"All I'm saying is, if anyone else had been cast in the role it wouldn't have been as big as it was."
Aelita slung her bag over her shoulder as Jérémie let her in ahead of him through the front gate. She didn't care for the argument one way or another, it was just a stupid movie, but taking a vehement stance in opposition to Jérémie was fun simply for what it was. It was a nice reminder, too, Aelita thought, that amidst a shared business, shared office space, shared lives, they were their own people.
There was another bonus; Jérémie's propensity to argue with such conviction was incredibly sexy.
For his part, Jérémie, following his girlfriend down the impeccable garden path, relished the chance not to talk about business and figures. It was all they had seemed to do lately. This was a welcome reprieve.
"It could have been a sleeper hit," he countered. "I find it hard to believe that people wouldn't appreciate the cinematography, or at least the soundtrack."
"I guess we'll just have to watch it again, won't we?"
Jérémie opened the front door open for her, smiling. "As I recall, we hardly watched it the first time."
She swatted his chest affectionately and they stepped inside.
"Odd?" Aelita called ahead of them. She sniffed the air curiously, breathing in cooking smells that went straight to her stomach, and beneath them the faint tang of furniture polish. Odd emerged, apron on and fish slice in hand. His hair had curled lightly under the caress of steam from the kitchen.
Remember to smile.
"Welcome home!" he waved to them with the hand that held the fish slice, and grinned.
He moved fluidly as he slid plates into place on the table, pleased to be engaged with a task he knew so well. He had even folded flowers and animals out of the cloth napkins, and Aelita and Jérémie were extremely impressed. Dinner was, on the whole, an extremely pleasant affair and they drifted on the buzz of good conversation to the living room sofas.
Eventually, somewhere between a movie preview and an advertisement for chocolate-caramel cereal, Odd noticed that his friends had fallen asleep. Jérémie's shirt rode up, crumpled, over his stomach, and Aelita's skirt had twisted until it was on back to front. Again, hard work crossed his mind and here he was, guilt at being here piled high with extra guilt about why he was here, feelings that a day's chores and some cooking couldn't even begin to put a dent in. Without the distraction of their company, the necessity of an audience to spur on his acting, Odd felt the last dregs of energy drain out of him.
He found a laundry cupboard and cast blankets over his friends, fleece catching on an up-current of air as it drifted down slowly to settle over the two prone bodies. Then he poured himself a glass of water, hesitated over the kitchen cabinet where glossy bottles of wine were lined up alongside cut glasses, and finally retired to his room.
It had quickly become routine to wake late in the day to an empty house. Odd, in bed with Kiwi sprawled lethargically across the pillows, did something he hadn't done in a while. He called his mother.
She seemed mildly surprised to hear from him.
"We stopped by your apartment and you weren't at home," she said. "We assumed you'd gone out, but you never showed up. Where are you?"
Odd sighed. Any other parent would have been frantic, but the Della Robbias didn't have it in them to get stressed about anything. He had learned over the years not to take their lack of concern personally.
"I'm in Paris," he admitted.
"Oh?"
"I'm visiting Aelita and Jérémie."
"I see."
He could hear plainly the smirk in her voice, imagined her leaning on a roll of wallpaper with a book of colour samples in her other hand, the smell of fresh paint and wallpaper paste in the air. He didn't actually know what she was doing, but he wouldn't be surprised if their house in Italy was in the processes of yet another spontaneous home renovation. There was music distantly in the background, competing with his father's energetic rendition of a loud Italian opera.
Naturally, the Della Robbias had found out about their supposed niece. Odd remembered clearly how that had gone, the way his heart had jammed in his throat all those years ago when his mobile rung just before he went down to dinner in Kadic's chaotic canteen.
"So you have a cousin?" was all Mrs Della Robbia had said when she had picked up.
"I-I can explain...?"
