Chapter Ten

Updated July 8th, 2013

Thank goddesses the following day is a Saturday because I get no sleep that night. All I can think about is what to do next. What if I told everybody? Would they even believe me, or would Talo kill me before I could even type the message on Facebook and click post? What if I told Aryll? Does she know about Talo? Is Colin gay? I just can't imagine him doing that to Aryll, or being into Talo.

What if I told no one?

Whenever I imagine letting the world know about Talo, there is no satisfaction. He makes my life miserable and he's such an ass and he is an absolute idiot…yet I can't bring myself to even consider it and I kind of feel like a loser for being unable to seek revenge. Then again, he did give me a death threat.

The only person I tell is Zelda because I know she won't tell anybody, but she hasn't responded to a single text. Even if she is a different personality she usually replies with some weird comment. Her lack of response doesn't bother me though, because holy shit what am I supposed to do about Talo? I know something is wrong, however, when group therapy is canceled in the morning. Our meetings are sporadic enough already (we converse every other week), but Zelda rarely cancels. I assume that she's probably a different personality right now. It's not like she can always be herself at the exact same time every other Saturday. It was bound to happen one day.

So I ignore the nagging of worry and refocus on Talo. Talo, Talo, Talo….holy shit.

I mope around the house all day just wondering on what to do, reflecting on past interactions between Talo and Colin, and pondering the consequences of all my actions. For the few seconds when I am not thinking of Talo I am thinking of Rusl, and thinking of him brings about a scary idea. My thoughts keep returning to Aryll however…maybe because I can hear her blasting her music in her room, or maybe because she's my sister and I am always worried about her, or maybe because I just want answers, but after a whole day of contemplation all I want is another opinion. She would know. She has to know. But will she tell me?

….Maybe?

With a dramatic sigh, I push myself off the couch and head upstairs. Her music grows louder with each step, and it's some weird indie, electronica song that I don't recognize because it's a different language. As I push open the door I realize that I can't remember when she started liking this kind of music.

I find Aryll sitting at her desk typing on her computer, but she immediately sees me and slams her laptop shut. Her sun kissed blonde hair is twirled into loose pigtails and she's wearing a blue floral dress with a white cardigan, yet her stare is anything but sweet. I'm not used to receiving such animosity from her usually kind eyes, and so it makes me stumble with my plan. Without thinking I open her laptop, ignore her angry, "Hey!," open a new word document, and type,

Is Colin gay?

I step back to let her see. Her mouth falls open a bit and her eyebrows scrunch together with confusion. She looks at the screen as if it slapped her in the face, and then she turns that look on me.

"What? No," She snaps. "Why would you ask that? Is this some kind of dumb joke?"

I shake my head and reach for the keyboard.

Are you sure? You never saw anything….?

She looks at me with genuine confusion and I know that if Colin is actually gay then Aryll is completely clueless of it.

"Yes I am sure," she replies defensively. "Because he was dating me. Now why are you even asking me?"

I avert my gaze to the window and shrug, unsure of whether to be honest or not. For some reason that irks her and she turns back to her computer with a huff while grumbling, "What is it with you people always thinking that any nice guy must be gay? Or do you just like starting rumors?"

She starts typing in an effort to dismiss me, but the term you people sparks a prickle of anger in my blood and I can feel myself succumbing to a growing fury.

Snatching the computer from her, I type, You know I'm not like that.

Frowning, she grabs her laptop and snaps, "Oh please, you are just like the rest of those idiot jocks. You think you know everything and you think everybody loves you and you have to maintain your power by making innocent boys jump off towers – "

Before she can finish I latch onto her computer and type furiously, I used to be like that but I am different now! I am not one of them!

"What are you talking about?" She shouts with exasperation. "You just asked me if Colin is gay!"

IT WAS A SERIOUS QUESTION

"And why the hell do you think he's gay in the first place?" she yells. "What is it with you always trying to ruin everything – "

"What is going on here!?" Grandma shouts over her daughter with surprising strength, and we both snap our heads to the door. For a tiny woman she appears incredibly intimidating standing with her hands on her hips and her usually sweet face contorted into an expression of fury. She looks so pissed that neither of us do anything, which only makes her angrier.

"Well?" she asks impatiently and crosses her arms.

"It's nothing, Grandma," Aryll answers quietly. "We're just talking."

