Note: HI UPDATE YAY! Can't deny that I'm pretty excited that this is up so (relatively) soon. Isn't it funny how I originally thought this fic would be two chapters?

Undying gratitude goes to: Mumsy, RhapsodyInProgress, and Bardess of Avon for their lovely reviews last chapter. As much as it's true that I don't write for reviews, it's also true that reviews (and especially thoughtful ones) are like cookies: you can never, ever have enough.

—viennacantabile

fell the angels

twenty-seven : the black mirror

.

'Où sont les hommes?' reprit enfin le petit prince. 'On est un peu seul dans le désert.'
'On est seul aussi chez les hommes', dit le serpent.

"Where are the people?" resumed the little prince at last. "It's a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

.

"Velma?"

She turns to face an instant of brightness, and a click.

"Ted?" she asks, putting her hand on the window and blinking away the spots in her vision to focus on the man in front of her. "Did you—"

Her brother-in-law, standing in the middle of all the housewarming party debris, is already fumbling with his camera. "Hang on a sec."

Katrina, perched on the kitchen counter sipping a leftover glass of wine, rolls her eyes. "Ignore him," she says, waving a hand at her husband. "Ever since he got that thing he hasn't stopped taking pictures. The new apartment, the street outside, the neighbors. The party, just now. You should see how many he's got of me." Katrina smirks. "I know we just got to the Village and all, but you'd think a photographer would be used to cameras by now."

"This one's different, though," says Ted as he wrestles with the camera. "Instant film."

"After a couple minutes," Katrina says with a giggle. "I don't know if I'd really call that instant, honey. You still have to sit around and twiddle your thumbs before it shows up."

"But that's the best part," Ted says, flashing his wife a grin as he walks over to Velma, hand outstretched. "Don't touch the middle. Just wait."

Velma looks at the white square between his fingertips, focuses her attention on its dark center. "What'd you say it was?"

"Instant film." He hands the Polaroid over to her. "It's a new idea I've been experimenting with. A whole series of catching people the way they really are. No posing, no developing, no touch-ups. No pretending. Just reality."

"You should see the one he took of Astrid," Katrina says, smirking. "Our dear older sister looks like she's about ready to murder him. 'Course, it's the first photo where it's hard to tell if she's just getting fat or if she really is having a baby, so I guess I can't blame her too much. But it was a real hoot watching Ted tell her that's her true self preserved for posterity and won't it be fun to show to the kid when he arrives." She shrugs. "Still, it's happier than I've ever seen her so I'd say she got lucky."

Velma, only half-listening, stares at the photograph in her hand, watches the image emerge from the dark shadowy blankness. The face in the picture—pale, unsmiling, turning, a little blurred—looks so foreign to her, nothing like what she sees in the family albums or even in the mirror every day. Almost a ghost. "This is me."

"Yeah," says Ted, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles. "That's you, right there."

One month, she thinks. After one month, this is what she looks like.

"Interesting," she says, handing it back, but Ted doesn't take it.

"Keep it," he says. "Carry it around. It'll grow on ya."

Velma glances at Katrina, who just shrugs and rolls her eyes at her husband. "Who knows? He could be right. Stranger things've happened."

Velma looks back down at the photo. She still doesn't recognize herself. Would anyone else? she wonders. Would—

She bites her lip. This is the key, she has learned: to not think about it, not once, not at all. If she does that, then maybe she can keep it away.

"Little sister," says Katrina, watching her keenly. "You okay?"

Velma nods. "Fine," she says, and stretches her mouth into a smile. If only, she thinks, she could be that lucky.

.

How, Velma wonders, how did she get to this place where the absence of one person could hurt so much?

By now it's not hard to believe he's gone. By now, she feels it in every fiber of her being. Because it's not just that he's gone, it's that the person she was when he was here is gone, too. Velma doesn't know what her identity and what her place is now, let alone what her future will be. They weren't together even two years, she thinks, but Velma's realizing now how much a part of her he was and still is. Even at the end, when he was all but gone already, he was only a few streets away, somewhere she could find him. She could see him, hear him, touch him. And now she wakes up in the middle of the night still curled up on one side like there's someone else to her right, but the bed is empty and there's no one there and she is half of the person she used to be.

