Thursday (part 3)

The food was good, the conversation was fun, and to Sajel's surprise, Garrett didn't even ask before settling the entire bill himself. She wasn't sure how to read that either—was he expecting her to be one of those shy, delicate types who had to cover her head when she went outside? Or should she just stop trying to read all his moves and enjoy the dinner?

They didn't go to a movie, afterwards, and Sajel wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or not: a deviation from tradition! Blasphemy! She also wasn't sure how to handle the car ride; the rain had ceased, but the streets gleamed with water, with red and orange and green lines from traffic lights and streetlamps. Garrett drove as recklessly as before, but this time she felt a little more accustomed to it. Still, she couldn't help but quip, "We're not in a movie car chase or anything, Garrett, you can slow down." She pantomimed fear in a rapid, head-turning reaction. "Or are we talking hidden-camera reality TV?"

Garrett slowed down, but grudgingly.

It was at her doorstop that she felt most nervous. This was, after all, the location for most first-date kisses... And she wasn't sure she was into that. Kissing led to embraces. Embracing led to unpleasant discoveries. For the millionth time she wished desperately for an insider's knowledge of dating. Would he take offense if she turned him away? Would he think she didn't want to see him again? How could she do it, subtly and gracefully?—all she could think of was a knee in the groin, a trick her older brother had taught her. It would be a blatant overreaction, and she knew it.

So it was with an odd mix of relief, regret and confusion that she found him leaving her without attempting it. "Wait," she said. "You aren't going to try to kiss me?"

Garrett blinked down at her. He had a disconcerting way of resembling an owl. "Do you want me to?"

"Well, I..." she said.

"Most of the time, a woman makes it pretty clear what she wants," he said. "It's your first date, yes, I'm aware of that, but even then, most women can still get the point across. But all I get from you..." He shrugged. "Is ambiguity. Do you know what you want?"

She stood on the precipice. On one hand, possibility, opportunity, the unknown: a chance to make it work. To have the husband and family and children she had resigned herself to abandoning. On the other hand: rejection, humiliation. Horror, revulsion. Pulling away. The phone calls unreturned, the hellos in the hall that flew straight by. Failure.

It was too much.

"I... It'd probably be better if you didn't," she said.

"Oh," he said. "I'd like to," he offered helpfully.

"I..." I'd like you to too. The words hovered at the tip of her tongue. Did she mean them? They would be so easy to say. "It just... I'm sorry, Garrett. It wouldn't work."

He looked at her silently for a moment. "Because of your problem," he said. "Because of your condition."

"Yes," she said. That blasted condition. "Yes."

He was silent for a moment with his unblinking owl gaze. She squirmed, feeling her scars burning on her back and hip and legs.

"Well," he said finally. "I guess this is good-bye then. Because, Sajel, if you can't open up to me now... Well, how will it be different later? You don't want to tell me, and I can tell you don't intend to ever tell me."

"That's not true," she said.

"Yes, it is," he said. "You're too set in your ways. You've come in with a thousand assumptions, and now you're imprisoned by them. I'm not sure what afflicts you, Sajel, but you're sure—absolutely, positively sure—that it'll stand between you and I. And there's nothing that'll convince you otherwise."

"You don't even know what it is," she said, compressing ultimate scorn into her voice.

"No," he said. He did not flinch before the lash. "I don't. And until I do know, I can only hope it wasn't something life-altering or destructive. Because if it was something relatively non-threatening, like epileptic seizures or sickle-cell anemia or three elbows, then I'm not sure what you're afraid of."

"Because people will hate me," Sajel said. "If they knew. I can't wear bathing suits, did you know that? Or a prom dress. I haven't been swimming since I was eight. I used to love swimming, but I can't now!" Anger surged up in her—bitter, vitriolic, good. She held onto her anger. Even destructiveness was better than powerlessness. "Don't you see? It changed my life. It messed me up. I can't drink alcohol because I'm missing part of my liver. I lost one of my ovaries, at the age of eight. I almost had brain damage. Don't tell me this is just something I can walk away from!"

