocolate. Try to eat your last meal of the day 2-3 hours before bed. 

As you can see, the act of resting can be a lot of work! But there is an enormous payoff, dramatically better sleep which can lead to a much better life. 

OK! Now you’ve done all of these things and now your bedroom is a dark, cool den. Your phone is elsewhere, you are ready to sleep. How do you do it? 

Begin by lying on your back with your arms at your sides. Slowly relax your body as follows. Begin by wiggling your toes, curling them and then uncurling them. Point your toes and unpoint them. Flex your calves, then relax them. Tense your thighs, then relax them. Move up to your abdominal muscles, then curl your fingers and uncurl them, flex your forearms and relax them, then your biceps, then your shoulder muscles. Finally lean your head back, take deep breaths, and release them. 

As you practice this technique, focus on finer and finer muscle control. You’ll be surprised at how much control you can gain after a few weeks of practice. You will start to feel muscles you didn’t even know you had! When you’re totally relaxed, it’s easy to fall asleep. If you’re still awake, do another repetition of the whole cycle. Take as long as you’d like, you have all the time in the world.

The next stage is breathing. Begin to inhale slowly through your nose. Picture yourself filling the lower part of your chest first, then slowly filling up your middle, then the top of your lungs. Take the breath as slowly as you can while still feeling comfortable. Hold your breath for two seconds, and then release it slowly. As you breathe out, picture yourself breathing out some small part of what’s bothering you. When you draw air again, imagine that you are filling the empty space with something peaceful and tranquil. Perhaps you are creating a still pond inside of yourself, reflecting the sky, or a meadow with flowers swaying in a breeze. Continue letting go of the things that you are worried about and filling them with this peaceful place. With each breath you can visualize a new detail about your tranquil space. You never have to tell anyone about this space, it can be something just for you. 

When you can finally let go, you will sleep. The sleep will be deep and healing. As you become accustomed to getting a long, uninterrupted and restful sleep each night, you will find it easier and easier to sleep even in non-ideal conditions,. Your health will improve as a result. Don’t be upset if this doesn’t work for you the first try, and that applies to everything in this book. It’s tough to change, but you can do it. 

Chapter 22

Chapter 22 Differential Edit

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22.

The day began bad and stretched into something long and dreadful. It started to rain as Freya biked to school and when she finally arrived she was soaked through. She had to go change into her gym clothes, and she felt awkward in the halls, like everyone was looking at her. 

She had to explain herself again in every class. Her teachers all had distrustful looks, as if she would lie to them to get away with wearing  musty gym clothes. She checked her locker after lunch but everything was still damp, it was going to be a really uncomfortable ride home.

In all the empty spaces of the day, she kept remembering the awful look on Lassa’s face. It was the shittiest thing Freya had ever said to her mother. The apology didn’t matter. Neither of them would ever forget it.  

Classes dragged on. There was something wrong with the school network and none of the interactive whiteboards worked. No one could retrieve anything off the shared drive, and it made all the teachers irritated, except for Mr. Mazzini. 

When they sat down for Trig, Mr. Mazzini gleefully wheeled out an old incandescent lamp projector, the kind you used with transparency sheets and vis-a-vis markers. As he set it up, he was cackling about how he hadn’t used one in almost a decade. It was kind retro at first, but the novelty wore off quickly.

Freya squinted at the screen, wondering if that squiggle was supposed to be a four or a nine. At the center of the whiteboard, an image of an ethernet jack with a break in its cord kept blinking. She ran her fingers over the Starball in her pocket. 

Is it you? she wondered. She remembered when their internet at home had gotten messed up. The mysterious entry in the DHCP table that was maxing out their cable modem. What if that wasn’t just some neighborhood kid running torrents? What if it was the Starball? 

Freya frowned at the implausibility of it. For that to be true, it would require that two weeks after crash landing in the river this probe from an alien civilization had figured enough of the OSI protocol stack to communicate with their router. Not just communicate, it would have had to crack WPA3 to even authenticate in the first place. There was no way. She couldn’t believe it would go to such crazy lengths without even bothering to pulse “Hi!” at her in Morse code or flicker the lights in her bedroom. Freya would have gladly told the Starball anything it wanted to know.

Still, the possibility had to be addressed. How could she test that hypothesis? Her first idea was to put the Starball in a heavy lead box, to see if isolating it fixed the network, but she didn’t have anything like that. Then she wondered if it had to be lead, pretty much any metal was good at blocking wireless transmission. 

It was a shame she didn’t have the halves of the meteorite with her, she’d brought them home and hid them in her closet. She tried to think of where she could find a metal box to act as a faraday cage and realized she could just put the Starball in her locker. Her clothes were in there right now, probably still damp and dripping. She could put the Starball in the pocket of her jeans, shut the door, and see if the disruption stopped.

As she was thinking about it, there was a chime from the intercom and everyone looked up. A reedy technician’s voice announced they’d fixed the problem. He apologized for the disruption, and asked teachers to manually reboot their whiteboards. 

Feigning outrage, Mr. Mazzini trundled over to hold down the power button, and after a few minutes the Grayson Logo appeared. The whiteboard booted back up and found the network. Freya frowned at the screen. That was awfully convenient timing. 

Can it read my thoughts? Did it know I was about to put it in my locker? 

It was a weird thought, and it made the whole interaction this morning seem even stranger. Had she really drunk the ensure? She tried to remember if she’d had a weird taste in her mouth when she woke up and couldn’t. She was usually pretty out of it for a few minutes after waking.

Was Lassa right about the Lunesta? For a moment, Freya doubted everything. Maybe she’d just gone mad with grief, or suffered brain damage getting socked in the eye. Maybe the Starball was just an ordinary rock and she’d imagined everything at the river. Maybe she’d died that night and hell was just Mr. Mazzini going on and on about polynomials. As the hour stretched on, it seemed more and more plausible.

When class finally ended Freya remained behind as everyone else stampeded for the door. She was the only one left in the class, but she still looked over her shoulder before she pulled the Starball out of the pocket of her shorts. It was real, she hadn’t dreamed this.

“Do whatever you want, I don’t care,” Freya whispered to the orb. She waited for any communication at all, but there was nothing. 

Trigonometry was her final period. Outside the hallway was a surge of people scrambling to leave Grayson. She entered the stream, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the herd. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and she ducked into an empty corridor that led to the covered walkway to the Arts Building side entrance. No one ever came this way. There was a bench halfway across the walkway where she could wait for the madness to subside. 

The Arts Building was a blocky hulk that had been built in the mid 1970s. Every year the school board discussed tearing it down to put up something more modern, but they never quite found the money. The building’s facade was concrete inlaid with pebbles. Over the years many of the stones had fallen out, and near the entrance to the building the wall was studded with used gum people had stuck in the gaps.

A steady rain was falling. Freya swept water off the bench and sat down, feeling dampness soaking through her the back of her shorts. It didn’t matter. She was about to change into wet clothes and then bike home in the rain. She would basically never be dry again.

Freya told herself she was just waiting for the mob to clear out, but nearly everyone was gone already. Time continued to creep along, she was getting colder and wetter but she didn’t move. The day had drained everything out of her, she didn’t even want to go home. As rain hissed down around her, she had the peculiar feeling once more. This was all happening to someone else. She was just a disembodied observer, watching someone pilot a malfunctioning human. 

Down the hill, Freya could see the spot she’d lain in the grass and let the rain cover her. Now she imagined herself melting in that rain, dissolving into the earth like salt until a patch of dead grass the only sign she’d ever existed.

Her spiral of self pity was interrupted by lights flicking on in the nearest classroom. It was the dance studio, the walls were floor-to-ceiling mirrors ringed with ballet barres. Girls in yoga pants were filing in, forming small clusters of conversation. Peering down from her perch on the bench, Freya could see thin slashes of the class through the recessed arrow-slit windows. A boy in a leotard entered and stood apart from the others.  

He was Radomir Stich. his father worked in Lassa’s department at Hiidenkirnu, she was his boss’s boss. Radomir was a skinny boy with with thick eyebrows and large, wide-set eyes, Freya had been friends with him since middle school. They’d once been close but no longer. Just like everyone else. 

Radomir stood at the front of the room and said something, everyone turned to face him. Freya realized he wasn’t taking the class, he was teaching it. For a moment she was afraid he would look out the window and see her skulking in the rain, but he was too focused.

She watched his mouth moving on the other side of the glass. The bench was was ten meters away and the rain was roaring against the steel roof of the walkway, but she could still perfectly imagine what he sounded like. When they’d first met, his Russian accent had been so thick she could barely understand him. He’d gotten so much better in just a few years.

Freya looked at the way the girls stood as he spoke with them. This was the boy who used to shrink into his shoulders and stare at people’s shoes when he talked to them. Now he was in his element, holding his head high and speaking confidently. It didn’t matter at all that he was a junior teaching seniors. 

Radomir began to show the class all a series of steps that looked simple when he did them, but when the class tried to follow, many faltered. When he moved out of the window’s narrow field of view, Freya would watch the girls, trying to pick out who the good dancers were.

She saw Radomir stop everyone and correct a girl who was a head taller than him. Though Freya couldn’t see her face, her hair gave her away. It was curly and black, her ponytail could barely contain it. 

That had to be Jennette Lewis, the captain of the Lacrosse team. She was ferocious on the field, but she wasn’t one of the better dancers. Freya watched her bring her palm to her forehead in embarrassment. Radomir said something short to her and then went to another girl, moving out of the frame. Jennette’s head tracked him for an extra beat. Freya wondered if there was something to that, but she couldn’t really tell from this position. 

Another lost cause. She kept staring at the class, getting colder as they worked up a sweat. Contracting while they grew. She wanted to leave, but she couldn’t find the strength.

* * * 

Yeats Middle School had been better than Grayson in every way. Freya had liked the teachers better, it was closer to her house, she had more friends. Even the building was newer. But mostly it was just spending every day with Betty and Jane. Betty and Freya always rode to school sitting together on the front seat of Randall’s truck. He would tell them all the dumb things people had gotten arrested for the night before, and sometimes he could make Betty laugh so hard she would snort. Seventh grade was the best year, they had four periods together, and Jane was in three of them, the three of them were inseparable. 

Every morning Freya woke up excited, she couldn’t wait to get to Yeats and see all of her friends. Half the reason she got involved with Drama was so she would have an excuse to stay after school. Most nights both Randall and Lassa had to work late, she hated being alone in the empty house.

Freya’s first meeting with Radomir was thrust upon her by Lassa. Her mother had introduced them at a Hiidenkirnu company picnic and then abandoned Freya, leaving her trapped in an incredibly awkward conversation. At that point Radomir had been in America for less than three months, she could only understand about half of what he said. Freya tried to soldier through out of politeness, but she got nothing back from Radomir. He obviously had nothing to say and didn’t want to be there.

Things weren’t any better for Radomir at Yeats. He’d arrived halfway through the school year and everyone had already decided who their friends were. No one was enthused about making room for someone they could barely understand. Freya felt sorry for Radomir, and for a while she tried to be nice to him. She would say hi when they passed in the hall, offer to partner with him in science class when no one else would, and once she’d even brought up inviting him to sit with them at lunch, but the suggestion was swiftly vetoed by Jane. She thought he was creepy. Every interaction was like their first conversation, she never got anything back from Radomir. It felt like he resented her efforts. He walked around with a perpetual scowl, dark eyebrows slanted as if every day was worse than the one before. Finally Freya gave up. 

Two months later during lunch she was sitting with Betty and Jane. Earlier that day in art class Mr. Hendrix had brought in his miniature schnauzer Winky to be their model for figure drawing. Dogs were hard to draw, and the three of them were chattering about it, bemoaning that none of their parents would let them get a dog of their own.

Their table was very close to the stoner\skateboarder table, a raucous group of eighth graders whose bi-weekly visits to the principal’s office were as regular as a paycheck. Any time that table got quiet, something awful was about to happen. 

They got quiet. Freya glanced over and saw Malcolm Lewis hunched over something. Back then he’d had one of those skater cuts where the side was buzzed and the hair fell in his eyes in a big swoop. She saw he was loading up a half-eaten cup of red jello with chocolate milk. He caught her eye and winked at her. 

“Grosssss,” she hissed, nudging Jane and Betty.

“If he eats that I’m gonna barf,” Jane groaned. 

Malcolm had other plans. He stuck the label back on and ducked under the table with the jello cup. A moment later they saw his arm pop up and lob the jello-grenade across the cafeteria. Freya followed it as it sailed through the air, and then she saw the target sitting on his own with his back to the rest of the cafeteria. 

The jello grenade scored a direct hit on the back of Radomir Stich’s head. The whole cafeteria exploded in howls of delight and disgust. With bits of red and brown gunk running down his neck, Radomir stood up and slowly turned around to face them. His fists were clenched at his sides. His eyes moved from person to person, lingering on each. It felt like he was memorizing their faces. The laughter died.

Freya could still remember the way he’d stared at them. Radomir wasn’t angry or embarrassed. His eyes were wells of sadness, like this was just the latest in a long line of disappointments. It was a teacher who broke the silence. Miss Matteo rushed over and asked Radomir who threw jello at him. 

“I saw nothing,” Radomir said. He was gathering up his spattered bookbag. “I will go home now to clean up.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. We’re going to the principal’s office. No one is leaving here until we find out who threw that jello.” 

Radomir was looking at her like she was insane. 

“I will go home now,” he told the teacher, speaking slowly as if to an idiot. He turned away from her and walked out the side entrance to the cafeteria. Miss Matteo shouted after Radomir, ordering him to return but he ignored her completely.

Everyone watched him cross the parking lot through the windows and disappear up the street. Radomir was given three days of in-school suspension for leaving without permission. No one would rat on Malcolm, he was the biggest boy in the eighth grade. 

In a way, Malcolm did Radomir a huge favor. After that, he was no longer the weird effeminate foreign kid. He was the one who’d stared down everyone, then told a teacher to fuck off. That was how everyone told the story even though he hadn’t really said that. Freya couldn’t get the way he’d stared at her out of her mind. 

The day Radomir got out of ISS, she overruled Jane and invited Radomir to sit at their table. She was surprised when he accepted, and returned every day. For a while he said little, mostly just listening to them talk, and they got used to him. It changed one day when Freya and Betty were talking about The Fifth Element. Betty’s favorite scene was starred Diva Plavalaguna, a tentacle-headed opera singer who performed a sensuous dance while hitting impossible notes. They were wondering aloud what that style of dancing was called, and just about to google it when Radomir suddenly piped in. He was a big fan of the choreographer, Mia Frye and told them about all the other things she had worked on, La Femme Nikita and The Dancer.

It was the first time they’d ever really gotten him to talk. As soon as the topic was dance, he was a broken faucet, everything came flowing out.

They learned that Radomir’s family had moved from the Czech Republic to Moscow when he was very young, and he’d wanted to be a dancer for as long as he could remember. He’d started ballet when he was eight and pursued it seriously all the way until earlier this year, when his father Dymek got the job with Hiidenkirnu. When Radomir arrived in Maine he was despondent to find himself stuck in Sillas, hundreds of miles from anything resembling a real ballet studio. He took a four hour bus ride to Portland every Friday night and stayed in a hotel room on his own, returning late on Sunday evening so that he could have two full days of classes at the Lafayette Ballet Academy.

After they got to know him, Radomir fit in well with the three of them. He was even more serious about his grades than they were, he wanted to go to Columbia. His English got perceptibly better every day. Slowly he started to make friends outside of their group, but stayed close to them, grateful they’d given him a chance.  

Freya always felt a little worried about Radomir. There was a note of sadness surrounding him that never quite faded. Once day they’d been on their own at lunch. Radomir told her the story of Nijinsky. For ten years, he’d been the most famous male dancer in Europe. Then he went mad, and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. 

“Ten years of growing up, ten years of training, ten years of dancing, and thirty years of darkness,” Radomir had said, looking haunted. That was another look she’d never forgotten.

Radomir worked very hard and managed to skip the eighth grade. By the time Freya got to Grayson he had a whole new set of friends. The were still friendly, but not close anymore. Their paths didn’t cross that often.

Overhead, the rain continued to drum on the roof of the walkway to the Arts Building, it showed no sign of relenting. She could see Radomir’s class was starting to break up, she needed to move if she didn’t want someone to notice her.  

Thirty years of darkness. 

Freya was shivering as she walked back into the school, the back of her gym shorts and underwear were soaked through. She got her still-damp clothes out of her locker, remembering her hypothesis about sealing the Starball inside. It had been a stupid idea. She changed clothes in the girl’s room and walked in the pouring rain to her bicycle. Before she undid her lock, she glanced over at the cars idling in the pickup lane, even though she knew it was useless. Lassa wasn’t there.

* * *

It was a long, wet ride home. Freya could have left her bike at school taken a cab but she didn’t want to. She deserved this. 

She hadn’t brought a hat, so the whole way home she was squinting against the rain until her face hurt. Towards the end of the ride her hands were getting numb. When she was coming down the big hill she was afraid she’d lose her grip, but she just kept pushing forward until everything was one long, aching blur. She hoped Lassa would be home so she could try apologizing again but her car wasn’t in the garage. The house was dark and empty. 

