![]() For the first time in hours, Julian looks at me. And then, midmorning, a subtle change in the air: echoes different from the sounds of dripping water and the hollow flow of underground air. The water never comes neither does the food. I’m not sure whether I’m speaking to Raven or Alex or both. In my head, I repeat an apology: I’m sorry. There’s comfort in the morning’s stony silence. Just like that we are on opposite sides again. ![]() It’s gratifying to see him lose it just a little: Down here the protection and certainty offered by the DFA mean nothing. I take a perverse pleasure in his agitation. He nods once, curtly, and stands, begins pacing the room. Then it’s gone, replaced by a sternness I have seen in his father. You don’t have to tell me anything.”įor a second I think I see panic on Julian’s face it flashes there like a warning. But I’ve been slipping too much and so instead I take refuge in the smoothness, the roundness, of Lena Morgan Jones’s calm: the calm of the walking dead the calm of the cured. I’m so startled by his outburst, I nearly snap back. “It was a long time ago,” he says shortly, and then, suddenly whirling on me, “Why do you care, anyway? Why are you so curious? I don’t know shit about you. “Accident.”Įven though I can tell Julian’s uncomfortable talking about it, I just don’t want to let it drop. I watch his spine stiffen: a tiny contraction, barely noticeable.Īgain, Julian nearly spits the word out. He must have heard me, but I repeat the question anyway. “What?” Julian sits up so his back is toward me. Thinking of Thomas Fineman reminds me: “How old is your brother now?” I ask. The thought is there, a needling doubt, and I try to ignore it. I think of him beating his nine-year-old son into unconsciousness. I think about Thomas Fineman, and the polished metal of his cuff links, and his hard, shiny smile. If they-the Scavengers-were planning to ransom Julian, surely they would have done it by now. As each day has passed I’ve grown more and more uncertain. “No,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. I’m reaching for something to say, something to bleed out the tension in the room.Īnd then Julian says, “Do you think they’re going to kill us?” and the swollenness deflates at once. I expect him to say something else, but the silence stretches long between us. I can almost believe last night was a dream. In the light everything feels tense and awkward again. I don’t remember any of them, but I woke up with that Alex-feeling, like a hollow carved in the center of my chest. I used to call Alex’s name sometimes, and I’m pretty sure he was in my dreams last night. I feel embarrassed and angry and flattered at the same time. He turns away quickly but not quickly enough. In the morning I wake up to blue: Julian’s eyes, staring at me. Julian keeps running his hand through my hair-twisting it around his fingers, curling it up and over his wrist and letting it drop onto the pillow again-and this time when I close my eyes and see the shining silver river I walk straight into it, and let it carry me down and away. Then he runs his fingers through my hair and I relax, and the squeezing goes away, and I’m breathing and alive and it’s all fine and everything will be okay. ![]() For a moment he leaves it there and again I hear that quick exhale, a release of some kind, and everything in my whole body goes still and white and hot, a starburst, a silent explosion. Softly, gently, he lowers his hand that final inch. “Can I?” he asks, so quietly I barely hear him, and I nod because I can’t speak. My chest feels like it is being squeezed. He is a long, curved shadow, frozen, like something made of polished wood. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, but doesn’t move his hand. I can feel his hand trembling ever so slightly by my right ear. “What are you doing?” My heart is beating very fast. He has rolled over to the very edge of his cot. Julian’s hand is hovering an inch above my head. I am passing under a branch and there is a tangle of leaves in my hair. I am walking the shimmering silver ribbon of a river winding through the forest, wearing shoes that sparkle in the sun as though they are made out of coins… We lie in silence for a bit, and I begin to float in and out of consciousness. Just that one line… ‘All you need is love.’” He sings the notes again. “Do you remember any of the other stories you read?” I ask. “That part must have come later, after the witch, and the shoes. “I never figured out why the book was banned,” Julian says after a bit. For a few minutes we breathe together, in tandem.
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