Normal 1.5: Until The World Moves On
Cuicatl
May 2019
Achcauhtli dismisses his friends and walks up to you.
{Hi.}
He sits down and you lean against him, letting your mind fully intertwine with his.
{Hi.}
There’s more kept in his personal sphere than usual. Typically he lets you see about 70% of it, and you let him see almost 90% of yours (pretty much everything except for the feminine and romantic stuff that grosses him out a little). Now you can see maybe 40%.
{Something wrong?}
He groans, physically and mentally.
{Headache. Like yours.}
{Share?} you reply.
{No.}
You get to your feet and give him telepathic and physical kicks.
{You always take mine.}
{I always take one-third of yours. This is my first, so I will keep all of it. Owe you that much. And more.}
You roll your eyes. It took you forever to get the eye roll just right. You send him a quick, compressed guide to migraine survival. He already knows all of it, of course. He’s had one-third of a lot of migraines. It’s more of a passive aggressive thing. You pain share, so can he.
He stands up and takes your elbow to guide you. You immediately recoil.
{You’re really hot.}
{Am I?}
{Yes. Let me share.}
{No.}
You could force it. You’re the stronger sibling by far because all that brain mass he wasted on vision went straight to your third eye. But you don’t. It makes him really upset whenever you do and then the connection makes you really upset and then it takes months for everything to get back to normal.
Also it’s wrong and stuff.
{I’ll tell Dad you’re sick.}
He actually, physically snorts.
{I just have a fever and a headache. What’s he going to do?}
Nothing. Nothing is what he’ll do. So you shut up for a little bit, making sure that some of your displeasure bleeds into his mind for the rest of the walk.
You know you’re almost at the house long before he tells you. But you let him chivalrously say that it’s approaching and then let you in the door. He does it partially because of his annoying masculinity, partially to keep appearances, partially to ease his anxiety from that one time that you took his sight away for two days to teach him a lesson. Gods, he was so adorably helpless.
“We’re home,” you call to the house so that he doesn’t have to. Neck and jaw movements can sometimes be a pain during migraines.
There’s a fairly long pause.
“Cuicatl, are you still going out tonight?”
You turn towards your stubborn brother.
{Am I?}
{I’m fine. You can go.}
{Do you want me to stay?}
{I’m not going to pain share and I won’t be good company.}
{We can talk. I can distract you.}
{You know I won’t be in a talking mood.}
{But I will be.}
He gives you a mental shove. “She is.”
“Okay. I have a box for heatmor by the door. Bring it out to her.”
“Of course,” you say.
A few seconds later you realize that’s all you’re going to get from Dad so you generously let your brother guide you to your shared room. He leaves you standing in the doorway, then stumbles forward and loudly crashes into his bed. Which probably doesn’t help the headache.
He grumbles something incoherent aloud and you smile in spite of everything. On your way out the door you slip your mind out of his. With one final gesture you point towards your love for him and he belatedly points you towards his for you. Then you shut the door and walk back through the house. You find Searah’s box easily enough by shuffling around near the doorway. You bend down and—mokuitl this is heavy—immediately set it back down. You take a few steps and open the door. Then you bend down again, properly brace yourself, and haul it up, ignoring the burning in your arms. Next it’s a few awkward waddling steps out the door where the arm pain starts to nestle into your back. You’re strong but you’re small and even Dad might struggle with this one. At long last you can feel the sunlight on all of your body. You bend down and let the box go. Maybe ten centimeters higher than you should’ve given the crash. Oops.
“Alice! Dorothy! Ilsa!” you call. There’s a familiar wingbeat and then warm, dry air rustles your smiling face. Alice cries out her greetings and you take a few steps forward for a hug. Ellas dutifully complies. Ellas is warm which reminds you of your annoying overly macho twin brother. “I know girls, it’s been too long.”
Ten days, actually, which really isn’t bad. Alice’s territory is almost four thousand square kilometers so she can be gone for a while if food is scarce or she has a boundary dispute to attend to.
Alice grunts her agreement. You slowly step back, making sure to stroke each head in the process. You point in the general direction of the package. “Mind carrying that for—”
There’s a giant rush of wind that almost knocks you off your feet. A moment later you feel Alice’s breathing beside you where the package should be. Ellas barks out a “yes.”