"I am telling you just that," Garrett said.

Sajel gaped at him, totally flummoxed.

"Judging from what you say," Garrett continued, unperturbed, "it was an accident of some sort, involving bodily injury. Well, Sajel, I'll tell you right now: I can live with that. I'm not sure what the extent of the damage is, cosmetic or otherwise, but I can live with that. The question is: can you?"

And he fixed her with a calm stare.

Sajel gaped at the ground, her mind awhirl. The grass glistened with rain-dew, orange-yellow in the light of the porch lamps. What if... What if what he'd said was true? The grass was getting long; Dad would need to mow soon. What if people would actually be okay with it? All the fallen leaves on the ground, they would muck up the mower if he— She couldn't think about leaves. Couldn't think about her scars. Couldn't think about anything.

What if... What if the only thing holding me back... Is me?

Something was shaking her hip. She glanced down and saw flashing lights, heard a cartoony song: a cellphone. Her cellphone. The faceplate was blue, incised with lightning slashes of white. The song indicated the caller: Meredith.

"Sajel? Saje, are you free tonight? Can you drive? Arie called. We have a situation... "

"What kind of situation? Is Arie in trouble?"

She told her.

The four of them were well into dinner before Tommy and Lisa emerged, fully clothed and holding hands. Lisa smiled shyly, but Tommy was boisterous and proud. Brandon was reminded of a bantam rooster, strutting about the yard. He was reminded of the balloons of pride that had swelled his own heart after his first sex.

"See, told you we'd need dinner," Zach grinned.

"Then it's a good thing we listened to you," Christa said.

"Pull up a chair, guys, you must be hungry," Brandon said.

Brandon was sitting at the head of the table, with Meredith on his right and Zach past her. Across from them were the two empty place settings Christa had suggested. Tommy sat next to her, across from Zach, and Lisa took the final seat opposite Meredith.

"Thank you," Lisa said to Brandon. "It was... Really kind of you to let us do this."

Brandon shrugged and smiled. "Nothing's too good for my friends."

"But I'm not one of them," Lisa said, confused. "Am I?"

"Well," said Brandon, with another shrug. "Christa is, and your sister is too." He smiled. "That's good enough for me."

Lisa toyed with a piece of bread. "Yeah... I guess." She looked up. Her face was similar to Jane's in its plain lines and open honesty. "But I bet you'd've been happier if it was you and her, not me and Tommy."

"Well..." said Brandon, conscious of Meredith sitting beside him. "Yes and no. Maybe a year ago, that would've been true; there's a part of me that still loves Jane, and always will. But my heart belongs to someone else now."

"Oh," said Lisa, evidently not sure how to take that. "Well, thank you, in any case." She rolled her eyes. "I have to thank you on behalf of this barbarian, too, because he's a little too excited to remember his manners, so." She grinned. "Thank you again."

Brandon smiled. "You're welcome." She was Jane's mirror in other ways too.

"I swear..." Lisa shook her head, still smiling, showing her braces. "He's so... Bullheaded sometimes. He's like my sister. She gets fixated on something and just... Doesn't let go."

"Sometimes an inconvenient trait," Meredith offered. "But very useful in a lover."

Lisa turned red. "Well," she said, smiling shyly. "Yes."

Brandon and Meredith exchanged grins.

Conversation tapered off for a moment, as everyone applied themselves to their food. Despite their early dessert, Lisa and Tommy were just as hungry as the rest of them—maybe more so.

"So, you guys," Brandon asked. "How was it?"

Tommy dropped his fork, and his face went white. But Lisa grinned and said, "It was great!"

"Really?" said Christa skeptically.

"Wow, Tommy," said Zach, grinning. "Way to go, man!"

"You can't tell him about that!" Tommy exclaimed.

"Why not?" Lisa asked. "It's my life too. I'll tell people what I want to."

"It's my life too!" Tommy retorted. "What if I don't want people to know about... That stuff?"

"What, going down on her," Zach asked. Thomas Sternbacher nearly swallowed his tongue.