It wasn't working, she remembers. Velma knows that more than anyone. But still it was better than—this.

She pinches herself, hard, when no one's looking, bites her lip until she tastes blood, digs her nails into her palms making sure, every day, that she isn't just dreaming, that he hadn't looked her in the eye and said goodbye. That he hadn't chosen to leave. Wake up, she thinks to herself, over and over. Wake up.

But when she does, it doesn't make a difference.

.

Now that school is winding down and most of the seniors have stopped pretending to care, Velma spends most of her time looking around, reflecting on how much has changed in the past year, and wondering where she will be this time next year. God knows she never would've guessed half the things she's seen this year. Though with some, like Baby John and Minnie, it's about time.

They're an official couple now, and watching them giggle and hold hands is a lot like remembering what it was like when she first met her own Jet. Even if they're a very different type of couple, the feeling is the same. And no matter how much Anybodys gags and A-Rab teases him, Velma has the feeling all of the Jets are at least a little amused to see their youngest and the Jets' little sister mooning around all over the place as he puffs himself up protectively and she fusses over the slightest cut. They're that innocent, that cute, that even Action only bothers to chew him out once or twice a day for ruining the Jets' rep.

She's less certain of how Peter feels about all this. Her little brother had gone out on a movie date with Minnie in April that had gotten crashed by A-Rab, Anybodys, and an apparently reluctant Baby John, and though Peter said Minnie hadn't even realized they were on a real date, the whole fiasco had prompted Baby John to finally ask Minnie to officially be his girl.

Velma feels a bit guilty about this. Minnie is her friend, and Velma knows that she's always been just as gone over Baby John as he is for her, but Peter is her brother, and a good guy, and any girl would be lucky to have him, as Minnie herself says when she comes to tell Velma the news.

"You okay?" Velma asks Peter a few days later as he's munching on an apple after school.

He chews, and shrugs. "They seem happy." He's never been one to hold a grudge, Velma remembers, and clearly isn't about to start doing so now. Velma is glad about that, but still she worries a bit.

"You'll find someone else, y'know," she says, trying to cheer him up. "Ain't that Clarissa Clausen still crazy about you?"

Peter looks down at her then, without even a blush, and she realizes then that though he's still working on filling out his body, his is no longer a little boy's face. "You'll find someone else, too, Velma."

Velma bites her lip. By now, of course, her little brothers have found out what has really happened with Ice, though she doesn't know if they've told their parents. They haven't talked about it much, but have taken to finding little ways to show her they care. It's sweet, she thinks, and more than ever she knows she is lucky in spite of everything.

Her little brother's gaze is sincere, now, and he clearly means what he's said in the best way possible. It's what she should want: someone else, because God knows she'd never be able to depend on someone who could just run off at the drop of a hat even if he did come back. And yet.

"Yeah," she says when she can speak. "I know."

Peter smiles a little. "Anyway, I'm fine. 'S Chris you should be thinkin' about."

Velma blinks. "Chris?"

Peter rolls his eyes. "He's so nuts about Clarice he don't even notice Liesl waitin' on him. I know this," he adds with a sigh, "'cause Rudi won't shut up about how annoyin' she is."

Velma has to laugh. Her youngest brother Chris, nursing a hopeless crush on her friend Clarice, whose boyfriend Big Deal's younger sister Liesl has a crush of her own on her best friend: Chris. With Big Deal and Liesl's brother Rudi telling Peter all about it. It's almost like a soap opera, and nearly as entertaining to watch.

"Poor kid."

Peter shrugs. "What can ya do, y'know?" He tosses the core of his apple into the trash can. "Ya find someone, it either works out or it doesn't. Don't make sense to fuss about it." He glances at her, stricken. "'Course I don't mean you."

