by Bob Proehl
“Yes,” Kevin said. “Very old friends.”
Adrian came around the desk to lead him down the hall. There were pictures on the walls of Raymond with people Kevin recognized: prominent businesspeople, the occasional television actor. He’d seen this type of picture before. He recognized the dynamic in which the person attempted to play it as if they were equal to the celebrity they were stealing the shot with. In these pictures it was clear Raymond held the power. In one, the deputy mayor had his arm slung around Raymond’s shoulders and with the other hand he pointed at Raymond as if to signal, check it out, the Raymond Glover, here with me.
At the end of the hallway was a room with glass walls, letting all the light from the outer windows flood the space. Inside, Raymond sat on a chair with two dozen men and women in business attire rapt at his feet. When he visited Raymond’s hippie commune in the Haight, Kevin had the sense he was watching a professor dole out wisdom to his students under the guise of egalitarian exchange. That had been stripped away. Raymond looked like a kindergarten teacher reading a picture book to toddlers, and the listeners looked the role of toddlers, their faces upturned and rapturous.
“I don’t know if he wants you going in,” Adrian said. “The content of the curriculum is copyrighted and, to be honest, expensive.”
“It’s fine,” Kevin said. “I can wait.” Inside, Raymond looked up and spotted Kevin. His face lit up in a grin. In eerie unison, twenty of his listeners turned their heads, smiled, and waved, then stood up and filed out of the room.
Everything about Harmonic Solutions, every aspect of the most recent life Raymond had built for himself in a span of months, called Kevin’s attention to how average his own life had become. He looked out the window onto Fifth and thought about the clutter of his workspace, how filled it had become with student incident reports and teacher evaluations. He saw Raymond’s photos from the desert at Joshua Tree and the neon-streaked streets of Tokyo and thought how the only trips he’d taken in twenty years had been when he was whisked somewhere by Kimani Moore to attend to a problematic Resonant—to bring them to the school or take them off the board.
“It’s the life you wanted,” Raymond said.
“Stay out of my head,” Kevin muttered.
“I’m only saying, you chose it,” Raymond continued. “I think it’s beautiful for that, your shabby little school. I admire the self-abnegation it takes to go there every day and wipe the noses of the next generation of…well, that I’ve never been clear on, really. What is it you’re raising these children to be?”
“Did Davenport sell you this building?” Kevin asked.
“Davenport’s a pickpocket,” Raymond said. “I rent at a market rate. This floor and three above it. I’d like to open a second location, but unfortunately there’s only one of me.”
“What is it you’re doing?” Kevin asked. “Scamming them out of their—”
“I’m not taking anything from them they don’t pay for up front,” Raymond said. “And they are getting something back in exchange.”
“Your voice in their heads?”
“It’s no secret people don’t want to be in control all the time,” Raymond said. “It generates guilt and doubt. I promise them that every once in a while they can go through a day of their life without making choices, without exerting control. They can sit back and watch.”
“And you get the control they give up?”
Raymond laughed. “Why would I want control of their drab little lives?” he said. “I’m supposed to get excited about fucking their flabby husbands or their sad mistresses? Playing catch with their idiot kids or chewing out their employees? None of it is about them, Kevin.”
“What, then?”
“Practice,” Raymond said. “A chance to expand my abilities. Right now I’m five other people while I’m talking to you. I’m watching out of seven pairs of eyes on top of that. And look at me.” He holds out his hands. “Not missing a beat.” As he said it, a thin trickle of pink fluid ran from his nostril, and he quickly wiped it away.
“You’re not well, Raymond,” Kevin said.
“I’m extremely well,” Raymond said. “But how are you? Do you even like what you are, Kevin? Do you hate it so much that you’d keep us all in the closet?”
“Why am I here, Raymond?” Kevin asked. “You had to know I wouldn’t be happy with what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I expect you’re going to be very unhappy,” Raymond said. “You care about them so much. You think you’re protecting our people, but the whole time it’s them you’re keeping safe from us. They’re not important, Kevin. They’re walking dead. Here. Watch.”