He couldn't, and knew better than to come up with a lie unless it was a damned good one, but they had chosen the Della Robbias as their cover story for a reason. Contrary to the others' belief, Odd wasn't exaggerating when he had insisted his parents wouldn't care, were so laid-back they were a step away from permanently reclining on the floor. They missed the resentment he felt, and he hid it quietly whilst they congratulated themselves on setting up Aelita's fake identity. As a result of the whole thing, Mr and Mrs Della Robbia had become very much invested over the years in the young Miss Einstein, Jérémie too by extension and by how much Odd talked about them both, and whenever they called Odd they would ask for the latest.
"How are they doing?" Odd's mother asked sweetly.
"Oh you know. Successful as ever. They're doing all the groundwork for launching their new company so they've been working hard. But it's good to see them."
It was good to speak to her, too, Odd found. He didn't have much to say himself but enjoyed hearing about his family's latest escapades, and, considering the size and scope of the Della Robbia clan, there was always a lot of news to catch up on.
"...And that's when your grandmother decided to go skiing. We've sent Louise along to make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble, you know how she is. Anyway, Odd dear, is there anything you needed?"
"I'm fine, Mom. I'm covering the rent and eating okay."
Odd knew he just needed to say the word and he'd have a hefty amount of Euros appear in his bank account. The Della Robbias wanted complete freedom for their son, which, they insisted genially, included the freedom to make mistakes without any serious repercussions. How many people, they said, stopped chasing their dreams, expanding their minds, because of the risk of losing everything? Odd both loved and resented them for it. He had been able to piss away years of his life in an expensive and prestigious boarding school, and repeat the cycle again at university. Whilst Odd lounged around playing video games, Ulrich at least had the decency to worry about his grades, and Jérémie, Yumi, and later Aelita, worked diligently to maintain their scholarships.
Odd shook his head, as though the action would dislodge the guilt that stuck in his brain and coloured everything with a thick grey fog.
"Odd, are you still there?"
He really must stop getting so distracted when people were talking to him.
"Yeah, Mom. Still here. I'm going to go now though. It was good to hear from you."
"You too, dear. You should call more often! I'll tell your father you got in touch."
It was as though that first decision to get up and cook and clean the previous day had unblocked a dam, and the phone call had helped in its own way, and slowly other things began to feel a little easier. So long as he didn't think too much.
On his bed, with his laptop balanced on his knees, Odd decided to brave his emails next. There were messages from Ulrich, William and Yumi, all "just checking in"; Sissi, angry and upset and apologetic (in chronological order) and she'd found some of his old sketchbooks at her place, did he want them back? Then there were potential clients, whose emails he scrolled through with an increasing sense of despair. It still surprised him that people paid him money for his art, his graphic design, the ideas that seemed to come so easily to him but that clients were at a loss to come up with themselves.
It had been living the dream, once. Freelance design let him loose in a world outside of the typical nine to five; Odd could wake at noon and work with his laptop balanced on his knees in front of the television, music blaring at ear-splitting decibels.
Now the lack of of structure irritated him. Inspiration felt out of reach. Odd reflected with mixed feelings on the studio apartment he'd abandoned in a fit of impulsive desperation. He felt irrationally angered sitting here in this house, where he would go downstairs presently and sit surrounded by photos of Jérémie and Aelita and friends of theirs whom he didn't know, yet deep down he knew he couldn't blame the missing motivation on anything but his own sluggish brain.
But life had to move on, and Odd might as well try to move with it. He clicked on the most recent message and began to read.
/
Time passed, gradually and all at once, until suddenly Odd found the few days he intended to stay had stretched into weeks.
There was no mention of this from any of them as they gathered in the kitchen on Saturday morning, all in place for the routine they had carved out for themselves. Aelita stood with her back to the window where a milky mid-morning sunlight flooded the room. Jérémie and Odd sat opposite one another at the wooden table, deep in conversation about some new motoring phenomenon she hadn't heard of. Aelita leaned back and her elbow nudged against the space rack that had appeared on the kitchen counter a day or two earlier, one of the latest in a series of little additions.