“Good girls,” you whisper as you extend a hand. One of the minor heads reaches out to nuzzle it. As you scratch the cheek you run your fingers across a ridge where the scales don’t quite mesh right. Dorothy. “Now let’s go out back to see your friends.”
You gently wrap your hand around the base of Dorothy’s head and start walking towards the gate to the back lot. Alice glides along, subtly pulling you away from a rock (that you knew was there). Then you get to the rusty old gate, open it up with an awful screech, and slip inside. Alice just slides out of your grip and floats over the fence. Her wings beat and stir the wind less often and with less power than you’d expect. However ellas stays airborne, mechanical flight is only a small part of it. You’ve never been able to find out how that works in all of your reading and you’ve read everything the library could find on hydreigon so you’re pretty sure if there was an answer you would’ve found it.
You close the gate and walk deeper into the lot. “Anyone here?”
Searah squeals and you hear her light, rapid footsteps as she races over. You brace yourself before she practically flings herself on you, standing on her hindlegs as her clawed hands rest on your shoulders and her snout presses against your neck. “Hey girl,” you say, before returning the hug. If Alice is warm, Searah is almost uncomfortably so. Comes with her typing. More importantly, she has a wonderful layer of thick fur just long enough to submerge your fingers in. “Brought you a toy.”
She squeaks again, much closer this time, and the meaning flashes into your head. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Searah lowers herself to the ground and shuffles towards the box, a steadily quieter string of thanks echoing in your head. Then you hear her shred the cardboard followed by the faint sound of her tongue licking her food. Probably a durant carcass given the weight. There aren’t any down here and heatmor are literally built to eat them. Naturally they’re her favorite treat.
{Hello, child.}
This voice appears directly and exclusively in your mind. It’s distinctly male and very deep and almost echoey. Not threatening just… comforting. Like a warm blanket of words. You could easily fall asleep listening to him. You have several times.
{Hello, Renfield.}
He doesn’t physically embrace you. His body is weird. Squishy. He doesn’t like being squished. Not that it hurts him. You’re pretty sure that even Searah would struggle to burst him open. Alice, well, all bets are off there.
{Is your brother not here today?} he asks, even though he could easily just get that information from your mind. He taught you all of your tricks and he’s way stronger than you are.
“Achcauhtli’s sick,” you respond. Aloud. So that Searah can hear as well. Not that she reacts. Her tongue is probably three feet deep in a giant ant right now.
{Unfortunate.}
Alice growls. Quiet and high, descending in volume and pitch at the end. Jealousy. She’s the only one who doesn’t instantly understand what you say, language barrier be damned. It takes you a second to come up with the words, though. Words that she’d understand. Sickness isn’t really a thing that hydreigon deal with. Their only concept of it is in reference to prey. The same growl can mean very old, very young, sick, reckless, or disabled. Anything easy to kill. You replicate the growl (a little bit too high pitch but you can’t really rumble like ellas can), followed up with your brother’s name in human tongue.
She growls again. This time with a whine at the end from both minor heads.
“No, not like Danielle.”
Alice snorts. Skepticism. Or a request for clarification. Or both.
“Not…” you gesture towards your tummy as you perform the hiss for child. Not pregnant, you mean. Not about to die and be replaced by two helpless infants.
She chuffs understanding.
{Did I do that right?} you ask Renfield.
{You would know better than I.}
{Okay.}
“Anyone else here?” you ask. There’s a faint shifting in the dirt a few meters away followed by a metallic clang. The closest thing to a greeting that he ever does. And even that’s unusually social for a ferrothorn. “Good to see you too, Spike.” No answer. You weren’t really expecting one.
{Charles and ‘chovsky here?}
{No.}
Also not surprising. They stayed nearby after Mom died out of loyalty or convenience, but they don’t make a habit of being out back when you get home from school. You’re a curiosity because you can talk to them like Mom did, but you aren’t their trainer and never will be.
{Well, greet them for me.}
{I will do so.}
You take a step towards Alice and ellas swoops up to meet you. When you stand up on your tiptoes ellas presses right up against you and you can feel her low, constant growl of affection through the wall of her belly.
“Ready to go?” you ask.
She responds by yanking you up into the air and soaring off.
*
October 5, 2019
The nurse is quiet for way longer than they usually are. Fuck.
