FRICTION OF THE RADICAL
Chapter 1
Sevina
I have abilities— the source of everything that went wrong in my life.
I can see people’s lives. And not just saplings of their emotions like the fortune tellers at the tourist districts of the city.
I see everything clear as day when I hold eye contact with people for longer than three seconds. Every memory, every feeling enters my head and I know their entire existence, know all they’ve been through.
For a short period of time I even forget who I am.
The only word I can describe this power as is horrifying—
I bump into the waitress and the dishes from her hands hit the floor, shards flying into every direction as they break.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking. Sorry.” I step aside and slouch.
“Keep your head up!” She turns red. “What do you think you’re coming to do here, stand in place and stare at the floor?” She throws her hand in the air and I curl into myself further until she blows an agitated sigh and struts off. I sweep the shards up and careful to keep my head low carry them to the trash bin. I bet at least four other co-workers are eyeing me right now.
The creepy girl with a mop did it again— the thoughts are written on their faces— she crossed their paths in the kitchen. All she has to do is mop and she can’t even do that right.
What a pathetic creature.
But I can’t do it right because everywhere I look there are faces, eyes, and eyes full of other existences, full of their own fears. And for the two years I’ve been working here all I could do is draw back, avoiding all and everything.
I continue dragging my mop back and forth along the white-tiled floor, deep in my dismayed head. Though I have a perfect reason for keeping my distance I feel sorry for being such a coward. It affects my work performance, which is evident by the now and then shattering dishes. But I have to support myself, have to pay the rent. It’s not like one gets food here.
“Oh, you’re getting some hate lately.” A deep voice to my right, the only voice that doesn’t make my back crawl. Rovan, but everyone calls him Rovy.
“They started gossiping?” I murmur, my head bowed.
“Subtly.” I’ve heard them gossip about me and it makes it even harder. I hate being creepy and unsociable, but it’s all I can do.
“You okay?” Rovy rolls his sleeves and begins washing the dishes I should’ve washed three hours earlier. Even though we’re the same age, seventeen, with his lanky frame Rovy towers next to me. Unlike his mother, Mrs. Brice, he has darker, russet skin. Mrs. Brice owns the restaurant and they both live on the second floor above—
“Sevs, are you OK?” He repeats himself and I blush with embarrassment at my inability to answer right away, inability to do my job.
I stare at the floor. “Yeah. No. I don't know.” He has no idea I have powers. No one does. I bet he thinks I’m mental, in a soft, non-disclosing way. But then again, it often feels like I am.
“That’s… precise.” He says as he probably glances at me like none of the co-workers ever have—a friendly, yet worried look. He looked at me this way once, when we met.
He nudges my arm with his elbow. “Want to go grab a bite after the closing? We can go to that Chinese bar around the corner. I want to try that veggie soup. It’s new.”
Grasping the mop tighter I chuckle. “Everyone knows where that bar is. And you own a restaurant.”
“I know,” he drags his words in a whiny way. “But I want something different for a change. Just… don’t tell my mom.”
“I won’t,” I promise and keep quiet.
“So? Sevs, come on.” He prods my arm again. I step aside, but he persists, a quality hard not to admire. “You can tell me what’s bugging you, okay?”
I wish I could find the grit to. “Okay,” I lie. I don’t plan to share my troubles with him, but neither do I want to waste an opportunity to spend more time with an only person closest I have to a friend. It’s as if I hope it’ll lead somewhere. It’s stupid.
Once my shift nears its end I scuffle around the dining room, wiping the tables. Mrs. Brice’s restaurant isn’t spacious, nor luxurious— tiny aisles separate four-seater tables, cheap oil paintings she bought at the district market for a couple bucks decorate the cream walls. The food isn’t the best either. Yet, all is up-kept and clean, reflecting Mrs. Brice’s neat character.
My co-workers stride past me, banter flowing from their company. No goodbyes, no nothing. All I am is a shadow, a shy loner I’ve chosen to be. To them, I’m repulsive, with my hair always tied into a messy knot, pale skin and wolf-like eyes that bare into my reflection on the wet floor as if expecting to find some paper. Well, I did find five bucks once, but it doesn’t change a thing. I’m still a girl with a mop.
I’m fine with it. I don’t need people in my life— that’s what I keep telling myself. If I ever became closer with them, sooner or later I’d loosen up and look one of them in the eyes, even if by accident. And the panic would hit, the feelings, the pictures, the thoughts, and, of course, the questions. Are you alright? You look sick, what’s wrong? No doubt they’d fail to understand me and would distance themselves, laughing and mocking me over something I can’t control. Just like the kids back in the foster care did.
I run the rag over the table, my nails almost scrapping the surface. A slow burning sensation rises in my chest. I know this conflicting feeling. It comes and goes, but I hate and try to hide it all the same.
Desire.
I want to be friends with people, I want to be seen, but I don’t want to see. I don’t want this unexplainable bane that fell on me.
But it did.
“You and Rovan going out?” Mrs. Brice steps into the dining area. The door swings shut behind her.
“Yes.” I lock the main sliding doors and move to the manual blinds. Automated darkening windows are too pricey, or too modern for this place.
“That Chinese bar?” A smile appears on her face as she adjusts her big, round glasses.
“Yeah.” I tug on the string, lowering the last blind.
She chuckles as she comes closer and her hand rests on my shoulder. I glance at her. I would shudder under peoples’ touch, but with time she’s made it different.
“Rovan and I are worried for you, dear,” she says. “People are beginning to complain. Whatever it is, I understand you might not want to share it with me, but perhaps with him?”