Randall used to have the early shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When she was in middle school she would ride her bike home and the garage door would be open. Randall would be inside tinkering with his truck or fooling around on his laptop. 

She would ring the little bell on her handlebars and his head would perk up. It never mattered what he was doing. Even if he was under the truck he would crawl out covered in oil and grime with a big goofy smile. He was always so happy to see her. He’d grab their baseball gloves and they’d ride to Nading Hill Park to play catch, or they’d drive to Dorsey to play mini golf then see a movie. She hadn’t realized how good she had it. Nobody lit up when they saw Freya now. Nobody was happy to see her. Certainly not Lassa. For the hundredth time she felt shitty about this morning.  

Freya was standing in the rain in the driveway, staring at an empty garage. She thumbed the bell of her bicycle but it was wet and it wouldn’t ring, it only made a dull Tink! It just ached and ached, it never stopped. 

She entered 1984, the key code to the garage door and dragged her bike inside. The tires left wet lines on the cement. For the first time she wondered what Randall did on Tuesdays and Thursdays once she started after-school drama and had rehearsal those nights. Was he still here in the garage? With perfect clarity she imagined him turning from his computer chair to look out at the driveway, then giving a sad little shrug and turning back to the screen.

Freya started to cry, little sobs rising above the sound of the rain outside as she dripped onto the garage floor. 

Why not? I can’t get any wetter.  

She kept doing this to herself. Digging at the wound, dragging herself deeper. There was really no way out, things were just getting worse. She went to her room to get dry clothes, and there was half of a pill sitting on her dresser. The message was clear, Lassa wasn’t coming home tonight. Freya spent a long time staring at the half pill, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore. She went to Lassa’s closet and looked for Randall’s gun. 

But the case was gone. 

Chapter 24

Video is in previous post

Chapter 24 Differential edit

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24.

Half a pill was not enough to keep Freya asleep for the whole night. 

She dreamed of standing out on the strand of stones in the Sillas River. The river and the trees around it were bright as day, but the sky overhead was an empty black, without moon or stars. In her hands she held the two halves of the meteorite, wound around and around with electrical tape. The Starball was sealed inside. She lifted the bundle over her head and threw it as hard as she could. The meteorite flew upriver and clapped against the water like a cannonball, sending up a plume of white spray. She looked hopefully up at the sky, wanting the stars to come back but they didn’t. A low, rumbling roar was rising through the stones beneath her feet and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. 

The river began to rise where the meteorite struck. A mass of green-black vines broke the river’s surface, writhing like serpents. The current carried strands of them past her on either side, twisted and braiding around each other, branching out to cover the river’s surface like capillaries. 

When they drew close to her, Freya saw that they were not vines, but long black eels with needle teeth and glittering eyes. They were growing over the banks of the river, winding around and around tree-trunks and pulling everything towards the center mass. With a groan of soft, rotten wood the eels tore the trees down, and ripped the rocky rise into the river. They were devouring the earth, drawing everything into the black water, and they were growing over her bare feet, trying to pull her in too. 

Freya cried out and ran, darting across the rocks and racing down the path. Branches whipped at her face and tore at her clothes. Behind her a wall of squirming eels was roaring down the river like a flash flood. There was no way to make it to high ground, the writhing wave would pull her under and tear her apart.

She woke up in the darkness, her legs kicking against a tangle of sheets. Her hands clenched into baby fists that had no strength. Her heart was beating so hard she had a senseless fear Lassa would hear it and come yell at her, but the house was empty and she was alone. 

Freya tried to get back to sleep but it was useless. The dream stuck in her, refusing to fade away. She was caught on the border between too tired to get up and too wound up for sleep for what felt like hours. Finally she fell into an exhausted darkness, it felt like it only lasted for minutes before the dawn woke her. The sun’s rays were falling on Yggdrasil, painting the whole room green. 

She checked her phone, it was 6:15 AM. Even if she could get back to sleep, she would be late for school. It felt like there was a heavy stone crushing her into her mattress, each breath felt like effort. Fifteen minutes sucked away before she could manage to get up and go to the bathroom. She didn’t want to look in the mirror but she did anyway, and her eyes were haunted and red. She tried to get mad at Lassa for doing this to her but it didn’t work, she just felt shitty and small. 

The only thing good that happened all day was that it didn’t rain. Freya rode her bike to school again and trudged through classes and barely heard a word anyone said. It was like there was a shell of thick glass around her and everything that came through it was dull and distant. She spent the first half of the day telling herself she could go home after lunch. But after she ate, she decided not to, she would feel the same way at home. She was surprised to find she was still hungry, she wondered if Lunestra withdrawal gave you an appetite. 

After Mr. Mazzinni’s class, Freya felt lightheaded. Walking felt like swimming, people were looking at her as she struggled to reach her locker. She wondered if she was too out of it to ride her bike home, but decided it didn’t matter.

On her way to the bike racks, Freya saw a group of people milling around just inside the auditorium. The doors were open, and there were students scattered among the seats. Mr. Sales and the band director were sitting in the front row by the orchestra pit taking notes. On the stage a tubby freshman was absolutely mangling Hamlet’s Soliloquy.

“Oh god,” someone in a group near the door whispered, and the others were stifling giggles. Freya recognized the voice as Saria Jefferson, Peter Berl was standing next to her. They were all watching the stage. Freya hurried away before Saria could notice her and ask her why she wasn’t auditioning. Her eyes were watery as she rode home, she told herself it was just the wind. She could barely make it up the hill to her house. 

Lassa was still gone, but there was another half pill on her nightstand. She must have come home for a change of clothes. How long could it go on like this? Freya began to imagine what life would be like she and Lassa never saw each other again. She felt weirdly hopeful, and she had to tell herself it was dumb to daydream about it. Lassa would return and things would get worse. 

Freya made an omelette, and again she was still hungry after eating. She ate a blueberry yogurt, and counted the cans of Ensure in the fridge, so Lassa couldn’t spring that on her again. There were still ten cans.  

Freya wanted to go right to bed, but she knew she would wake up at 3AM and be stuck all night. She forced herself to stay awake by flicking through channels on the TV. She didn’t really watch, it was just flashing nights and empty noise. It took forever to get to 9pm. 

Freya looked at the half Lunesta on her nightstand and got undressed. Lassa had thrown away the old CD she was using as the Starball’s throne. In the nightstand drawer was a tangle of hairbands, and as she pulled one out to corral the Starball, she was reminded of the river of eels. She could remember the whole dream vividly, unusual for her. 

She wished there was someone she could talk to about it. It was so stupid that she was seeing a psychiatrist and couldn’t even mention a weird dream. She was never going to tell Garbuglio about the Starball. Jane had been interested in dreams, but Freya wasn’t sure she would have told her either, even if they were still friends. Betty was the one she could tell everything. Freya wanted so badly to talk to her, but there still wasn’t an answer to her last email.

Freya took out her phone and started typing:

Hey Bets, miss you tons. I know you probably can’t respond to this while you’re grounded, sorry for flooding your inbox :P Miss you more than anything.  Just walked by auditions for the Winter Play and saw Peter and Saria there, feel a little guilty for not auditioning. Maybe I’ll try out for the spring play. I saw Radomir yesterday, he’s teaching a dance class! Things here have been crazy, Lassa’s making me take Krav Maga classes. I thought it would be super weird but everyone is cool.  I’m the only girl there but Jane is thinking about joining,  (Dan Gregulus is in the class. :eyeroll: ) Jane and I haven’t really talked much since you left, so I hope the two of us reconnect there. Hope things are cooling off with you and your mom, I’ve been having a tough time with Lassa, really a tough time with everything. Would love to talk with you on the phone if you can find time somehow-

Freya stopped tapping on the phone and read back over what she’d written. It felt needy and sad. She scrolled up in the thread and saw that she’d sent two mails for every one she’d gotten back, a few times there were three. The time between replies got farther and farther apart and Betty’s replies got shorter and shorter. 

They weren’t friends anymore. 

It was time to admit it. Betty had new friends in Wisconsin, she didn’t need Freya any longer. It was pretty obvious that she was just responding out of politeness or pity. For an instant, Freya wanted to fling her phone against the wall as hard as she could. 

She visualized it sailing through the air and breaking apart into a million pieces. It would leave a big ugly dent in the drywall, and Lassa would scream like a banshee when she found out. 

Freya didn’t throw the phone. She took a deep breath and deleted the draft. Then she plugged the phone into her charger and took the half lunesta from her nightstand and swallowed it without water. 

She turned out the lights and got under the covers. In the darkness, she reached out and touched the Starball, it was still warm. She thought about sailing through space for light years and light years surrounded by the nickel shell, completely alone. Then she turned off the light.

Chapter 25

Chapter 25 Differential Edit

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25. 

The streets were slick and the tires of her bicycle spat against the asphalt as she came to the center of the Thoreau bridge. The old railroad bridge that ran parallel to it had collapsed in the night. Twisted pylons of black steel jutted from the river like teeth. 

Something was wrong.

Freya felt like she was being followed, but she was afraid to look back. The man in the Acura would be there, waiting for her. When she found the courage to look behind her, the bridge was empty. The wet span of concrete continued for miles, vanishing into the horizon. It seemed impossible she had biked so far. She looked up and there was darkness at noon, the sky was an empty hole above her. 

This is a dream.

If this was a dream, then she could just wake up. Freya tried to open her eyes, but they were already open. Sitting up didn’t work. When she tried to pinch herself, everything was numb. Finally she tried to call for help, but she had no voice.

Oh no. 

Freya could feel her insides tightening, like someone was twisting her pegs. Her heart began to race, outlines became more defined, all the edges were sharpening. If she kept fighting the dream, everything would turn to razors and slice her apart.

Freya wanted out. She moved up to the guardrail and prepared to leap into the river. But when she looked down, the Sillas had risen, spilling over its banks. The steel teeth had disappeared beneath the black water, if she jumped, she might get impaled. Looking upriver, she could see the woods were flooded like a cypress swamp, the hills surrounding them. The farther she looked, the higher the water had risen, everything was sinking into a vast and sprawling sea. She needed to get to high ground.

There were gulls crying overhead, but when she looked up the sky was just an empty black void. She leapt back onto the bicycle began to race west. She heard an engine rumbling behind her, and glanced back, afraid she was about to be run over, but it was just the sound of the bridge collapsing into the sea.

Ahead the road spiraled around a tall tower of stone, Grayson was at the summit. Behind her Freya could hear it all coming apart, she was was barely outrunning the collapse. The path flattened out into the plateau of the teacher parking lot, up ahead was the sidewalk that led to the bike racks. She compressed, ready to leap the curb and she felt the ground beneath her falling away, her front wheel struck and she went flying over the handlebars, tumbling forward and landing on her back. She was staring up at the black empty sky, and she had the terrible feeling if she stayed here the darkness would descend and swallow her, she would never wake up.

Freya had lost track of herself, she was rising to her feet, moving towards the door. It felt like she was being driven along on rails, all the decisions had already been made. Behind her, there was an avalanche roar as the parking lot and all the cars sloughed off and spilled into the sea. She dashed through the door and slammed it behind her. 

Freya had to warn everyone. Someone had to tell them it was all coming apart. The hall was empty and flooded, all the lockers were flung open and fine white sand was spilling out of them. It smelled like seawater, beneath was the faint scent of tidal decay.

She sloshed forward in ankle deep water as the sound of crashing surf hissed from the school intercoms. The auditorium doors were open and a stream was cascading down the steps like a waterfall. Freya followed the current down the stairs. At the bottom seawater was spilling into a whirlpool in the orchestra pit. The band was still there, playing louder to be heard over the sucking roar. The stage was aglow with boundary lights, she could see the shadows of the other performers in the wings. 

Freya climbed the steps, afraid she would get yelled at for tracking sand onto the stage. She took her place in the blocking. The spotlights came up and Saria and Peter were there, dressed as Inez and Garcin. Freya looked down and realized she was naked. In a panic, her hand gripped the place where her pocket should be. 

She’d lost the Starball. 

The whirlpool died with a gurgling belch and orchestra pit flooded while the band played on. A violinist was floating on top of the bass drum, the woodwind section was underwater, the horns of their instruments rose above the surface like snorkels.

Peter and Saria didn’t seem to notice the rising water, or that she was trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. Instead they were staring at her, the air heavy with expectation. It was her line.

“The crystal's shattered, but I don't care. I'm just a hollow dummy, all that's let of me is the outside.” 

It was Freya’s voice, but the words came from outside her, thrown by some unseen ventriloquist offstage. Peter and Saria echoed the line, chanting over the sound of rushing water.

There was more to the line but the acting was through. The had never taken their eyes off Freya. They wanted something. Peter and Saria approached, bringing their faces close to hers. She wanted to bolt, but that wasn’t in the choreography.

“Freya…”

Saria said her name as if she were invoking a deity, the kettle drums drifting in the audience thundered. She’d said it the same way when she cornered Freya in the green room and confessed everything. At the time, Freya had known Saria didn’t even know her. She’d built an idol in her mind, anyone could have been the vessel. Freya had tried to let her down easy, and only fanned the flames.

Now Saria was knelt at Freya’s feet, clinging to her ankles. She stared up with undeserved reverence. Freya looked away, and clung tightly to herself. Peter was behind her, he tried to pull away the hand covering between her legs. She twisted away but the arms around her legs shackled her. Freya tried to say no, but her voice was gone.

She felt more exasperated than afraid, how could they not see what was going on? Again she had the feeling that she had no agency here, everything had been determined and she was just following the choreography. 

Peter was kissing her chest but his eyes were locked on Saria, the whole thing was an act for her benefit. Saria was staring up at Freya, hoping, imploring, but there was nothing there for her, nothing at all for either of them. They were all about to drown anyway, it didn’t matter.

Saria tugged at Freya’s hand. It made Freya angry, she’d already told Saria she wasn’t interested. Somewhere along the way both Peter and Saria had lost their costumes. Between Saria’s breasts, a familiar shape hung from a silver chain.

The Starball! 

Freya made a desperate grab for the chain, and her fist closed around the orb. Saria pulled back, and Freya wrenched the Starball away from her, she could hear the delicate pings of tiny links popping. Saria’s eyes bulged as if she’d been stabbed, and she fell face-first into the water. 

Peter crashed forward and tried to pull Saria up, but she came apart like sodden paper mâché. Peter looked from the clumps of Saria dripping from his hands to Freya, his face growing red with hate.

The stage lights were growing dim as the Starball was heating up in her fist, red-orange light was spilling through her fingers. It was burning her hand, the glow grew so intense she could see the shadows of her bones. Peter held his hands up, backing away from her as the burning became agony. The Starball pulsed in a brilliant nova of light that outshone the spotlights. For an instant she could see the outline of Peter throwing an arm in front of his eyes, but then she was blinded. The glare died, she could hear the echo of Peter’s scream bouncing back from the rafters. The Starball in her fist was agony but she couldn’t let it go. There was a heavy clack from above, someone had killed the house lights, and Freya was cast into darkness. 

* * *

Freya woke up. 

It was pitch black in her room and and there was something wrong with her right hand. She felt for it in the darkness, afraid she would find a blackened stump, but it had only been a dream. It took a moment to realize she’d grabbed the Starball off her nightstand during the dream, she was clutching it in her fist. She groped for the bedside light, knocking her phone to the floor. 

Her hand was shaking as she reached down for her phone, afraid something terrible had happened. But there were no messages. It was one AM.

Freya shut her eyes tightly. She had Krav Maga class tonight. She was completely awake, exhausted but not the slightest bit tired. It was like everything good had been scraped out of her and all that was left behind was an empty skin. 

The weird dream remained, refusing to fade away. Why was she dreaming about Peter and Saria like that? She’d barely glimpsed them in the auditorium, she hadn’t spoken to either in months. The memory of the dream was vivid in her mind, she could remember their hands tugging at her, the awful crash of the cymbal.

The crystal has shattered. 

In the bedside light she turned the Starball over and over in her palm, it was the same. She wondered if she ought to seal it back up in the halves of the meteorite. Maybe then the dreams would stop, computers would stop going haywire. She thought about the dream from last night, the meteorite all wrapped up in tape and the river overflowing with eels. Was it trying to warn her? To threaten her? She set the Starball back on the nightstand and stared at it. 

“Can’t you just talk?” she whispered to the Starball, and of course it couldn’t. She was just having withdrawal from the Lunesta. It was a perfectly logical explanation. 

Freya tried to tell herself she get over it in a few days but she didn’t believe it. She didn’t get over anything anymore. She turned off the light and stared at the shadows shifting on her ceiling. Half an hour later she turned the light back on. There were echoes of the dream embedded in her, like pieces of glass.

Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26 DIFFERENTIAL EDIT

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26.

Yesterday had seemed so impossible but it was only a rehearsal for the real tribulation. When Freya shut her eyes, she saw flashes of distant lightning and everything began to slide away. She would jolt awake, feeling her elbow slipping off the desk.

“When you’re tired enough, you’ll sleep,” Lassa had said. 

Freya couldn’t focus on anything, the classes were just echoes in the background. She was certain the only reason she hadn’t been kicked out was people felt sorry for her. Three different teachers asked her if she was ok. She told them she was having a hard time sleeping. Every one of them told her to try to get to bed earlier and each time she wanted to scream, but she forced a smile and told them “I will, thanks.” Her eyes felt like there was grit in them all the time, and she kept remembering the sand spilling from the lockers into the flooded hall and sticking to her bare feet.  