I'm not entirely sure why Aryll's dishonest, but I don't do anything because then I might have to mention Talo, and I don't know how Aryll will take that.

"You think it's nothing that this family is falling apart?" Grandma snaps. I swallow a lump in my throat and my face becomes hot with the shame I know is bound to come. Grandma rarely ever scolds us, but when she does she can slice us up with just her words. This time, however, Grandma has truly had enough. Her eyes are dark with misery and sleeplessness and her wrinkles make her face sag. Raising her voice, she continues furiously, "You think it's nothing that we never eat together anymore? Or that you two – once the closest siblings in all of Hyrule – don't even look at each other?"

Her voice breaks for a moment and her glassy eyes become watery. Aryll steps forward and whispers, "Grandma" in a warning tone, but the elderly woman brushes her off with a sharp glare.

"No, Aryll," she says with strength. "I am tired of watching you two abandon each other because you're both incapable of solving your own problems. So this is what is going to happen: first, Aryll, you are going to get over yourself and forgive your brother. You need to accept that he made a mistake and you need to accept his apology and then you need to move past your grudge and help him. You can mope all you want but it isn't doing anybody any good, and I am done waiting for you to realize this yourself so I am telling you that right now, now, you will grow up and move on."

Aryll's mouth is agape and she's staring at Grandma with a mix of awe, shame, and fear. Grandma turns her raging gaze to me and even though she's half my size I feel tinier than a baby as she points her bony, accusing finger at me.

"Second, Link, you're going to stop all this self-loathing you've been doing. This is a bit harder than Aryll's but you have to promise me that you are going to get over this depression, because baby I cannot bear to see you look so sad all the time. You were a wonderful boy and I will not let you die from guilt and self-pity."

She pauses for a moment and blinks a few times to clear her eyes. With a deep breath, she turns to both of us and concludes with:

"And from now on every night we have dinner together. I don't care if you have plans with friends or something else, you two are both going to come every night and set the table and then we are going to eat and we are going to talk – Link don't look at me like that you know what I mean – we are going to communicate to each other about what happened that day and we are going to like it. Do you understand!?"

We nod vigorously, both of us too scared to even think about arguing with her. She glances between us then gives a curt nod with a pleased, "Good" and marches out of the room, leaving us in an uncomfortable silence.

I glance at Aryll and her face is red with shame and anger. She won't look at me but her eyes are tearing up. Deciding to give her some time to think on it, I leave and shut her door behind me.

A scolding from Grandma always hurts the most. I know I've done something wrong when the sweetest woman on Earth rebukes me, though I can tell she isn't as upset with me as she is with Aryll. Despite this, I am still shaken by the strength of her words. I'm more worried, however, about the idea that has been in my head since I saw Rusl. It's a frightening idea, even though it's the right idea, and after what Grandma said to me I know that I need to do it, but first I should run it by her.

Walking down the stairs, I find her sitting on the stained floral couch as she polishes tarnished silver dishes, a thing she does only when she's stressed. She looks up at the sound of my approach and watches me sit down beside her.

"I have an…idea," I begin with slow, cautious gestures.

Placing her dish down, she folds her hands in her lap and stares at me, silently beckoning me to continue.

"Even though you say the accident was not my fault, I still think it is, and I have a way of fixing it…at least part of it."

I pause.

"I want to help pay for Colin's medical bills, and I mean really pay and not give a couple hundred bucks. I want to sell anything I do not need and maybe even put off going to college for a few years so that I can get a job and get enough money – "

"You don't want to go to college?" Grandma interrupts with a strange mix of shock and sorrow. She blinks owlishly and I worry I've done something wrong.

"I do, but not yet. I did the math and I have to delay going so I can focus on paying off the damage I've caused."

Grandma falls silent and she stares at her crinkled, bony hands that are curled together in her lap. I want to tell her that I'm scared because this wasn't part of the plan. The plan was like any other kid's plan – graduate high school, go to college, graduate college, get a job, be happy – but be-guilty-of-friend's-coma was never part of that, and now everything I've been preparing for is in shambles. Grandma was right in that I've been moping around for too long, and now I am actually doing something to try to fix the wrongs I've done, but that doesn't make it any less scary.

Without looking at me she slowly places her tiny, frail hand over mine. Her fingers shift a few times, making my skin tingle, and then she says in an airy voice,

"You don't have to do this."