"Tommy," Lisa said. "We wouldn't have anything to talk about if not for Brandon and Christa. I think the least we can do is tell them we had a good time."

"No one's going to make you say anything you don't want to, Tom," Meredith said, using his adult name to make him feel older. "Not even Christa. It's all free speech here."

"Besides—" Zach cackled. "You know you wanna talk about it."

"I, I do?" said Tommy, suspicious.

"I certainly hope so!" Christa exclaimed. "Tommy, you just had sex for the first time in your life. I'd be worried if you didn't want to talk about it!"

"Well..." said Tommy. "... First and second time."

"Oh-ho!!" said Zach.

"See," Brandon said, smiling. "That wasn't so hard."

"Or was it?" Meredith said. "I mean, they probably had some problems if it wasn't so hard."

Tommy turned an alarming shade of red. "Well-lll," said Lisa.

"I guess that's not too surprising," Brandon said, swerving into the gap. "I mean, on your first time, of course you're gonna be nervous. And when your body's nervous, it's got other things to worry about than sending blood rushing to your genitals."

"Besides, she looks like one pleased lady to me, pardner," Zach said, grinning and nodding at Lisa, and Tommy blushed again but managed a weak grin.

"That she is," Lisa agreed.

"So what happened," Meredith asked, "did he go down on you?"

"Yeah, actually, he did," Lisa said. "I kinda had to prompt him into it, but in the end he did it. And the thing is, he made me come!"

"What!" Christa exclaimed. "It took me more than a month to teach Zach how to do that!"

"You've got a really talented brother there," Meredith said to her.

Tommy was still as red as the tomato sauce, but behind it was a glimpse of pride. "Really?"

"Really," Brandon told him. "It's a huge deal to be able to do that. Women take like four times as long to reach orgasm as men do, and their bodies are built to be a lot more finicky."

"I hope you went down on him," Christa said. "I mean, obviously it's not as big a deal for him to come from oral, but you oughta thank him!"

"Either you got lucky," Brandon said to Tom, "or... Well, no 'or' about it, you did get lucky. But clearly you're also pretty skilled, too."

"Of course I went down on him," Lisa said. "I wanted to, even before I came."

"And how was it, Tommy, when she sucked you off," Zach asked.

"Well..." said Tommy, glancing at Lisa. "It was... Okay," he said. "She..."

"Was about as skilled as you'd expect from a virgin?" Meredith offered.

"I wouldn't know, but... I guess so," Tommy said. "It was slower than when I, uh. When I jack off."

"Well, that's to be expected too," Brandon said. "Generally, masturbation is the fastest way to reach orgasm. You know exactly what to do to yourself. Whereas Lisa, who has never done this before, has no idea what to do with penises in general, much less your penis."

"Did you like it, though," Zach asked.

"Yeah!" Tommy said. "Yeah, it was... Really cool! I especially liked it when it got everywhere. It was, like, all over her face and everything."

Brandon peered at Lisa surreptitiously. She didn't look like it had.

"Why did you like that?" Meredith asked, intrigued.

Tommy stopped, frozen for a moment, caught with his mouth open. Then he shrugged and grinned helplessly, an answer that justified itself.

"Lisa," Christa said, leaning forward. "One thing that most guys have in common is that the little ridge on the bottom of their penises is really sensitive, especially up near the base of the head. If you..." Zach, not to be outdone, began tutoring Tommy in the fine art of cunnilingus.

Meredith caught Brandon's eye and shook her head, laughing. Quietly, the two of them slipped out, leaving the sex fiends to their conversation.

It was to the TV room they went, the place they had spent so much of their lives together in. Their first dinner date, during Brandon's Program week; their first time together, only a few days later; endless weekdays spent together, playing video games or doing homework or making love or just sitting, enjoying each other's presence. The sight of that old brown leather couch brought back a whirlwind of memories, and Brandon blinked his eyes tight, unable for a moment to discern between the present and a thousand swirling firefly recollections.

"I've missed this place," Meredith said, her voice tight with emotion.