Velma, aware that despite her efforts she's not exactly setting the best example in this regard, half-smiles. "I know."

He watches her carefully. "He ever comes back, I could beat him up for ya."

Velma can't help laughing. "He'd cream ya an' you know it."

Peter sighs. "Yeah, I know." He reaches a tentative arm out and wraps it around her shoulders. "I just wanted ya to know I would."

Velma smiles—a real one this time—and returns the hug. "Thanks, little brother," she says. "I do."

.

When the door opens, Velma gives the brightest smile she can manage.

"Hello, Mrs. Kelly."

Ice's mother stares, then breaks into a soft smile of her own. "Why, Velma, this is a surprise. What're ye doin' here?"

"I brought you a cake," Velma says, shifting her weight from one foot from the other. Now that Mrs. Kelly is asking, it seems like such a silly pretext when in fact she's not really sure why she hasn't gone to see Mrs. Kelly before now. Velma thinks, maybe, she hasn't had the courage.

That's a lie, though. Velma knows exactly why she hasn't gone to see her, and it has something to do with self-preservation and the fact that there is no part of her anymore that doesn't hurt.

"Thank ye," Mrs. Kelly says, her voice warm. "Why don't ye come in and sit for a spell, then?"

Velma nods, and follows the woman in. Mrs. Kelly, she notes with surprise, is looking well. A bit thinner, a few more lines around the eyes, but not how she'd imagined Mrs. Kelly would be a little over a month or so after losing her son, from the little Ice has told her about his mother. Not crushed, not beaten down, not helpless with grief. Not broken.

After a bite of the cake and a few sips of tea, Velma sets her cup down on the bare wooden table and just says it.

"Did you see it comin'?"

Mrs. Kelly, in the middle of a story about her sewing circle, glances at her. Her voice, when she speaks, is very soft.

"'Tisn't that I saw it coming. Just that I always knew it was going to happen."

Velma goes very still. "What d'ya mean?"

Mrs. Kelly puts her own cup down. "He's a bit more like his father than he likes to admit, John is," she says. "Oh, I know what you're going to say, dear," she continues when she sees Velma open her mouth to protest, "and in that one way, no, they're not the same at all. Me boy, he's seen too much for it to drown him. To turn him." She is silent for a moment. "But then, so had his da."

"What was he like?" Velma asks quietly. "Ice's dad?"

Mrs. Kelly sighs. "Hunted. Like the devil was after him, always."

"Ice never talked about him," Velma says, remembering the look in his eyes that last night. "It was more what he didn't say that told me what it was like."

"Well, no, he wouldn't want to," Mrs. Kelly says. "He wouldn't have cause to. He doesn't remember the good times."

Velma glances at her, curious in spite of herself. "The good times."

"There were some," Mrs. Kelly says. "There always are, aren't there."

"I never heard of any," Velma says, feeling herself rise to Ice's defense in his absence. "Just that—well, there's a reason Ice is good in a fight."

"Oh, I'm not defendin' what he became," Mrs. Kelly says quickly. "Don't make no mistake on that. It's just…" She hesitates. "'Tisn't always as simple as good and evil, black and white, Velma dear. I remember what he was before, and what became of that boy. And it's so far removed I can pity him, now."

"What happened?" asks Velma. She wants—needs—to know. How could the man who fathered Ice go so wrong and become the monster who stole his son's childhood?

Mary Kelly sighs. "What always happens. War. He went away, and then—"

Velma feels the bottom of her stomach drop, remembers a boy lying still on the pavement. "Did he kill someone?"

"I don't know," says Mrs. Kelly. "All I ever knew was that he saw things he couldn't forget and he changed, after. He came back with a dishonorable discharge in '42 and began to drink. Sure and they said it was a bar fight, but I knew it was the drink that killed him.

"He was a terrible drunk," the woman says, shaking her head. "Laid a hand to everyone and everything he could. Didn't matter who or what. When it started, he was always sorry, after, and he'd do his best to make it up to us. He blamed himself for his weakness, he called it. For not being able to fix everything. I think he hated himself more than anyone, really."