Kevin felt the world ripple as Raymond’s ability moved through it. There was no message Kevin could discern, only malice. It passed in an instant and left him puzzled. Then Raymond pointed him to the window. Kevin looked out onto Upper Manhattan as a body plummeted past him. He caught a glimpse of the man’s face as he went, calm, with a smile that mimicked Raymond’s. Kevin was about to turn to ask what was happening when another body fell. He recognized the face of Adrian, the receptionist, as it toppled past him, grinning, followed by others.
“The trick is to pull out of their heads before they hit the pavement,” Raymond said. “The ride down is a thrill.”
Kevin stepped toward Raymond, moving against his mind to stop him, but he felt a strong push back and then an overwhelming sense of calm. The visceral horror of what he’d seen was gone. He couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say.
“Why am I here, Raymond?” he asked, although he had a feeling he already knew.
“I missed you,” Raymond said. “Both of us are so busy, we’ve hardly made any time for each other. Maybe we could go up to the coast some time. You still have the house?”
“I’ve always thought of it as ours,” Kevin said. “I’d never sell it without consulting you.”
“We should go.”
“The academy’s out of session the last week of June,” Kevin said. “I’ll be up there unless something dreadful arises.”
“The last week of June, then,” Raymond said. He took the back of Kevin’s neck in his hand and kissed him, a hard press that Kevin felt not only on his lips but as a pressure on his mind, feeling him out. For a second he considered handing himself over to Raymond. Then the kiss ended, his body and mind his own again. He took the elevator down and stepped out the front door, ignorant of the dozen bodies on the sidewalk, of the police cars and ambulances. The sun had come out, and it was shaping up to be a beautiful afternoon.
Carrie forgets there’s a pause when she moves through one of Tuan’s portals, like a singer taking a deep breath before hitting a final note. In that moment, she’s neither where she left nor where she’s going. She wonders if she ceases to exist and pops back into being at her destination.
The collision with Hayden and the disorienting pause land them on the floor of Carrie’s apartment in a tangle of limbs—Carrie facedown and Hayden lying on her back. It’s not an adorable rom-com jumble that segues into kisses but a bruising fall that narrowly avoids the coffee table’s sharp corners.
“I did not like that,” Hayden says, rubbing an elbow that struck the hardwood floor.
“Faster than the bus,” Carrie says.
“This is your place,” Hayden says. “I haven’t been in your apartment in…” They trail off. The last time Hayden was here was the last time Carrie and Miquel had guests in the apartment. They were just graduated from Bishop, experimenting with new selves in the bright lab of possibility, and something went wrong. Carrie never regretted what they did, but the morning after she felt exposed in a way she never had before. After years struggling to be seen, when she woke up in the bed with Miquel and Hayden and Jonathan, every bit of her, each flaw and secret, glowed like a halogen bulb, and whichever of them woke up first would see all of it. Whatever Hayde
n saw that morning made them leave, confirming every fear Carrie harbored about herself. She didn’t know at the time that Miquel’s ability had started to overwhelm him, but the two things together led to the apartment becoming a cloister, the closed space where they retreated from everyone, even the people they loved. After Miquel moved out, Carrie kept the apartment shuttered to the outside world.
“Hey, Miquel, I brought your wife home,” Hayden shouts to the empty apartment. When they get no response, they look at Carrie, confused. “Is he here?”
“He doesn’t live here,” she says. “He hasn’t for a while.” The breadth of how much—and how often—she’s hidden from Hayden settles on Carrie in those words, a while. It’s six years of unanswered texts and canceled plans, unused comp tickets and half-assed excuses.
“What are you talking about?” Hayden asks. “You split up?”
“He was falling apart,” Carrie says.
“The couple times I saw him after Topaz he was shaken up,” Hayden says.