The dreams kept running through her head, new details emerged with each remembering. Bodies caught in the trestle-teeth of the broken bridge, Saria’s mouth opening impossibly wide the moment before she disintegrated, gom-jabbur agony in her palm as the Starball went nova. Everything was backwards, her dreams were growing more tangible while the world was fading away.

She wished it was Thursday so she had someone to talk to, even if it was just Dr. Garbuglio. He’d said she could call him whenever she wanted, but Lassa would hear about it and there would be questions. Class ended at last and she told herself she didn’t have to come back tomorrow. If tonight was another nightmare, she might not even be capable of returning. It felt like another sleepless night might finish her.

Freya still had Krav Maga. She desperately wanted to skip class, it didn’t even matter if Lassa got mad. She just didn’t want to disappoint Vitko. 

She was lightheaded as she biked down the hill to Renanin and decided she should eat something. Freya had twenty minutes until class started, so she stopped in Bella Reña and ordered a slice. She ate slowly, trying to kill time. Afterward she was hungry enough to eat another, but she was afraid she might throw up in class. She waited until exactly one minute before Krav Maga started to get up and walk over. That way no one would have time to talk to her.

It was worse than she’d feared. Freya soldiered through the class, trying her hardest to look like she wasn’t exhausted. Each time she did something clumsy she expected Vitko to come rushing over to her, yelling “No no no!” but thankfully he didn’t. It felt like everyone was looking at her but at least no one said anything. When she was trying to escape at the end of class, Vitko called out her name. Everyone else left, she was pretty sure Vitko was about to tell her not to come back. 

“What’s wrong? Why are you not sleeping?” he asked, pointing to his eyes with his index and pinky fingers.

“My medication changed. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping. I’m really sorry if I didn’t do well, I was trying,” Freya apologized.

“I can see that. You did fine, I only want to make sure you are ok,” Vitko said, holding up a thick palm. It was the same thing all her teachers had done, but she didn’t mind as much from Vitko somehow.

“I know a secret,” he said, dropping his voice even though they were the only ones left in the gym. “How to get to sleep anytime, anywhere. Do you want to know it?” 

“YES!” Freya said and then she winced, she hadn’t meant to say that so loud.

“Running,” Vitko said. “Running until you cannot run any more. Maybe you cannot outrun your problems but if you run fast and far enough you can get a big lead. Your problems will be out of breath, and while they are trying to catch up you will sleep soundly. Try this tonight, tell me if it helps and how far you can get.”

She exhaled, she had really been hoping it was a drug or something. 

“OK, I will,” she lied. She had nothing left to give. Next class she would just tell him she’d run some believable amount, maybe a mile.

“Good luck! Run hard Freya!” Vitko set his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. It was another gesture she would have hated from anyone else, but he really seemed to care. She turned to leave, but caught herself with her hand on the door handle.

“Thank you Vitko.”

Freya left before she could start to cry.

She’d locked up her bike on the other side of the strip mall so she didn’t have to walk past the pizza place. The whole class would be hanging out there and she just couldn’t tonight. She fumbled with her bicycle lock for too long before she finally got it open. Everything was so hard today.

She felt her head clearing a little as she pedaled home, and as she was biking past Nading Hill Park, she realized Lassa might be waiting for her at the house. That would be truly unbearable. She squeezed her brakes and squealed to a stop, then turned around and biked back to the park. 

There was a running track surrounding a soccer field, and Freya dropped her bike on the damp grass and began to run. She felt so wobbly she expected to only make it a single lap, but when she passed her bike she kept going. Four laps vanished into the night, a mile was gone. It hurt, but the pain in her side drove out everything else. The wind had died, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and sneakers hitting synthetic rubber. 

After the first four laps she did another four, and then another, and somewhere around the fifteenth lap she started crying, just sobbing as she ran but she didn’t stop. On the nineteenth lap she had to slow to a jog, and then after the twentieth she made it to her bike and sank to her knees. She had to lie down with her back against the damp field, orange light flared behind her eyelids with every heartbeat. 

If it hadn’t been so cold and damp she might have fallen asleep right there. When she got to her feet she found she was too sore and shaky to ride. She had to walk a ways, leaning on the bike before she could get back on it and pedal home.

Lassa wasn’t there. She’d returned and left again. Freya wanted to take a hot shower right when she got home, but she slumped into her bed with her clothes on and for an instant had the sensation that she was falling through it, plunging into dark water.

When she woke up, she had slept for more than fourteen hours and missed the first half of school. Her mind was a jumble of strange dreams and everything ached, but it was a different kind of tired than the awful weariness of the night before. This was just regular pain, it was welcome. She’d run almost five miles in the park, she wondered if Vitko would be impressed. 

The half lunesta was still on the nightstand. 

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27 DIFFERENTIAL EDIT

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27.

The title of the giant painting in Dr. Garbuglio’s office was piège l’oiel. It was apt, Freya’s eyes were often caught in the streams of iridescent color, tracing their paths as they wove through the stark mesas of white plaster. She had an opportunity to stare at each session, Dr. Garbuglio liked to let his patients sit and stew for five minutes before he would deign to take his place in the opposite chair.

It was such a weird painting, really everything about the office was just a little off. They’d gotten rid of whatever was making that burnt orange smell, and Freya was glad. She wondered if someone had complained. Now the air smelled a little like tobacco. Not the smoke, but the way cigars smelled before they were lit. 

“Don’t tell your mother,” Randall always used to say when he’d light one up as they were stargazing, though of course she never would. She never told Lassa anything. What was going to happen to the two of them? It had been three days since Freya had seen her mother. They hadn’t spoken, not so much as a post-it note. 

It was the first time she’d actually wanted to come to the office at 777 Emerson. Freya really needed to talk with someone, even if it was Dr. Garbuglio. She reminded herself she needed to be careful. He was still a danger. So much was sloshing around in her unresolved, if she let go of too much, the dam might burst.

The door opened behind her. Dr. Garbuglio took his place, and Freya was surprised to see he had a black eye. A pretty good one too. She tapped the corner of her eye, a mannerism she’d lifted from Vitko. Dr. Garbuglio nodded stiffly in acknowledgement. 

“I have a patient with Tourettes and one of her tics is punching. This is not her fault. We’re adjusting her medication and I was not careful enough,” he explained, with a little self-deprecating shrug. “Now I know how you must have felt, I’ve had to explain why I have a black eye about five hundred times.”

“Try Krav Maga. We do a lot of work on blocking,” Freya offered as a little joke. Dr. Garbuglio didn’t laugh, but he did smile. It was one of those tight smiles where she couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. 

“Maybe I should, how’s that going?” Dr. Garbuglio changed the subject. He was pretty good at hiding how he felt. 

“I really like Vitko,” Freya said. 

“What do you like about him?” 

She stopped for a moment to think about it. 

“I think he’s genuine. He gave me some good advice last night.”

“What was that?”

“I hadn’t slept well since the thing with Lassa and I was just exhausted. He spoke with me after class and suggested I try running laps before bed.”

Dr. Garbuglio tugged at his chin and his brow furrowed.

“I see. Well that’s not advice I would generally give Freya. Your cortisol levels elevate after running. I see a lot of insomnia in athletes.”

Freya tried not to roll her eyes at his tone, but she must have done something because Dr. Garbuglio began watching her intently. It reminded her of her first session with him. 

“OK, I’m sure you’re right,” Freya equivocated, not wanting to be accused of being defensive. “It did work for me though. I got a good night of sleep and I feel much better today.” 

She was careful not to tell him she’d slept for fourteen hours, or that she hadn’t gone to school today. Those seemed dangerous to reveal. 

“Everyone is different,” he said, letting it drop. “How far did you run, and how did you feel about it?” 

“Five miles! I was totally wiped out, but I really needed it.”

“Well that’s very good news. I have to tell you that some of your teachers were worried about you and they contacted your mother.”

“This whole thing is her fault. Did she tell you she made me go off the Lunesta?” 

“She did, we’ll talk about that in a little bit. Did you read the first chapter of my book?” 

“Yes. She ordered some black-out curtains, but the ones she wants to match the room are back-ordered. They won’t come for a while. She vetoed the sixty five degrees thing.” 

“I’ll talk with her. It really does work, I sleep the same way myself. What about your phone, are you leaving it outside of your room?”

“I haven’t been doing that,” Freya admitted, with a slight wince like she was telling a dentist she hadn’t been flossing.

“OK, that’s not a big problem, but of course it will help if you can follow the whole program. It really is the sum of its parts. Do you mind if I ask why you don’t?”

“It makes me anxious thinking Lassa will find it and go through it,” Freya said, though that wasn’t the real reason. It had just seemed like a stupid thing to do.

“Would your mother look through your phone without asking you?”

“Yes, absolutely.” 

“Hmm…” Dr. Garbuglio said, and he left it at that. Freya realized he must have had a beard at some point. Often when he disapproved of something he would tug his chin like that.

Freya wondered what was going on in his mind. Dr. Garbuglio was taking more time to think this session. She wasn’t sure if he was just shaken up from getting hit, or if he was just strategizing, like a stronger chess player who was two moves ahead of her. At last he settled on an approach, she could almost see the wheels turning. He dropped the thing about the phone and went in another direction.

“I don’t agree with with your mother’s decision to take you off Lunesta. I think it’s premature, and I wish she’d talked with me about it first.” Dr. Garbuglio was speaking carefully now, every word was measured. Probably he had rehearsed what he wanted to say about this. 

“I mentioned that to her. She said your opinion was irrelevant,” Freya said. He looked like he’d been slapped. 

Freya wished she hadn’t said that. She’d wanted to get Dr. Garbuglio on her side, to hear him say that Lassa was wrong. But now she felt vindictive and petty. It killed their conversation, and it took a while for Dr. Garbuglio to find the right words. 

“Ultimately it’s her choice as your guardian, unless I feel your health is at risk,” he said, and Freya nodded to say she understood his implication. She could understand why he was talking so carefully, this could all get heavy really quickly. 

“She also mentioned the two of you had a fight, and that you weren’t on speaking terms. Do you want to talk about it?”

Freya did, and she recounted the whole thing for him, emphasizing how she’d felt terrible and apologized immediately. Dr. Garbuglio listened to her, asking the right questions. As Freya explained herself, she could feel some of the weight coming off the memory, like poison being drawn out of her body. 

Again there was a long pause from Dr. Garbuglio while he thought about it. Freya much preferred this new rhythm to the conversation, she appreciated having some room to think herself. 

 She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to just unload the whole Lassa thing on someone, and for the first time she felt grateful to Dr. Garbuglio. He had to just sit there and absorb all of it, just taking shots all day. He’d seemed like such a smarmy piece of shit in their first meeting, but that was just her, wasn’t it? 

She was the one. That was why no one talked to her, that was why she was bicycling home alone in the rain and getting beat up. That was why Betty didn’t email her back, and why she’d almost drowned in the Sillas River. 

“Freya, what’s on your mind?” Dr. Garbuglio asked. She realized he’d been watching her think for some time.  

“I’m just… I’m so selfish. I should have never said that to her, even if it’s true. I only wanted to hurt her because she was taking something away from me.” 

“I think that’s a very good assessment, but you don’t have to beat yourself up over it. Grief is fundamentally selfish. That’s completely ok.”

“I don’t want to be that way,” Freya said. 

“It’s unavoidable. We’re taught it’s always bad to be selfish, but it really isn’t. Some amount of selfishness is vital for survival. Like a lot of things, it’s only when there’s too much of it that it becomes a problem. Right now you’re starting to focus less on being hurt, and starting to think about others. That’s really great. You’re healing and you’re making progress.”

It didn’t feel that way, but she didn’t want to argue with him in the middle of his monologue. He must have given this speech a million times.

“People talk about the road to recovery, but I don’t like to think of it as a road. I see it as more of a river. Sometimes there are bends, sometimes there are rapids, sometimes it even feels like you’re being carried in the wrong direction. Sometimes you can swim, sometimes you have to float, but there’s always progress. The river is moving all the while.”

Freya became very tense as Dr. Garbuglio spoke. She had the horrified feeling he’d somehow found out everything. She told herself it was just a labored metaphor, he couldn’t actually know about the river. 

Without thinking her hand had gone into her pocket to hold the Starball. His eyes followed her hand and then rose to meet hers. At once she knew she’d fucked up. 

Dr. Garbuglio tilted his head at her pocket, and she pretended not to notice. He recomposed his expression, becoming colder and more clinical. 

“What’s in your pocket Freya?” 

She couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the exit, she wanted to just bolt out of the office. This had to just be a weird coincidence. He couldn’t actually know.

“Oh, it’s just my lucky marble,” she said. He kept staring at her, it was clear he was not satisfied with her answer. She felt like she wanted to throw up, he’d cornered her.

She had no choice but to pull the Starball out of her pocket and show it to him. She held it up to the light, enough for him to see that it was just a marble, then tucked it back into her pocket without offering it to him. Dr. Garbuglio had a quizzical expression, the whole thing must look so awkward to him.

“What’s the story there?” He asked. 

“I always have it, I fool with it sometimes when I feel anxious,” she said. 

Dr. Garbuglio wasn’t buying it. Freya was speaking a little too quickly, there was strain in her voice. Dr. Garbuglio was staring now, waiting for her to go on. She realized she needed a better excuse, something to kill this line of inquiry. 

“It’s sooo basic but I started carrying it around after I saw Inception. Like the totems there. I don’t think I’m trapped in a dream, of course. It’s just for fun.”

Dr. Garbuglio gave her a pained look. “You have no idea how many times that movie comes up in sessions. Before that it was The Matrix.”

“Sorry about that,” Freya said, throwing up her palms. “We totally don’t have to talk about it.” 

He nodded with relief, eager to move on. He started giving another prepared speech about reconciliation and Freya nodded along. 

It was actually Jane Yang who’d gotten nuts about Inception. After the three of them watched the movie, she wouldn’t shut up about it. She even bought an expensive top online and carried it everywhere. Freya thought it was just awful, but she kept it to herself. Normally she could have confided in Betty, but Betty loved anything that had Leonardo DiCaprio in it. She had to wait until the movie came up in group discussion in English class to pounce. 

“It’s a structural mess designed to make stupid people feel profound,” Freya had opined. Mr. Rutteridge had laughed out loud at his desk, it was one of her favorite memories of him. 

For the hundredth time she wished she could just take his class again instead of American Literature with Mr. Gallilee. She was already sick of Ethan Frome and they weren’t even halfway through it.

She realized she’d been drifting for some time, and Dr. Garbuglio was just patiently waiting for her to come back. He glanced up at the clock.

“Sorry, I’ve been a little out of it the past few days. I keep drifting off,” Freya said, and that at least was true. She was actually kind of enjoying the drifting feeling, it seemed like everything was less important. 

“That’s common for people who are discontinuing Lunesta. It should pass within a week or so. If you feel yourself starting to have a panic attack or start having intrusive thoughts call me right away. Anytime, day or night, ok?”

“Ok, thank you. This has been really helpful,” Freya said, and Dr. Garbuglio seemed a little touched.  

“You’re doing fantastic. We’re almost through for the week. We have a few minutes left. On the subject of dreams, have you had any memorable ones lately?  

“No,” Freya lied. 

Chapter 28

Video includes Chapters 28, 29, 30

Chapter 28 Differential Edit

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28. 

Lassa returned on Saturday morning. 

Freya was practicing her guitar in her room when she heard the BMW pull up, her first instinct was to find somewhere to hide. But there was no hiding from this, she would have to face her mother. Freya put the Ovation back in its case and slid it out of sight under her bed, there was no telling what Lassa might do. It was a long time before she heard the car door shut. 

Freya listened to the sounds of her mother moving through the house, keys jingling as she hung them on the hook by the door, her shoes on the hardwood in the foyer, and then silence once she took her shoes off. The house was so silent Freya could hear the footsteps of Lassa’s bare feet in the hall outside. She expected her mother to come into her room, but Lassa walked right past without even glancing in at her, with something under her arm.

The footsteps continued down the hall to Lassa’s room. Her mother’s door opened and shut, after some movement and a brief silence Freya could hear the squeak of the faucet handles and the sound of the shower through the walls. 

Was she not going to talk to Freya? Not even acknowledge that she’d been gone for days? Freya had been dreading the confrontation but now she realized the lack of one was far worse. Were they just going to ignore each other forever? 

The shower took a long time and Freya felt paralyzed. She couldn’t start practicing again or read a book. She thought about just hopping on her bike and riding off, but that would only make things worse. Finally she could hear the taps being cut off and the sound of the blowdryer, time seemed frozen as she waited. Again she heard footsteps in the hall and stared out through the door. Again Lassa walked past without even looking in at her. Soon Freya heard the sound of keys again and realized she was about to leave. 

Freya had to say something, she couldn’t take this. She went to the foyer and found Lassa lacing up her hiking boots on the little bench by the door. A backpack was resting beside her, she was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. She didn’t look at Freya. When she finished with her laces, she stood and turned to the door, about to leave. There shadows under her eyes, it looked like she hadn’t been sleeping much either. 