But we both know that's a lie, because even though I'd much rather try to move past all this shit as fast as possible I have to slow down and reconcile. If I don't then I can never say I'm not one of those morons that Aryll talked about. I can never be free, and so I have to do this.

Grandma gets it, though she's scared too, but I gently entwine my fingers with her and she sighs. I kiss the back of her hand and suddenly it feels as though stones have been removed from my heart and I'm twenty pounds lighter.

As the week goes by there's a notable change in our house. Each night we eat dinner together where I use sign language, Grandma translates, and Aryll responds without animosity in her voice. The words are kind and polite but the feelings are tense and awkward. Aryll only looks at me when she has to, and when she does her gaze is a wild swarm of mixed emotions. Clearly she doesn't know what to think of me now, but I'm just happy that we're talking again. Well, kinda.

Things with Zelda, on the other hand, are not improving. She hasn't responded to any of my texts and she isn't at our meeting spot on both Tuesday and Thursday. I wait for an hour each day but she never shows, and by Thursday night I am sufficiently worried. Her absence makes me more irritable than normal (which means I am super irritable). Even the weather seems effected by my loss; winds are cold, strong, and frequent, the trees are now barren of leaves, and the sky is so covered in clouds it looks like a stone slab has roofed the city. Winter is coming and nature is dying as a consequence. It makes my worry for Colin – and now Zelda – more intense than before.

I wake up on Friday morning to the loud hum of rain pounding on the roof. Already a puddle has formed on the floor where water continuously drips from the cracked ceiling. I sit up and look outside the window, but a waterfall surging from our gutters obstructs my view and, flopping back down on the bed, I decide that I will not go to school today.

Grandma gives me a bit of a hard time but the rain makes her hip ache and she's already running late for work at the bakery, so instead of arguing with me she rushes out of the house. Aryll follows soon after and then I'm left alone with just the rain for company.

I manage to make myself wait till nine before I slip on my green raincoat and run to the bus stop. Though I do my best to avoid the rain at all costs by traveling under awnings and sprinting across open spaces, I'm still soaked by the time I board the bus, and I remain wet all the way to Zelda's front door.

Ringing the doorbell, I expect Impa, Zelda, or one of Zelda's personalities to open the door. I don't expect a bald, rotund man with a thick white beard and matching eyebrows to greet me. His eyes are an intense crystal blue, as pure as glacier water, and they are surrounded by wrinkles and shadows that give him a permanent expression of exhaustion and depression. Even when he smiles he looks as if he's ready to topple over and parish. He reminds me too much of Rusl. Goddesses, I hope I don't start sobbing again.

"Can I help you?" He asks softly in a smooth, baritone voice.

"Do you know sign language?" I ask, and when his thick eyebrows scrunch together in confusion I get my answer. I quickly pull my notebook out and write neatly, Hi, I am Link. Is Zelda available?

When I show it to him he does a double take and blinks a few times.

"You're Link?" he says with what I hope is pleasant surprise. "Zelda has told me much about you. Please come in."

I step inside and a butler or something (can butlers be female?) rushes forward and takes my coat from me. The door slams shut and I'm surrounded by a sterile home that lacks any personal touches. With his pinstriped suit and silk red tie this man clearly fits in with the ornate home, but I just can't imagine Zelda liking these prison-like white walls. A golden chandelier hangs above us but the lights aren't on, thus leaving us to stand in a misty grayness that drains the color out of everything in the room.

Stretching his hand out, he forces a grin and introduces himself in what appears to be a permanently strained, gentle voice. "I'm Daphnes Harkarian, Zelda's father. It's a pleasure to meet you."

I shake his hand and smile in return.

"Would you like something to drink?"

Shaking my head, I write, No thank you. I'm just here to see Zelda. Is she okay?

He hesitates, and that pause of uncertainty sends alarms ringing in my head.

"Physically Zelda is fine….she's actually in her room right now, but mentally…mentally she is not doing well."

Shit.

Shit. This cannot be good. Why didn't I come earlier? Why why why why…

"Impa…" he mumbles as he glances uneasily around the room. I watch him bite his lip and stare blankly at the door in deep thought before he tries again in that same downtrodden, tired voice. "You see, Impa told me that you care for Zelda and that you could be trusted….and so I am going to tell you something that I hope you will keep to yourself. As a political figure and a father of a child with a serious disease, we like to keep our privacy."