Velma inhales sharply. This, she thinks, sounds all too familiar.

"Yes," Mrs. Kelly says, her gaze kind. "John is like that, too."

Velma bites her lip. He is, but to compare him to—well—

She shakes her head. "They're not the same, though," she says, her voice low and passionate. Velma thinks she gets where Mrs. Kelly is going with this but Ice's mother needs to know that he had the chance to go down that road and he chose to turn away. Whatever it cost him, he chose to be different. "He's got more of you in him than anyone else. He's—" Velma hesitates, feels childish, says it anyway. "—good."

Mrs. Kelly covers Velma's hand with hers and smiles a bit. "I like to think so," she says softly. "It would mean he could settle, one day. He's still got the old blood in him. He wants, so badly, and he doesn't know how to ease that pain."

"What does he want?"

The words fall from her, plaintive in that stark silence. There it is, Velma thinks, heart aching. There—the question she has longed to find the answer to all along.

Mrs. Kelly sighs. "I wish I knew," she says, her voice slow and heavy. "'Twasn't my blood that gave it to him. But—he's my son, and I believe in him. Whatever it is, he'll find it."

"His dad never did," says Velma. "Did he."

Mrs. Kelly shakes her head. "The worse he got the less he remembered who he truly was and when you've lost sight of yourself," she says with a troubled look, "you've no hope."

Velma absorbs this in silence. It's one of the saddest things she's ever heard, she thinks, and even more so in that it's not just a story. It's real, and it happened—is still happening—to someone she still, despite all efforts, cares very much about.

"In the end I suppose it wasn't all for naught," Mary Kelly says, her faded blue eyes and voice far away. "After all, he gave me my boy."

Velma gazes at her. "But—he hit him," she says, her voice slow and strange and uncomprehending to her own ears. She doesn't need to specify who. "He hit you."

Mrs. Kelly sighs, a long, terrible sigh.

"That he did," she says quietly. "And it took many years before I learned to forgive him. Not for what he'd done to me—for me boy."

Velma can't imagine being in this situation, and finding the heart to do what Mrs. Kelly has done. "Why did you?"

"I decided I didn't want it eatin' me up inside," Mrs. Kelly says simply. "Nor John. Sean hurt us terribly, yes, but I think in the end what he did to himself was worse."

Velma shakes her head. "But what he did—"

"Hate solves nothin'," Mrs. Kelly says. She smiles a little. "Maybe love doesn't, either—but at least it's got a fightin' chance."

Velma sits back, crumbles a bit of her cake into dust. She thinks, now, about a phantom dressed in red, her soul bleeding in front of her on the pavement. Would she have done it? Velma wonders. Would she, who had kept loving her brother's killer, find the strength to forgive her lover's murderer?

They make small talk for a few minutes more, until Velma says she has to be getting home for dinner. She does—and she also has to think about what she has just heard, and what it means.

She has just reached the door when the question comes, unbidden. "Why do ya go by Mrs. Kelly?"

Mary Kelly Callahan shrugs. "Easier, maybe. That, and John doesn't like anything te do with his da." She smiles a little. "Wanted to make a name for himself, I s'pose. He's a funny one with names, that one. Ice. John. No matter what he calls himself, though, he's still me boy."

Velma looks at her, sees anew the lines etched in her face. One for every care, is the old wives' tale, but now she thinks it's true. Mary Kelly has had far more than her fair share of worries and she can see why Ice has always been so protective of her.

Sad, he'd said once. Like a little bird.

"Happy Mother's Day," she says, softly, and Mrs. Kelly smiles.

No, Velma thinks. Maybe he doesn't see it. Probably his father never did, either. But underneath her sadness is the bright steely core that has helped Mrs. Kelly survive this long. And forgive the unforgivable—what Velma doesn't know if she ever could have done in her place. What Mary Kelly's son should have said, she thinks as she turns to leave, was strong.