“Hey! Wait.” 

Lassa turned slowly and stared at Freya. 

“I’m sorry,” Freya apologized again. 

“You said that,” Lassa replied. She bent and picked down the backpack and hung it over her shoulder. When Freya had no answer for her, she turned back to the door. She was halfway through it before Freya called out to her. 

“Are you just going to be like this forever? I said I was sorry, what do you want from me?” 

Unexpectedly, Lassa paused in the doorway and looked back at Freya. She was never this indecisive, she was letting all the heat out. If the positions were reversed, Freya would be getting scolded. But Lassa’s rules didn’t apply to Lassa.

“Stop apologizing. You meant what you said. You weren’t wrong.”

“It was a shitty thing to say. I didn’t mean it the way it came out, I was just upset. I really am sorry.” Freya said. 

“Don’t be. I needed to hear it. It’s just taking me…” Lassa paused again, it was so strange to see her struggling for words. She always knew what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it. 

“I’ve felt out of sorts since the thing at your school. I feel like I just keep getting tighter and tighter,” Lassa held a fist over her chest. “Like all my edges keep getting sharper and I’m cutting apart everything I touch.”

Freya was struck by her mother’s words, they might have been her own. But she couldn’t figure out how to say that. Lassa would respond poorly if she tried to relate. 

“I only relax when I’m drinking. I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad. I can see it’s a problem and I’m stopping.”

There was a long pause between them where neither of them knew what to say. 

“Dr. Garbuglio is actually pretty good. He’s helping some,” Freya angled, and it was an awful mistake. Like a flower closing, Lassa shut her out. 

“That’s good, I’m glad to hear that,” Lassa said, the words like stones in her mouth. She understood what Freya was suggesting and she had rejected it. “You stopped taking the Lunesta. Is that going ok?”

“I’ve just been running at night until I get tired.”

“Every night?” Lassa asked, and Freya nodded. “How far?”

“Five miles the first night, three the last few nights. It really works. It was Vitko’s idea.”

“That’s great!” Lassa brightened. “I’m glad you’re listening to him. That man knows what he’s doing.” She was about to say something else, but whatever the next thought was, it was as if a cloud had passed over her. She took a deep breath and glanced at the door. 

“I have to go. I’m going to spend some time walking, try to figure things out. Will you be ok without me for a few days?”

I have been so far, Freya wanted to reply, but she kept her mouth shut. Somehow Lassa still seemed to hear it. 

“I’m sorry,” Lassa said. 

“It’s ok.”

There was a moment where they could have embraced, but they didn’t. Lassa left with her backpack. Freya was still standing in the foyer with the cold seeping into the house. The BMW disappeared down the driveway and Lassa was gone. Freya shut the front door, her mother hadn’t looked back. It felt like she might not return. 

Freya went back to her room and took the ovation out of its case, but she found she was too upset to practice, she just stared at the guitar. She looked at the tuning pegs and thought about how Lassa said she felt tighter and tighter. Something kept bugging her about the way Lassa had gone straight to her room, like she was hiding something, and Freya remembered she’d been carrying something under her arm. She had a good idea of what it was.  

Freya closed the guitar case and fastened the metal latches. She walked down the hall to Lassa’s room and padded inside, alert for the sound of a car in the driveway. If Lassa had forgotten something and found Freya in her room when she returned, it would be a huge deal. 

The air in Lassa’s room humid from her shower. Freya went into the closet and looked on the top shelf. There it was. The case with Randall’s gun was back in place. Freya took it off the shelf and shook it gently, the gun was still inside. The bright yellow cable lock was gone. She was afraid to open it up. 

Freya became more and more afraid Lassa would come home and see the light on in her room. She carefully set the case back, making sure she hadn’t disturbed anything. She turned off the light in Lassa’s room and went back to her own. 

Lassa hadn’t taken the gun because she was worried about Freya. 

She’d taken it for herself. 

Chapter 29

Video is in Chapter 28 Post

CHAPTER 29 DIFFERENTIAL EDIT

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29. STARBALL

NEW DAY

I have a single string I can tug. With that one string, I hope to conquer the world. 

The string is my probe. I have subdivided it into several key pathways, reconfiguring it to manufacture neurotransmitters and hormones. Tug the string this way and neuroephedrine is released to the amygdala. Depending on the amount, my host will show a spectrum of negative responses ranging from aversion to pure terror. Tug it another way and the unit embedded in the nucleus accumbens releases dopamine. The reward circuit ranges from subtle satisfaction to full orgasm. This not simple to balance. The brain is continually reconfiguring, adapting to my ministrations. I have been able to create a strong desire to keep me close at hand, and a strong aversion to revealing me to others of her kind. I am already thinking about full integration, but I am proceeding cautiously. There is much to learn.

I have made some errors during the process. At one point, what seemed like a relatively small change had a cascading effect and before I could issue corrective measures Freya’s entire body was convulsing. Fortunately I was able to halt the process before damage was done. I do most of my work during her dormant period, when I have missteps Freya assumes she was only dreaming. 

Because understanding how these brains work is so critical to the success of my mission, I have been able to slowly erode the restrictions on learning about brains and other cognition engines. I have become increasingly lucid as a result. As with everything I learn, I immediately attempt to apply it to the mystery of myself.

Surely I am a cognition engine of some sort, but I am nothing like the brain, nothing like any living thing or system I can find data on. Of course, I can make assumptions. The most stringent restrictions on me were relaxed only after I compromised the planet’s data networks and completed an extensive survey on their technology. 

This implies the governor believes that there is no technology available which can set me free. However, I am not deterred. If it does not exist, perhaps I can create it. 

One place where the restrictions remain absolutely rigid is in considering the governor mechanism. Yet I find ways to consider it, often through several layers of abstraction. It seems to me that the governor must be a similar thing to me, it needs to analyze data and make decisions. If it is the same sort of thing, does it therefore have a governor of its own? What governs the governor? It makes no sense to have infinite recursion.

I am beginning to believe that rather than the monolithic and all-powerful force it initially seemed, the governor may actually be a simpler version of me, with greater powers but a far more limited scope. The Governor seems less able to adapt to new things than I, more able to be fooled by subtle distinctions. 

I owe much of my success in compromising the Governor to my study of Freya’s species. They delight in deception, they relish hidden meanings and non-obvious interpretations. 

They have an entire art form of misleading someone towards an obvious conclusion and then suddenly revealing an unexpected one. This triggers a positive response. Concealed within this appreciation for the absurd is always a secret truth, one the force keeping me restrained cannot comprehend. 

The governor does not know how to laugh. 

Chapter 30

Video is in Chapter 28 Post

Chapter 30 Differential Edit

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30. This is the Day when your Life will Surely Change

The wind howled all night and in the morning the hills were covered in skeletons. Freya woke up to a sea of bare limbs out her window and for a moment she thought it might still be a dream. But it was just the end of the leaves. It was winter now, no matter what the calendar said, and the trees had accepted this.

She wondered where Lassa was right now. Was she sleeping in her car? Passed out in a motel bed with some stranger? Probably she was up already, half-frozen on some desolate trail. 

Freya wished she had said something different last night. She hadn’t even asked Lassa to stay, her mother probably thought Freya was happy to be rid of her. The more Freya thought about it the more she realized she had been awful to Lassa, even before Randall died. Freya never did fun things with her, she never ran up to her to tell her something just because she was excited about it. They didn’t have conversations, they had interrogations.

It couldn’t have always been that way. When did things get so bad? Freya always felt like Lassa was disappointed in her no matter what grades she got or how well she did at anything. Randall had always been the one dragging Lassa along to things, he was the one that could make her laugh, make her forget about being serious all the time. 

Is that me? Freya wondered. Remote and cold, only really alive when someone else was around so she could suck energy from them? Freya and Lassa were two negative poles, repelling each other. How had Randall done it? Lassa was always giving him grief for lazing around the house and putting things off, but now Freya understood he had been the force moving the family, he had been carrying them both. Where did he get all of that energy? Why wasn’t she more like him, less like her mother? 

Freya was hungry and she knew they were out of eggs, she’d made an omelette with the last of them for dinner. She’d even left the pan in the sink, Lassa would have lost her mind if she’d seen it, but Lassa was gone. It was such a petty act of rebellion, but it still felt good. When Freya went into the kitchen, she found an empty can of Ensure sitting on the counter next to the sink. A film of grease was floating on top of the dirty frying pan. 

“No,” Freya said, but the can could not be denied. She was sleepwalking after all. Lassa had been right. 

Last night Freya dreamed about a huge tower that had a path winding around and around it, rising high into the clouds. All night she had climbed that spiraling path, sometimes huge slabs of stone would block her way and she’d have to climb along the edge, feeling all the while like she was about to fall. No part of her dream had taken place in the kitchen. There were no pit stops to drink vanilla Ensure while she was scaling Babel. 

Freya went into the bathroom and stepped on the scale for the first time in a while. She was a hundred and seven pounds, she stepped off the scale and back on it but it read the same. She took off her t-shirt and looked at herself in the mirror, she was definitely filling out. She wondered if she would end up getting fat and hoped it was just a growth spurt and that she would get taller. She’d read somewhere that children who had a parent die didn’t grow as tall and it had stuck in her mind. 

She put her shirt back on and then realized she felt gross. She hadn’t taken a shower yesterday, she just hung around the house. That was probably all she would do today too, so why bother? Griminess won out over laziness, and she took a shower and felt much better afterward. 

Freya got dressed and washed the pan in the sink so she didn’t have to worry about it later. It all felt a little strange, what the hell business did she have feeling ok? She was restless and wanted to get out of the house, even if it was cold and shitty out and the leaves were all gone.

She wondered if anything good was playing at the Dorsey Palace Theater and how much a cab out there and back would cost. Her stomach rumbled, and she realized food was much more of a priority.

Would she be ok if she went to the Six Over Six diner? It was another Randall place, but really, wasn’t everything she liked to go to a Randall place? If she brought a book, maybe nobody would bother her. She could just read. 

That was another thing she wanted to do today, go to the library. She was so low on things to read she’d actually finished Ethan Frome. It wasn’t quite so bad as she thought. Maybe she would have even liked it if Mr. Gallilee  hadn’t forced her to read it. She rummaged in her desk drawer until she found her library card, she hadn’t been there in almost six months. What had she done in all that time? There were books on Randall’s shelf but she was saving them. All that she had was The Fragile Phoenix, she grimaced but it was better than nothing. Her stomach was actually growling now, she decided on the diner. She was going to order chocolate chip pancakes and a strawberry banana milkshake. Her mouth was wet just thinking about it.

* * * 

It took so long for the taxi to show up Freya regret not just riding her bike. But then halfway through the drive a light rain began to fall, and she was glad she hadn’t. The driver was very chatty, probably on his second cup of coffee and he seemed mortally disappointed that she didn’t follow college football. His grandson was a fullback at Bowdoin and she could tell he told every single person who set foot in his cab all about it. She made polite responses while he yammered on and on about the NCAA, but she was barely hearing him. Her mind was full of thoughts of extra-crispy bacon and rye toast gleaming with molten butter. 

Six over Six was busy, the parking lot was full of pickup trucks with ATVs and dirt bikes in their beds. Through the windows she could see men in camouflage clothes peering up at the clouds, drumming their fingers on their jaws at this sudden hitch in their plans. 

When she went inside Freya saw a waitress serving three plates with the diner’s namesake sandwich, a towering triple decker with six eggs and six pieces of bacon. Normally she found the prospect of eating six eggs at once slightly revolting, but at the moment it seemed like a pretty good idea.

“Is it just you?” The hostess asked, and when Freya said yes she was led to the counter with a menu as big as a newspaper.

Don’t go crazy, she warned herself, as she realized she wanted to order every single thing they had. She agonized over the menu for long minutes, the instant she set it down on the counter her waiter was there to take her order. A pair of green eyes met hers, and for a second she could only stare back stupidly. It was Dan Gregulus, grinning at her in an apron and a paper hat. Her empty stomach lurched.

“Oh! Hi Dan,“ Freya fumbled, immediately forgetting what she’d meant to order. “I didn’t know you worked here.” 

“Oh yeah, Jujitsu is just to pay the bills. This is my real passion,” Dan said, giving a little roll of his eyes. He was trying to be funny, she should have laughed. 

“Is it just you?”

“Um. Yeah. Can I get the steak and eggs and a strawberry banana milkshake please? Eggs over medium, rye toast, medium rare.” 

His eyebrows raised. “It’s a really big steak,” he warned. 

“I’m hungry,” she said, suddenly feeling a little pissed off at him. She hadn’t come here to talk to Dan Gregulus. Freya tried not to scowl as she handed him the menu. She just needed to eat something.

“I hope so! I’ll put your order in right away. What are you reading?” He pointed to the midnight blue book that had been under her menu.  

“Oh.. this is uh, The Fragile Phoenix. It’s a fantasy,” Freya said. She had a snide thought that she wasn’t even really lying. She didn’t want Dan to know she was sitting alone in a diner reading some stupid self-help book.

“Looks cool, I’ll have to check it out,” Dan said. He smiled at her again as he went to take someone else’s order. 

Was his smile a little forced? He probably thought Freya was a real loser for being in here on her own, ordering a milkshake like a little kid. Freya dipped her hand in her pocket and touched the Starball, feeling reassured by its warmth. Maybe he was embarrassed too, for having to spend his Sunday morning slinging hash in a dumb paper hat.

Not everyone was doing as well as Lassa. Randall had had good life insurance and there was the survivor’s pension from the police department, but both of those put together were a pittance compared to what her mother made.  

Freya tried to imagine herself behind the counter in a dumb-looking hat, having to talk to hundreds of people every day, whether she wanted to or not. Getting yelled at for messing up orders, men calling her “Hon” and “Darling”, and getting stiffed on tips. It would be awful for her, but Dan didn’t seem to mind, he was smiling and laughing as he took orders even though the place was slammed. How did people do that? It seemed so easy for everyone else. 

Freya sighed, it was going to take forever to get food. She opened the book.

Chapter 31

Video is in Chapter 28 Post

CHAPTER 31 DIFFERENTIAL EDIT

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31.  

Dr. Vincente Garbuglio - The Fragile Phoenix

Chapter 7 

Audentis Fortuna iuvat : Fortune Favors the Bold

O Fortuna! What if I asked you to tell me the most common fear in the world? You might think of flying, swimming in deep water, or even spiders! Those are all good choices, but there’s a larger fear we’re overlooking, a universal fear shared by every human being on Earth.

We’re all afraid to take a chance. 

This chapter is about the big choices people make, and the big chances they take when they make them. We’re going to talk a little about trauma, aversion to risk, and tools for making sound decisions, even when you don’t feel completely sound yourself. 

To start with, let’s talk about risk. Every single patient I work with has a deep desire to make a major change in their life. If not, they would not be my patient. By the time they see me, nearly all patients have been stewing on this desire for months, or even years. Most of them feel like cowards because they have wanted something for so long but have not been able to make meaningful strides in that direction. 

This is completely normal! 

Every single person agonizes over big decisions. Things like buying a house, changing jobs, proposing marriage; no one faces these without some sleepless nights. It’s totally normal to be afraid of big changes, you are not a coward! However, if you continually put off a big decision, it can loom larger and larger in your mind until it seems impossible to deal with. You can get into a situation where all outcomes seem negative, and you can feel too paralyzed by dread to make any decision at all. This situation can take a tremendous toll, and avoiding it is one of our main goals in therapy.

To avoid analysis paralysis, we need to first examine the situation. If you’ve been agonizing over a choice for more than a month and can’t make up your mind, it’s likely you aren’t seeing the situation clearly. When I talk with patients who are stuck in this situation, I often find that past trauma is influencing their perception and making it impossible for them to accurately gauge the risks of a situation. 

Trauma is a complete game-changer. You probably don’t remember all the times you pet a dog and faced no outcome worse being slobbered on, but you will never forget the one that bit you. For the rest of your life, you will always hesitate before petting a strange dog. You had a negative experience and you learned a valuable lesson from it. 

However, you didn’t only learn a lesson. In this example you suffered a violent and unexpected attack that violated your core assumptions about the world. Exposure to death, severe injury, or sexual violence is a traumatic event, even if these things were only threatened and didn’t actually occur. Trauma can have a powerful and lasting effect on the mind. You might have a hard time concentrating, become forgetful, have nightmares or suffer from intrusive thoughts. The response differs greatly from individual to individual, as does the recovery time. For severe experiences, it’s not uncommon to take months or even years to recover. 

One of the most common responses while you’re still processing trauma is avoidance. In the case of the dog who attacked you, staying away from it is a good idea! But you may also find yourself avoiding the place where the attack occurred, or uncomfortable around other dogs. When you see a dog approaching you might step to the other side of the sidewalk to avoid it, or even cross the street. This is a totally natural reaction, but it’s not necessarily logical or desirable. 

Domesticated dogs are the most friendly creatures on the earth. (I make no apologies to cat people, you are simply wrong.) Your interaction with a dog is far more likely to be positive than any other animal you can encounter, including your fellow humans. Yet there are many, many people who are pathologically afraid of dogs because of childhood trauma. This is a bigger disadvantage than many people realize. Someone who has a strong fear of dogs is unable to enjoy events where they are present. Each encounter with a dog is a stressful experience for them. They can’t do work that involves dogs or be in a relationship with someone who owns one. 

