#ficx

In the four minutes it takes for her to brush her teeth, Josh groans awake.

"What’s for breakfast?" He stretches obnoxiously across her bed. He kicks the sheets to the floor. 

She peeks out at him with foam at the sides of her mouth. "Shouldn’t you be asking your mom that?"

She rinses and walks into the room with a towel swiping over her face.

"You’re a terrible host."

Tracy picks up the sheets and throws them over the edge of the bed. "Technically, I’d have had to have invited you in to be your host."

"Words, so early in the morning, make it stop." Then he makes a sour face and presses fingers into his neck, massaging lightly, "And how’s it that you’re so small, but still managed to take up all of the bed?"

She scoffs in lieu of dignifying his comment with a response, partly because she woke up at the edge of one side of the bed with Josh’s limbs all over her. But mostly because she doesn’t want to talk about it, him having to stay while she tried to sleep. Him having to stay while she… stayed asleep. She didn’t ask him to, but he’s insisted on crawling through her window since the first time he crashed in her room and saw what she did. He saw what she did and slept on the floor anyway. He saw what she did and stayed.

She rolls her eyes and starts picking up the pieces from the night before, all the glaring evidence of her episode.

Josh stretches again, noisily this time. "I could go for some hash browns, whadya think?"

"I already had tea."

"Tea isn’t breakfast, dude." He rolls to edge closer to her and swings his feet to the floor.

Her breath catches when she spots a shard of glass, from the broken mirror in her bathroom. It’s near her window, at least ten feet from where she thinks she remembers she’d grabbed one of the pieces and aimed it at Josh’s eye.

Her back is to him so she lets her hands shake while she steadies her breathing. Then she starts again, cleaning up like she always does. 

When she’s done enough, bagged all the broken pieces she could find, and wiped the splatter of blood from the floor, Josh pins her with a look. It doesn’t belong on his face, in this room, in her house.

"How’d you sleep?"

Tracy stares as blankly as she can, careful to breathe evenly like she was taught; holds her heart hostage so it doesn’t skip; lets the lie fall from her lips easy, just like he would. "I don’t remember."

Josh keeps looking, but he doesn’t push. "Me neither." Then he chuckles, "I was high as fuck."

Josh doesn’t care enough to do any of what she did, doesn’t even try to look guilty when his heart skips. But she doesn’t push. She grabs her wallet and throws it to him.

"If you buy anything that’s not food with my card I’m going to rip your arms off."

"Jeesh, if you don’t trust me just say that…"

Tracy crosses her arms and cocks a hip. "I don’t trust you."

From the bed it takes him six seconds to slowly stalk to her. She steels her face in defiance. Josh lifts a hand and flicks her in the forehead. He rushes to the window and slides feet first onto the roof.

His laughter is raucous from the other side of her window. He waves obnoxiously and dodges with practised ease when she shoves a hand forward.

"Too slow," he mocks.

"You’re such a dick."

Josh steps backwards to the edge of the roof and winks before he steps off. Barefoot.

When he lands she hears him call from the yard, "Throw my shoes down, Trace!"

Josh lets out a condescending chuckle from where he’s sprawled out on the other couch in Mason’s living room.

"We’re not complaining," Tracy says, slow and flowery, eyes still glued to the screen, "we’re just implying that your taste in movies leaves a lot to be desired."

"In other words, these suck."

"Hey Josh?" Hayden calls out, hitting mute on the remote, "Shut up?"

"Oh, so you guys can say it but when I do it’s a problem."

Her response is an instant, "Yes."

Josh throws up a middle finger and Hayden flashes her eyes and flings a chip at him. He catches it in his mouth and snaps it shut with a smirk.

Mason is seconds away from pulling his phone out to text Corey, who in his absence left Mason in charge of Movie Night. Mason wishes he’d offered to get chips and soda instead. He’s never doing this again, even with Corey present.

"What’s even going on here?"