The changes to the household were subtle; when Aelita and Jérémie were home Odd seemed less prone to distraction, or else he hid it better; the house was immaculately tidy, dinner was always cooked. New ingredients appeared silently in the fridge.
Aelita, anticipating a long search for her favourite mug, was instead surprised to find it exactly where it should be. Lifting it from the cupboard, she found that Odd had even scoured out the tea stains that had cemented in rings around the bottom.
The thing that was missing, and that it took Aelita a while to notice, was the lack of smell of paint. It had always accompanied Odd, dug under his fingernails and lingered in that studio apartment of his she had visited on occasion. In all the time she had known Odd, she had never known him not to paint.
It was something she had been meaning to mention but there never really seemed to be a good time. Now certainly wasn't it. Maybe today she would get around to mentioning it.
Aelita took the breakfast dishes from the table and added them to the soapy water already filling the sink. She reached across Jérémie for her jacket, slung over one of the chairs. Odd, taking his cue, stood up as well. He pushed his last croissant across the table towards Jérémie.
"Sure you can't ditch your old university friends and wander aimlessly around the streets with Aelita and me today?" he asked. Seeing the others so casually reach out to new acquaintances still surprised him. For the longest time he had found a tight-knit group of five (later six, and seven) who kept their secrets close and rarely interacted with anyone else, completely normal.
Jérémie was distracted by the croissant, picked it up and nibbled the edge with a bemused expression. "Can't, Odd, sorry," he said, voice trailing. Aelita leaned over him, pressed a kiss to his forehead. Jérémie pulled her down towards him, directing his next words close to her ear.
"This is a bit rich coming from me, but make sure Odd gets a decent lunch today, okay?"
Aelita glanced up at the other boy, fussing with Kiwi's collar, and nodded. "You have a good day. We'll be back this afternoon. Ready to go, Odd?"
Odd wore dark jeans and his old purple jacket. Aelita wore indigo trousers with a beaded necklace at her neck and soft, knitted purple sweater. The city had recovered from a recent slew of rainfall and now the mid-morning dawned crisp and clear, sunny but cold with it. Kiwi panted with excitement at the idea of leaving the house but stayed patiently still, tail wagging, as Aelita bent at the gate to fix the leash onto his collar.
"How is work going?" she asked as they made their way along.
Odd felt a knot his stomach tighten at the tons of emails still unread. "Not bad."
As they walked, Aelita would occasionally bump into someone she knew, would wave and smile. She'd link her arm through Odd's to combat the push and pull of the crowds, flocking tourists on their way to the Eiffel Tower, and they took it in turns to hold Kiwi's leash, sometimes pausing to accommodate the dog's interest in some unknown scent on the pavement.
"Thanks for coming with," said Odd. "Though I'm sure you could be doing something more fun with your weekend than this."
She jostled him playfully. "Don't be silly. It's lovely to be out of the house."
Even so, he saw her fingers constantly press against the inside pocket of her jacket where her phone made a conspicuous outline, twitching to check emails and messages.
"You realise you don't have to be glued to that thing," he said, the next time he noticed her doing it.
"Says the guy who spends his life on video games and the Internet when he's not working."
"Hey, that's different. I like the Internet. It's kind of cool knowing I've literally been in it, travelling the same path as millions of pieces of data. Or whatever it was did, back in the day."
"Yeah." Aelita grinned. "When the rest of the world catches up and everyone's travelling at high speed through the Internet, you can claim the bragging rights of doing it first."
Odd laughed. Kiwi trotted up to him suddenly and scratched at Odd's shoes as if acknowledging the increasingly rare sound. The dog's breath was coming quicker, the walk already tiring him.
"Kiwi seems happy," Aelita noted. "How is he?"
"He's deaf in one ear now and his joints aren't what they were. It took him a long time to recover from that operation he had a few years ago, remember? But he is happy. I spoil him, you know, I always have."