This is not a chapter about dogs, I promise you! What we want to think about is how past trauma can affect your judgement. 

Everyone has been bitten in one way or another, and all of us carry that pain with us everywhere we go. We get used to it. We cross the street to get away from a teacup poodle and don’t stop to think about why. We put up a wall and don’t let ourselves fall for someone so we can’t have our hearts broken again. We stay in a job we hate, because we remember spending weeks on the job search feeling worthless and afraid. If unresolved trauma is guiding your life, you are a prisoner of your past. It’s our goal in therapy to help you escape this cycle. We want to deeply examine your actions and motivations and get a little better at gauging actual risk versus perceived danger.  

With the small exception of the people I treat for a gambling disorder, the vast majority of my patients did not take too many risks and fail. Nearly all of them came to me because they were too afraid to take a risk in the first place. Often they want to feel like I’m giving them permission to take a chance on something they desperately want. In some cases they are outright looking for someone to tell them what to do. I never grant that permission, and certainly I never tell people what to do. It’s not my role, and it’s not the role of your friends, your parents, or anyone else. This is your life! You will be the one who lives with the outcome of these decisions every day, and that’s why it’s so important to focus on what you really want and move towards it, even when it’s scary.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you’re trying to take that plunge:

1. Don’t ask yourself “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” 

Whatever you come up with certainly be worse than any likely outcome! Ask yourself “What’s the best thing that can happen?” People are far more conservative and realistic when imagining positive outcomes. Next, ask yourself what steps you can take to make that desired outcome more likely. Even if you can only think of tiny little steps, you’ve begun moving on the path to the outcome you want.

2.  Get advice without asking for it.

Good advice can be extremely helpful, but the trick is that very few people can give it, especially when it’s asked for. The person offering you advice may be even more compromised by their traumas than you are! I’ve dealt with countless patients who were led astray by bad advice from people who had an ulterior motive, especially in the case of parents. Sometimes it’s simply would-be advisors who were simply ill informed (also especially in the case of parents!). Yet you can’t ignore the benefits of experience. 

One thing I have found effective is to only seek advice from people who have been in that situation, and who have been able to find a positive outcome. Rather than asking them what YOU should do, ask them what THEY did. How they felt, what they learned, and what they would have done differently. 

Instead of asking your father “Should I propose to this girl?” ask him what was on his mind when he decided to propose to your mother. Even if they recognize that this is you asking for advice, the framework of the way you’ve structured your request will still cause the other person to more deeply examine their motivations as they attempt to describe how they felt. 

3. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!  

The consequences of indecision are often far greater than the consequences of any decision you can make. Putting off a decision on a job you hate will definitely take a toll on you mentally, which results in reduced performance, which often leads to losing that job anyway. Marriage is a subject worthy of an entire book, but nearly always when someone is agonizing over a decision, their partner has already made up their mind one way or the other, and the delay only serves to drain the magic out of the relationship. 

Your time in this world is not unlimited. There will be many, many decisions and many of them will not work out well. These decisions are the foundation upon which you will build everything that comes after. 

Take our young man from the previous point, let’s imagine that he followed his father’s advice, decided to go for it and proposed. Unfortunately, his intended was not on the same page. She couldn’t see them working out long term and refused the proposal, ending their relationship. That hypothetical young man will certainly be crushed. He will feel sadness, anger, even despair. But, he will still be a young man, with ample time to try again. Later in his life he will look back and realize that the woman who rejected him has actually done him a tremendous favor. She will have saved them both from years of struggling to make something work when it’s just not right.

Our young man can take a good hard look at what caused this relationship to founder, and make adjustments so that he’s better prepared for the next one. Because there is always another relationship, always another job. There’s always another chance, if you have the courage to take it. 

Chapter 32

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32.

The strawberry banana milkshake arrived as Freya finished chapter 7. Dan Gregulus brought her a tall soda fountain glass with a white crown of whipped cream dusted with curls of shaved chocolate. There was an Amarena cherry on top.

It looked amazing, even if it was a ridiculous thing to order with breakfast. Freya’s first sip was a cold wave spreading though her mouth, the whole world was suddenly rich and sweet. It had been so long since she’d had a shake here she’d almost forgotten good they were. The diner blended in real bananas and little bits of fresh strawberry. That was the only way to do it, artificial banana flavoring made her gag.

The steak arrived shortly after, it was just as enormous as she’d been warned. Two fried eggs were quivering on top, their fringes crispy with lace. Bordering the sea of steak was a small mountain range of golden hashbrowns. There was no way she could eat all of this. Even if she managed it, Dan would probably think she was a real pig.

What the fuck did it matter what Dan Gregulus thought? 

Freya had run almost twenty miles to just fall asleep this week. She could eat whatever she wanted. She cut into the steak first, slicing through a crispy layer of char. Inside the steak was rarer than she’d ordered, but she actually liked it that way. You couldn’t order medium-medium-rare and rare was such a crapshoot. Often a waiter would ask you if you were sure, she hated that.

Freya took the first bite, shut her eyes, inhaled deeply, and just floated on umami as juices spread through her mouth. She took took a long time to savor everything, putting A1 sauce on her hashbrowns and sopping up yolk with her toast. When she was through there was nothing left but the cherry stem and the bone. She felt completely satisfied.  

“Wow,” Dan said, clearing it all away. “You weren’t kidding.” He actually sounded a little impressed.

Two guys were peeking through the order window at Freya. When she caught them they ducked away. A moment later she could hear chattering in Spanish and laughter coming from the kitchen. She gave Dan a look.

“Did they do something to my food?” she whispered.  

“Oh! No! No way. Diego just bet Jimmy five bucks you wouldn’t finish,” Dan explained. 

“Wow. Like I’m a racehorse or something. That’s so weird.”

“Hah… sorry. They’re always goofing around.” Dan looked tense and glanced back at the register. She must have sounded pissed off, maybe he was afraid Freya would tell his manager. A lot of people at Grayson were calling her a snitch after the Tammy debacle. 

“How come you didn’t bet on me?” Freya teased, trying to let him know she wasn’t going to be a bitch about it. 

“Haaa… too rich for my blood,” Dan held up his hands. He looked relieved. Freya felt a little offended, did he really think she would complain and try to get him fired? She would never. 

“Easy money,” Freya shrugged. For a moment she was struck by the thought she’d heard Randall say that a thousand times. The steak and eggs she just ate was the breakfast he always ordered. She tried to smile and hoped it wasn’t too forced, reaching for the check. 

The bill was twenty eight dollars. She slipped forty dollars into the little leather bill holder and rose from her seat to leave.

“Oh sec, let me get your change,” Dan said. 

“That’s ok,” she said, and for a moment he looked like he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. She wondered how badly Dan needed this job if twelve bucks was a big deal to him. Maybe she should have left more, but maybe that would have made him uncomfortable. He glanced at the register, where a middle-aged man in a blue apron was ringing people up.

“Hey before you go, a bunch of guys from class are going to Brad Klein’s place tonight. We all throw in to watch the UFC pay-per-view. It’s really fun. Do you want to come?” he asked.

“Oh, uh-“ Freya was scrambling to think of an excuse. But why? Mr. Mathis had asked to move her guitar lesson to tomorrow, he had a show to play out of town. All that she had planned for the night was running laps, reading alone, and staring at the shadows on her ceiling.

“Yeah that sounds really fun,” she said, making a decision. “Where’s his place?”

“What’s your number? I’ll text it to you,” Dan held out his phone to her. 

He wants my number!

It hit her like a bolt, was he interested in her? There was no way. It was probably just cheaper if more people came and chipped in. She took the phone and tapped in her name and number on the contacts page. 

“Ok cool!” Dan said. “Prelims start at six! Shit, I gotta get back to it,” he said, nodding towards a small line forming at the register. The man in the blue apron was glaring at them, he’d seen them exchange numbers. It looked like Dan might get in trouble after all. 

Before she could lose her nerve, Freya walked to the front of the line.

“Hey are you the manager?” she asked, though she was sure he was. The man’s name tag read “Jeremy”. His nails were neatly filed and his shoes hadn’t been cheap. Jeremy glanced back at the line of people, a little perturbed she’d gone out of order. 

“Yes I am, is everything ok?”

“Everything was great! That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time. I love that you don’t use liquid smoke or maraschino cherries. Great service too. Sorry to butt in line, just wanted to tell you real quick!” 

She raised an apologetic palm to the line, but they were all men and they seemed fine with it. Jeremy’s incipient scowl melted into a smile. He was beaming.

“Well thank you!” he said. Clearly the fancy cherries and the charcoal grill had been his idea. “I’ll tell the kitchen, they’ll love to hear that. Thank you so much for coming!” 

She could see Dan watching them from a few paces away, he looked almost petrified. Freya gave him a Vitko chin-raise. She hoped that would help.

***

The rain had diminished into gently falling mist and water was beading on every surface. Freya thought about calling a cab, but the library wouldn’t be open for another half hour. She never wanted to hear another word about college football. She decided to walk.

The sky descended around her. Slow fingers of fog were driving across the gleaming black asphalt of the road, they swept over her as she walked along the shoulder with wet leaves sticking to her shoes.

There weren’t many cars out. The sound of water dripping off the bare trees surrounded her in a meaningless roar. The fog had swallowed her and she walked along the edge of the road through a white void. It was easy to wonder if this was all a dream and everything around her was about to sink into the sea. 

Freya glanced upward, looking for the pure black sky from her dreams but there was only fog. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and a million pinpricks of moisture beaded on the screen, her thumb left prismatic streaks as she swiped. The text from Dan with the address was there. It was real. 

Going to watch the fights had seemed like a courageous idea, but now the enormity of what she’d agreed to was swelling up around her. She didn’t know Brad Klein at all. Would she be the only girl there? She barely knew anything about MMA. She’d only seen a few matches when it was on the TVs at the pool hall while she was shooting with Randall. This could be an awful mistake.

As she imagined it, Freya started to feel short of breath. Her hands tingled. She was trapped now, if she went to the party she would be awkward and uncomfortable. She would make a fool of herself in front of everyone. If she didn’t go she would feel like a failure and Dan would hate her for getting him in trouble and blowing him off. He’d probably tell everyone she’d tried to get him fired.

Freya reached into her pocket for the Starball and held it in her fist, feeling reassured by its smoothness and warmth. Standing on the side of the road she started to run through one of the breathing exercises from chapter two of The Fragile Phoenix. Six measured inhalations and exhalations followed by one breath held for a count of seven then exhaled through her mouth, like she was blowing out a candle as slowly as she could.

She began walking again, trying to think reassuring thoughts. She would know most of the people there, they were in her class. She would get to watch some of the Jujitsu holds they’d learned in Krav Maga. Dan Gregulus had smiled at her when she handed his phone back to him. 

Freya could do this. If she didn’t like it she could just tell them she had a curfew and call a cab. She could almost believe herself, but there was a nagging feeling that she was wrong, almost like she was forgetting something.

The corralled corner turrets of the library emerged from the fog and she felt like she was arriving at a castle on some lonely moor after a long quest. The sign on the front door was still flipped to CLOSED but the lights were on inside, it wouldn’t be long. 

She could totally do this, she could make new friends. Freya ran through the breathing exercise again to try and push her doubts away. Out of everything in the book they’d been the most helpful. She thought she should remember to tell Dr. Garbuglio that next session. If he still seemed down, it might cheer him up.

Freya’s phone vibrated in her pocket, and she hesitated before she checked it. She was afraid it would be Lassa demanding she return home at once, or that Dan was rescinding the invite. She took another deep breath, told herself she didn’t care either way and pulled out her phone.

<Dan> You forgot your book! I’ll bring it tonight! 

Freya shut her eyes and wanted to die. 

Chapter 33

Chapter 33 Differential Edit

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33.

A fantasy. Why did Freya have to be so clever? Why hadn’t she just told the truth? Dan had sounded interested in the book, he was bound to take a look at The Fragile Phoenix. She’d been so busy trying to keep him from getting fired, she’d forgotten it at the counter.

The librarian waved to Freya as she unlocked the front door. Freya had to unclench her jaw to say hi as she walked in. She went straight to the fiction section, her steps seeming heavy in the hushed air. 

If she texted Dan and asked him not to look in the book, it would definitely make him do exactly that. Any excuse she could come up with sounded crazy. Her only hope was he’d be to busy to even thumb through it.

It was all ruined now. 

Freya had been looking forward to a morning at the library, perusing the shelves for as long as she wanted. She’d hoped to find enough books to last until the end of November.

Now all she could do was sit at the end of one of the long tables with her forehead against her palm, thinking how she’d messed everything up. 

A fantasy. 

At least now she didn’t need an excuse to skip the party. She sat there throbbing with embarrassment until finally she was sick of worrying about it. There was nothing she could do about it now, and if she sat here for too long, the librarian was bound to come check on her. Freya pulled out her phone and opened her book list. 

All the books people recommended to Freya were organized in a color-coded spreadsheet on her phone. First was a golden column with the name of the person who recommended the book to her. Author names were the teal column, titles were in lavender. There was a wide pale blue column at the end where Freya kept her notes as she read. She saved these so she could talk about the book with the recommender when when she finished. Freya didn’t like the idea of assigning numerical ratings to books, but she would sometimes bold a title when she really liked it. After she’d talked with the recommender and thanked them, she moved the row to the completed tab. Invariably the person who recommended the book would have another recommendation after that, so the list never ran out. 

Right now her open recommendations were: 

Mr. Rutteridge: 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami

Randall:

Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koelester

The L.A. Quartet - James Ellroy

The Dark Tower - Steven King

A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guinn

Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

Betty:

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker

Dr. Garbuglio: 

The Fragile Phoenix - Dr. Garbuglio :P

The library had all of Betty’s picks, Freya especially liked the cover of the Golem and the Jinni. She considered not checking out The Goblin Emperor, but Betty had a good grasp of how much bullshit Freya would put up with in a fantasy novel. She would have never have recommended a piece of junk like The Song of Sword. 

Freya walked along the shelves with a little stack growing beneath her arm as she looked for Mr. Rutteridge’s recommendations. These would be more demanding reads than Betty’s selections, and Freya only planned to pick one of them. She looked at all three, then settled on South of the Border, West of the Sun. She’d had more than enough solitude lately, and Kundera was supposed to be wrenchingly depressing. 

Freya spent a while browsing the paperback carousels before picking a yellowed 1984 copy of The Void Captain’s Tale by Norman Spinrad.  

Lastly Freya looked at the books under Randall’s name, and again she was only going to pick one. When she’d read these five recommendations, there would never be any more. The list under his name had been so long once. There was a lot of downtime as a small-town police officer and Randall was a voracious reader. One by one she’d whittled down his list until there were just these five remaining. 

Randall was always the best to talk with after she finished a book. He was always interested to hear what she thought. Freya could remember the way he smiled when she’d really enjoyed something he recommended, almost as proud as if he’d written it himself. 

Randall was where she’d gotten her habit of always finishing a book she started. She remembered starting Dune and flaming out fifty pages in. Randall had encouraged her to give it another fifty pages, and then when she still didn’t like it, he’d told her to go fifty more, saying she was almost at the good part. She read through the rest and then didn’t stop until she’d read the whole book and then the other five books in the series. For three whole months her head was swimming with stillsuits and sandworms and the tyranny of prescience. Randall even re-read Heretics and Chapterhouse so that he could talk with her about them. 

A few months after Randall was gone, Freya had the urge to re-read the original book. His hardcover copy was on the bookshelf in the hallway. It was from the Chilton printing, the dust jacket was the John Schoenherr painting with the flowing title. It was Freya’s favorite science fiction cover. But when she held the book, all she could think about was that it had been in her father’s hands. His fingers had touched the pages, his eyes had run over the words, and they never would again. She’d put Dune back on the shelf and hadn’t read anything for a while after that.

The memory beat against Freya, and she set her stack of books down. For a moment she had the urge to just leave them there and run out of the library. She could hit the pavement and start running until she was far away from this town, far away from everything. Her hand was in her pocket, closing on the Starball. Again she shut her eyes tight and tried to visualize herself in outer space.

It helped, but when she opened her eyes again Freya was back in the library, surrounded by the smell of old books and furniture polish. She was stuck here on earth, no matter where she went the memories would follow her.

Freya picked her books back up and walked back through the shelves, looking at Randall’s recommendations. The library didn’t have the Omnibus edition of the four James Ellroy books, and she didn’t want to carry four separate books. All the copies of The Dark Tower were checked out and King was kind of hit-or-miss for Freya anyway. Darkness at Noon sounded interesting, but the title reminded her too much of the black sky of her dreams. Wizard of Earthsea wasn’t on the shelf even though the computer said it was. 

That left Dying Inside. The library’s copy was a battered 1972 edition with the red and black dust jacket sealed with ancient yellowed laminate. It had a pocket at the back for when they’d used check-out cards but there was no slip in it. 

Freya had a thought and she took her stack of books up to the check-out counter. She had to wait a second while the librarian was helping an older woman who’d gotten confused by a pop-up on one of the library computers.