"I've missed you," he said, barely daring to turn to look at her. "The place is nothing. It's you that makes it special."

Now she had tears in her eyes. "If it were our first date, you could've just gotten into my pants with that line."

He smiled at her, feeling a strange queerness in his stomach. She was beautiful, and he loved her, and he wanted her—but Rick Downing, Rick Downing, Rick Downing. He was like some grotesque thing stapled to her, a third limb or a second head or just a dead body, his arms draped around her neck, slumped down over her back like some deluded idea of a cape. It was impossible to get past him.

She must have seen in his face, because she said, "I know. I feel it too."

"Will we never get past this?" He flung himself away from her, frustrated. He could see them, five, ten, twenty years in the future: loving each other, as they had before, having children, having careers, having life... And then moments of tenderness falling to pieces, shattered by that hanging ghost. Rick Downing. He won't even make it into a real university. He'll go off to the community college and drop out after half a year, and spend the rest of his life at an oil-change place with a plumber's crack and a beer belly, and he'll sink down into oblivious death and take us with him. Had he ruined them? Would it always be like this?

"Yes," she said, her quiet tone disguising her intensity. "Yes, we can, Brandon. Time will pass. It'll fade. There will be minutes and days and years in which we don't think of it at all. If we..." She trailed off, anxious. "We can do it. We can."

"How do you know," he asked suspiciously.

"Because we did," she said. "Don't tell me you spent all of dinner thinking about it, because I know you didn't." She knew him too well. "And I know I didn't either. So, there's, what, half an hour? Not a bad foundation to start on."

"Fine," he said, "but... But how? How do we do it? How do I learn to... How do we get over this?"

"I..." She bit her lip, pensive. "I think we have to learn to trust each other again."

"Trust?" he said, incredulous. "Yeah right. How do I know you aren't going to betray me again?"

"Betray you!"

"You slept with Rick Downing!"

"Yeah, well, how do I know you're not going to mutate on me? I thought I knew you! But then Michael came in and I realized we didn't understand each other at all." She bit her lip, her eyes downcast. "I was so lonely, Brandon. I couldn't bear my guilt alone and I couldn't tell you about it. It drove me insane."

"Oh, is that your excuse?" he sneered. "Temporary insanity? You lost your mind, so you flung yourself at the nearest guy who was available, at the most— The most ridiculous, overbearing, self-absorbed, greasy—"

"Uh," said Zach.

They turned. Zach and Christa stood at the threshold, looking from one to the other of them. "Is this a good time to step in," Zach asked.

"Yes," said Meredith. "No," said Brandon.

Zach looked at Christa. Christa looked at Meredith and Brandon. "We're staying," she said. "That way Brandon has to hold his temper. But we're not letting you hide behind us, Meredith," she said. "You guys have to work this out."

"Where's Tommy and Lisa," Brandon asked curtly.

"They went back," said Zach. "They liked some of our suggestions so much that they decided to try them out."

"Good for them," Brandon said. "Now, why are you interrupting?"

"Because you need a neutral third party," Christa said, matching the iron in his voice, "before you hurt each other even more than you already have."

"Christ, you guys," Zach said, and unexpectedly his voice was full of sympathetic pain. "Don't you see it? It's right there."

"Meredith's right, Brandon," Christa said. "You do need to learn to trust her again. Just like she needs to learn to trust you."

"What did I do," Brandon said.

"Abandoned her," said Christa. "Ignored her. If she came to you with her concerns about Michael and you blew her off, it's no wonder she felt hurt. She sent her brother to jail, remember. Not juvenile hall, not a quick overnight stay in a cell, full-blown jail. State penitentiary. Now he's dead. And you treated her like she was wrong to feel guilty."

"I— I—" said Brandon. "Okay, so I made a mistake, and—"

"Yes," Christa said. "You did. And you, Meredith." She turned to her. "Rick Downing? Girl, where did your sense go? You have more self-respect than that. You have more respect for Brandon than that. And you love him more than that."