I nod. I nod so quickly I am surprised my head doesn't snap off and roll away.

He doesn't speak right away, but looks to the side in contemplation. His face sags, his eyes droop, and even his beard seems to limp. Aside from Rusl I've never seen a more broken man.

"A few years back the hospital connected Zelda with a boy from Termina who also had Multiple Personality Disorder," he explains slowly and his blue eyes become dazed as he remembers the past, making them look as lifeless as ice. "His name was Cou. Zelda and him emailed regularly so that they could support each other and not feel so alone, but while Zelda made progress Cou just….he just got so much worse. A few months into their online relationship he had to be transferred to a mental hospital because one of his personalities – a very cruel, disturbed personality by the name of Majora – tried to kill himself. Cou had many dangerous, broken personalities that make Zelda's harmless in comparison. The one that is stuck in my memory is Skull Kid. He was a young boy who insisted that he was lost and dying. When they asked what he was dying of he said loneliness."

Zelda's father pauses to take a deep, shuddering breath and he blinks back tears. I feel the urge to tell him to stop because I already have a feeling where this is going, but I find myself hanging from his every word and he continues without prompting.

"Despite Cou's worsening situation, he was always optimistic for Zelda. About a month ago, Cou had a breakthrough. He remembered what happened to him that caused his brain to create these personalities in the first place, but he didn't tell Zelda what it was. We all knew, though, that whatever it was must have been terribly, horribly painful. He insisted that he was okay and that he glad he finally remembered, because it meant he was close to being healed, but then…but then his emails became stagnated and when he did respond they were short and vague, and last Friday…last Friday we received news that Cou had committed suicide by jumping off the hospital's roof. Nobody knows if it was Cou that was in control or Majora, but either way the disorder killed him. Either Cou was driven mad by the trauma that he finally remembered, or Majora was successful in what he tried to do for years."

He sighs, and the whole room seems to deflate with it. There is no light or shadow in the foyer, just a bleak grayness that seeps out of his every pore and dissolves into everything around him. The pounding rain mixed with our heavy silence is one of the saddest dirges I've ever heard.

He looks at me now and finishes in his slow, breathless voice, "Zelda has an aggressive personality, too. His name is Sheik, and his ultimate goal is to find my wife's murderer and kill him. So, you see, Sheik is not nearly as awful as Majora since he never tries to destroy Zelda, but he is very dangerous to other people. Last Friday, when we heard about Cou's death, Sheik instantly overcame Zelda and she went missing for three days. Don't be alarmed, this happens somewhat frequently and Impa is always capable of tracking her down. She's fine, thank goddesses, but she's spent all week either in her room or at therapy. Though she's been in and out of various personalities, Sheik has yet to resurface."

Clearing his throat, he stands up a bit straighter and some strength returns to his sagging face. "And so you must understand, Link, that Zelda is unlike any other girl. I am constantly worried about her. I don't trust many people to get close to her, but she seems to like you and Impa even suggested that when you finally did come by – and she suspected that you would – that I should let you visit Zelda and see if you can help her in anyway. I've informed you of the situation, and now it's your turn to decide: you can either go up the stairs to her room and possibly encounter a sobbing girl or a potentially rude, dangerous, childish, or cold persona, or you can go home and sleep it off."

Underneath his words, I can hear what he's really asking: is she worth all this trouble to you?

I understand why Zelda's father is a politician now. His steady, intimidating gaze and calm, sympathetic voice make me anxious and concerned, and I have an overwhelming urgency to prove to him that I can do what he wants. What he wants is for me to help his daughter, and he's thinking that the best way for me to do that is to leave Zelda alone, but I know that's not right. I promised that I'd be her friend, and friends have to be able to handle mentally unbalanced, potentially suicidal moods, right?

Yes, even though my hands are sweating and trembling from dread and fear and I doubt I'll be much help, the answer is yes. I remind myself of this as I march up the stairs, the soft thuds of my footsteps adding to this dirge, and down the corridor. Yes. She is worth the trouble, the terror, the sleepless nights, the constant worry. Yes.

Impa stands guard outside her door. I half expect her to smile at me, to show some hint of pride that I did as she suspected, but her face remains stoic and she steps out of the way without a glance in my direction.