At Tracy’s question, which sounds more curious than mocking, Mason looks to the TV mounted on the wall.

"No way she’s going in," Tracy exclaims.

Hayden nods, "She’s going in."

"Why would she go in?"

"She went all that way, might as well," Josh reasons.

Mason stays quiet throughout.

A minute later Hayden screeches, "The house is clearly haunted, why is she still there?"

"Oh, shit that’s the guy she was rude to."

Hayden pitches her voice low and says in what Mason could only describe as a warped Hugh Grant impression, "Pardon me, Ma’am, would you mind if I fried my shrimp on your barbie?"

There’s silence for a second, before Josh barks out a laugh, "What the fuck was that?"

Tracy looks horrified but Hayden purses her lips.

"My Australian accent obviously. He’s Australian, remember?"

"No," Josh shakes his head, pulling a cushion into his lap. "I don’t know what that was, but it was shit."

Mason presses his lips between his teeth but can’t stop the way his torso shakes with the laughter threatening to spill.

"Like you could do better?"

He bolts upright, "Fuck, yeah. I could count to ten and it’d be better than whatever that was."

Mason breaks, almost doubles over on the couch to laugh outright, and Tracy joins him.

Josh turns to the TV and clears his throat. His voice is impossibly high when the woman comes into frame on screen, "Would you like some tea? My new vacation home is falling apart but somehow I have a kettle and fine china." Then he pitches it much lower than Hayden did, "My pleasure, honey. You’ve been here for ten minutes but I would sell my tractor to have your babies."

Mason snaps his head to Josh and mutters through his laughter, "What the fuck?"

Tracy throws the cushion from her seat, "Boo!"

Hayden flings a couple chips, "You suck!"

Josh has his hands up, laughing and dodging even more missiles from the others. Hayden gets lucky, or maybe she finally decides he deserves punishment and hits him on the elbow with the remote.

Mason winces at the sound of impact. Tracy covers her mouth with both hands and flicks her gaze between Hayden and Josh.

"Ow, fuck. That hurt!"

"It was supposed to. Next time you open your mouth to criticise at least have the decency to be talented."

"How about next time you guys get your own food!"

Tracy oohs and Mason’s mouth hangs open.

"Fine. But don’t bother asking Tracy to drive you home."

"Wait. We’re not going to Sinema after this?"

"We’re going," Mason pipes up.

Josh glares and huffs a breath. "Fine. I’ll get the food next time, jeez."

Hayden smirks and turns back to the TV, "Of course you will. You love us."

“Hey, I can— I can fix that,” the guy says about the mess on the waxed floor. Then he flashes a finger, “Wait, just— hold on!”

Kira tries to smile.

She’d decided to embark on this three-week cruise for self-care reasons. To focus only on her needs; decentering everything she’s carved her identity around for most of her life— family, friends, her job. To give herself a little space and time to figure out what she really wants, not what she thinks other people want for her.

But it’s been three hours since she got on the Hale of a Whale and in that time she’s bruised her leg from bumping into her cabin dresser, and got two plates of buffet food spilled over her favourite pleated skirt. None of it is wet, which she supposes is a blessing. She’s choosing to ignore the pizza stain on the tongue of her Jordans. It’s not there, it’s not there.

The guy’s talking to one of the servers, and his face crumples as they must tell him they’re out of whatever it is he thinks can fix this.

“Sorry, they… they can’t come right now. But someone’s coming! I’ll make sure it gets cleaned up, I promise!”

“Yeah,” Kira mumbles. She just wants to go back to her room and wallow. She’s loath to admit it but she wishes her Dad were here. “That’s all right. I’ll just… yeah.”

“I’m so sorry!”

He looks crestfallen, and Kira feels kind of bad. Sure, he’s made a mess and somehow none of his food spilled. But she thinks of her Mom and how she never allows Kira to apologise more than once. It doesn’t really fix anything, does it? I can tell you’re sorry. No need to dwell. 