"And there's my mistake," Meredith said softly. The tears in her eyes and voice were enough to make Brandon love her again... And yet, he resented how easily she could manipulate him. You can't make me feel sorry for you. It isn't working. You hear that, bitch? It isn't!

Zach was looking at him with a knowing smirk. Brandon scowled.

"All right," said Christa. "So there's the problem."

"No," said Brandon. "That's not the problem."

Christa looked at him, confused. "What?"

"I can deal with her having slept with Rick Downing," Brandon said. "God help me, but I think I can honestly forget that one day. But... All this running-away stuff. Why didn't she come to me in the first place? —I mean, I know she tried it, once, but that's all she did. Once. If she had tried again, I might have listened. I probably wouldn't've understood, not all at once, but at least I would've listened."

"You would've," Christa asked skeptically.

"Of course," said Brandon, offended. "I'm not that stupid. I would've listened, so that she could talk, if nothing else. What kind of moron do you think I am? I love her. I'd do anything for her if it'd make her happy."

There was a silence as he heard what he had just said.

"Well, that begs a question, then, I guess," Christa said quietly. She turned to Meredith. "Why didn't you try again?"

"Because... Because I'd tried once, and..." Now she was crying. "He just didn't understand. It was the first time that had ever happened, normally we're just so much on the same wavelength... And then this time it failed. This time we weren't on the same wavelength. We couldn't even meet halfway. It was just... Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Ships passing in the night. And then it was about Michael, about the most important thing in my life..." She shook her head. "Everything just... Failed. All at once. The worst thing we could've failed on, we failed it. I mean, if we'd just had an argument about junior prom clothes, it wouldn't've been a problem, but this was..." She shook her head, at a loss for words. "Big."

"So you ran," Zach said.

"So I ran," said Meredith, and Brandon heard all the things she hadn't said: fear of failure; panic as Murphy's Law struck with a vengeance; conflict avoidance; branching yes-no decision trees, with each 'no' a dead end. Meredith was the type to avoid conflict. If there was something she wanted, she'd ask after it, and if the answer was No, she would suffer it in silence. It was one of the things he loved most about her—that willingness to put others before herself.

"And it didn't help that he was getting angrier and angrier," Meredith said. "Just... The little things. He used to be so even-keeled, but now... The tiniest things would set him off. Bad drivers. Forgotten homework assignments. Messing up at video games. He started to be... Enraged."

Christa's eyes beckoned him for an answer.

"I don't... It started with my parents, I know that," he said. "But then they left," he added, forestalling the obvious conclusion, "and it kept going. I..."

"Did anything else change," Christa asked.

"I..." he said.

He looked up. Discovery dawned on him like sunlight.

"Meredith started pulling away from me," he said.

There was silence for a moment as she listened to what he'd said.

"It was... Your rage," she said. "At your parents."

"And you started drifting away, and I didn't understand it—"

"It was because you scared me, with your anger—"

"And there didn't seem to be any cause for it, I wasn't sure what I'd done or you'd done or what, but it was happening, and I—"

"You just got angrier."

"There wasn't anything else I could do. It was like everything was just happening to me, I wasn't an active player, I was just a piece of scenery that things were being done to—"

"And you hated it."

"I clung to my anger. It was better than just sitting down meekly and letting the world fuck me over—"

"And I just kept pulling away—"

"Because you were scared, because you were scared of me—"

"Because I was never sure if I might set you off, if your anger would overpower your love for me, because it gave you power, and you needed that so much—"

"And so you ran."

"And that just made you—"

"Angrier."

They sighed.

"Well," Christa said. "Maybe that's a good sign. That you can push each other's buttons so thoroughly without even trying."

Brandon gave a humorless laugh. "Great. Either we'll be perfect for each other or rip each other apart."

"Oh, perfect for each other, certainly," said Zach breezily. "But it'll be a bit of a long road."

"Now, Brandon," Christa said. "Why were you angry? Why were you angry at Meredith? What brought this all on?"

"I..." Brandon stared at her, stared at himself, stared into the depths of his heart. "I dunno, I just... She was leaving. I didn't understand why."