.

It's mid-May, and the Jets are restless once more.

"Whaddaya say we all take a walk down to PR-land an' have us a little fun?"

"C'mon, Action," says Baby John, sounding frustrated, "we said we was gonna leave 'em alone—"

"An' we have, ain't we?" demands Action, cracking his knuckles. The Jets, Velma, Minnie, Pauline, and a couple of the female hangers-on are sitting outside Doc's after a stop at the ice cream parlor. "But I an' everyone else here is getting' bored sittin' on our tootsies, an' I don't see why we can't have a little fun, huh? Not that kind!" he adds in irritation as Pauline drapes herself over his shoulders.

"Aww, come off it, Daddy-O," A-Rab whines, licking his cone. "It's too hot to go off chasin' Spics."

"Too hot?" Action glares at him. "Listen, you stupid—"

"We oughta be takin' care of them Reds," Anybodys remarks. "The Sharks ain't givin' us no trouble, an' I hear Reaper's gettin' better an' better. An' you can bet he ain't forgotten us. PR's are small fry compared to them."

Velma glances at Anybodys, just in time to see Baby John give her a tiny nod.

A-Rab snickers. "Who're you to talk about small fry, huh?"

Anybodys glares at him. "Yeah? Says the head of the Lollipop Guild."

A-Rab reddens. "Why you—"

At that, Anybodys's hand flashes out to the boy's chest and gives a good, hard twist through his shirt before she springs up and dashes away, cackling all the while. A-Rab, howling, gives chase and for the next five minutes, Velma watches them tear up, down, and around the street, yelling a blue streak the whole time. The Jets, used to this, don't pay too much attention until Action manages to shake Pauline off and barks a quick "Siddown!" at them.

Anybodys, panting, flops down onto the stoop. A-Rab, his face sullen, isn't too far behind. It only takes a minute before they're at it again, though this time, mindful of their captain, they keep their bickering to a furious whisper. Anyone, to look at their faces, thinks Velma, would guess they hated each other.

All she sees, though, is the way their hands are propped behind them, so close their fingertips are almost touching.

A-Rab says something, then, and it must be something like his usual pearls of wisdom because in an instant, Anybodys snatches her hand up and whacks him on the head. But even as he's ducking from her fists he can't stop laughing, and Anybodys, outraged as she looks, has the tiniest hint of a grin on her face.

So, Velma thinks, neither surprised nor unsurprised. She thinks, then, that she was right, in a way. Maybe the girl doesn't know, or understand it yet, but—Anybodys does believe in love.

.

When the day comes, Velma dresses with her usual care, taking the time to make sure her collar lies flat and her skirt is perfectly pressed. After all, she thinks, a girl only graduates from high school once in her life.

Backstage, where all the seniors have gathered before they're supposed to line up and sit down in the auditorium before they march across the stage to get their diplomas, Velma finds Clarice and smiles.

"Almost time. You ready?"

Clarice gives a theatrical shrug. "I guess so. One more hour, an' we're free of old Woodrow Wilson High forever. Can ya believe it?"

"Well, I never thought it'd be like this," says Velma quietly, looking around at the people milling around them. "Did you?"

Clarice shakes her head. Today she is alone. Bernice is in the audience with Graziella. "No. I didn't."

"So now what?" Velma asks. "You goin' to marry Big Deal?"

"Thinkin' about it," Clarice says, her arch voice tempered by the smirk on her face.

Velma smiles, a little. "How's Gee-Tar goin' to like that?"

"He'll have to. Speakin'-a that, Vel, it's the funniest thing," says Clarice, sounding puzzled. "They used to hate each other, an' now—I mean, they ain't best buddies again or nothin', but now it seems like they can stand each other again."

"Things change, I guess," says Velma, twisting the tassel on her cap around her fingers. "It's good they ain't fightin', right?"