So Kira sighs, sags her shoulders and smiles for real this time. “Don’t worry about it. I can just go back. We’ve got all the time in the world here, right?”

That gets him to smile. It’s warm and definitely more at home on his face than the guilt and panic.

He’s sheepish when he says, “Yeah, we kind of do...”

Kira does it all again— chooses a little bit of everything, even adds an extra slice of pizza for comfort— and it’s not so bad. Until she’s looking around for another table and not one of them is free.

Then she sees him. He’s perched at the edge of his seat, twisted in the chair to look over at her, legs spread like he’s about to walk. He waves, and his smile brightens when she lifts her chin.

He mouths something, slow— hands gesticulating haltingly, like he’s not quite sure he means to do it. She can’t tell what he’s saying but he points to his table and himself enough times for her to get the gist.

“Hey…” she says, like she’s begging him a favour and not at all like he’s lucky she’s not standing in a corner waiting for someone to clean her perfect table with the perfect view and the perfect distance away from the family with the three noisy kids.

He stands until she slides into the seat facing him. “Sorry again.”

“No... Thanks for letting me sit here.”

“It’s my pleasure, really! I’d give it up if you asked.”

Kira looks up slowly from her slice of cake, “Well—”

“But,” he hurries before she can finish, “I’m glad you chose to sit with me.”

There’s a lilt in her voice when she says, “Didn’t really have a choice. You kind of took the last one.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry…” 

And he doesn’t look it, either. He’s grinning. “I’m really not.” 

His eyes crinkle and he keeps staring, making no attempt to touch his plate. She would call him out on it but she realises she’s staring too.

“So you’re saying you’re glad you knocked all my food to the ground.”

The glass in his hand clinks when he lowers it to the table. “I’m saying I might have noticed you earlier and while I didn’t mean to bump into you like that, I’m glad it turned out this way because now I can ask for your name and maybe we can hang out sometime? You know, since we have all the time in the world here…”

She thinks she wants to tell him he won’t be seeing much of her, that she’ll be busy doing yoga and going to the shows and getting wisps of ocean water and salt in her hair. But he’s still smiling, and it’s bright, and somehow… somehow it doesn’t feel wrong. So she tucks falling strands behind her ear and looks down at the second helping of cruise ship food. “It’s Kira.”

“Kira… I've got a friend named Kira.”

“Really?”

“Well, not yet. But I’m hoping by the time I leave here I will.”

Her mouth falls open and a laugh bubbles in her chest and rises in sweet waves past her lips. “Oh, that’s smooth. Where’d you learn that one?”

“Work. Wait, no— that one wasn’t Hayden. Stiles. Anyway, I’m Scott. Sorry for getting food all over you.”

“Well, Scott. You’re lucky there was no empty table left.”

“Trust me, I know.”

Scott sticks a fork into the sushi, and somehow manages to make it cute.

He’s also still grinning.

The voice comes from somewhere behind her and she’s wishing she had blown up at that stupid old lady on the street earlier, because then it’d have probably taken the edge off whatever she’s about to spit at Liam fucking Dunbar and his stupid mop of wet, floppy hair.

"Free country, Dunbar."

"But is it… all right… with you?"

With her jaws still clenched, she spins to find him beside her.

His eyes are wide, lake-blue now under the bleak porch lights.

"I just wanted to say I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you at the door."

Perfect. So he would have pulled the stupid prank anyway.

Ruining the one event she’s been looking forward to all semester by spraying someone else from head to toe with silly string, dousing someone else with flour, ruining someone else’s salon-perfected hair with yolk and shell and whatever other fucking gross thing he’d swiped over her dress.

"I swear, ask Mase when he gets here! He helped me plan it. It was supposed to be Garett."

Be chill. Be very chill. Do not fucking freak out.