"And so you got angry because—"

"There didn't seem to be anything else I could do! The love of my life, the girl of my dreams, and she's drifting away, she's drifting away God save me, what do I do!"

Zach reached out and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"And Meredith," Christa said quietly. "Why do you run away?"

"Why do I... Why do I run away," Meredith murmured, her eyes unseeing, turned inward.

"To leave," she said.

"Leave what?" Christa asked.

"Whatever I'm running away from," she said.

"And why do you need to run away from it," Christa asked.

"I— I don't... I think it's..." Meredith squeezed her eyes shut. "Because I don't want to be left. My parents turned crazy on me when I was six, they suddenly became—I dunno, these monsters, these slave-driving monsters who wanted so much out of me... They left me for achievement. My brother abandoned me when I was thirteen, left me for drugs. My best friend abandoned me when I was eleven, left me for boys, for popularity, for big breasts. And now, here's... Here's Brandon, the love of my life, and he's changing, he's changing so fast, I don't know him anymore, I'm not sure I ever did know him anymore... What if the new him hates me? What if he can't stand me? What if he thinks I'm, I'm stupid, for, for my scars and my brother and my... What if he did?"

"So you left," Christa said.

Meredith said nothing, only wiped her eyes.

"All right," said Christa. "All right." She heaved an enormous sigh.

"Guys," she said. "You've talked, and I've talked, and we've talked, and we've sorted this out, I think. And I'm hearing only one thing from you both, down at the bottom:

"You hurt each other. You hurt each other out of panic, out of confusion, out of fear. You hurt each other because you were both scared to lose each other."

Brandon and Meredith stared at each other.

"You saw the best in each other for seven months. Then things turned, and over the last five you've seen the worst in each other instead. Maybe you didn't really know each other before, but you do now.

"So, Zach. You've got a friend, right? His name's Brandon."

Zach squinted at his girlfriend. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"He's a nice guy, right?" Christa asked.

"Yeah, he is," Zach said. "A little rough around the edges, but nice most of the time."

"I've got a girl friend he might like to meet," Christa said. "Sometimes she's a bit of a flake, but she's the sweetest girl I know."

"Ehh, that might be trouble," Zach said. "He needs someone who's gonna be there for him no matter what."

"So does she," Christa said.

"Oh," said Zach. "Oh." He grinned. "Well, hopefully, they'll realize that before some big disaster happens. 'cause, I mean, then they'd be good for each other. He needs someone there for him, but he knows how to be that someone, too. It's just a pity he can't be that someone for himself."

"Yeah, same with her," Christa said. "But hey, if they could make it work, it might work really well. I think they'd get along."

"Wanna set them up together," Zach asked.

"Yeah, I think we oughta try it," Christa said. She turned to Meredith. "Meredith? This is Brandon."

Brandon waved sheepishly. "Hi."

"Hi," said Meredith.

"Brandon, Meredith," said Zach. "I think you two might get along."

"Meredith's a really nice girl, Brandon," Christa said, "but she has problems with

abandonment. So the one thing you've got to never, ever do, is give her any indication that you might want to drive her away. It's not like you can't ask for a day off or something, but, if you have problems with her, you need to approach her openly. You can't be passive-aggressive or anything.

"Brandon's a great guy, Meredith," Christa said. "He's funny, he's smart, and he's been around the block a few times. But he's really careful about who he opens up to, so if he does that to you, you've got to never turn away from him. I mean, you know, if he's coming on too strong, you can tell him that—might hurt his feelings, but I'm sure he'll understand. Just don't be all nice to him on the surface and pushing him away underneath. He'll never forgive you.

"And you guys've gotta talk to each other," Christa said. "You really, really do. Brandon, I understand you had some problems with that in your last relationship. Meredith did too. They really loved each other, but they almost killed each other because they were too afraid to say what they really meant."

"So." Zach clapped his hands together. "I think that covers it. Why don't you say hello."

Brandon approached her tentatively. He felt shy, like a boy on his first date.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

He stuck out his hand. "I'm Brandon Chambers... Sometimes, I really fuck things up."