“Fought a pikipek, did you?” she finally asks.
“Yes.”
“Did you catch the trainer’s name? Or did you exchange bets electronically?”
“I… yeah. He’s my traveling partner. How bad is it?”
She sighs. “She’ll make a full recovery within twenty-four hours. Could’ve been much worse. Pikipek have a hard time controlling their attacks and I want to talk to the trainer before he gets an excessive force ticket.”
You half-smile in spite of everything. Full recovery. You’re a bad trainer, but you didn’t break anyone forever. Not this time.
“Can I have his name, please? Again, he’s not going to get punished. Just talked to.”
Heh. No need to worry. He wants people to rise and fall by their own hand, fine. He can take his own falls.
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“Kekoa. I don’t remember his last name. He’s about sixteen.”
“Has he gone by this center?”
You nod. “He’s staying here. Same room as me.”
The nurse makes a few clicks and keystrokes.
“Okay. I’ll talk with him tomorrow.”
You lower your head and feel one of your shoes pressing hard enough into the back of your leg that there will be a print for a few hours. Weird. Didn’t even notice that you’d started. You press the shoe in a little harder and sigh.
“Take good care of her, please.”
“I will,” she says in a way that sounds like a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
You can’t bring yourself to answer that. Only nod and turn around.
Hau’oli is a really friendly city for the blind. Much better than Tenochtitlan was. Every curb has the bumpy pavement to tell you to stop and all the crossing buttons have a voice telling you to wait or go.
You ignore it all. There’s a wind on your face and you’re going to walk towards it until you hit the ocean. If someone hits you, well, fuck it. At least your Dad gets some more money to piss away. You get honked at a few times or feel a rush of wind uncomfortably close to your body. At the busiest intersections you even stop until the nice robovoice tells you to go. If you get hit by chance, then that’s fate. You’re fine leaving yourself to fate, to the gods. But you can’t just walk into a car and let the gawkers see your limp body flung across the street. That’s not fate, that’s a choice. And there’s no dignity in it.
Everything’s numb. No, not numb. The opposite. You’re feeling everything at once and your feelings haven’t quite decided what to tell your brain. But there’s definitely shame. Maybe anger. Fear? No, not fear. Not much anyway. Hunger, of course, because there’s almost always hunger clawing at your insides and tempting you to give in, to break and stuff yourself and become even fatter and less loveable. But it’s a numb pain right now, the kind that settles in after a couple hours.
By the time you can hear the waves over the cars, you’ve settled on a single thought.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
Your mom was a professional battler. You spent hundreds of hours listening to battles on the radio and hundreds more ignoring lectures and daydreaming about teams and routes and strategies. Hundreds more practicing knots and fire and first aid with your brother. You were never popular, sure, but you cuddled with a dragon. Someday you’d leave town and be someone. Everything was looking up until it wasn’t.
Your dad never blamed you in words, but you’re a telepath and you hear when people think about you like you hear people saying your name from the other end of the room. You should’ve known, should’ve pressed, should’ve stayed, should’ve told him.
You should’ve been enough.
Or at least, it should’ve been you that went instead. He had eyes, a future. He never put his hands on his hips and pouted in a way that reminded him far too much of a long-buried woman, never had stupid unobtainable dreams, never got held back a grade because he couldn’t read the books.
You should’ve been enough. But you weren’t when your brother needed it, which shouldn’t have been a surprise because you’d never been enough before.
There’s another feeling now. Concern, apprehension. A quiet, trembling voice asking, Where’s this going? even though it already knows the answer. Because it’s your voice. The one you use when someone’s yelling at you. Which, yeah, you’re yelling at yourself now.
You don’t know when the tears started. Crying in public again. Other people, the ones with eyes, can see you.
…not that you care about the eyes…
You take a deep, steady breath to beat down the ugly sobs. Keep some dignity, at least.
The ocean’s below you. Three to five meters, probably. What would happen if you fell? Probably nothing. Unless there were rocks. It’d just be one of those tall diving boards you’ve heard about on television. If there were rocks, if you fell the right way, maybe there’d be nothing at all. Just the feel of the wind and then silence forever. Or maybe you’d screw it up like everything else and wind up a damn cripple too. Then you’d deal with three times the pity. One for the jump, one for the eyes, one for the wheelchair. Like you’re not even human. Just some poor sick infant everyone else is supposed to accommodate. And maybe you are.