He was embarrassed to find sudden tears pricking at his eyelids, words blocked by the lump in his throat.
Aelita's hand was light on his shoulder.
"He's had a good life, Odd."
"I know."
Kiwi had lived an exceptionally long time, the upper bracket of his breed's expected lifespan, yet the fact that his life had to end at all was terribly unfair. Kiwi had been a puppy when they took him from the rescue centre, when Odd had sensed that this dog more than any other needed a second chance. Kiwi had been with Odd through everything and the idea of him simply not being there was difficult to imagine, when so much of the dog's needs were tied up in Odd's daily routine. He couldn't count the times that Kiwi needing to be walked or fed had got Odd out of bed, or the times when Odd hadn't even managed that, and Kiwi had been there anyway, not judging or resenting but simply loving.
These days, Odd looked at Kiwi and saw time inching forward, towards an event from which Odd could never come back.
He had had such mastery over time once. The power to cheat death by seconds, to know what his classmates were going to say and have the perfect response ready because he'd heard it all before. He had youth and health, and the certainty that he didn't need to look past the few school years that were already mapped out for him.
Sometimes he was reminded just how much that power was lost to him.
/
(The factory. March, 2010.)
It was so cold.
Odd's feet were ice, his breath left him in thick wisps of mist with each slow step towards the factory. Clawed feet scratched at his stomach as Kiwi's warm body wriggled beneath Odd's jacket. Odd leaned his head forward, felt the tip of a cold wet nose against his cheek.
"Sssh, boy. We're almost there."
What surprised Odd most, after that careful slide on the rope swing and the loud, echoing thud as he hit the floor, was how the factory felt so much smaller than he remembered it. He didn't have to reach up to push the lever, and could swing himself easily into the supercomputer chair. The great machine came to life slowly, buttons blinking as though bewildered that anyone had remembered this place at all.
Odd placed his fingers on the keys and they came away coated with dust. He blew it away, great clouds swirling up in the air, typing away to load up the programmes and surprised just how much he remembered. Jérémie had been a good teacher.
Odd unzipped his jacket, repositioned Kiwi on is lap and pressed his face into the dog's fur.
"You'll be safe here, boy. Nothing can hurt you on Lyoko any more." A world without danger, just as Franz Hopper had intended.
Methodically, carefully, he set up the delayed virtualisation sequence. Scooped Kiwi up in his arms, made the slow descent towards the scanner room with his harsh yellow light where the middle door stood open, waiting.
Odd's voice was barely a whisper.
"Are you ready?"
He wasn't sure who he was asking; Kiwi or himself.
He looked at the white tomb of the scanner, remembered Aelita when they first found her and how she'd spent over a year trapped in that vast virtual wasteland, walking an endless cycle of forest, mountain, desert and ice, waiting for someone to rescue her. He thought about Kiwi, who loved the smells of the city and who chased squirrels in the park, who loved the morning sun and evenings at home pressed up against the sofa cushions. He thought about the operation and how it might fail, and how it might not. And how utterly selfish it would be to keep Kiwi here, rather than risk letting him go.
Kiwi craned his head upwards and licked Odd's hand.
"Could I do this to you?" Odd asked him. Kiwi blinked, barked once, softly.
Moments later he was in the elevator, watching it close on the scanner door. And Kiwi was still in his arms.
The supercomputer in darkness once more, and when Odd stepped out into the night the tears on his cheeks were snatched up by the chill wind.
He hadn't even realised that he was crying.
/
(Present day.)
Their next stop was the supermarket. Aelita meandered with purpose, heading straight for the baked goods aisle to stock up on the croissants she had been snacking on throughout the week. She was hesitating over two varieties of chocolate spread when Odd tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey Aelita. Don't look now but the bass guitarist from the Subsonics is right behind us."