Yes I think and open the door.

Her room looks like every drawer, every pocket, every bag, and every crack barfed all their contents onto her floor. Gothic dresses, ripped shirts, pink cardigans, leather pants, and jean shorts are spread across the room like a blanket, and on top of this sheet of strewn clothes are books of every genre, photographs of every subject, mix CDs of every artist, and papers of every size. There are a few random items as well, such as empty soda cans and wilted flowers and old birthday cards, which are all placed around the room without thought. I imagine a hurricane busted through the window, ripped the floral curtains off their racks, and then sucked up every object and threw it around until the room represented a dump of Zelda.

The door shuts with a gentle click and the girl in question doesn't move from her spot along the windowsill. She sits with her long legs curled up underneath her and with her head pressed against the water-washed glass. Her blonde hair falls around her shoulders in a mix of waves, curls, and pin straight tresses. Her loose dress is as black as coals and elegantly drapes around her curves, making her skin look as pale as bones.

I carefully traverse my way across the room until I'm standing right behind her. She doesn't move. I sit beside her on the padded windowsill. She still doesn't move. Her sky blue eyes are glued to the rain that falls heavy like rocks on the world below and the movements cast flickering shadows across her stony face.

"I suppose you won't leave until I talk to you," she says with a sigh, though her eyes remain glued to the rain. "Well, what do you wish to hear from me? Come on, tell me and I'll say it right back to you, and then you can leave me."

Aside from a nervous shift I don't do anything. Though the answer may be yes I don't know how to go about this consoling business. I was hoping I could just hold her and she'd cry, but this…

"Well?" she snaps and she finally looks at me with cold, red-rimmed eyes. For a few seconds she glares, but when I don't do anything she huffs with irritation and averts her eyes back to the window. "You mutes sure don't talk much," she grumbles, and I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not. "Now I'll have to do all the talking."

She sighs again and brushes a few strands of hair from her face.

"You don't know much about death, but I do. I've studied it and I've experienced it. Did you know I am dying? I mean, you must know because we are all dying, we are all constantly surging straight to an inevitable end whether it be from a car or from disease or from our idiotic friends who thought jumping off a rustic tower was a good idea, but I am dying in more ways than one….Oh, you look stricken. I'm so sorry…I'm sorry you're still so easily affected by life's truths. Get over it. Buck up and move on."

Is this what Zelda really thinks of me? Am I even talking to Zelda anymore? I'm too stunned to even attempt an argument.

She looks at me, but this time her gaze is thoughtful and intelligent rather than annoyed. Pensively, she asks, "Do you remember the flood that happened in Sikah Republic six years ago? Probably not, maybe you didn't even hear about it, but I'm not surprised. A million people drowned, after all, and yet nobody talks about it. I never saw anybody weep. Even now when I think about it and read various reports of the destruction I do not cry. Are you crying? No. And why is that? Try to imagine a million people floating, face down, lifeless in a body of water as small as Kakariko. What do they look like? They'd have to be the size of ants to fit in your imagination, maybe even smaller, and here I am, mourning the loss of one boy who was more detrimental to society than beneficial. The nature of grief and death is impractical and bewildering."

She returns her gaze to the window whereas I just stare at her with my mouth hanging open in dumbstruck awe and stupidity. Yep, I was not prepared to handle this type of grief.

With unsure, clumsy movements, I sign, "Maybe numbers don't matter. Maybe it's who dies that matter."

She reads me with an almost dismissive glance and responds in a weary tone, "Yes, your connection to the deceased is a major factor in how much you grieve, but imagine if everybody you knew died this very second. Would you miss every single one of them? Or just a few? Maybe the number is too great and you'd feel nothing more than just a slight ache in your chest?"

"I'd miss you," I sign hesitantly and she releases a bitter chuckle at that.

"Oh no, you'd miss Zelda, not me, but even then you'd get over her eventually, which is what you should do, but can you imagine death, Link? Can you imagine the world forgetting your name? I've heard it said that a person dies twice: when their heart stops and when their name is spoken for the last time."

I look past her morbid, depressing thoughts, and focus on the use of third person. You'd miss Zelda. That means she must be Death, the personality who is cynical, obsessed with dying, and very philosophical. It's a strange relief knowing that this isn't Zelda who is being so callous with me, but at the same time I wonder if she really thinks these thoughts.