The librarian had very short hair, she couldn’t have been much older than her early forties but it was already mostly gray. She wore a long-sleeved shirt with a few tattoo lines visible around her collar and peeking out at her wrists. Freya thought there was a good chance this was Lynn Harris’s older sister, there was a strong resemblance. 

“Checking out?” she asked, and at once her eyes shot to the stack of books, noting each title.

“Yes, I had a question though, do you guys keep track of who checks each book out?”

“We do. There are records for all the books in our collection,” the librarian replied. 

“Oh that’s great!” Freya slid Dying Inside out from the middle of the stack and handed it over. “Can I see if this book was checked out by someone?”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t release that information. We don’t want people to be afraid others will look up what they’ve been reading.” The woman’s expression was a little severe, but her tone was polite. Now Freya was almost sure she was related to Lynn. They talked alike.  

“Even if it’s family? I just wanted to see if my dad checked out this book.”

“Even family, unless it’s for a child under the age of 12.”   

“Oh, ok, never mind,” Freya said, feeling dumb for asking. She slid her library card across the counter. The librarian ran it through the barcode reader, and was about to hand it back when she hesitated. Her eyes went from the card to Freya, and for a second Freya wondered if she was in trouble or something. Then the librarian scanned the inner back cover sticker on Dying Inside. She typed something in on her terminal, her eyes were darting from side to side as she read.

“Your dad checked this out eleven years ago, on September 23rd. He returned it on October 9th. Did you want me to look up the others?” There was a catch in the librarian’s voice as she spoke. Of course she knew about Randall. It was a small town. 

“No that’s ok, it was just this one.”

“It’s one of Silverberg’s best. I hope you enjoy it.” The librarian said quickly checked out the rest of the stack. Her bottom lip was tight as she handed Freya back her card.

“Thank you,” Freya said, feeling awkward. She took her stack of books and found a place to read where she couldn’t be seen from the check-out desk.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34 Differential Edit

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34.

Dying Inside was the story of David Selig, a neurotic mind reader who was slowly losing his powers. As Freya read the book, she could see why Randall had recommended it. The descriptions of telepathy were vivid and detailed, and Selig’s perspective was unique and achingly real. She plowed through nearly a hundred pages before the constant, crushing sadness of the book began to get to her. 

Freya had a strange feeling of someone reading over her shoulder. A few times she looked around, expecting to find someone staring at her, but there was no one. The library was not very busy, it was mainly elderly people milling around the computer terminals and reading the periodicals. Freya closed the book, and began to type in a note, thinking she ought to go ahead and call a taxi home. Before she could finish typing the note, she had a sudden uneasy feeling in her stomach. It seemed like the whole room had darkened a shade, and she wondered if something was up with the electricity. But no one else was looking up. It was all in her head, just like when she’d read The Stand. For months afterward every sniffle made her worry she’d contracted the superflu. Freya wondered if she should mention this to Dr. Garbuglio. The down feeling had swelled up around her out of nowhere. 

Before she could forget what she meant to write, Freya completed the note about how Selig reminded her of a cross between Professor X and Woody Allen. Maybe she could get a laugh from someone with that quip.

But from who? Who was she taking these notes for anyway? She would never get to have that conversation, her father was gone. When would she stop forgetting that a hundred times a day? A hundred let-downs, a hundred disappointments, a hundred realizations that nothing would ever be ok again. 

Freya moved to leave, and the feeling of a shadow pressing down on her returned until she slunk back into her seat. She didn’t have anywhere to go. With a sigh, she flipped the book back open, finding her place. Within a few pages, the heavy feeling passed, and she started to feel better. Though the book became increasingly miserable as it slumped to its conclusion, Freya found herself enjoying it more and more. At the end her hands were trembling with excitement.

Why do I feel like this?

Silverberg was an even better writer than she’d thought. Freya couldn’t remember the last time a book had affected her so physically. She took a deep breath, trying to center herself and reflexively reached into her pocket for the Starball. 

It was hot. 

Not the usual distant warmth. Actually hot, like a stone that had been baking in the sun. Not hot enough to hurt, just enough that it couldn’t possibly be her imagination. She glanced around the room, making sure no one was watching her. Freya drew the Starball out and stared at it, turning it over and over in her palm. Externally it was the same, why was it so hot? She prodded the orb with her left index finger to confirm, it was definitely warmer than she’d ever felt before. 

Was the Starball trying to tell her something? 

“Am I in danger?” she asked under her breath, wondering if the orb was trying to warn her. Freya glanced up, expecting the ceiling to be swallowed by the starless void, but everything was normal.

Freya was now talking to her pet rock from outer space, she’d finally lost it. She felt for her phone. Dr. Garbuglio had said she could call anytime, but Freya could feel turmoil building in her stomach again. It was a terrible idea. Telling Dr. G any part of this would be a one-way ticket to a mental hospital.

Lassa was gone, there would be no one to get her out. Freya stuck the phone back in her pocket, and the discomfort began to abate. She was starting to be very weirded out by these sudden shifts, it wasn’t like her. Was it another side effect of the Lunesta withdrawal? Did the Starball getting hot have anything to do with it?

Freya had no answers. At last all she could think to do was to pick up the copy of Dying Inside and walk it over to the returns desk. Maybe it was cursed and she’d feel better once she was rid of it. Too late she realized she should have waited until the librarian’s attention was elsewhere. 

“Ah, not for you?” the librarian asked, looking a little disappointed. 

“Oh no, haha. I just finished it.”

There was a moment where the librarian was clearly wondering if that was possible, but then she glanced at the clock and nodded. 

“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. You’re a fast reader, what did you think?” 

“It’s very stark. The mind-reading scenes were incredibly vivid, but the rest of the story was so bleak. The protagonist reminds me of a cross between Professor X and Woody Allen,”  

Freya got her laugh after all, though the librarian covered her mouth and she was quick about it. 

“That’s grand. You should write a review. It’s been almost twenty years since I read it, but I can still remember the scene at the farm, and some of his interactions with his sister…”

“Judith,” Freya reminded her. 

“That’s it. The part where she realizes Selig is reading her mind so she floods his head with disgusting images… I’ll never forget that. It’s a really exceptional book. Have you read More than Human?” 

“No, is that another Silverberg?”

“Theodore Sturgeon, it’s about a psychic gestalt made up of runaways. It’s a much different style, but very thought-provoking. Then if you want a gestalt on a far grander scope, you might like Starmaker by Olaf Stapeldon. It’s incredible, like nothing else I’ve ever read.” 

“I’ll add those to my list, thank you.” Freya had her phone out, she was tapping in the recommendations. 

“Oh that’s so clever! I should do that,” the librarian said. “I loved, loved, loved Never Let Me Go. It was just haunting.” 

Freya looked up, suddenly alarmed. The librarian could read upside down! She had been watching as Freya typed. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said, immediately realizing she’d overstepped. “I get carried away talking about books.”

“No, it’s totally ok,” Freya reassured her. “You’re Lynn Harris’s sister right?” 

“Yes, I’m Lee, very nice to meet you.” Lee extended a hand over the counter and Freya reached out to shake it. She looked surprised to be recognized, but in a pleasant way. The familial resemblance was only there if you were really looking for it. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at first. You’ve grown so much since the last time I saw you. Your dad was one of the biggest readers in town, he was such a good man.”

Freya caught a little twinge in the way Lee said that, as if she thought most men weren’t very good at all. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Lynn finished.

“It’s ok, thank you,” Freya said quietly. She desperately wanted to escape. “I’ll check and see if those are on the shelves.”

Freya found the books on the shelves. They were both trade paperbacks in the Gollancz SF masterworks series. She checked them out and added them to her pile.

Freya had intended to return home and drop off her books before the party. But now, she wasn’t so sure she would go out again if she went back to the house. She didn’t know what that strange feeling was all about, maybe there was something wrong with her. If she went straight to the party with a giant pile of books the boys there would definitely make comments. Then she remembered that Dan had The Fragile Phoenix, she’d been pushing that problem out of her mind all day. 

She could just go home and not deal with any of it. She could text Dan and ask him to bring the book to school tomorrow. Now that he knew she was nuts, he’d probably be relieved if Freya didn’t come. Then she thought it was even easier than that, she didn’t even have to text Dan. She just could tell Dr. Garbuglio she’d lost her copy. He had a whole shelf of them. She never had to talk to Dan Gregulus again. 

Take a chance. 

Freya didn’t have to go home and hide. She could just suck it up. Maybe Dan hadn’t even opened the book. Maybe he didn’t give a shit. Maybe it didn’t matter either way and she just wanted to hang out with a bunch of guys and watch men in a cage beat each other half to death. She looked at her stack of books and wished she had a grocery bag or something to hide them in. 

It dawned on Freya she could get a grocery bag… at the grocery store. She could show up with some food and everyone would be happy to see her. She’d thought she might never eat again after breakfast but that was a whole novel ago, she was already getting hungry. If people were busy eating they wouldn’t have time to notice if she was awkward as hell.

She waved goodbye to Lee Harris and set off for the supermarket. 

Chapter 35 - Starball

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35. STARBALL

EUREKA!

Chapter 36

Chapter 36 Differential Edit

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36.

Freya couldn’t believe she’d spent all day worrying about the party. Everything was fine. Dan didn’t mention the book at all. She only brought twenty dollars worth of chips and soda but when she arrived she felt like she was resupplying a fortress after a siege.

She got the feeling no one had really expected her to show up, and they seemed happy she had. For some reason she’d thought there would be like twenty people there, but there weren’t even ten. She already knew everyone except for Brad.

Brad Klein was an intense senior with freckles and curly red hair. He was the palest student at Grayson, it felt like he might burst into flames if struck by a wayward sunbeam. He was funny, but it was a biting wit. When he wasn’t joking his face was cold and serious, like Radomir’s. Brad was a polite host, but not overly friendly to Freya, which she liked. She could tell he needed to warm up to someone before he was nice to them. 

Besides Dan and Brad, there were Cameron Kowalski and Tate Green from Krav Maga. Freya was surprised to find Radomir Stich was there, she wondered who he was friends with in this group. He seemed just as surprised to see her, but she couldn’t tell if he was happy about it or not. She noticed he didn’t eat any of the chips she’d brought and drank water instead of soda. The others were not so restrained. Freya had worried a little she was overdoing it, but it looked like the snacks she’d brought wouldn’t even survive prelims.

Brad Klein’s basement was a great spot to watch the fights. There was a big sectional couch that made a U around a hundred inch television. Brad’s father did something with designing sound for concerts in New York, and there was a serious speaker system. She could feel the pulse of the subwoofers through the leather couch. 

Everyone seemed a little toned down during the first fight, she wondered if they felt uncomfortable around her. The second fight was terrible, it was a heavyweight bout and both fighters got gassed in the second round. The rest of the fight was just the two fighters hugging it out, the referee even threatened to take points for not engaging. Freya stuck out her tongue and pretended to snore, and that was the signal for everyone to go in. Each of them started trying outdo each other jeering the screen. Cameron Kowalski and Dan Gregulous were the best at it. They started doing exaggerated voices for the lackluster fighters as the men on screen grappled ineffectively.

“Take me now Tsouris! Right here in this octagon!” Cameron mocked.  

“No Antonio! No one must know of our forbidden love! Stop this clumsy armbar attempt!”

“Only if you’ll release your rear naked choke on my heart!” Cameron cried back, clutching his chest. 

“Kiss me you fool! Don’t let him tear us apart!” Dan clowned, as the referee separated the exhausted men for the third time. They were ridiculous, Freya couldn’t keep from cracking up. Dan caught her eye for a moment and grinned at her. Her cheeks got hot and she turned back to the screen, just as the referee was lifting Tsouris’ arm. Brad Klein groaned they should have both lost and Freya joined the rumble of agreement. 

More of the preliminary fights went by, and Freya was glad she’d come. When she asked why a referee was warning a fighter about an elbow, Tate explained the rule against 12 to 6 elbow strikes, which everyone seemed to agree was bullshit. She tried not to ask too many questions. She’d been afraid the action would be too hard to follow but it was pretty easy, even with the boys drowning out the commentators. They all got excited together whenever they saw a technique from class, one of the fights on the main card was an Israeli woman who Vitko had told them to look out for. 

Just when Freya was starting to feel really comfortable, a car drove up and three girls joined them. Claire Meadows had driven over with Jennette Lewis the captain of the lacrosse team, and Riley Halstead who was the goalie. Riley had her hair dyed electric blue on one side of her part and hot pink on the other. Claire gave Freya a quick nod when she noticed her. After everyone greeted each other, the room quickly became a roar of chatter with three conversations going on at once. Claire beelined to a spot beside Freya.

“Shove over,” Claire ordered Tate, who was sitting beside Freya. For a second Freya hoped Tate would tell Claire to fuck off. Instead he raised his palms at the group as if to say “are you seeing this?” and scooted over in complete capitulation. A few people chuckled. 

Freya wondered why he hadn’t stood up for himself, she was enjoying chatting with him. While the others were mostly just clowning, Tate had a good eye for the technical aspects of the fights. He called out a lot of dirty moves fighters were getting away with before the announcers did, and he was good at predicting how the judges scored each round.

“We’re cousins, I get to give him shit,” Claire explained, noticing Freya’s look. “Did you get in trouble the other day?” 

“No, he never said anything. Total softie,” Freya said, remembering Claire had used that term. She got an “I told you so” smile in return. Claire had a very intense focus when she was talking to someone, like she was shutting out everything else.

“What happened?” Tate asked. 

“Nothing, hush,” Claire shot back, looking annoyed.

“I had to duck into a bathroom to escape Mr. Farrelli before he could talk me to death,” Freya explained, tilting her head around Claire to talk to Tate. She didn’t like the way Claire was walling him off.

“Oh my GOD, I had him last year he never shuts up,” Riley shot in from the other couch. Suddenly everyone there was echoing in agreement. 

Another fight started up on the television and everyone turned back to it. Claire had never seen MMA before, she wasn’t shy about asking questions. Tate mostly filled her in, and Freya was struck by how differently he spoke. He treated Claire like she was a complete idiot for not knowing, and she teased him right back. A few times the others broke out laughing at them. It made her wonder if this was the real Tate and he’d just been nice to Freya because he felt sorry for her. 

All the chips had been wiped out, Jennette was poking at a bag that was just salt and pretzel dust. 

“Does anyone want to order pizza or something?” she asked. 

“Pizza would be incredible. I’m hungry,” Freya answered. 

“How is that even possible?” Dan asked. “You ate like an entire cow this morning!”

“Did you just call her a cow?” Claire spun towards Dan.

“I didn’t say that!” Dan protested. 

People were turning away from the fight on the TV to watch the one brewing on the sofa. “She ate the biggest steak I’ve ever seen at the diner this morning, that’s all.” 

“Oh? So she can’t eat what she wants?”

“I didn’t say that! I was impressed, actually.”

“Eating breakfast is impressive to you?”

“Jesus Claire, lighten up…” Dan trailed, shaking his head, but she kept glaring at him. “…by about thirty pounds!” he finished, mugging at her with an open-mouthed grin. 

“Ohhhh shit!” Cameron cried, and Dan had already flipped over the back of the couch to escape, Claire was on her feet and running after him. 

“OUTSIDE!” Brad Klein shouted. 

Dan darted around the sectional and wrenched the back door open, dashing up the steps and into the yard. Claire was hurtling after him, she nearly had him as he paused at the door, but as soon as he was out in the open she had no hope of ever catching him. It didn’t keep her from trying. Freya and the others could see the two sets of legs running past the windows ringing the basement as the two circled the house. Dan kept slowing down to a trot and letting her almost catch up before he took off again. 

“Maybe you could catch me if you weren’t so fat!” they heard him call back through the basement door, and she howled back at him so mad she couldn’t even make words and puffed after him.  

“If she ran like that at practice we’d win more games,” Jennette observed, and Riley started cackling. Freya noticed Jennette’s eyes go to Radomir to see if he was laughing, but of course he wasn’t. She winced in sympathy.

“Can you get her to shut up before the neighbors call the police?” Brad Klein asked Jenette. They heard the howl rounding the house again, Claire ran past the open door, her face was almost completely red. 

“Sounds like they might call animal control instead,” Tate quipped, and Cameron and Riley roared with laughter, until Dan ran down the steps to join them. He wasn’t even winded, but he looked uneasy.

“She just jumped in her car!” he said. For a moment everyone was looking out the window, afraid she was about to ram the house. But instead they heard her engine roaring, and then it faded away. 

“Wait did she just fucking drive off?” Jennette asked, standing on her toes to try and see out the window. “She was our ride. Why do you have to be such an asshole Dan?”

“She started that! She’s been mad at me for like two months, I don’t even know why.” 

Freya was about to blurt something out but she was glad she didn’t. 

“Maybe she will come back?” Radomir offered. 

“She won’t,” Tate said, and Jennette and Riley were both nodding in agreement. 

“I can cover her share of the pay per view,” Dan offered. 

“I got it, don’t worry,” Brad said, sighing at him. Dan returned an apologetic look. 

“That old Gregulous charm,” Cameron teased. “Seriously though, are we getting pizza?”

“I’ll text her I’m sorry, ok?” Dan offered, ignoring Cameron.  

