The Heart of the Circle

by Keren Landsman

  “With all due respect, the definitions are beside the point right now,” Mauve said. “The real question is why the goings-on inside your community should concern us normal citizens?”

  “Protecting the normies is pivotal,” Yeshurun replied. “And indeed, there is no reason for internal disputes to seep outside the community. And if I may, I’ll add that in my opinion, given the recent events, our community needs to do some serious soul searching.”

  “And I’ll add,” I said to the pot I was holding, filled with shapeless mush, “that someone needs to rip you a new one.”

  “Soul searching?” Mauve asked.

  “Indeed. The community is in crisis. People are turning against us. We must ask ourselves what we have done to steer them off the peaceful path of comradeship. We must embrace them, understand what motivates them, and help them. We must use our gifts for the good of humanity at large. Hands Across Israel is committed to social outreach, to bringing the communities closer together, to advocate for diversity and…”

  I slammed the pot into the sink and changed stations. Just music, no interviews with two-faced, spineless assholes more interested in sucking up to the normal audience than actually helping our community. I was rinsing the third pot when Daphne stepped into the living room behind me, all smiles. “Thanks.”

  I blurted a noncommittal “mhm.”

  “You’re not angry, are you?”

  I shot her a glance and lowered the sudsy pot into the sink. “You’re supposed to make sure I’m awake,” I said, then nodded towards her room and added, “that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to–”

  “I know, I know.” She lifted her hand in a pacifying gesture. “We were just kissing, and suddenly it got kind of steamy. It surprised me too.”

  I rolled my eyes and went back to rinsing the pot. “You’re acting as if you’ve never…” I said, falling silent mid-sentence.

  “As if I’ve never been with another damus,” she replied. Her smile faded.

  I turned the faucet off.

  “OK,” I said quietly.

  “OK,” she repeated, waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “We’re good,” she replied, looking past my shoulder. When she shifted her eyes to meet mine again, her emotions were softer. “I love you too.”

  I stuck out my tongue at her.

  The door to her room swung open. Oleander came out wearing nothing but jeans, calling out, “Do you know where I left my…” He stopped when he saw me, and said, “Hey, I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I live here,” I replied sarcastically.

  Oleander smiled and looked at Daphne. “You weren’t kidding when you said he was protective.” He took a step forward and held his hand out. “What’s up?”

  I didn’t bother shaking his hand, but he made a point of keeping it up there, waiting. Daphne started to smile with genuine amusement. Oleander’s smile widened, and the cheeriness radiating from them both finally made me cave. I wiped my hands and shook.

  “Next step, peace in the Middle East,” Daphne said, giggling.

  Withdrawing my hand, I picked up the pot from the sink. “Sure, just let me finish the dishes first.”

  Oleander nodded. “Dishes first, and then you’re cutting some watermelon for me too.”

  “Hey,” I said, pointing my finger at him, “just because I let Daphne look at my futures doesn’t mean you’re allowed to.”

  “Sorry,” he said, his short beard bristling as he smiled.

  “The most popular word among damuses, huh?” I scowled.

  “Actually, for me it’s the phrase ‘I’m not my sister’,” Oleander said and tilted his head towards Daphne. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve said it over this past week alone. Read me if you don’t believe me.”

  So I did. I skipped over his attraction to Daphne and dug deeper. He didn’t share his sister’s mercurial nature, none of the deep sorrow, the elation when he tapped into his powers. He was… serene. Nice. Whole. And yet I could detect the usual mix found in all damuses – the feeling of omnipotence suffused with despair. Daphne once told me it stemmed from their ability to influence everyone’s death but their own.

  “Happy now?” he said quietly, no longer smiling.

  I nodded. I looked at Daphne and asked, “You planned this?”

  “I did,” Oleander answered. “I wanted to find the fastest way to get you to stop sulking whenever I’m around.” He hugged Daphne, and added, “I still don’t get why you hate me so much. Apart from the obvious, that is.”