"Can Zelda come out?"

"You'd rather listen to the sobs of a thoughtless, emotionally-driven girl than to my explanation of the nature of decay and the meaning of life?" She retorts with derision and a nasty glare.

"Yes, but maybe another time we can discuss the nature of decay and the meaning of life."

"Hm, depends on what I'm feeling that day," she replies with a shrug. "Maybe the afterlife is a better subject suited for your naivety."

I nod, ignoring the insult, and she leans against the glass again and closes her eyes. Five minutes or so pass and I simply watch her back rise and fall with each breath that clouds the windowpane. Her eyes flutter. Her fingers twitch. She looks at me and I know Zelda has returned.

Her eyebrows furrow together in confusion and her lips part, my name on the tip of her tongue, but then realization washes over her and her expression slowly slips into one of weary sorrow. For a minute we don't move and only stares at me with eyes that are wise beyond her years. Without a word she twists in her seat until her back is partly pressed against the window and partly pressed against my shoulder. We mesh together seamlessly. Her head rests against my shoulder, my arms circle around her body, and her thigh is pressed against mine. She doesn't speak for a long time. We just sit together and listen to the endless rain. After awhile though, I grab a small pad of paper and with my arms still around her I write,

I'm sorry about Cou.

I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but she shifts around and replies with a sigh,

"Yeah…me, too."

Your dad is very nice, I write, and I know it's random but what else should I do?

"Hmm," she hums. "He worries a lot, rightfully so."

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Will you be okay?

She doesn't respond right away.

"I don't know."

I press a soft kiss to the top of her head. She shifts closer to me.

"The worst part…" she whispers in a shaking, scared voice. "The worst part is that I relied on him so much, because even though he had it much worse he was so optimistic that he gave me hope, and now…. Now I wonder if there's a reason we have the disorder in the first place. It's meant to protect us from facing reality, and though I hate not being in control of my body, the truth might be too painful…"

I place my hand over her hand and she sinks into me. A surge of protectiveness rushes through my body and I hold her tighter.

"Have you ever heard of Martha Stout? Probably not. She's a psychologist who works with people like me…people whose brains develop ways of repressing trauma through different disorders. In one of her essays, Stout describes our mental state as being trapped inside your house during a snowstorm with the power out. It's cold and dark and you're completely alone, and even if you huddle under every single blanket in your house you still feel numb."

She takes a deep breath in a useless attempt to stop her rambling, but she keeps going as if it's out of her control.

"And your house that was once so warm and comforting now feels like a tomb, and if the storm continues for much longer you might die from the cold. So you head to the fuse box in the basement, and you realize you could turn the power back on if you replace the wiring with some copper, but if the wiring of the house is overloaded then doing so might cause a fire. If you do fix the wiring then you'll spend all night on edge, too scared to fall asleep because you might not notice the fire until it's too late. If you don't fix the wiring, however, you might die a slow, numbing death. You have to decide then. Either sit in the frozen darkness and listen to the wail of the wind and rattle of ice, or try to feel more human and make things warm and comfortable but risk calamity and howling pain. Either sabotage the fuse box, or don't."

She hesitates before continuing. Her fingers slip in between mine and my thumb gently passes over hers in a comforting caress. For the short time that she's silent she allows the metaphor to sink in, and it's a terrifying metaphor, because there is no guarantee for safety. Doing nothing is a risk in itself, and doing something could just bring a more painful end.

"Cou sabotaged the fuse box," she mumbles, and her previous surge of strength has been replaced with fear and melancholy. "And his house burned to a crisp. What will happen if I sabotage the fuse box?"

I don't know, I slowly write in long, letters that slope and twirl together. What happens if you don't?

"I'll waste away," she replies in hushed tones. "I know that I have to sabotage the fuse box, because my life isn't even mine, it belongs to somebody else, but that doesn't mean I'm not scared."

Her voice is so quiet that I can barely hear it over the rain. She presses into me, her face pressed against my heart. "I'm so, so scared," she says in a broken whisper.

The next minute, hour, day, month, or however long I am there for is spent with me brushing the hair out of her face as I hold her close. Her body shivers and curls with the effort of restraining tears. Stroking her head, I imagine her fuse box whirring and stirring beneath my fingers. I imagine it as a complicated system of circling wires of blackness and light. I imagine sparks that are dangerously large dancing along the edges. I imagine it as a beautiful terrifying mess, one that needs just a little bit of tweaking to save it from destruction.