The only battles you’ve won are the ones you felt bad about winning. Baby humans with baby pokémon. You lost to your partner who you had a type advantage against. If you ever thought you were going to be a good battler you’re definitely don’t anymore. What else are you good for? Emotional support? You shared a damn mind with someone and then left them alone to die of meningitis.
…
Please don’t do this.
…
What if you did?
…
You don’t want to die. You just want things to get better.
…
Well, when’s that going to happen?
…
How long will it be until someone thinks about you for the last time? Your dad's probably already written you off as an idiot child who decided to throw herself to the dogs. Kekoa won't care. Might even be glad. Genesis will be sad for like three days until she realizes that she's much better off with whoever replaces you. Pixie will be upset until she finds some new trainer to disappoint her. Rachel might show up to the funeral (if anyone even bothers to hold one), but she's a busy woman and you give her two weeks before she realizes how much of a waste of time you were.
Alice, Renfield, and Searah would care.
No. They’ve already found new homes and trainers who won't fail them when it matters most. Maybe they'll think about you in pity or scorn a little bit in the upcoming years, but less and less until not at all.
Three years. You give it three years until the world moves on entirely like you were never here at all.
…
That narrative demands to continue, to be finished. But everything around it is screaming in fear and concern and… and… the narrative isn’t you. Not all of you. You sit down and the anger breaks and the narrative isn’t the loudest voice anymore.
You sob and choke up and make a scene and don’t care.
People would miss you. The whole town came to… to his service. People you don’t think your brother ever thought much of. And their minds were broken by it, scarred in a way that you’d never seen before. If you could see your own mind…
Well, you weren’t like this before.
You miss before. You miss Achi. You miss sitting next to him on the hill behind the house as the sun went down and watching his terrible telenovelas while teasing him in your minds. You miss having someone in your head who loved you more than you ever loved yourself. Someone who could take the narrative, shred it, and banish it away.
…
Minds are fragile and you’ve seen scars that cut right down to the core and turn normal, happy people into people like you. Oh gods above it hurts. It hurts and you want it to stop and you don’t know how to make it go away and maybe it never will.
Footsteps approach and you don’t care because there’s a void inside you pulling everything into it that it can and it will never be satisfied.
Someone bends down beside you. “Hey,” she says. It’s quiet and soft and resolute. Like Mom in the memories that Renfield showed you. “I’m Rachel, if you don’t remember,” the voice says.
And then it doesn’t say anything else. But you can still feel her presence. The vague touch of her mind on yours, shying away from the turmoil just inside the surface. It’s… it’s a lot. After what you did to her.
You stick out a hand and she holds it and you keep sobbing but it doesn’t even matter.
*
She keeps reading through the menu like you care. A dish name, a description, no price. It’s drowned out by the dozens of conversations and the sounds of the wind and waves and the wingull fighting on the shore and the little whispers of thoughts all around you.
Eventually she stops talking and gently but audibly sets the menu down.
“Anything sound good?”
You should respond. Make small talk. Or just give a one-word answer. But it feels like you’re lying down half asleep at the bottom of a pit and the answer is so high above you and you can’t make yourself get up and reach it.
“Okay. Mind if I pick?”
…
Do you?
…
“Allergies? Dietary restrictions? Things you just don’t like?”
…
That’s very considerate of her to ask. It’s very inconsiderate of you to just drown in your despair like no one else is hurting. Just give her an answer.
…
Now.
…
You worthless atlikauitl.
…
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ You eat much for breakfast?”
…
You ate half a muffin before it became a ball of mush in your mouth that just got bigger with every bite so you spit it out into a napkin and threw it all away like a toddler.
…
“Hmm. Fried magikarp sandwich fine? It comes with stuff on the side that you can put on if you want it, but otherwise it’s just fish. Natural fish, probably. Not lab.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Rachel shifts her arms. “Perfect. Congratulations on your Class III, by the way.” She sounds like she actually cares.
“Thanks.”
You pick up on more of the whispers and sounds from the minds around you as you slowly pull yourself out of the pit. It takes you a few seconds to banish them again.
“How’s Pixie?”
“Unconscious. In the Pokémon Center. For the third time this week.”
Well. It’s out there now and you’re only crying a little bit.