“He came back broken, Hayden,” Carrie says. “It started getting bad around when you were leaving. Waylon built him a room under the bar with an inhibitor. It helps.”
“Sticking him in a basement helps?”
“He couldn’t tell what was him anymore,” Carrie says. “He had no defenses.”
“Honey, why did no one tell me?”
“I asked them not to,” Carrie says. “Everything was good with you. Out of all of us, you became this perfect beautiful thing. I was worried if we told you, you’d come back and help.”
“Of course I would have.”
“But you couldn’t,” Carrie says. “You would have given up every amazing thing you were doing, and it wouldn’t make any difference.” Carrie shows Hayden the shackle. “This will,” she says. “That’s what all this has been about. It turned bigger than I meant it to, but the whole trip was supposed to be a quick courier job to get this.”
“That’s Emmeline’s,” Hayden says.
“She gave it to me,” Carrie says. “Fahima was going to give me one when I got Emmeline to Phoenix, but Emmeline cut out the middle man.”
“You’re going to shut him off?”
Carrie notices how Hayden watches the shackle, how they avoid touching it. She remembers how bad it was for Hayden under the inhibitors at Topaz, how, more than any of them, Hayden has an ability that ties to who they are. Carrie will never be able to explain to Hayden why she needs to shut Miquel off. She’ll never be justified in Hayden’s eyes, but she has to try.
“It’s killing him. It’s killing us. Everything’s gotten so bad. I keep fucking up.”
“You and I last night?” Hayden asks. “Was that fucking up?”
She wants to tell Hayden that kissing them was the first decision she’s felt sure of in as long as she can remember. That’s the problem with fucking up: it plants doubt that spreads into everything. Where’s the line she can draw between sleeping with Jonathan, which was as much about punishing herself as it was about sex, and kissing Hayden, which felt like she was finally making a choice? Carrie distrusted everything she did to the point where feeling sure of something was the surest sign that something was wrong. With Hayden next to her on the floor and Miquel a lifetime away, part of her insists that if she wants something, it must be poisoned.
Carrie picks up the shackle. “This could be a new start for us,” she says, wondering who it is she’s speaking to and who she means by us.
“This could be, too,” Hayden says. Carrie doesn’t believe them any more than she believes herself. No one gets to start over. You bring every terrible part of your past into the next day with you. “I should go,” Hayden says when Carrie doesn’t answer.
“I don’t want you to go,” Carrie says. Her voice is small and fading.
“You don’t want me to stay either,” Hayden says, letting go of Carrie’s hand. “I can’t do both. Go find him. See if you can fix it or if you even want to. Let me know how it…” Hayden trails off, and Carrie knows this is the thing that’s always scared her, too: that she and Hayden might reach a point from which they can’t move forward. “Don’t shut me out anymore,” Hayden says. “Whatever happens, I want to know.”
Hayden stands up and looks around as if to gather their things before realizing that they don’t have any things to gather. They dived through the portal with Carrie and landed in the middle of her old and broken life with nothing to show for it but some bruises, exactly what Carrie knew would happen.
“Where will you be?” Carrie asks.
“I’ll be around. I’ll find you,” Hayden says. “I always find you.” Hayden kisses Carrie on the cheek and Carrie holds them around the waist, wishing she had it in her to pull Hayden closer and make them stay.
* * *
—
The shyness and elation Carrie feels as she descends the stairs remind her of the days before she and Miquel were dating. She’s clutching to a secret she wants to broadcast, playing hide-and-seek and aching to get caught. She knocks on the door, the shackle held behind her back. In the time it takes him to answer, her mood curdles into dread. He’s gone, she thinks. The Faction came and took him or he’s in there, dead by his own hand, because I was gone, because I took too long and came back too late.
