The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude
Interlude: Steve Part 1
...lived happily ever after. You, as well as anyone, know this doesn't happen in real life.
I glanced up from the wrinkled sheet of handwritten papers and I saw fear in the girl's eyes. I knew the emotion was directed at me. That didn't happen often. I wasn't the sort of man who used fear to manipulate people. That's what bullies do. I wasn't used to being looked at like that. It made me feel a distant, dull regret.
She rubbed her wrist where I had grabbed her and yanked her out of her bed. Her breaths came quickly, her eyes fixed on me like I was a predator. I could tell Anouk had been crying; her eyes were red.
I couldn't turn it off, my anger. I finally understood what Banner might feel like. I wanted to rip things apart. I read on.
Impossible things have happened to me. Gods and monsters and heroes have become real life, jumped right out of books and myths. I told you I had mommy issues, but you can't know just how deep the wounds go. I have done things I may never be able to forgive...
The drawer in the bedside table teetered a moment longer, caught by just a corner. It fell with a crash, spilling papers, pens, loose change and menthol wrappers onto Anouk's bedroom floor. I felt as though my insides were on fire, like the serum going in all over again.
"You don't understand–" Anouk's voice trembled.
I cut her off with another withering look.
It's funny how much your life can change so much that you don't even recognize your own voice, while the world turns as it always has, unseeing and uncaring. The person I thought I knew died in Aspen.
My heart skipped a beat, knowing what Siri wrote was true. She had died, in a way, in Aspen. It was a good death, though, one were she could start her life over. Once without panic, out from under the finger of The Enchantress. She had been free to live her life, finally. And she had lived it with me. For a time.
The bedroom felt too small like it was caving in on me. Moonlight spilled over the carpet at my feet illuminating Pogo who stared at me with a cocked head. The small ginger cockapoo had been hiding under Anouk's bed when I, still covered in dust, sweat and blood of the mission I just completed, broke the door down and pulled Siri's best friend out from under the down comforter.
"I swear I don't know where she is," Anouk whispered.
I reached the last line of the page and turned it over, scanning for the answers I needed. For the explanations I dreaded. My name written in Siri's tiny, blocky handwriting caught my eye.
Remeber how Steve was standing right behind me?
Oddly, I knew instantly what Siri referred to. I had been standing close enough to touch her, which is exactly where I like to be. Siri is my anchor to this world. Not being close to her made me feel dark. It brought back the loneliness. So I stay close enough to her that I can easily touch base.
This particular time had been when Anouk had first seen me in the flesh; she acted like a lunatic. Everyone has their own way of coping, but Anouk's had been one of the stranger ones. Anouk's reaction had made Siri laugh until she cried. That marked the first time she had smiled since Aspen. I can still remember the surge of joy. It had hit me like a lightning bolt and I caught her laughter like it was smallpox. Soon we were rolling on the ground, tears dripping Rorschach designs on the cement sidewalk outside her apartment while Anouk stood over us scowling.
The happy memory hurt. I let out the huge breath of air I had been holding and rubbed a hand over my face. Pogo settled on my foot, oblivious to how dangerous I felt.
My nightmare was a reality: Siri gone. I had come home to find her apartment eerily clean and she and Pogo gone. An envelope sat on her pillow, the bed made for the first time in months. She had left a note and all that it had said was:
I love you. Don't forget.
I knew there were two people Siri could be with. One of them, Nat, had been on a mission with me and couldn't possibly know where Siri was. The other was Anouk, Siri's best friend. I had knocked down her door, like some criminal, pulling her out of bed, demanding to know where Siri was.
I stood rooted to the ground, frozen by the letter Anouk had relinquished. It was unfair. My note had been two sentences long. Anouk's was four handwritten pages.
I am not running away from my problems, I swear. (Shut up and stop shouting and just listen to me.) Just because I have had a rough year or so, and just because I am pregnant
My brain emptied.
I am pregnant
I am pregnant
pregnant
pregnant
I stared at the word, my chest imploding like a dying star.
Anouk started crying again, finally recovering from the shock of me barging in the middle of the night, a bad guy, manhandling, intimidating her. I was supposed to be a nice guy, good to the core, a hero. Turns out fear and pain can change a man.
My hands shook as I carefully folded the pages and tucked them into my uniform, not able to read the rest. I couldn't feel anything. Isn't that strange? I was floating. I could taste metal, like a penny in my mouth.
"S-sssteve?" Anouk said through her tears.
Pregnant.
"I'm sorry," the words fell out of my mouth, sounding like a foreign language to me. "For this," I said. I couldn't take my eyes off the wallpaper above her bed frame. It was a print of the planets in black and white, in different sizes. I felt as far from earth as if I was standing on one of them: Mars. Or Jupiter. Somewhere cold. I shivered.
"It's...ok. I understand." She sniffed.
It wasn't. It wasn't ok. I thought about taking Pogo with me. The last part of Siri I could hold onto. I realized though that nothing should be around me now. Safety first.
I backed away from Anouk's bed, one step at a time until I reached her window.
I love you. Don't forget.
I turned to open the window and jumped.