"I'm Meredith," she said. "And don't worry, I do too."

Their hands clasped, and they shook.

And then, somehow, she was in his arms, hugging him, as he hugged her back—just where she belonged. And she wept into his shoulder and he wept into her hair and they kissed clumsily in their relief and joy, and he was laughing and crying all at once and she was giggling and he wondered for a minute just how much Zach must be snickering over all of this, and then decided he didn't care, because the woman he loved, his Meredith, his god, his angel, was back, was his now, in his arms, as he had always wanted her to be. And all was right with the world.

Something was shaking his hip.

He frowned. It was his cell phone, lighting up, vibrating in his pocket. Meredith frowned and looked over at her backpack, which was emitting similar noises. She grabbed hers and he grabbed his. "Hello?"

"Brandon?"

"Arie?" he said. "Derek?" Meredith said.

"Is Meredith there?"

"Yeah, she's right here—"

"Oh, good, I'll— Derek, call Christa—"

"She's here too," Brandon said quickly. "And Zach."

"Good, " Arie said, "call everybody. Anyone you can think of. We're on our way to the hospital... "

"What! Why?"

She told him.

Th .7

"Yes, but, the thing is, it's a lot closer," said Derek. "And a lot cheaper. Yeah, I know it isn't Harvard or Stanford, but it's almost as good."

Arie shook her head. Derek never ceased to amaze her. He could talk sense to her parents—and they would listen! Even she couldn't do that!

Though her father didn't quite seem as tractable. "It seems to me that if you're going to spend money on a degree, you might as well go for broke. Why settle for something less if you could get Stanford, or Berkeley, or an Ivy League?"

"Well, that depends on whether you get accepted," Derek said, "and I can tell you now—no offense, sweetie—but Arie does not have a whole lot of chance of getting into one of those prestigious big-name schools. She just isn't what they look for."

"No kidding," Arie said. "They look for people with straight A's, five or six club leadership positions, and perfectly straight teeth."

"They look for people who want to go on and become world leaders," Derek said. "Arie, do you want to become a world leader?"

Arie snorted.

"I rest my case," Derek said.

Arie's father shook his head and chuckled.

"Well," said her mother. "All I know is that I want Arie to be happy. If she wants to go to Harvard and get a degree in... I don't know... Subsonic Isotrope Biology, and then goes on to become the leading scientist in that field, then that's what she should do. And if she wants to come home and get married and have children and be as fat as I am— Then that's what she should do."

"Mom," Arie protested, "you're not fat. You're... Festively plump."

Derek blinked. "I have never heard—"

They all winced as the wave of music crested over them with a squeal and an explosion of static. Then Derek finished, "I have never heard that description before," as if nothing had happened. In some ways, nothing had. They were used to it by now.

"Where are you applying, Derek," her father asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual places," Derek said. "Jones Falls, Willot, ISU... White Plains Community College..." Her mother laughed.

Trina, Arie thought. If you turn that music off soon, we're going to have to break down the door. The neighbors have complained twice already... Not that you could hear, with all that racket. Your eardrums probably went a couple hours ago.

The question of college applications done, they helped her parents clean up the dinner dishes. Derek had been an impromptu guest at the table that night, but he got along well with her parents, and they with him. Much as it surprised her to admit it, she wanted her parents to approve of him, and was glad they did. God, look at me. A year ago, I would've brought home a boy named Weasel just because I knew it'd piss them off. Now...

"So," Arie said to Derek. "We can try to work on homework upstairs. Or we can try to work on homework down here in the family room, where the only flat surface is a glass coffee table."

"Upstairs," he said.

"But upstairs has a lot of screaming noise from my sister," Arie said.

"True, but, we can't make out down here in the family room," he said.

They went upstairs.

Unfortunately, they couldn't make out in her room, either, because of the sheer amount of noise blasting out of Trina's room. The air felt like glass, solid and unyielding, and Arie could've sworn she could see the walls flexing. Or maybe that was just the pounding of her head. "This is not working out the way we planned!" she shouted.