Naturally she turned around, just as the bearded man behind them did. Seconds later the two were stepping into a hug with chorused greetings of "Ben!" "Aelita!", and Odd remembered how she had kept in touch with the band from years and years ago. Now he found himself an awkward accessory to an old acquaintanceship and, after a minute or two of hovering on the fringes of their conversation, ducked into the next aisle in search of snacks for Kiwi.
Ben said something and Aelita was laughing. The conversation seemed to last a lifetime; just as Odd thought it was going to end, Ben would add something else and they would start up again. It didn't help that other shoppers, realising they were in the midst of a celebrity, were sneaking glances out of the corners of their eyes. Odd wandered aimlessly, cold beneath the relentless blast of air conditioning.
"So where are you living now, did you say?" Ben was asking.
"Oh, we're in the city, not too far from here. Depending on how things go with our new business, we're thinking of moving out of the country. New York, maybe."
New York? Odd's heart leapt. This was news to him.
"It's barely an idea so far," Aelita added. "My boyfriend and I haven't talked about it much yet. We have to get past planning my birthday first." She laughed. "Say, would you and Chris and Nico like to come?"
He asked for the date and shook his head with genuine disappointment when Aelita supplied it. "We have a gig that night. Charity thing."
"Oh well. Don't worry about it."
"We'll take you out to dinner the week after, how about that? The guys would love to hear about how you've been getting on. Do you have my new phone number? Here," Ben held out his hand for Aelita's phone and keyed it in. There was a murmuring somewhere behind Odd, who turned to see a group of teenagers staring at Aelita with something between awe and envy.
"Give me a call next time you're free."
Aelita nodded, trying not to seem too overwhelmed. "Thank you, I will. It was lovely to see you again."
Odd had run out of aisle to traverse and found himself back at Aelita's side. Ben flashed a smile at him, but it was the polite, accomodating smile that celebrities reserved for journalists and fans. "Hey." He frowned slightly. "Have you I seen you before?"
"I'm Aelita's friend. We've probably met at some point-"
The teenagers were on the move, having acquired a pen and some paper between them, and Ben nodded to them before turning back to Aelita. "Looks like I should get going. Be seeing you."
"Well that was nice," Aelita said a little breathlessly as they left the supermarket with their bags in hand. It was lunchtime, the sun had come out, and pedestrians were swapping jackets for sunglasses and ice cream. "Sorry it got a little awkward for you there. It can be a bit weird, with all those people staring. He;s just a person, you know?"
"Yeah."
Odd thought about how the Subsonics' music had played on repeat through his Walkman in the long year before his transfer to Kadic, and for some time afterwards. It was a little jarring to have someone's face hang on a poster over your bed for years, then suddenly see them in person.
"So the Subsonics are taking you to dinner? That's cool."
Aelita flushed with delight. "Yeah."
They found their way to the park, and despite Jérémie's request that they eat something substantial for lunch, indulged in ice cream and crepes. They let Kiwi loose and he trotted ineffectually over the grass before giving up and curling under a bench to sleep.
Aelita dropped her bags and sank down gratefully. "I've missed having Kiwi around, you know," she said. "I don't suppose I had any pets when I was little. I don't remember, anyway, so if anyone ever asks I find myself telling them I had a dog, since it felt like Kiwi kind of belonged to all of us."
"I felt like that too."
During the natural breaks in conversation, Aelita took to watching the people around them. She saw two women holding hands, a child ducking beneath them with her ponytail bouncing. Sometimes Aelita saw the adults in their lives – the older ones, in their mid-thirties with life experience and families – and the thought would flit across her mind that she should be there with them. In times like those, she felt a great disconnect from the rest of the world, and wondered if she could apply that to what Odd was going through.
She turned towards him and saw him flicking through a pack of playing cards that he'd pulled from his pocket. Aelita couldn't help but smile; was it so bad, she thought, to be glad that Odd had stayed the same? Despite everything, she sensed Odd was still his same self underneath, the joker, the life and soul of the party. If only he could remember it.