After the minute, hour, day, month or whatever has passed and she's no longer on the brink of tears, I reach out and grab her iPod off her desk. I flick through the screens and get to her mental playlist. Turning up the volume, I click play and "Lost In My Mind" by The Head and the Heart cuts through the humming of rain with welcome relief.

The corners of Zelda's mouth twitch up into a smile and that tiny act makes my heart soar. We listen to the opening and first verse in silence, simply allowing the upbeat song to thaw away the melancholy. By the second verse I begin mouthing the words. Zelda looks up at me and watches with fondness and a lingering sadness. Tapping my finger to the beat, I continue to mouth the words and I hope I'm not making a fool of myself, but if Zelda's smiling then it doesn't really matter.

Zelda comes in at the chorus and I blast the song. She bobs her head along with the tune as she sings along. I hadn't expected her to be so out of tune, but it seems more of a virtue than a flaw and my heart swells in a way I can't describe.

After the second verse and another round of the chorus, we're completely into it. Our bodies become instruments. We swing our shoulders together and bounce our heads around as our fingers drum on whatever is closest. When the final verse comes around she jumps up and pulls me after her. Still singing along, she grabs my hands and then immediately leads me into a crazy dance of twirling and jumping. I like to think of it as Zelda's Multiple Personality Swing and Stomp dance moves. We spin around and tap our feet and cross our arms and wave our hands and swing our hair and entwine our fingers until the song ends with a final, empowering note. Two seconds of silence follow where we just look at each other and smile. In those two seconds I see that the sadness is still there, but our growing sense of hope is shining brighter than the fear and sorrow. The next song – JD McPherson's jazzy "North Side Gal" – begins with a bang and we're up again. We sing and laugh and dance for all we're worth. I imagine that if somebody saw us we'd look like complete lunatics: a mute guy mouthing the words with way too much enthusiasm, a girl who can't sing shouting the lyrics to the sky, and two clumsy bodies swinging and stomping around a trashed room.

I imagine they'd see a beautiful mess.

Author's Note

So. Tired. But lots to discuss.

First I want to mention a few references: much of Death's dialogue (Zelda's alternate personality) was based off of Annie Dillard's "The Wreck of Time" (I highly recommend you guys go read that, it's short), and Martha Stout's essay "When I Woke Up Tuesday, It Was Friday" has that great metaphor about the snowstorm and the fuse box that I love so much (read that story too). And of course I had some songs in there (Lost in My Mind makes another appearance!).

I am trying really hard to update weekly. There will be grammatical errors and I apologize. There will also be other errors, which I apologize for, but I am hoping you don't notice those. : )

Thanks to Generala who showed me how to change my Tumblr name (thank God), the url has been changed to: wavewood. tumblr. Com (remove spaces).

Now to some special thanks: I want to give a huge thank you to my good friend Canada Cowboy for helping me out so much with the plot and such for this story. In this chapter CC suggested that Grandma play a more active role in rebuilding the family and that Link get some redemption by providing compensation for Colin's family. So thank you CC!

Another special thanks goes to Masterday who gave me her personal experience and knowledge of therapy and mental disorders. There is nothing specific here to link her to, but I wanted to make sure that I express my gratitude even if I don't apply why she told me. Thank you Masterday!

And now thanks to everybody else for your awesome, supportive, and skeptical (lots of you were concerned about Talo, and for good reason ahahaha) reviews! Thank you James Birdsong, Yanner, Canada Cowboy, Linkforever125, Sparkling-Iris, SweetCarnation, Miss Ashlynn, The Supreme, sslamajama97, ShadowNinja1011, burning book, The Phoenix Flower, Hummingbird-95, The Super Twins, PotterAllTheWay64, AngelicParadox91, A Shadow's Lament, Kamil the Awesome, BlueFrenchHorn97, Masterday, ScarlettAlexandra, KaChan84, aipatchi, Generala, Sparxthehdgehog, Guest, R. Recollect, Jogman74, Sun-Wind Dragon, and hylianprincessZ! Damn, dat is a lot of reviews. Aw yis!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!

~~Wave~~