The waitress comes back and sets down a bowl and says some kind but meaningless words and takes Rachel’s orders before walking away. It doesn’t reach her voice, but her mind has words of confusion and concern and pity bubbling up near the surface.
Rachel pushes the bowl closer to you and then slides some small objects across the table.
“Plastic knife. Rawst butter. Little balls of fried dough in the basket. Best if you cut them in half and put the butter in.”
Your arms are heavy. Your mouth is free from he pit but your body hasn’t quite been dragged out yet. Takes a few seconds just to convince your body that, no, really we’re being alive again. You have to very deliberately take control of your arm and take it off autopilot. Then lift it up even though it just wants to stop and rest. Next step: pick up a ball. It’s rough, none of the crumbs really come off, even if you rub a finger along it). Set the ball down. Steel yourself and lift the arm, fingertips reaching down almost to the tablecloth. Find the butter packet and cut some bread in half. By the time you’ve buttered it you feel like you’ve just done twenty pull ups.
Look at you. Eating food. So accomplished.
…
The food is good though. The butter has the taste of preserved fruit. Deeper and richer and almost bitter. Not the vaguely sweet water of fresh fruit. Or the fruit snacks she gave you that tasted like how soft plastic feels. The bread is probably too dry in the way that fried dough usually is if it’s not fluffy. The hint of food turns the hunger from a quiet ache in the background to a ravenous beast that will not be ignored.
Whatever. You reach for another one.
You can just skip dinner. Fake being sick. But then Genesis would bring you food, because she’s like that. Nevermind. Go on a walk alone at dinner time. Sit on a bench for a few hours. Come back, say that you got food on your way back.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a while. You don’t think she’s eating, either. Just watching you. Weird.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
It takes you an awkwardly long time to finish chewing and swallow and speak. “No.”
“Okay.” You reach for a third before she can follow up. She does anyway. “You know where you’re starting your journey at?”
You shake your head.
“Oh. Akala. You’ll get the full details at the briefing tomorrow. While you’re there, there’s someone I think you should meet.”
You reach your hand in the basket but there’s nothing left. Did you really eat all of that? How many? At least five balls three centimeters across. That’s maybe a full centimeter of fat spread across your stomach. Your skin will swell in size as the blubber grows, becomes obvious and hideous and unable to just hide beneath your shirt like it should. They’ll laugh. Leave you. They should.
“I can ask for more if you—”
“No.”
“Probably a good idea. Your sandwich should be here soon. Anyway, Akala. There’s a person there. They’re sort of the boss of people like us on the islands, even if they like to say that they’re less of a boss and more of a preschool teacher trying to get the entire class through the day without anyone sticking their finger in a socket.”
You give a “heh” because it sounds like a joke and you don’t have a laugh in you right now. Your mind is still whizzing away in the background, revising your earlier plan from a walk and sitting on a bench to a run. And then figuring out the logistics of going for a run without Pixie in unfamiliar territory. Maybe go to another center and use a treadmill?
“It’s sort of a formality. Meeting them. But we don’t have a school on the island and they’re in the best position to talk about options and…” She sighs. “I don’t know everything that you’re going through, but I think it might be good for you to wait a few months and get some training before you start out.”
You frown. Response. Response that needs thought. “Can’t. Time limit.”
“Visa time limit? Because she could get you transferred to the mainland with an educational visa in hand within a day.”
“It’s not the visa.”
“Mission from Xerneas? World to save?”
You don’t like the tone. It’s closer to mocking than anything she’s ever taken. Like she saw what you just did with the bread. And you don’t want to explain why there’s a time limit. Not now. Not here. Not when both the hunger and the narrative are feeding off of each other. Not when you feel like this.
The waitress comes back and sets down your food. Words are said. You don’t really pay attention.
“I’m sorry. That was rude. I know the last thing you want right now is probably more school, but trust me: it helps. I wasn’t doing too well before I went. Life sucked, didn’t understand who I was. A few years at the academy turned me around. I like to imagine I’m doing pretty well right now.”
“I’m glad it helped you.”
There’s a sandwich in front of you. It would be awkward to explain why you’re not eating this and she was very, very nice to buy it for you. You take a bite. It’s actually pretty good. Perks of being on the sea. The magikarp was probably swimming this morning. It’s still fried and you can imagine the shape of the fish stuck on top of your stomach. Doesn’t sound like Rachel’s moved to touch her food, though.