"Are we cool?" He asks through that kicked puppy pout with eyebrows drawn down over piercing blue eyes that look so pathetic on his wet face. He’s lucky it wasn’t Garrett. He’d be nursing a broken nose by now.

"You know what," she cackles, sharp and loud, "we’re cool.

My dress is ruined, my hair is… really ruined, and now I smell like whatever the hell’s growing on the white-stained socks under your bed but we’re really fucking cool, Dunbar. We are ice fucking cold."

Liam winces but doesn’t move. "I know everything sucks, I promise I’ll help you clean up before everyone else gets here. Truce?"

Truce?

She balls her fist and swings. Liam ducks, but just barely.

"Hey!"

"I’m gonna strangle you!"

"Wait!" He’s pleading but not exactly trying to get away. "Hey, I get it, okay? Let’s just— fuck!"

Her kick lands and he’s hopping along the edge of the porch, away from her but not heading inside or out to the lawn like he should. Like she expects him to.

"Violet, wait! I’ll let you punch me, I get it. Just wait!"

She’s seething, eyes tracking the bobbing blur of Liam across the porch of his house. Where everyone else should be showing up in less than an hour for their costume party. The one she’s been planning with him for three weeks. The one he just fucking ruined.

"Stop moving, you fucking glazed donut!"

Liam does stop, but only to let out a surprised chuckle, "Glazed donut…?"

"I’m gonna kill you!"

Someone screams, it sounds like someone screams, but she’s not concerned because she’s got Liam by the throat and he’s flat on his back on the porch. It’s only when he’s knocking wrists and elbows against the floor— in his scramble to get away from the knee lodged in his side— and the sound hits her ears again that she realises the high-pitched shriek had come from him.

"Violet, wait! If you kill me—" he coughs as she tightens her hold around his neck. Her teeth are bared and if she just had slightly bigger hands, a slightly stronger grip she could—

"Who’s gonna—” he splutters, digs blunt nails into her wrist, “who’s gonna decorate the house?"

Fact number 3: you love me. 

There was something about the way he said ‘You love me’, like he was asking. Like he wasn’t sure the answer would still be yes.

Corey had scooped him in a hug and sighed. Because yes, he absolutely did. Does. Forever will.

So here they are on their way to a drive-in movie, Mason asleep in the passenger seat and rain clouds hovering above, fanning the flames of uncertainty and guilt roiling in Corey’s gut.

Mason shifts a few times, and Corey looks over with mounting concern, but his breathing remains stable.

Corey wants to wrap him in the blankets they brought, but he doesn’t want to pull over for that, so he toes the accelerator a little more firmly and tries to outrun the clouds.

They don’t make it. In that they do, but the clouds get there before them. Rain pelts the roof of the car, unceasing in its onslaught. The ground is punctured repeatedly and  left with widening puddles of silt. And just like that, the planned date is all but ruined. He’s a little anxious to wake Mason, so at first he just sits there with the car in park while his boyfriend snores lightly in the seat next to him. He bites his lip and stares straight ahead, hoping that the rain will ease enough for the event to be uncancelled. 

But they have no such luck.

When Mason finally stirs Corey smiles, loose and tender.

"What happened?"

"Sorry," he says, about everything. He figures no explanation he could give would matter anyway. He’s just sorry about it all.

Mason’s eyes go round and he straightens, looking around like he could find a spot to peek through the steady sheet of rain. Like he could see in the dark. "Oh... We can still do dinner, right?"

"We kinda missed the time…"

"How long was I asleep?"

Corey isn’t exactly sure but he thinks it’s pointless to fill in the rest of the story, because it doesn’t matter now. But he can tell Mason wants to, so he tells him about the rain and what time it started, how heavy it got. He tells him about the reservation and how long ago it was booked for. He checks the time on the dashboard and tries not to wince as he watches Mason’s face fall when he tells him how long he was asleep in the passenger seat.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and Corey doesn’t like it.