The same way that a particular song reminded someone of a memory, Odd's presence brought a tumult of feelings rising to the surface in Aelita, untapped possibilities and the thought of what might have been. She was happy of course, just sentimental in a way that Jérémie wasn't. Aelita had ensured her own happiness, done a great many interesting things and planned to do thousands more. But still, sitting here with Odd, watching him try to build a house of cards on the curved surface of the bench between them, set the old thoughts spinning into motion.
"Remember that time we pranked your sisters with paint balloons?"
Odd's eyes glazed over as he mentally sought after the memory, then a small grin worked its way onto his face. "Oh, yeah. Didn't they TP our rooms after that?"
"Yep. And swapped your hair gel for... tanning lotion, I think?"
Aelita was laughing, but stopped when she noticed Odd wasn't.
"I always got the impression those prank wars bothered you more than you let on. Am I right?"
Odd shrugged. "It was fun when you were there. Otherwise it was just me against them and it got tiring after a while. They were jerks, they just didn't know any better."
Being 'cousins', and Aelita spending so much time with Odd and his family, these were some of the many memories that existed just between them. There were more- hours spent in music stores admiring equipment they couldn't possibly afford, swimming in the sea, Odd teaching Aelita to draw. There was one summer that especially stood out to Aelita. She thought back to shady alcove hidden by trees, Odd in a white shirt and her in a pink dress.
She had almost kissed him then, knowing full well what it meant.
It had been an exhilarating, delightful, confusing summer. But it was lost to the past now, like so many other things.
Odd gave up on the house of cards at last, gathered them all quickly into a pile and stuffed them back in his pocket. Aelita filled the space between them.
"Can't be bothered," he said, meaning the cards.
"I know," she replied.
"Hey, Aelita."
"Yeah?"
He looked directly at her and wound an arm around her shoulder. "I missed you."
She leaned into him, inhaling Jérémie's borrowed cologne. She embraced, cautiously, this merging of two people, Odd's body and Jérémie's scent, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"I missed you too," Aelita breathed. "Oh, Odd. You disappeared for a long time you know."
"Sorry."
Aelita shook her head, drew back from him a little. "Don't. I get it. I did the same once too, remember?"
Odd remembered all too well.
It was a strange coincidence, one they couldn't possibly be aware of, but it so happened that Jérémie had recently been thinking about the exact same thing.
/
(Kadic Academy. Summer, 2009.)
"I'm leaving," she said flatly. Her eyes flickered anywhere, everywhere but him, their movement at odds with the rest of her body which was poised in the centre of his room, ramrod straight.
"You're what? Leaving where?"
"I'm not going to university. With you." Aelita paused to let this sink in, mouth twisted in guilt. "I'm sorry, Jérémie."
He was aware of his own mouth gaping slightly, her words echoing off the blankness inside his head. He shook himself, as though the motion could shake the confusion loose.
"I don't- Why?" Jérémie asked. "Which university are you going to instead?"
"I'm not."
He stared at her. Her eyes met his for a second, something unreadable in her expression, before they fixed upon her shoes.
"You're not going to university?"
"Not yet, anyway."
"Then, when? Aelita, we were going together, we were always going together, that's the plan."
"Yes, well," Aelita said briskly, "I've changed my mind about the plan. I'm making my own plans." The way she said it, he should have realised that all this time he'd been planning without her, assumed her compliance and enthusiasm was implicit in his. Hindsight's realisation flooded him, but mingled with it was indignation. Why not? It was the best choice, clearly, for both of them. What else would she do?
He asked her this, rising from his chair as he did so, and anger flashed over her face. Jérémie fought the urge to step back, aware with startling clarity just how much frustration bubbled beneath the surface of that small, tense frame.
"What am I going to do?" Aelita echoed, voice cracking slightly on the last syllable. "You know what, Jérémie? I don't know." She threw her hands up in exasperation. "I don't actually know, to the letter, how I'm going to live the rest of my life. And I'm okay with that."