  Nestled in his embrace, Daphne said, “Reed doesn’t like damuses, other than me, obviously.”

  “Reed doesn’t like other people answering for him,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted.

  The emotions leaking from Oleander changed shades. From lightness to solemn profundity. I wondered what exactly he saw when he said, “I told you, I’m not the one who’s going to hurt her.”

  I looked him straight in the eye. “And I told you, if you do anything to her, I’ll turn your brains into mashed potatoes. Empathetic maiming is no urban legend.”

  “Enough with the pissing contest!” Daphne hissed, and shook Oleander off her.

  He looked at her with surprise. “I don’t get it. He saw for himself that I’m nothing like my sister. He saw that I won’t do anything to you.”

  Daphne didn’t say a word, and their emotions were shifting. Daphne’s pain intensified. Oleander was drifting from confusion to anger to acceptance. She had probably shown him Alder, back when I wasn’t there to protect her.

  “You’re very lucky to have found Reed,” Oleander said to her quietly.

  Daphne averted her gaze from us.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Oleander said to me.

  He really didn’t. He couldn’t have. And he was nice, and he was good for Daphne. I could tell she was happier when he was around. It wasn’t his fault that he was a damus, nor was it his fault that his older sister had betrayed me.

  I put the pot down on the dish rack and turned to the fridge. “You guys want some watermelon?”

  20

  Three hours later, we’d already devoured most of the watermelon, the leftovers my mother had left us in the fridge, and I even managed to beat Oleander at poker. Daphne was laughing her head off next to him on the couch.

  “I can’t believe I lost,” he said, cradling his head in his hands. “And to a moody no less.”

  “I’m sure there are timelines in which you won,” I teased back. Oleander shook his head without looking at me. Daphne was in stitches.

  They both looked at the door. I felt Lee on the fringes of my consciousness. His walls had started to pull away.

  “Go,” Daphne said, gesturing. “We’ll tidy up in the meantime.” I got up and darted outside.

  Lee was walking along the low stone wall outside our building, looking straight ahead. I caught up with him and pulled him onto the wall with me.

  “I didn’t want to get in the way,” he said, his eyes lowered, shrinking into his consciousness. “You… and… everyone.”

  Breathe deeply. Ignore the fact that he can block my attempt to understand what he wants. “You wouldn’t be getting in the way,” I replied. The rustles of late evening surrounded us. The rattle of a distant car, a TV set cackling from a nearby living room.

  “That’s how it feels.”

  He was wearing a T-shirt with a print of a robot on a running track. The style was similar to the drawing on his door sign.

  I looked up at him. “You drew that.” I pointed at his shirt.

  He nodded.

  “And the shirt with the unicorn?”

  A hint of a smile flickered across his face. “It was my final project in my fashion design course.”

  I held onto the tiny trace of emotion he was projecting. “You’re really talented.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. He blocked me out again. “I just…” I started, but he rais
ed his hand and looked at me.

  “I came to say I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you had no choice. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when you woke up. I still think about it. If I hadn’t been downstairs when it happened… If I had been with you…”

  I didn’t want sad Lee, apologetic Lee. There was enough sorrow in my life. “So we’d be hospitalized together, it would have been the most romantic thing in the world.” I tried to make my voice sound sarcastic and patronizing. It worked. Lee smiled.

  I wanted his smile to last. “Yup, there’s nothing more romantic than being stuck in the same room with a moody who also happens to be my ex’s ex!” I raised my hand in front of him in an over-the-top imitation of his own gesture.

  Lee laughed.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said, smiling.

  He nodded inquisitively, his eyes still twinkling with laughter.

  “You tell me why I can’t compliment you on your mad artistic skills, and in exchange I won’t tell your sister that we’re a couple.”

  “We’re not a couple.”

  I arched my brow. “We’re sitting alone, in the dark, outside a perfectly air-conditioned apartment full of food and friends. Hmmm…”

  “Hmmm…” he parroted me, smiling. Lee’s smiles were gigantic when he really let them out, and something fluttered inside my chest when they were directed at me.