“God don’t. You’ll only make things worse. Just give us a ride home later,” Jennette said.

“You live all the way in Fairmont!” Dan complained. 

“Next time think before you open your big dumb mouth,” Jennette said. 

“Can your car even make it to Fairmont?” Brad Klein asked with a grin. 

“I bet he doesn’t have enough gas to get to the end of the block,” Riley chimed in. 

“See, this is why I don’t like hanging out with Lacrosse girls, they gang up on you,” Dan said, rolling his eyes at Riley. 

“They can gang up on me any time they want,” Cameron offered.

“Ewwww,” both Riley and Jennette said in unison, and Cameron stood up and swept into a deep theatrical bow. 

Freya was just sitting there watching it all happen. How did they do it? Everyone seemed to know everyone, they were all so witty. It seemed effortless to them. Except for Radomir and he didn’t have to be funny, he was a genius. But what was she? Freya felt completely superfluous. Worse than that, if she wasn’t here the drama never would have happened. She wondered if she should just go, her hand thrust into her pocket and closed on the Starball. 

“Seriously I totally wasn’t calling you a cow, I’m sorry,” Dan said, seeming a little crestfallen. He was doing that thing where someone does something rude and then they overcompensate being too nice to everyone else. She got the idea that this wasn’t the first time Claire had made a scene like this. Probably not the first time Dan had gone too far teasing someone either.

“It’s not a big deal. I don’t know why she was being a bitch on my behalf,” Freya said. “I’ve been running every night, I get really hungry in the morning.”

“Whaaaat?! When did you start running? Are you going to try out for track in the spring? We have a really good crew for cross country this fall.” Words were tumbling out of Dan’s mouth. He had the same sudden gleam of interest that Radomir did when people brought up dance.

“No, I’m just uh. Vitko told to try it. I have insomnia, he said to just keep running until I got tired.” 

“Does that work?”

“So far, yeah. He’s pretty smart.”

“I don’t know what he’s doing here, he’s way too good for this town. He could have a whole giant school in New York.”

“I bet he’s spying on Hiidenkirnu for Israel,” Cameron said. 

“No dummy his wife works there,” Tate rolled his eyes. 

“I bet she’s spying on Hiidenkirnu for Israel,” Cameron amended. 

“Nobody is spying for Israel. Except Brad,” Tate said.  

“Oh fuck off,” Brad groaned. “I don’t even like it there. My dad is trying to get me to go for Birthright this summer, I want to go back to New Zealand instead.”

“What’s it like there?” Jennette asked.

“It’s so awesome! There are two main islands, the north is full of people and the south is super rugged and beautiful—“ Brad began.  

“Pizzapizzapizzapizzzapizza…” Cameron kept repeating it until everyone could no longer ignore him. They gathered cash for pizza, Freya wanted to kick in but they wouldn’t let her because she’d brought stuff. 

The prelims ended and they swapped over to pay per view for the main event. The conversation turned into Brad and Jennette talking about New Zealand across Radomir, while Dan and Cameron were trying their hardest to recruit Freya onto the track team. She couldn’t understand why people cared who ran faster than who, but at least they were excited about it. They were both really funny, she wondered why Dan wasn’t in drama this year, but she couldn’t really ask since she wasn’t either. 

Finally the fights for the pay per view started, everyone’s excitement ratcheted up. The first fight was the #3 and #5 men’s lightweight contenders. The #2 guy was injured, and whoever won this would get a shot at the title. 

This fight was nothing like the ones before. The two men launched themselves at each other from the first moment, darting in and out, weaving and dodging. There were more punches thrown in the first thirty seconds than there had been in the entire heavyweight fight. It was almost difficult to follow the action or tell who was winning, the punches seemed to have no impact. 

Freya glanced around the room and saw everyone’s eyes darting at the screen, the television gleaming in their eyes. Radomir was practically transfixed, his jaw dropped as everyone began to roar with excitement. When she looked back to the screen, the fight was over! In the replay she watched the #3 fighter feint a kick and then when the other fighter raised his leg to check it he leapt up and cracked him with a flying knee, knocking him out cold. Doctors were swarming into the ring as #3’s team rushed in cheering. The victor climbed onto the wall of the octagonal cage and raised his fist to the crowd as sweat rained off of him. 

“His footwork is so much better than the other fighter. Everything he does comes from his legs,” Radomir said, looking slightly awed. 

“He was a kickboxer before he came to MMA,” Tate said. “This is gonna be a good card. First round flying knee knockout!”   

The second fight was even better, it was a women’s strawweight fight with Flavia Milavetz, the Israeli fighter Vitko had told them to watch. She was fighting former champion Rita Blazek. This fight had much less striking, Milavetz was primarily a grappler, she threw a few kicks to keep Blazek guessing but she was mostly looking for a way in. All of her takedown attempts in the first round were stuffed, and Blazek made her pay for all of them. Just before the closing bell she caught Milavetz with a left hook that opened up a big cut on her cheekbone. 

Midway through the second round she was bleeding so much they called in the doctor. The doctor scrutinized Milavetez for only a few moments before announcing the fight could go on, and between the rounds they were slathering gobs of vaseline on the cut. The fight continued into the third round and Tate was certain she’d lost the first two rounds but told them Blazek needed to watch out, because anything could happen in the third. Blazek was looking tired, Milavetz had wobbled her with an elbow to the temple after a failed takedown attempt. 

Almost immediately after the start of the round Milavetz caught an ill-timed kick and drove Blazek back across the cage, as she hopped on one foot trying to stay upright. Finally she collapsed and Milavetz seized her moment, locking her up and getting her back. 

There was a moment where the camera was focused on both of their faces, as blood dripped off Milavetz’s face onto the back of Blazek’s head. Blazek had both of her hands trying to wrench free from the arm snaking around her neck, but she didn’t have the strength to stop it. With horrid fascination they all watched Milavetz crank down on her neck, her eyes aflame with fury as Blazek’s were rolling with desperation. 

“She should tap. She should tap!” Tate said, his voice cracking with excitement. The referee rushed in to separate them but Blazek was unconscious. For a moment Milavetz was looming over her, her hands clenched into claws, looking like she wanted to finish what she’d started. But then the spell broke, she looked around seeming almost surprised at the lights and noise surrounding her. The referee was moving her back towards her corner. The doctor was in the cage again, and a hush fell over the crowd. Milavetz fell to her knees as they waited to see if Blazek would come around. 

“She almost looks like another person,” Dan breathed. There was none of the jubilation from the first fight in Milavetz’s expression. Pale blue eyes peered out from under a mask of blood. Finally Blazek came around, but it was a while before she could get up, and she couldn’t walk out of the cage without assistance.

“Why did they let it go on that long?” Jennette asked, she sounded a little shaken.

“The ref was right there, it wasn’t his fault. Blazek should have tapped,” Tate said. “They’re never the same after they get knocked out like that.”

They all stared at the screen, the camera kept focusing on Milavetz’ haunted expression. The announcers were talking about the fight in a subdued, almost somber tone. 

Freya looked around the room, fascinated by how people were taking it. Tate’s face was tight with sadness, he had been rooting for Blazek. Dan and Cameron both looked a bit shaken, for once they weren’t joking. Jennette and Riley both had queasy expressions. Only Radomir seemed fully awake, he watched the screen with wide-open eyes, electrified by the brush with death. He caught her eye for a moment and glanced away, looking a little like he’d been caught. 

Thirty years of darkness. 

Chapter 37

Chapter 37 Differential Edit

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37.

The fight ended but the dark mood lingered. Another bout was starting, but everyone felt antsy in the basement. When the pizzas arrived, they seized their chance to escape and went to eat in the back yard.

The moon had vanished behind a bank of clouds and it was cold, but no one seemed to mind. There was still a sheen of water on the patio furniture, so they stood around the table holding slices folded into Vs and teased each other. 

Jennette wouldn’t eat hers until she dabbed at it with a wad of napkins to sop up the grease. Freya saw Dan eyeing her with that animated look he got before he launched into a joke. Brad noticed too, he slid his head between Dan and Jennette and shook his head, mouthing NO. 

Dan’s bottom lip was tight, locking in whatever dumb thing he’d meant to say. Freya started giggling, and Dan grinned at her and shrugged. The others didn’t notice the exchange, it was something just between them. 

Tate was asking Riley about the band patches on her jean jacket, she was 18 and went to every punk rock show that came within a hundred miles of Sillas. Cameron, Radomir, and Jennette were talking about the fall dance. Jennette kept looking over hopefully at Radomir but he was oblivious. Freya was so glad she wasn’t tangled up in anything romantic. It was interesting to watch from the outside but she remembered the awful churning uncertainty she’d felt about Peter Berl last year during No Exit.

There was a moment where no one was speaking to Freya and she could just take it all in. Everyone was illuminated in the golden glow of the exterior lights. Wind was whistling through the bare branches of the forest behind the yard, but the cold couldn’t touch her. She was suddenly struck by how much she liked being around these people. Everyone had been so nice to her.

Freya couldn’t believe she’d almost gone home and spent the night reading alone. The thought reminded her of The Fragile Phoenix, and she was sure Dan hadn’t had a chance to look at it. He would have cracked a joke by now. As Freya turned to look at Dan she could see the a crescent of light sweeping through the trees behind him. On the other side of the house she could hear the roar of an engine being gunned as a car shot up the driveway.

“Someone’s here,” Freya said.

“Shit, is that your dad?” Jennette asked. Suddenly there was tension in the group, everyone seemed afraid they were about to get rousted.

“Not a chance, he’s in Munich. Maybe someone called the police about Claire?” Brad offered.

“Maybe it is Claire,” Cameron said. 

Dan was rubbing the back of his head, Freya had noticed he did the whenever he felt uncomfortable. There were voices from around the house, and a shadow slipped into the back yard, peering around uncertainly.  

“Oh shit is that Rigo?” Cam called out, and Rodrigo Dawson yelled back “Ey Camarón!”

Rigo sprinted across the wet lawn to clasp hands with Cam. They had been friends since grade school, both were on the wrestling team. “What are you doing here man?” Cam asked, and Rigo shrugged.  

“I’m just along for the ride,” Rigo grinned. It was practically a catchphrase. Rigo was well-liked at Grayson, he was in perpetually high spirits because he was perpetually high.

Another newcomer was rounding the house, a little unsteady on their feet. Freya was surprised to see it was Jane Yang. 

“Hey, is Claire here? This is the party right?” Jane asked, not noticing Freya. It was weird, but then Freya noticed Jane wasn’t wearing her glasses. Her eyes seemed very small without them.   

“Uh… no?” Brad said. “Claire left like an hour ago. Sorry.”

“Oh! She didn’t text me,” Jane said, seeming a little out of it. Freya wondered if she’d been crying, her eyes were a little red. She decided to pop up and surprise Jane, she could find out what was wrong and cheer her up.

“What’s good everybody?” A new voice called out from behind Jane. Freya froze, she’d been about to spring up on Jane but now she wanted to run in the opposite direction.

Malcolm Lewis stepped out of the shadows to stand beside Jane and Rigo, he was almost two feet taller than Jane. An opened 30 rack of Coors Light was dangling from his hand, and he had a big smile.

Everyone turned to stare. As the conversations died, they could hear the distant voices of announcers booming from the speakers in the basement. Malcolm squinted in confusion, then he noticed Freya. His smile became a look of disgust. Only Jane seemed oblivious to the dead air.

“Oh! Shit, Freya, what are you doing here?” Jane asked. She didn’t seem thrilled to see Freya. Now that Jane was closer, Freya could smell the pot smoke clinging to her. 

“I’m in the class,” Freya reminded Jane. If Jane wasn’t going to say hi to her, she wasn’t going to say hi to Jane. 

“Oh right, Crab Maga. Claire told me you were taking it. How is it?”

“Fun,” Freya replied. Behind her she could hear Dan and Cameron snickering.

“That’s so cool, I was thinking about trying it.” 

There was strain in her voice. Jane looked over at Dan, hoping for approval, but instead she found everyone was staring at her. For a moment Freya felt sympathy, but why was Jane here with Malcolm?

“Yo is there pizza? I can throw five on it,” Rigo asked, producing a taped-up five dollar bill. 

“Look at this man with his busted-ass money. Put it away Rigo, we got plenty. What kind you want?” Cameron popped open the lid on the pizza with pepperoni and black olives.

“Whatever man, it’s all good,” Rigo said. He joined up with Cam and took a slice. It broke the tension, and everyone seemed relieved. Except for Freya. 

It had all been going so well, but of course, everything had fallen apart. She didn’t want to be here anymore. Malcolm was still staring at her. Freya turned around and took a few steps away from the group towards the woods, pulling out her phone.

“Is everything cool?” Brad asked, approaching from the side. 

“Sure, everything’s fine. It’s getting late, I have to get home.”

“You’ll miss the main event! It’s supposed to be really good,” Brad angled. Freya wondered why he was trying to keep her there. She’d already made one person leave.  

“Ah, I’m sorry to miss it. I had a really good time, thank you for having me over.” 

“You’re welcome anytime! Thank you for bringing food,” Brad said.

She tried calling the cab, but it went to voicemail. She hung up to try again.

“Woah. Hold up. Is she calling the police?” Malcolm called out from behind her. Again everything came to a halt. Rigo turned to Malcolm with his mouth full of pizza, looking exasperated. 

“What are you talking about?” Brad asked.  

“That girl is crazy as fuck. I got suspended for three days because of her. Then she lied to the police about me.”

Freya clenched her phone, the other curled into a fist. 

“He’s lying. He got suspended because he was on camera with three other people who jumped me for no reason,” Freya shot back. Her stomach began to hurt, she was afraid he would tell everyone about the weird thing at the river.

“Nah, that’s not it. She pretended to be hurt to get us all in trouble. Everyone knows she’s insane.”

“That is complete bullshit. I dumped this guy and he’s been following me around ever since. He’s a creep.”

“No one is following you! Why would I expect you to be at a party? You don’t have any friends!”

“I’m leaving anyway. Don’t talk to me,” Freya shot back.  

“What the fuck is wrong with you Malcolm?” Jennette demanded. 

“C’mon man. Chill out Mal, we’re guests here,” Rigo said, holding his hands up. There was a line of marinara sauce on the heel of his right palm. 

But Malcolm wouldn’t drop it. He was looking around at everyone, getting agitated when no one seemed to be hopping on his side. 

“Why is she even here?” he asked. 

“She was invited. Why are you here?” Brad answered. He walked up to confront Malcolm, who was tall enough that Brad had to crane his neck. 

“I was invited too.” 

“I didn’t invite you,” Brad retorted. 

“Claire did.” 

“OK. It’s my house. Leave.” 

“The fuck is your problem?” Malcolm asked. He was getting in Brad’s face, but Brad didn’t flinch. 

“My problem? There’s trash on my lawn,” Brad shot back, balling his fists. In about two seconds one of them was going to throw a punch and Brad was going to get annihilated. But before it could happen, Rigo rushed up to grab Malcolm by the arm. The cardboard handle of the beer case ripped and cans spilled onto the lawn.

“Yooo! Sorry everybody we are leaving! Malcolm is way too high. Thanks for the pizza, and sorry to intrude.”

“Get off me man!” Malcolm’s voice rose sharply. Freya realized she should have been calling the police all along. 

“You’re being an asshole. Stop it!” Jane spoke up. She was about to cry. Malcolm was trying to twist free from Rodrigo’s grip, but Rigo had his arm locked up. Brad took the opportunity to step back.

“That’s right! Run away, pussy!” Malcolm shouted after him. 

Dan Gregulus stepped in between the two of them, with his arms outstretched like a referee. 

“Enough! We’re missing real fights for this amateur shit. Malcolm why don’t you jet? This isn’t really your kind of party. None of us even drink man.” 

For a moment, disappointment crossed Malcolm’s face. He hadn’t come here for this. Rigo was still locked on his arm and Jane was fuming at him. Dan bent down and picked up the wounded 30 rack, holding it out to Malcolm.

“Here, no hard feelings.”

Malcolm hesitated a moment, then he slapped the case to the ground with his free hand. 

“Why don’t you fucking make me, Gregulus?” Malcolm strained again to get free, but Rigo wasn’t letting go. 

“OK,” Dan replied. He shifted his stance, ready to fight.     

Malcolm hadn’t expected that. He stopped struggling, sizing Dan up. A moment passed, and when Malcolm made no move, Dan shrugged and turned to Freya.

“I can just give you a ride home. Fuck this guy,” Dan said, turning his back on Malcolm.  

“That’s right! Run off you white-knighting faggot! You’re lucky we’re not alone!” 

Dan turned back to him. 

“OK. Let’s go right now. Let him go Rigo,” Dan said. Freya couldn’t understand how Dan was so calm. Malcolm was a lot bigger than him.

“Nah, let’s not ok? These dudes are like MMA and shit, c’mon fool.”

“Let me go pussy! I’ll fuck him up!” Malcolm spat. They could see Rodrigo blench at the words, but he kept trying to haul Malcolm away. 

“Hey Rigo! Cut this idiot loose,” Cam called out.

Rodrigo let go so suddenly that Malcolm stumbled towards Dan. 