Corey wants to wrap him up, keep him warm. So he leans over the console and takes him in his arms. Mason sags against him and they both take deep breaths. On the exhale Mason coughs.

"You okay?"

He brings his hands to Mason’s back and rubs.

Mason hums and squeezes Corey closer. His forehead is warm against his neck, fingertips burning through his shirt.

"We should get you home."

Mason coughs again. "Can we get food first?"

Corey smiles, "Yeah. We passed a Wendy’s a little ways back. We could probably make it. But I think we should stop somewhere else and get you some soup."

"No soup," Mason groans. Corey chuckles because the protest devolves into a coughing fit.

"Your Mom wouldn’t like it if I didn’t at least buy you some."

Theo gets to go outside every once in a while, and he runs. He can do that now, without wheezing. Without the threat of another attack. In every hazy memory he still has, his mother’s shrill voice begs him to stop once he feels that first pang, but he’s been stubborn for longer than he’s been able to walk, and has always muscled through until his lungs burned. He’s running now, not away from anything, not really. But he’s panting hard and every few minutes he glances at the road he’s leaving behind. The toe of his sneaker snags in a crack and he stumbles, is quick to swing his arms to keep himself upright, but he falls anyway. His elbows hit the ground and his knees skid. Every surface of skin that’s made contact with the asphalt stings. With a sharp intake of air he cranes his neck, then rolls over with a grunt. There’s the expectation, faint in his head, for someone to rush over and ask if he’s okay, but he squints down the road he’s trying to leave behind and no one’s there. It’s just him and the setting sun. 

At first he doesn’t get it. That neither his Mom nor his Dad will come running (because being sickly since birth meant physical endeavors were supervised); Tara doesn’t shout and tell him to stop crying either, doesn't run over to check that he’s okay. His hands— palms chipped and riddled with flecks of street— are strong enough to push himself to sit, with tears staining his face, blood on his knees and the stinging pain that hasn't got any better yet. Because he still heals so slowly. They promised he’d be stronger, that he would never feel pain again, but it hurts so much. He keeps staring at all of it— the mess of bloody, peeled skin— wondering what to do. And nothing seems like a good idea. Eventually he stops crying, not because it hurts any less but because he remembers why he needed to run. So he stumbles into standing even though the cuts sting, because he has to make it on time; he turns his back to the sun and starts again. The pain gets worse but he keeps running. -

He’s at the skatepark. The abandoned one with the tops of the ramps covered in overgrowth and their bellies stained with the shapes of dried-again puddles, two streets from his school. He hasn’t been in a while. He thought it’d been a few days but sometimes when he runs past after the bell, he doesn’t recognise any of the kids or the cars. 

There are no lights that flicker on to make up for the dimming sun; he knows he only has about twenty minutes of daylight left before it’s too dark to judge where he’s supposed to land. He can see in the dark now, but it’s hard for him. They told him he’d develop so many abilities but even on good days he’s lucky to do any of them. So he doesn't want to try skating in the dark. It’s after bargaining with himself to try the flip once more that he falls, and he thinks he’s okay so he tries getting up; has to yelp in a mix of confusion and pain when his arm won’t move. He’s never broken a limb before— because before the Doctors he’d had asthma, and having asthma means not doing enough physical activity to break any bones.

But this feels close enough to broken. It hurts like hell.

He tries moving his fingers and his thumb twitches.

The others just lie there on the ground, unresponsive. Splayed just like him.

There’s a drawn-out whine as he tries to move again but he can’t and it’s starting to upset him because he needs to go. He doesn’t want to stay here in the dark. He doesn't want to get back late. He doesn't want to make them mad. Again.

If he just lifts his shoulder, he thinks, he can at least drag himself off the ground, but it doesn’t work. It just hurts more.

He uses his other hand, tries to lift it that way, and the groan echoes around him. The pain is sickening, makes him want to hurl everything in his guts out onto the ground.