“Look. I know that you don’t want to talk about it but—”
{If we’re going to do this, and I’d really rather not, let’s not do it where people can hear.}
She sighs, aloud. “I’m not as good at that as you are, but I’ll try.” {You’re not doing well. Second time this week. At least. Can get help before leave. Therapy. Training. Battle practice. Friends. Scared to send you into wild now.}
You take another bite to hide your scowl.
{You going to stop me?}
“Cuicatl, I am worried. Am I wrong to be?”
That is patently unfair. What are you supposed to say to that? Say yes and you’re saying she’s crazy. No and you’re admitting she’s right.
“Worried about what?”
You hear her eat a little of her sandwich. Probably buying some time.
“It’s lonely out there. I know. I lasted for all of three weeks in the woods before I decided it wasn’t for me. If you don’t have a support network and aren’t in a good place going in, you’re not going to be able to handle bad feelings well when they come. And they will come.”
‘Will come.’ Like they’re not here. Like they haven’t been here. Like they aren’t the core of who you are.
“I have Pixie.”
She groans. “Your entire emotional support system is a narcissistic fox? That’s your argument?”
And her. And kind of Kekoa when he isn’t being a dick. Not that you can blame him. Pixie started panicking about a male human bleeding from the crotch and now you understand that the dick was you all along. No wonder he hates you.
Rachel has a point. In a better, fairer world you’d even agree with her. But in this one you can’t.
“Compromise: I meet with your friend at the end of the first island. When I know what I’m in for.”
Your phone buzzes in your pocket.
“Deal. Just sent you my number. Feel free to message me when you have signal if you need to talk.”
You start to pick at your fries. They’re decent. Not as good as the bread or fish. And you aren’t obligated to eat them. But your traitorous fingers start wandering and looking for something to do. You’re quiet for long enough that your phone buzzes again, a reminder that you’ve ignored the message for two minutes.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
That takes a second. What is she doing, in normal people words?
“Food. Talking. You’re busy, you don’t have to—”
“Obviously.” If she was condescending before, now she’s biting. Like she wants you to shut up and go away even if her words say the opposite. “If I didn’t want to do this I could just put it at the bottom of my long, long to-do list. But this is important to me. You’re important to me.”
You only really hear ‘long, long to-do list’ as a spear of guilt impales you right through your overstuffed guts. Right. You’re not only wasting someone’s time, you’re wasting the time of someone important.
You stand up and pull out your cane. She rises to meet you can hear the faint sound bills landing on the table. “Thank you, then. I’ll be on my way.”
You start to walk and she keeps pace. “Where are you going?”
“Pokémon Center.” Probably not a lie. Unless you decide to go somewhere else.
“Good, it’s on my way. Let me come with you.”
How do you say no? How do you say no so that she’ll let you just walk away and give fate a few more chances to take you away? You don’t think you can. She’s perceptive and oddly committed. You let her guide you and obey all the traffic laws in silence. Because there’s nothing you can say that will get you what you want. That will get her to leave you alone.
You take the time to put your happy face back on. Physical things. Rolling your shoulders back. Smiling as much as you can manage. Trying to take lighter steps even though your legs still feel like lead. Singing a nursery rhyme in your head and then quietly humming it, even though Rachel might notice. Trying to spread the smile throughout your whole body. Breathing different. You’ve had practice. Years of it.
Your happy face likes things. Dreams about things. Laughs spontaneously. Thinks she’ll survive the New Fire. Hopes she’ll survive the New Fire. She has friends. Used to have family, but she honestly doesn’t dwell on that. Likes her showers as cold as she can stand them. Cuddles dragons. Sometimes she even thinks people like her.
She isn’t a fat, useless atlikauitl one day away from killing herself.
You don’t know if she’s real. You read once that “we are what we pretend to be.” You’d like to think that’s true. Because you like her. She’s what you should have been. Someday you might even be her. But, no, you think the quote was wrong. There’s what we pretend to be and what we are.
The doors open in front of you and you walk in. Rachel’s footsteps don’t follow. You turn your head just enough that the woman will know she’s being acknowledged.
“You going to be alright?”
“Yes,” you say.
You almost mean it.