  “So…?” I asked, extending him my hand.

  “Back home we don’t shake,” he said, gazing down at my outstretched hand. “If empaths…” he paused and corrected himself, “if moodies shake hands, they’re supposed to exchange something.”

  I shrugged. “You don’t scare me.”

  Lee hesitated for a moment and shook my hand. I wasn’t expecting the outpour of his emotions. He lowered his walls just enough for his excitement to gush out – and anxiety, worry, fear and self-blame. Immediately, he put his walls back up again.

  I was panting.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and withdrew his hand.

  “Don’t you dare.” I grabbed his hand and sandwiched it between both of mine, looking him in the eye. “Enough. Stop running away from me. And no more blocking me out. I won’t have it.”

  “I don’t get why you care,” he replied, something in his tone suggesting that he felt undeserving of affection.

  I myself didn’t quite know the answer. But it was Lee. Mr. Contradictory. Grinning from ear to ear, I said, “I happen to be interested in the unique inner workings of the artist’s mind. You’re my subject. That’s all. So why can’t you take a compliment?”

  He didn’t return the smile. Instead, he yanked back his hand and crossed his arms. “It isn’t real art. It’s just…” He raised his finger to his temple, “It looks different in my head. And it comes out just, blah. Flat.”

  Feeling. He was an empath who couldn’t imbue his art with feeling. That was actually something I could fix. I straightened up and met his gaze. “Want to see a magic trick?”

  With him leaning against the stone wall and me standing perfectly straight, we were the same height. He didn’t respond. I decided it counted as consent. I touched the print on his shirt.

  “I need you to focus,” I told him, peering into his eyes. In the faint yellow glow of the street lamps I could barely see the green in them. His eyes looked dark. “What did you want to show when you drew this?”

  “I was sad. Also a little happy. He’s trying to achieve a goal, and he isn’t going to make it.”

  I searched inside me for the right thread. Sad, and a little happy. The pursuit of an unattainable goal. I found a flicker of an old memory, when I wanted to build the world’s tallest tower, and Matthew and I toiled over it until we ran out of Lego pieces. We started dismantling the bottom of the tower to use the pieces to make it taller, and when it fell apart I broke into sobs and Matthew said ‘Now we can build a Lego sea!’ and I laughed through my tears.

  I spread my hands across the print in the center of the shirt, to catch the emotion and insert it into the fabric. I made sure not to lose the edges of the drawing, and to get it in from both sides, so that when wearing the shirt you could continue to feel the same emotional thread as when you were looking at it.

  When I was finished, I lowered my hand from Lee’s chest. I studied the drawing. It radiated the emotion Lee had described, but not perfectly. “It’ll come off after a few washes,” I said, touching the edges of the print. “If you want me to strengthen it, just say so. There are a few products we can use.”

  Lee didn’t answer. I looked up at him. He was staring at me. “How did you do that?” His voice sounded different. Deeper, slightly hoarse.

  “Moodification designer, remember?” I smiled.

  Lee brushed his hair off his forehead and looked at me. “I want to take you home and force you to do that to everything I’ve ever drawn.”

  “Or you could just ask.” I put my hands on my hips, trying to make out what he was feeling. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sad. I noticed tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He tried to wipe them while fixing his hair.

  I looked down and said, “Coming?”

  Lee sniffled. “OK.” I got the feeling he meant to say something else. I looked at him. He bore into my eyes, standing perfectly still.

  “OK,” I said, unable to tear my gaze away from his.

  Lee exhaled. It sounded like a quiet sigh. “Thanks,” he said, and stood up.

  “You coming?”

  “I want…” He faltered and tried again, his voice softer this time. “I want to go home, take my shirt off and look at what you did.”

  “And then put on something else and come back?” I tried to sound lighthearted and casual, but there was a lump tightening in my throat when I thought that he might not return.