With his teeth clenched he tightens his hold around his arm and drags it off the ground, sits up and goes to his knees. He’s trembling. It hurts so much, but he’s got his arm up. He thinks he’s okay but he’s still shaking. He tries breathing hard. Through clenched teeth. In. Out. In. When he breathes out he sobs. No tears come at first. Just the broken sound from his throat. He closes his mouth to keep the sound in. Then he tries breathing again. In. Out. In. He sobs again, tightening his hold on his possibly broken arm. In. Out. In. The next breath out is the worst. His throat burns and his eyes do too. Tears stream their way down his face, and he just keeps sobbing. In. Out. In. Out. In.

-

He’s lying on the table and the Geneticist is above him, talking to the Surgeon. They’re talking like they normally would (which is still very abnormal for him because the sounds give him a headache). But he clenches his eyes shut to prepare for whatever else they have planned for him tonight, today… he’s not sure what time it is. He thinks he’s been lying down for a couple hours but last time three days had passed. He doesn’t remember sleeping.

The Geneticist says something and the Surgeon agrees. She leaves the room and he feels colder, the air sinking around him like the chill from a freezer.

The Surgeon says something that he can’t make out but it doesn't matter anyway. The Surgeon never waits for him to respond. Nothing he could say would change anything, so like always, he imagines his eyes are open, staring up at the instruments he still can’t name.

The first sting is from a needle in his leg. He’s used to that. He’s still more used to feeling them elsewhere. Before the Doctors. When he would have Tara’s favourite teddy bear beside him on his tiny bed. Before.

Now, it stings. His leg stings. It’s no longer familiar. The pain starts from his calf and scorches its way up his thigh until his hips are burning and then his belly is on fire. He wriggles a bit on the metal bed. His face is scrunched because he’s grown more tolerant to pain but he’s not immune. It really, really hurts now. He tries to say something, he’s not sure what, maybe that it hurts… maybe to ask the Surgeon to stop. But what comes out is a discordant wail. He can’t form the words. And then he remembers as the pain reaches his throat and he feels like he’s being torn open from the inside, that even if he could form the words, it wouldn’t matter, because the Surgeon wouldn’t listen. He never does.

He lies there on the metal bed writhing and screaming as the pain wraps around his neck and fires up his jaw until it finally reaches his head. He screams, long and raw and loud. It hurts more than anything ever has. He’s sure he’s dying. There’s nothing in his head now. Just burning, searing pain. He’s sure he’s dying. He screams until his lungs burn. Until everything is on fire and he can’t feel.

He screams until he thinks he’s dead.

-

The fourth time he’s not sure why he cries. He’s walking around an empty house. The Pathologist tells him he’ll be living here from now on. It’s a lot like his house in Beacon Hills. Except this one has a basement. Two steps at a time, his ten-year old legs carry him upstairs; there are two rooms. His house had three. Tara’s room was more like their room, and his room was where he’d go if they had a fight. He’s staring at the closed doors and the thought comes, that his house probably only has two rooms now. His parents’. And his. Empty and dusty like it always is. Because he was hardly ever there. Now there’s no Tara so her room is gone. His parents are gone too but he had nothing to do with that. Tara’s room disappearing is his fault.

He opens the door farther from the stairs and peers inside. There’s a bed. Some trophies on a shelf. Shiny, gilded evidence a sporty kid used to live here. Before they disappeared. People tend to disappear a lot wherever he shows up.

He sits on the bed for a while, staring out the curtain-less window. It’s bright and sunny outside. If he wanted he could probably go skating, find a sidewalk and forget everything. That usually helps.

He stands, puts one foot in front of the other to make his way downstairs, but he slips, careens towards the door and his head smashes against the edge. His body crumples in the doorway. There’s blood. There’s so much blood. He tries to push himself up but his hand slips in the slick, red liquid and there’s a sickening crack as his chin hits the floor.