Clarice sighs. "I guess. I mean," she adds with a hint of mischief in her dark eyes, "I don't know how I'll keep Frankie on his toes now, but I guess I'll think-a somethin'. Might ask Rosalia," she adds with a smirk. "God knows she knows how to torture her boyfriend. And us. Dio mio, you shoulda seen what she did yesterday!"

Velma listens with wide eyes as Clarice tells her about the Shark girl's latest escapade, in which she had dyed Mr. Gambini's shirts pink, given Izzy Coca-Cola instead of formula, and nearly burned all their tongues off with twice as much chili pepper as necessary in the empanada dinner she'd made them—all in one day. "How'd ya end up with her again?" she asks. "I mean she seems nice, but…not the best babysitter." And Rosalia is a Shark, she thinks, puzzled. Velma knows the Puerto Ricans are on better terms with the Jets right now, but—still.

Clarice shrugs. "I don't know how Mama found her, but for a Shark girl, she's ain't so bad. Silly, a-course, an' seems to get into trouble an awful lot, but she always means well, an' Izzy loves her. Even Bernice don't mind her too much." She dimples. "Keeps sayin' Izzy'll grow up lovin' spicy food, though."

The corner of Velma's mouth quirks up. "She would."

"And—" Clarice hesitates. "Vel, don't tell anyone, but Rosalia's got a bun in the oven!"

Velma blinks, startled. "What?"

"'Bout three or four months, she figured," nods Clarice. "She's real excited."

"Rosalia told ya that?" Velma asks, and bites her lip. "She ain't married, is she?"

Clarice shrugs, a little. "She ain't yet, but she's so scatterbrained she ain't the type to worry about that. She's just real happy, is all. Keeps talkin' about how she can't wait to tell Indio, an' her best friend Luis, an' how her kid an' Izzy can be best friends." Clarice smirks. "Kinda cute, actually."

Velma sits back. There is so much to absorb that she doesn't quite know what to ask about first. Finally she settles on what any former Jet captain's girl would.

"Indio's lieutenant now, right? How's havin' a kid goin' to work with that?" Velma remembers a harassed-looking Tiger rushing into his and Graziella's apartment, pouring out apologies. "I don't guess you earn much money bein' a Shark."

Clarice frowns. "Hadn't thought-a that," she admits. "I guess they'll figure it out somehow."

"What d'ya think is goin' on with them?" asks Velma a bit wistfully. "Them, an' the Jets?"

Clarice shrugs. "Don't know about the Sharks. An' Frankie don't tell me much, but I know somethin's up with the Jets. I can tell." She hesitates. "Like maybe the Reds are comin' back."

Velma feels the bottom of her stomach drop. If they're back now, she thinks, breathless, then what was the rumble for? What was it all for, if it is all just beginning again?

Clarice takes one look at her and sighs. "Look, I didn't want to say nothin', but ya need to get out, Vel," she says, dark eyes serious. "Ya need to stop thinkin' about this. It ain't good for you to be shut up in school or your room all the time. An' now that we're done with school—"

Velma shrugs, tracing patterns on her skirt. "I don't much care."

There is a silence, and Velma watches Clarice fidget before looking straight at her. "Look," she says, "Frankie's got a friend he wants ya to meet—"

"He a Jet?" Velma asks, unable to keep the sharpness out of her voice. As the Jets have gotten used to Ice's absence and Mouthpiece being around, Graziella has taken to asking her how Mouthpiece is, and Velma is tired, so tired, of telling her that he is just a friend—albeit a better friend than she'd ever thought possible—when it seems no one has ever heard of the concept of a boy and a girl being just that. Though a long time ago, Velma supposes, she wouldn't have believed it either.

Clarice shakes her head. "No," she says, with the slightest hesitation. "We kinda thought—I an' Frankie—that you'd had enough-a that for awhile."

Velma sighs, feeling a bit guilty. Clarice isn't Graziella, she reminds herself in a moment of curious relief. "Well, you were right."

"His name's Bobby Benson. He's real nice, Vel," Clarice says, her voice eager. "Frankie knows him from playin' basketball sometimes. Says he's a real good guy an' you'd like him."