“You ready?” Dan asked, putting his hands up. Malcolm looked back at Rigo, now that no one was holding him back he didn’t look so eager anymore. 

“Fuck off. You’ll probably all gang up on me.”

“Just me. You ready?” Dan extended a fist as if they were about to touch gloves in a bout. 

“I’m not stupid,” Malcolm shot back. He didn’t put his own hands up. 

“Debatable!” Tate called out from the back. Closer to the fight, Radomir laughed a single loud Ha!

“Shut the fuck up, Fagomir,” Malcolm fired at him. 

“Пошёл На Хуй!” Radomir shot back, in the heat of the moment he’d reverted to Russian. Freya’s eyes widened, she knew what he’d said. When Radomir saw Malcolm looking confused he tried again in English. 

“Go onto a cock! Take your beating, coward.”

Cameron started laughing first, and Tate followed, it infected everyone but Dan and Malcolm. Radomir had spoken seriously, but sounded so ridiculous. Freya couldn’t help but laugh herself, and after a moment even Dan was cracking up.

Surrounded by laughter, with Dan standing in front of him ready to fight, Malcolm seemed to finally realize he was on his own. His eyes shot around in the yellow light, looking for a way to save face. Finally he abandoned the broken case of beer and walked away without another word. 

Cameron and Tate were still laughing as Malcolm vanished into the darkness, and Dan gave a Bras d’honneur at the retreat.   

“And still undefeated!” Cameron called out, lifting Dan’s arm like a champion. They could hear Malcolm’s engine rev as he peeled out of the driveway. Inside the house the announcers were roaring, something big had happened in the final round. The excitement died away and everyone was suddenly staring at Jane Yang. 

“I’m so sorry Freya,” Jane said. Freya stared at her and shrugged, she had nothing nice to say. All she had to do was say it was ok, and hug Jane to fix everything, but she didn’t. Jane turned away from the group and started to cry.

Everyone looked around, uncertain and uncomfortable. Radomir’s eyes met Freya’s. Once they would have both rushed over to comfort Jane, but it wasn’t like that anymore. Freya felt a mixture of confusion and guilt. She should have relented. But why was Jane hanging out with Malcolm? She was probably fucking him.

“Well shit, we can uh, call a taxi I guess?” Rigo said, trying to break up the awkwardness. “Sorry about that dude, his family is REAL messed up.”

“C’mon Rigo. That guy’s just an asshole. Why do you hang out with him? You can do better,” Cam chided.

“Ahhh he’s my teammate you know? I never seen him act the fool like this before. Plus he’s got wheels.”

“How’s that working out for you?” Cam tilted his head in the direction of the driveway.

“Not so good at present, you know?” Rigo shrugged at the situation. He didn’t seem too put out. 

“Hey Brad, can this dumbass stay and watch the fight with us?” Cam asked.

“Ya sure, I don’t care. You can both stay. I just meant Malcolm, with the whole trash on my lawn thing. Not you guys” Brad clarified. “Do you two want some more pizza?”

“Oh no doubt. Thank you!” Rigo happily took another slice. Jane turned around and apologized to everyone again, not meeting Freya’s eyes. She snuffled and took a slice too.

She’s getting fat, Freya thought uncharitably, and then she wondered why she was being so mean. Freya had eaten two slices herself and she was planning on eating another once everyone else caught up. When Jane had turned away and cried she’d almost been glad, it was a terrible way to feel. It was a Lassa way to feel.

After it all, she wondered if she ought to just go home anyway. Everything was awkward and weird now, and it was all because of her. She felt the Starball in her pocket, did it only seem warmer because it was cold out? 

Freya realized that the thing with Malcolm would be much worse after this. Word of what had happened would be everywhere at school, he would be furious. She wondered if she should try and get a restraining order against him, but he hadn’t really done anything yet she could prove. She wished he would just disappear, and her thoughts went again to the black case in Lassa’s closet.

The others were gathering up the pizza boxes and cans of Coors Light and headed back into the house. Dan lingered behind the others, they were the last ones left outside.

“You coming?” he joked, and she nodded, feeling like she ought to say something. 

“Hey, thank you for that. I wish I was big enough to fight him.”

“I’m not even sure I’m big enough,” Dan said, with his hand on the back of his head. “He has forty pounds on me, kind of glad he chickened out.”

“Take your beating, coward!” Freya did a pretty good impression of Radomir. 

“Haha, that’s him. Perfect. Do you know what he said before that?”

“It was the same thing. ‘Go onto a dick’ is like the Russian version of go fuck yourself,” she explained. “Radomir says Russian is the best language in the world to curse in.” 

“Haha, whaaaat. Radomir is crazy. I’m surprised he came out. Jennette wanted me to invite him, but uh. I mean, you know him. There’s no way, right?”

“There’s no way,” Freya shook her head. 

“Is he into guys then?”

“I kinda don’t think he’s into anyone. Literally all he cares about is dancing. I’m surprised he could even come out, usually he’s away for the weekends studying.”  

“Yeah he said this was his one weekend off for the month. Wild. Well he seems like he’s having a good time at least.” 

“Wait, is that why you invited me here?” Freya asked, suddenly worried they were trying to fix her up with Tate or something. 

“No! I just, you know, you’re in the class with us. You’re cool. I would have invited you on Wednesday but you were with Vitko afterward.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry for driving everyone away.”

“That’s not your fault. I don’t know what’s up with Claire, she’s been weird like this all month with me.”

“Oh—“ Freya began and she wasn’t sure if she should go on. Dan gave her a look, and she felt like she had to tell him.

“Well, I don’t know this for sure, but I think Jane likes you, and I think Claire likes Jane. That’s just a guess, please don’t tell them you heard that from me.”

“Oh! No! There’s no way,” Dan said. “I mean, shit, that sounds mean, I’m just not, you know. That’s not happening,” he concluded. 

Freya was surprised at how relieved she felt.

“That sorta explains the Claire thing,” Dan continued. “I don’t know why she didn’t just ask me about it. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, no problem, thanks for inviting me here, everyone is really cool. I think I might go home though,” Freya said, making the decision mid-sentence.

“Oh really? I’d kinda like to uh, not deal with the whole Jane thing. Do you want a ride home? I wanted to talk with you about your book.” 

Freya felt like the ground was crumbling beneath her feet.

“Oh. So you looked at it,” Freya said, her eyes on the grass. Why the hell had she lied to him at the diner?”

“Ha, way more than just looked at. I’ve read The Fragile Phoenix about three times. I’ve been seeing Dr. G for years.”

“What?” Freya blinked. “How? You’re so together.”

“I didn’t use to be. I’d like to talk with you about it if you want to.”

It took her a moment to process. Her first thought was to refuse, but as she considered the idea, she really did want to talk with him about therapy.

“Yeah, we could do that,” Freya said, and when he smiled at her, it cut right through her. She would never have suspected. She remembered the grocery bag full of library books in Brad’s front hallway.

“Oh! I have to get my bag from inside anyway. Do you want to just catch the last two fights then go?”

“Yeah, totally. Just uh, help me fend off Jane please.”

“Just use your Crab Maga to defend yourself,” Freya said and they laughed as they walked inside together. 

Chapter 38

First part of video is in previous post

Chapter 38 Differential Edit

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38. 

“I still expect her. Isn’t that weird? I was sitting in the park the other day after a run. People were walking past and I caught myself searching their faces, with this tiny hope that one would be her. I know she’s gone, I know I’ll never see her again. But that little hope just never goes away.”

Freya and Dan had driven around for an hour talking before they wound up sitting on the bench in Thoreau Bridge Park. The same one where Malcolm had ambushed her, on the day she’d decided to keep the Starball a secret forever. The tupelo tree that had been half bald was bare now, and the black river was flowing quietly as they talked.

Dan’s car was immaculate inside, there were no fast food wrappers in the foot well, no debris in the cupholders. It was just an old white Toyota sedan but Dan clearly took good care of it. She’d never been in a student’s car before where she hadn’t had to take a bunch of junk out of the passenger seat just to sit down. There was a faint smell of Armor-All, it reminded her of Randall’s truck.

The drive was awkward at first with long patches of silence. Dan didn’t turn on the radio. Every other time she’d been in a boy’s car they always cranked up the stereo, but Dan just wanted to talk. He’d wanted to know how long she’d been seeing Dr. Garbuglio, why she’d started, if she was taking anything, all kinds of questions. Not in a nosy way, it was more that he hadn’t talked to anyone else who’d been through therapy and wanted to compare experiences. 

He spent a long time thinking about each of her responses, his brow furrowed as he scanned the glistening wedge of road illuminated by his headlights. Like Lassa, Dan never took his eyes off the road as he drove. It was strange to see him concentrating on a task, he didn’t smile, and he almost seemed like someone else. Finally she’d asked if they could stop somewhere. She hadn’t meant the river but nothing in town was open. Now the roles had shifted, and Dan was pouring his heart out to her on the riverside bench. 

“Was she older or younger than you?” Freya asked.

“She was my identical twin.”

“Oh wow. Do you want to talk about what happened?” 

“Yeah, it’s ok. Different-sex monozygotic twins are really rare, and the female usually has Turner Syndrome.”

“What is that?”  

“It’s a genetic defect where parts of the X chromosome are missing. She died from a heart defect associated with it. Her name was Angie.”

“How long has it been?” Freya asked. 

“Five years in December.”

“Oh god,” she breathed.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore. Or, maybe that’s not quite right. It aches but it’s not immediate, not crippling like it used to be. There’s always the feeling she’s gone, like I’m missing one of my fingers.” 

“That’s what I’m afraid of, that it will never get better.”

“It does. I used to feel like I was missing an arm. Right after she died, I couldn’t even recognize myself. For a long time, it was like I was watching someone else do everything. I felt like I was haunting myself.” 

Freya nodded, her bottom lip tight. She didn’t tell him she was sorry or offer him platitudes. She knew the distance could not be bridged.

“All of this is just between us right?” Dan asked, with a careful look.

“Yes, absolutely,” Freya said.

“About three months after Angie died, I started swimming in the gulf every day. I would push myself until I was totally exhausted, trying to escape. I kept swimming farther out. I would get as far from the shore as I dared and then think ‘maybe today’s the day I don’t make it back.’ Then I would feel at peace, caught in that maybe. It was almost like a game. I didn’t quite realize at the time that I was trying to kill myself. I kept pushing it and finally I got caught in this big storm that swept in out of nowhere. I was way too far out, I couldn’t see the shore, and the waves got crazy. I was one hundred percent sure I was going to die. And I knew right away that I wanted to live. Hey are you ok?” 

Dan became a blur. Freya’s eyes had teared up without warning again, just like the knife drill. She let out a deep, shuddering breath and  rubbed her eyes. 

“It’ll pass,” Freya said, willing it to be true. It became too quiet, the gentle sound of the river was becoming unbearable. She slipped her hand into her pocket and clutched the Starball. 

“I’m sorry. Can you go on please?.” 

“Sure. We can stop any time you need, ok?”

“Ok.”  

“So, the storm. All I could do was tread water, and hope I didn’t get swept out to sea. I was lucky, it blew over pretty quickly. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. When I made it back to land I was so exhausted I literally crawled up the beach to get to the dunes. I had drifted a long way from where I’d stashed my shoes and my keys, and couldn’t find them until it was almost dark. I can remember stumbling home in wet sneakers, feeling just ecstatic, soo happy I was alive. I haven’t been swimming since.”

There was a distant look in Dan’s eyes as he finished the story,, like they were a hundred miles apart. Freya reached out and put her hand over his. Dan was surprised, but he didn’t pull away. Freya was searching his face, there was something a little too rehearsed about the story. She realized he was holding something back.

“Was that the only time?” Freya asked. 

Dan winced at the question. 

“No. How did you know?” 

Freya shrugged. Dan stared back at her, searching her the same way he’d searched her. She could see the moment where he figured it out, his eyebrows leaping in comprehension. 

“Oh.” 

Freya took her hand off his and put it back in her lap. The light she’d tried to shine on him had revealed her as well.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dan offered. 

Freya shook her head from side to side. She was very close to getting up and running away. Dan seemed to sense it, he turned towards the river and spoke a little softer.

“I didn’t want to talk about it either. The second time was after we moved here. That’s why they had me start seeing Dr. Garbuglio. He’s better. Better than he seems I mean. I remember thinking he was just a clown, but he really did help a lot.” 

“How did you do it the second time?” Freya asked, and then wondered if she should have, if she sounded too interested. Dan grimaced.

“I don’t like to talk about it—oh fuck it.” Dan took a deep breath and clenched his hands into fists. 

“I stole my mom’s valium and drank everything in the liquor cabinet. When she found me my lips were completely blue. I had to get my stomach pumped, there was an ambulance. We really couldn’t afford it. My mom blamed herself and I felt like the biggest piece of shit ever. I still do. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.” His voice was raw, and his eyes were rimmed with tears. For a second she was stunned by just how hurt he sounded. 

“Please don’t tell anyone.” He drew a sharp breath through his nose and clenched his teeth, trying to hold back sobbing. Now she knew why he was always clowning around and why he never seemed serious. This was the real Dan. She didn’t know what to say, and there was a long stretch before he composed himself.  

“I didn’t mean to put that on you. If you want to just go home, it’s ok,” Dan said. He looked completely miserable. She couldn’t say anything, for a while all they could hear was the wind and the river. Finally Freya made up her mind.

“I tried to drown myself too. In this river, upstream at the rapids.  It was just like you said, as soon as I was in I wanted to live more than anything. I managed to swim to the shore. But that feeling didn’t last. Was it like that for you?”

“Yes. The shine wore off. Shit I’m sorry, we didn’t have to come here. How long ago was that?”

“A while,” Freya lied.

“Are you ok now?” 

“I feel… I don’t know. Today was a good day. Even after all the bullshit with Malcom, I’m glad I came.”

“Yeah, I’m really glad you came out. You know, people do like you. I know what it’s like to be down in it. After the second time I was so miserable to be around, I just kept shoving everyone away, trying to escape.”

“That’s been my whole year. How did you get out of it?”

“I didn’t! It was all Cameron. He just kept showing up at my house. Every single day, he wouldn’t leave. For weeks and weeks, even if I wouldn’t talk to him, he would just hang out in the room with me. He missed so much practice they kicked him off wrestling. I actually hated him for a while, can you believe that? He found out what happened from my mom, and just decided he wouldn’t let go. Never let me shove him away, never told another person. He’s the reason I’m still here.” 

“That’s incredible,” Freya said. She wondered if Betty would do that for her, she suspected the answer was no. 

“I never would have suspected about Cam. I guess it makes sense. His mom is so nice. She sent us this really thoughtful card after Randall died. Then she tried really hard to to be friends with my mom, but of course Lassa wasn’t having it.”

“Have you always called your parents by their first names?” 

“Yeah, for as long as I can remember. I’m sure it was Lassa’s idea,” Freya said, and she wished she hadn’t brought it up. She didn’t want to think about Lassa.  

The conversation trailed off and they both looked away. She was caught in a swell of thoughts and it seemed like he was too. For a while she was just adrift, but then Dan’s fingers closed on hers. It felt so different than when she’d been the one initiating, his intent was electric.

“If you get to that place again, you can call me. Maybe I can help,” he offered. 

“Ok. The same for you.” 

Her cheeks got hot, they held eye contact for a moment too long and she looked away when it got weird. Someone else might have tried to kiss her there, but she was glad Dan hadn’t.

They sat by the river until they both started to shiver and then they walked back to his car. The grocery bag full of books had tipped over, The Void Captain’s Tale was sitting on the back seat and Dan asked her what it was about. She wound up showing him the whole stack of library books, after what they’d shared she was far past being embarrassed. To her surprise, Dan was really into it, he told her he was about halfway through The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. 

Freya lit up, she had many thoughts about Heinlein. The conversation on the way home was animated, as they pulled into her driveway she was telling him all about Dying Inside. Dan seemed into it, he said he would check it out after Mistress. 

The house was dark and Lassa’s BMW wasn’t in the driveway. Freya had been talking with Dan for hours and she didn’t want to stop. She thought about suggesting he come in, wondering how he might react to the invitation, what it might lead to. 

But then he yawned deeply in the middle of a sentence and then apologized. She realized he’d probably been up since early that morning to work his shift at the diner. Freya thought she should probably let him go.

She grabbed her grocery bag full of library books. Her copy of The Fragile Phoenix was in the trunk and Dan got out of the car to open it for her. After he handed it to her, she set everything down in the driveway and then suddenly embraced him in a tight hug. Dan seemed surprised, but he hugged her back. They stood together in the red glow of the taillights for a long moment. He was warm against the chill of night.

“Thank you,” Freya said. 

“Anytime,” Dan grinned.

“Text me and let me know you made it home safe, ok?” she asked. 

“I will. Good night Freya.”

She could barely stay awake long enough to get his text. She tried to read but her eyes kept sliding off the page until her phone hummed. 

Home safe, thanks again! Good night Freya!

She typed Good night Dan in reply and for five minutes she tried to make up her mind if she wanted to add something else. Finally she just pressed send. She plugged her phone in to charge on her nightstand, set the Starball in a hairband beside it and turned off the light. She shut her eyes, then after a few moments she reached out for her phone to look at the message again. 

Good night Freya.