He doesn't try to call out. No one would hear him. Everyone’s disappeared.

Instead he flips over and the back of his head knocks against the floorboards.

There’s blood on his face, above his eyebrows and over his eyelids. Before it gets into his eyes he wipes the back of his hand across his face, swiping blood in his eyes because his hand is covered in it.

It stings.

He clenches his eyes shut but it doesn't help. There’s blood in his eyes. His head feels light. It doesn't hurt that much.

It doesn’t really hurt at all.

When he opens his eyes, they leak: running down the side of his face, across his temples and to the floor. At first he thinks, groggily, maybe he’s bleeding from his eyes. Maybe his own blood’s poisonous. They told him he’s immune to so many things now that they’ve made him whole but he still feels pain and he can’t eat old donuts he scavenges without feeling queasy. And he’s still clumsy.

It’s then he realises he’s crying.

He doesn’t know why.

It doesn’t hurt.

None of it does.

But he’s crying.

-

Theo’s sitting in a cage.

By now he’s used to it. He knows how to get in and out without alerting anyone. Or anything. Sometimes though, he thinks the Pathologist knows.

But he doesn’t get punished so he slips in and out when he feels it’s safe enough.

(It’s never actually safe but he’s gauged how much he can endure from his little trips around the lair).

He hasn’t been outside today, tonight… He still doesn't know what time it is. He doesn’t remember sleeping, but his eyes burn so maybe he’s been awake the whole time.

It’s not safe today.

So he stays inside.

His head is on his knees, turned so he can watch the tiny bulb near the doorway flicker. He’s timed it perfectly so each time it does he closes his eyes and opens them at the exact moment it flickers back on. 

His eyes burn.

The bulb flickers, he closes his eyes, breathes out in perfect sync with the darkness enveloping the room, then opens them just when it flickers on. Perfect.

He does it again.

And again.

Close, breathe out. Open.

Again.

Close, breathe out. Open.

Again.

When he closes his eyes this time the light doesn’t go out. He can tell because he sees red behind his eyelids instead of the dark he’s used to. The nothingness he’s worked up the courage to face. He opens his eyes when he’s supposed to, and the bulb goes out.

It never comes back on.

Theo sits there in darkness, the whir of an old fan in the corner and the hum of electricity the only stimuli for his senses. After a while his eyes stop burning, but he doesn't sleep. Can’t, really. He hasn’t eaten in a while, and his stomach is starting to hurt. It feels like a cramp, like it’s twisting, folding in on itself. They said he’d be so much better at everything since they fixed him but sometimes Theo doesn’t really want to use any of his new abilities. Sometimes he just wants to eat. So he keeps his eyes closed. Keeps his head on his knees. Hopes his stomach keeps twisting on itself. Until it twists itself out of him. So he wouldn’t need to eat. Hopes the lights never come back on. Hopes when he opens his eyes again it’s just as dark and silent as it is in his head. He hopes he can fall asleep like this, forever like this. He doesn’t want to breathe in and out to the flicker of bulbs. Doesn’t want to slip in and out of cages anymore. Doesn’t want to move from house to house, or lay on metal tables and scream himself to death. He doesn’t even want to skate anymore. Doesn’t want to run. Doesn’t want.

But… Maybe if he could… he wouldn’t mind seeing his parents again. Or Tara.

His eyelids are still closed but the thought of Tara makes them flutter. He doesn’t really remember her anymore. He wants to.

Sometimes he sees her, in the river. Theo, she said.

Sometimes he sees her, across from him, when he’s on a metal table. It’s okay, she says.

He’s not sure which is real. They both feel like the last time he saw her.

Here, in the darkness, he wishes he could see her again.

She probably wouldn’t know how to slip into his cage, but she’d reach out, he knows, to wipe his tears. Why are you crying, it’s not like you’re going to die, she’d say.

He wishes she could say that just one more time.