  Instead of replying, he hugged me. I was caught off guard, and by the time I loosened up enough to hug him back he had already released me from his embrace. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  I was still engulfed in his scent. I wanted to tell him to stop apologizing, stop blocking me out. I wanted him to be high again, to not care what anybody thought, to brush his finger across the back of my neck. I wanted him to look at me again, and have to pretend to be fixing his hair so I wouldn’t notice I had made him tear up. But there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t scare him off. That was Lee and I had to remember that. That was Lee, and he was afraid of intimacy, afraid of his own feelings; and I wanted him to stay.

  Take a deep breath. And again. Find the right words to say to him.

  “I want you to come,” I said, gesturing behind me. “If you’re going to take off your clothes, I’d rather you do it where I can watch.”

  “You don’t strike me as someone who gets off on watching.” The thin smile returned to his face. He was hiding something else underneath that sentence. He didn’t think I’d want to watch him. Which obviously just made me start picturing him naked, sending my heart aflutter.

  I winked at him and started walking. I didn’t dare look back. After a moment, I heard his footsteps behind me, and he soon caught me up.

  Together, we entered the apartment.

  “Look at what I brought,” I announced.

  Oleander and Daphne were drying the dishes. Oleander approached us and extended his hand to Lee. “Nice to meet you.”

  Lee didn’t respond.

  “It’s fine,” Oleander said. “I trust you.”

  A slight trickle of surprise seeped out of Lee, and he shook Oleander’s hand.

  I tugged Lee’s arm. “Let’s go see if they left us any watermelon.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Oleander said, smiling. “Let’s all go to the amusement park.”

  “The amusement park?” Lee asked with genuine bewilderment.

  Oleander nodded and turned to Daphne. “What do you say?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, pointing at the hook with the car keys dangling from it. “I’m driving!”

  I raised my hand a
nd said, “I wasn’t going to suggest otherwise.”

  As usual with Daphne behind the wheel we didn’t hit a single red light or the least bit of traffic on the way. We listened to music, and Lee edged out his tension. We sat in the back, avoiding any accidental physical contact. I snuck him a look every now and then, and noticed that he did the same, a gentle smile playing on his lips whenever our eyes met. I sent him a small wave of affection, just to see how he’d react. He sent back a similar wave, shaded with a delicate hue of excitement. My heart leapt inside my chest again.

  Daphne parked the car behind the amusement park, on a dark dirt road.

  “That’s a lot of walking to do to get to the main entrance,” I grumbled.

  “What do you think you’ve got two damuses here for?” Oleander said, winking. “Follow us.”

  They led us to a metal gate. At the mere touch of Daphne’s hand, it opened with a grating screech. Lee turned slightly pale, and I felt the nausea he was hiding inside him, almost perfectly sealed.

  “Is this legal?” I asked.

  Daphne shrugged. “Is it my fault the park employees forget to lock the back entrance?”

  “It certainly isn’t,” Lee replied and raced ahead of me. “Come on!” he said, reaching out to me. I took his hand.

  Lights were twinkling everywhere, and corny pop music was playing over the speakers. Kids were squealing, running around between the rides.

  Oleander rubbed his hands together. “Where do we begin?”

  “The Ferris wheel,” Lee replied.

  “The pirate ship!” Daphne said.

  “How do we get on the rides without tickets?” I asked.

  “What do you think you’ve got two damuses here for?” Oleander said with a smirk.

  I held my tongue. “I’d like to go for the legal option.”

  Oleander grunted. “There’s nothing fun about the legal option.” He considered me for a moment and said softly, “We’ll pay for the food, OK? And Daphne and I will make sure no one gets punished for leaving the back gate open. I promise you no one will get hurt from us sneaking in without paying.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged and looked around. I couldn’t see a single ride I wanted to go on. It was all too bright and loud. Daphne was bubbling with excitement, Oleander was on a mission, and even Lee let me feel the faint twinge of joy stirring inside him. I was the only buzzkill in the bunch.