"What?" Derek shouted.

"I said, this is— Never mind."

"What?" Derek shouted.

They chose the sitting room this time, just off the entry foyer, where they had the dual advantages of relative quiet and distance from her parents. "And this has been going on all afternoon," Derek said.

"Yeah," Arie said, "or so my mom tells me. She skipped orchestra, evidently—no one's really sure how she got home. Maybe she walked."

"From school? That's like five or six miles."

"Yeah, no kidding." Arie shook her head. "But who knows."

"Any idea what caused it," Derek asked.

"Well..." Arie hesitated. "Yes." She described the conversation in Dr. Zelvetti's office over recess. "I think we really shook Trina up," she said. "Really just... Got to her, in a way that... I didn't even think it was possible to shake her up that much."

"There seems to be a lot of that happening this week," Derek said dryly. "We decoded Trina, we decoded Jane, Brandon and Meredith... Maybe that guy Garrett is chewing Sajel out right this second."

"Yeah right," Arie said. "She'd chew him up. Sajel's got fangs. It's part of who she is—she uses them to keep people away."

"A porcupine," Derek said. "So many spines, so that you never get to see their soft underbellies."

"Yeah," Arie said.

She sat back, leaning against him. His arm went around her shoulders almost by habit.

"Isn't it weird," she said. "We're, like, some of the only stable people in the whole group right now."

Derek laughed. "Us? Stable? Weird."

They sat like that for a time, enjoying each other's presence. After the huge shake-up in May, they found themselves having less sex and doing more cuddling. Arie liked it. She was horny and would always be, but sometimes there was something to be said for wrapping herself in him like a blanket, snuggling together, as warm and cherished as she would ever be in this life.

"Well," said Derek eventually. "We should probably do our homework at some point."

"Ungh," said Arie.

"College awaits," Derek said dryly. "Have you even started on your applications?"

"Ungh," said Arie. "I left my stuff up in my room."

"So did I," Derek said.

"Ungh," Arie said. "We have to go up into that?"

But they did, and it was good that they did, because while they were in her room, something caught their attention. It was the chime of an incoming Instant Message. "Arie," Derek said. And then, louder, to be heard over the music: "Arie!" And then, when that didn't work, he just tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to the computer.

Arie squinted, bent over the desk, broke the machine out of screen-saver mode. There were several messages, spaced over the course of a few hours; evidently this person had been trying to contact Arie for some time. Arie scrolled up to the top of the message window.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth formed a silent O.

"TRINA!" She hammered on the door. "TRINA, OPEN UP!"

There was no response.

"TRINA! Derek, help me." She had to yell to be heard above the noise of Trina's endlessly-repeating stereo. "Above the door sill, there's a key. I can't reach it, but it unlocks—"

Derek, standing on his tip-toes, felt around with his fingertips. They dislodged a small strip of metal in the shape of an L. "Is that it?"

On the base of the doorknob was a small hole, covered by the side-flung handle. She stuck the base of the L into that hole and turned the key like a crank. Derek heard nothing, but clearly it worked, because she grabbed the doorknob and the door opened.

"Trina!" Arie shouted. The room was dark, lit only by dim slivers of streetlamp shining through the drawn blinds, and by the electric blue shine of the stereo, which was shaking with volume. Derek couldn't see Trina at all. He smelt acrid smoke, a whiff of ozone. Arie stomped into the room. When silence fell, his ears rang.

"Trina," Arie said. "Trina." She switched on a light.

Derek didn't see how she'd avoided stepping on her. Trina was sprawled on the floor, facedown. Near her hand was an open bottle of pills.

Derek snatched it up. Empty. Arie knelt and touched Trina's pale face. Cold.

"Call Brandon," Arie said. "Call Meredith. Call..." She swallowed, and tears glimmered in her eyes. "Call my parents. Call an ambulance." Derek grabbed for his cellphone, and Arie's hand darted for the land-line phone on Trina's desk. "Mom! Dad! she shrieked. Derek could see her hand shaking on the phone's buttons.

"Hurry," she whispered.