A soft 'oh' escaped him, a barely audible, involuntary sound. A million questions raced through Jérémie's head but the rest of him was numb, the thoughts unable to make it to his mouth. Something about the way he stood there tugged at something in Aelita, and her whole being softened.
"I just want to find myself, for a while. Figure out who I am, on my own." From nerves to guilt, to anger and now finally, she was skidding to a halt at tears, stubbornly pricking at her eyelids. Aelita exhaled, a long, shuddering breath, and allowed them to fall. Jérémie watched them slide silently down her cheeks, gathering in droplets at her chin until, too heavy, they burst in tiny splashes onto the skin at her open collar.
"I love you," she said hoarsely. "I love you so much, Jérémie. But this-" she waved one hand, the gesture not enough to cover the vast, overwhelming mundanity of her life, with its lingering shadows of the past and its myriad questions unanswered - "this isn't enough for me any more."
In the silence that followed she had taken hold of his hands. Now she opened her fingers and released them, where they swung to his sides, as numb and unresisting as the rest of him.
The door clicked shut softly behind her.
Jérémie stood where he was for a long time.
School finished for good the next day, an overstated affair of tearful farewells. All around him classmates were hugging, loading suitcases into cars, exchanging phone numbers and email addresses on torn scraps of paper. Through the crowd of school leavers, Milly and Tamiya could be seen brandishing notepads and cameras. Jérémie had performed the process of packing with little interest, his thoughts far away as he methodically stowed away clothes, books, CDs. His computer was the last thing to go and it was when this was dismantled - leaving in its place a vast expanse of empty desk which would, in a few weeks' time, house some new students' homework - that the finality of this departure hit him.
He opened his door to find Odd, Ulrich and Yumi waiting for him. William couldn't make it but Yumi, visiting her parents, had taken the chance to see them off and catch up with old friends and teachers.
Jérémie cringed beneath their obvious concern. It struck him suddenly that they had known about Aelita's plans long before he had, and that idea that she had been so afraid of telling him sent an almost-physical pang through him.
"Where's Aelita?" he asked. They hadn't spoken since yesterday afternoon's announcement. Now, he was sorely regretting it.
"She's downstairs. She was talking to Jim about something, but-" Ulrich hesitated, "she said she'd meet us, if that's all right."
Jérémie knew his relief was plastered plainly across his face. "Yes," he said. "Yes, that's fine." He was irritated with her, but he wouldn't miss her going for the world.
His friends all shared the burden of his packed up boxes, moving ahead of him in the direction of the crowded stairwell. Ulrich's free hand pressed down his shoulder as he passed and Yumi offered him a tiny smile. Odd hung back, watching Jérémie lock the door for the final time, pocketing the key that would be handed in at the school's reception area in the very final stages of leaving.
"It's completely stupid, what she's doing," Jérémie said, facing the closed door. From the corner of his eye, Odd shrugged.
"We all need one of those moments, of being completely stupid. At least one."
There was the faintest shadow of something familiar about this moment, both were thinking. Something fleeting and vague on the periphery of a memory neither could quite capture. Another time, another place, they'd been here before.
Jérémie turned to Odd.
"She'll be okay, right?"
If there was anyone who could understand the depth of what he felt for that girl, it was Odd Della Robbia, Odd, who loved everyone close to him with the fiercest intensity. A thoughtful silence lingered, until Odd's face broke into its easy grin and Jérémie felt a bubble of grateful elation rise up in his chest at the sight. Shifting the box he held under one arm, Odd slung the other around Jérémie's shoulders.
"'Course she will, Einstein. Of course she will."
They fought through the crowds and emerged, more or less together, into Kadic's sun-drenched courtyard where Mr Gauthier, Mr Belpois and the Sterns waited amongst hundreds of harried parents beside their cars. Aelita appeared behind them with a smile that faltered only slightly when she saw Jérémie, and they put everything else aside in anticipation of hugs and goodbyes. Then the others were gone, Mr Belpois flashed his son a conspiratorial smile and suddenly remembered that he needed to use the bathroom, and at last it was the two of them, alone.