Then he’s at the door, drying his hands on a dish towel. He reaches out and pulls Carrie into the room by her shoulders, enfolding her in his arms as soon as they’re both under the humming green lights. She hugs him back, the shackle in her right hand, her arms crossed at the wrists behind his neck. “Oh, thank God,” he says. His embrace is as enthusiastic as it can be while being delicate about not touching skin to skin. “I thought Waylon was lying about not knowing where you were, but he’s such a terrible liar, I knew that couldn’t be it.” He’s holding her so close and tight that she can’t stop herself breathing in rhythm with him, full, deep, and fast. His lips come near enough to almost graze her ear, and she hates herself for thinking about Hayden nipping her earlobe as they dived through the portal together like pirates leaping from the crow’s nest.
“I figured you ran off,” Miquel whispers.
“I’d never do that,” Carrie says.
Miquel pulls back from their embrace and grins at her sadly. “Carrie, you ran off on our wedding night.”
He’s never phrased it that way before, never reprimanded her for the decision she made that night, even if he has every right to. Calling her out on it would put her in the position of needing to apologize, which he knows she won’t do. If she did, she wouldn’t mean it.
“Come on in,” he says, guiding her with a hand on her hip. “There’s food. Have you eaten?”
Carrie sidesteps into the room, rotating to keep the shackle behind her back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going,” she says. “A job came up, and I had to leave right away.”
“You freaked everybody out,” he says. “Waylon was giving himself nosebleeds trying to scan the Wastes for you. He went into the Hive looking. Sometimes you forget how much we all care about you.”
It’s an echo of what Hayden said to her when they came back to Chicago after liberating Topaz. Hayden must have seen Carrie’s eyes on the door. Don’t forget how much we care about you, they said. Carrie never forgot. The caring was the reason she had to go. There was so much of it, and it wasn’t enough. The problem couldn’t be her friends who loved her fiercely, so the problem had to be Carrie.
“You want to show me what’s behind your back?” Miquel asks.
Carrie takes a deep breath. She holds the shackle out to him in cupped hands as if she’s cradling a butterfly. She’s invested so much into it, like charging a magical object, and when Miquel’s face doesn’t light up with immediate recognition, she’s crestfallen.
“It’s an inhibitor,” she says. “It’s stronger than these ones.” She wags her
eyebrows at the lights. “Fahima Deeb made it. It’s been holding back the abilities of someone—” She nearly says stronger than you, which sounds hurtful but gets at a truth: she thinks of Miquel’s empathy as a disability even when it’s fully functional. Where the rest of them had received a blessing, he’d gotten a curse. “The last person to wear it has an overwhelming ability, too,” she says. “This held it back for years.”
“Why doesn’t she need it anymore?” he asks.
Carrie worried about this question. She needed a way to answer that didn’t sound judgmental of him or imply that problems with someone’s ability were supposed to be overcome. “Fahima had another plan for her,” she says.
Cautiously, Miquel takes the shackle. He turns it over in his hands. “It’s beautiful,” he says.
“It’s not jewelry,” Carrie says. She’s impatient for the reaction she wants: relief, gratitude.
“I know it’s not jewelry,” he says. “It’s nice that it’s pretty. A pretty thing to do an ugly job.”
“There’s nothing ugly about it,” she says. “This will fix you.”
He looks at her quizzically as if he didn’t hear what she said, and Carrie wishes he hadn’t.
“I’m not broken, Carrie,” he says.
Yes, you are, she wants to tell him. You can’t touch me, and you can’t be touched. You live in a basement because otherwise you’ll drown in other people’s feelings until you’re nothing but other people’s feelings. It is not normal, and it is because you are broken. She wants to tell him how little he’d lose, how bad the Hive has become, how painful his ability was even when it was working optimally. Instead, she tries to find his hand, meets only the cuff of his sleeve and the edge of his pocket, and gives up. She sets her stance, her posture broadcasting to him that this is not negotiable. Part of her wants him to say no, to make her decision for her. She could walk away knowing she tried. She could leave, and it would be his fault.
“I need you to try it,” she says. “I need you back.”