Velma bites her lip. "I don't know, Clarice. I don't think I'm ready for that." Or ever will be, she leaves unsaid. How can she think about meeting someone when it is all she can do to hold herself together?

"Please," Clarice says quietly. "Just give it a shot."

Velma sighs. She can see the worry on her friend's face, and she has been there, begging and pleading for someone to let her in, and she supposes it can't hurt too much to let Clarice try. "Sure. I guess."

The brunette smiles, then, and relaxes. "It'll be fun, Vel," she says, her voice cheery. "Wait an' see."

They call for the seniors to line up, then, and so Velma smiles back at Clarice, touches her hand before moving to the front of the procession just behind Agnes Allen. Sure, she thinks as the line begins to move. She sees a teacher draw back the curtain, sees Stewart Abbott step out into the light. Maybe it will be the start of something new and exciting. Maybe.

But she knows better than to hope by now.

.

A week later, Velma is sitting, as she is less and less these days, alone in Doc's, when the door opens and a tall, skinny girl dressed all in brown walks in.

"Midge," says Velma, surprised. "I ain't seen you in ages."

The bespectacled girl blinks, owlishly. "My father requested that I stay away from areas where gang members are known to congregate, and I have been respecting his wishes until, out of necessity, I was forced to come here. I was hoping," she says, "to find Mouthpiece."

"Mouthpiece?" Velma asks, startled. "Why?"

Midge clears her throat and hefts a large, square parcel. "I've found a rather fascinating book on trains," she says, "and I thought he might like to take a look."

Velma half-smiles, and hopes it has lots of pictures. "I bet he would. He ain't here, though."

"Well. If you would, please tell him I have the book when you see him," the girl says, and takes a few steps back before clearing her throat again. "Congratulations on your commencement," she says primly.

Velma blinks. "Thanks."

"What will you do now?" asks Midge, peering through her glasses with what seems to be genuine interest.

Velma shrugs. "What is there to do?"

"Why, college, of course," says the girl as though scandalized. "And marriage, I suppose," she adds, seeming reluctant to mention it, though it is in fact what most of Velma's classmates are headed off to, and the future she'd once planned out for herself. "Or employment."

"I don't know," Velma says. She remembers a dream once held very close to her heart, and sighs. "Everything's different from what I thought it'd be so I just don't know."

Midge studies her for a moment, then nods. "You still love him, don't you." She says it with a certain amount of puzzlement, and clinical detachment, like a doctor inspecting a patient.

Velma looks at her, startled. The girl's eyes are fastened on her with what seems like scientific curiosity. Normally she'd find the question rude, given the events of the last month and a half, but Velma is fairly certain Midge isn't asking so she can gossip about it later—the girl barely even talks to anyone Velma knows. In fact, she's a little surprised Midge even knows Ice is gone. So she sighs. "He has all of me," she says. "I guess that's love."

"What does it feel like?" asks the bespectacled girl, eyes keen and piercing. "Being in love?"

Velma, too tired to lie, shrugs. "Well, right now, it hurts."

Midge's gaze doesn't budge. "And it didn't before?"

Velma glances at her. "Well—" Now that she thinks about it, actually, Midge has a point. "I guess it always hurts, somehow. It's just a question of how much."

"I'd like to study it, so I can avoid it," says the girl, pushing up her glasses with a frown. "It doesn't seem very productive."

Velma half-smiles. "No. I guess not."

Midge pinches the bridge of her nose. "Well. I should be going. Congratulations, again."

She's nearly to the exit when Velma clears her throat and Midge turns.

"You were right," Velma tells her, the words spilling out, because she needs someone to know this and no one else will understand why—not Graziella, not Clarice, not anyone who was there that night. "The rumble—it was stupid. All of it was, an' we never knew. You were right."

The girl regards her with a strange, solemn look. "I nearly always am."

And then she leaves, and Velma thinks, for the thousandth time, if only. If only they'd known what everyone else seemed to. If only.