It was enough for a moment just to look at her, her face slightly pink, small suitcase beside her. Then Jérémie spoke.
"I don't like that you're doing this."
"I don't care."
She blinked; her abruptness astonished them both.
Jérémie heaved a sigh. There wasn't much he could say in response to that, nothing that wouldn't start an argument, anyway, so he simply said: "Fair enough."
"This isn't about you, Jérémie," Aelita's words left her in a rush, "Well, I suppose it is a little bit, but-"
"Just keep in touch," he pleaded. "Don't... forget me."
"I won't. Of course I won't."
He reached out a hand with a jerky, uncertain movement, but Aelita didn't resist when he placed it on her shoulder. She shrugged slightly beneath the touch, a silent acknowledgement.
"Be careful."
"I will," she said. "Have a good year."
She turned, suitcase skipping on the gravel behind her, and walked, into a crowd that swallowed her within moments, straight out of his life.
Jérémie sat in the car and waited for his father.
The drive home was a long, monotonous blur. Jérémie dutifully fielded his father's questions, lied where appropriate, laughed when necessary. The world passed by, bright and alive, and he wondered how one minute he could be so blissfully happy - XANA gone, every university he had applied to desperate to have him, the next stage of his life on the horizon with Aelita in tow - and the next, so disconnected from everything. He should tell his parents, probably, about Aelita's decision, but he chose to live with the truth close to his chest for a little while, fighting off the moment when it would all become real.
Three weeks into a long, hot summer, part of him still hoped she'd turn up at his doorstep. She remained enigmatic in her texts, reassuring him of her safety but little else. Jérémie distracted himself by spending time with Yumi and Odd, grateful for their unexpected visits. Ulrich had sympathised with Aelita, Yumi saw both sides of the situation, William thought it was kind of hilarious.
And then - he could hardly believe it - things grew easier.
The job helped; part-time work in a computer repair shop where he found it gradually easier to talk to people, where he found that enjoyed being the centre of attention and a source of admiration ("you seen this kid?" the manager would exclaim, "he's some kind of genius!") and enjoyed even more that someone would almost always pay for a round of ice-creams for their small team on Friday afternoons. Time became, not something that stretched intermittently between one daily chore and the next, but something he took pleasure in spending on himself - he would walk sometimes, for no reason at all other than enjoying the fresh air, his scrawny pre-adolescent body
shaping into hints of unexpected muscle, or cook, or help his mother set up her new laptop - and the pain of abandonment lessened.
The next academic year rolled around, with Jérémie more prepared for the changes to his life than he had ever thought possible. Stress and worry had been a years-long habit that Jérémie was finally beginning to break. Grades had never been a problem for him after all, and things like money and finding your way in a big city were nothing after full-time pressure to save the world. Jérémie had been pleasantly surprised, upon going to university, to find that people had actually liked him – girls included – and there was something to be said for making it on your own.
Then, on an otherwise inconsequential day towards the end of his second semester, he had spotted a flash of pink in a streetside café, and her name had tumbled from his lips before he could catch himself. She had broken off mid-conversation, spun around, and thrown herself uncompromisingly into his arms.
They were both grateful to find the other not quite as they remembered them, but sharper, bolder, more fully grown into themselves.
/
(Present day.)
Odd remembered how weird things had been when Aelita had left. Jérémie's despair, Yumi's quiet worry. Ulrich's reluctance to admit that he'd been to visit her. And Odd, how he had stayed awake at night playing mental chess with their lives – where would they be three moves from now? If Odd had to choose between his friends, would he? How?
Odd had never discovered the answer.
Now, he stood, stretched, clipped Kiwi's leash back onto his collar. The day had slid gradually into late afternoon, and weather was beginning to turn again.
It was time to go.
A/N: This chapter makes subtle references to both Recollections, Chapter 20: Second Chance, and Scrapbook. :)