The past couple months have been the hardest. Just as I’m finishing high school. Typical. What am I going to do in life once I leave that meaningless building they call high-school? There will be a pendant on my robe and a certificate in my individual record. They’ll congratulate me and give me a pat on the shoulder, but it will be all.
Go, explore the world, kid, they’ll say. Yeah, explore the world with what I can do? No amount of desire will prepare me for that.
“Dear?”
“Hm?” I snap back into the conversation and try to find a more mature word to justify my withdrawal. “It’s… you know,” I lift my eyebrows, studying Mrs. Brice’s dark brown sweater, “adolescence?”
“Oh, well, then you better talk to Rovan about it.” Her tone is like a wave of gentle care. “He’s been through a lot, especially after his father died. I’m proud of him.” She raises her hand to my cheek in a motherly caress. “I’m proud of you too.”
“Thank you.” I fight the urge to meet her eyes by shifting my attention to her fair hair and light skin. Her affection pulls me to her. Rovy and she provide me with something I’ve never felt, something more than I’ve been living with. And the more time I spend with them in this restaurant the stronger this feeling grows.
Mrs. Brice smiles at me before she leaves. I watch her go. It was she and Rovan who saved me two years ago when the foster kids got the best of me. I got beaten. As soon I managed to stand I ran, then staggered as far as I could until, under the windows of the restaurant, I succumbed to the pavement, ready to accept whatever comes. My body was battered, forearm and one rib broken. People passed me in a blur, but no one stopped. No one but the two of them.
When I woke I was lying on a table in an unfamiliar restaurant kitchen. Mrs. Brice’s bright, green eyes stared into mine and voices kept dancing around my head. Unwillingly, I locked my eyes on hers for three seconds and for the first time, in as long as I could remember, her life and her noble intentions felt like light rain to my hurricane. I felt calm and safe and I knew it was real. Rovy stood next to me too and they both reassured me it was over. It was.
This is yet another reason I stay here, grateful for all they’ve done for me. Present day isn’t filled with people as decent as they are.
I finish cleaning the place and before Rovy descends to meet me I sneak into a supply room, on my way grabbing a spoon. I open the freezer and pull out a box of ice-cream, then slide to the ground between the shelves and scoop a spoonful. It’s a habit I developed a month ago. There is something soothing and relaxing about munching on sugary cream in a quiet, dark corner.
I swallow a spoonful and sigh, not sure if I should enjoy it or chide myself for my weakness.
“Eating your troubles away?” I snap my head at Rovy, leaning on a doorframe.
Flush spreads on my cheeks and I pull the spoon from my mouth. “Uh, I’m sorry. It’s a few spoons. I’m sorry.”
“Now I know who’s been eating this box,” he says and I swallow, examining the ground. A glisten of a coin catches my eye, lost by the fridge. A quarter.
“I just… do a few spoons a day. I’ll pay for it.”
“It’s okay. It’s not the ice-cream I worried about.” I clutch the box close to myself. Rovy sighs. “I know we’re no best buds, Sevs, but you’re burdened by something. It’s obvious. You hunch more than Cal with the supply boxes on his back.” Cal handles the goods that trucks deliver. It must be his quarter. Now it’s mine.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Really? Eating ice-cream? Alone. In a dark corner.” Rovy crosses his arms on his chest and lifts his brow.
“It’s-it’s…” How do I tell him? How do I even find the guts to tell him?
He walks in and before he extends me his hand I scuttle to my feet, ready to place the box back into the freezer.
“Keep it,” Rovy chuckles. “You look like you need it.”
Something warm coils in my chest and I lower my head, embarrassed and lost at his kindness. “Thank you.”
I close the lid and stuff the box into my backpack.
“Let’s go then.” He jerks his shoulders, encouraging. I look back at my quarter. I’ll get it tomorrow.
Rovy and I leave the building and start down the narrow vendor street. Suspended lights swing above our heads, hanging on the wires strung across the road. Its white lights mix with the blues and reds of the holograms on the windows of all the little shops and diners, bathing the street in a colorful neon glow.
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“Hurry!” Rovy exclaims like a foster kid excited to leave the orphanage. “I’m hungry.”
“You are picky.” I instantly regret my words, realizing this is not how people joke. Rovy’s not even that picky.
He lets it slide as he shoots back, “says the girl who buys insta-noodles after work.” I do buy noodles at the corner kiosk sometimes… okay, all the time.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“For what? Buying noodles?” He laughs and lands an approving pat on my back. “Come on.”
I shoulder my backpack, observing a baker switch a hologram on the door to signal closed, another woman lowers a grate over the windows of her bionic shop. The vendor shops span the first and second floors of the buildings on the street, in fact, they pepper the entirety of the Coats district— home to family businesses, little restaurants, second-hand clothing stores, electronics, bionics, car and computer components. In this part of the city owning a small shop or a restaurant is one of the best ways to make a living. People are not rich but live a tad better than the laborers on Clare's Island. Most of the low-class people have found a way to get by, a way to survive. It reminds me of what foster care director used to say whenever something horrific like an orphan death happened. Human nature will prevail, he used to say. I sure hope I’ll prevail.
We enter one of the livelier avenues, a picture of so many details and noises it’s hard for me to imagine how people live in the apartments above. Roads flow with cars, bikers and cyclists, somehow not distracted by flashing holograms. This avenue is always active because it’s one of three, packed with bars and clubs, that cut through the Coats district at the end joining another, more centered city district. Despite those avenues days in the Coats are filled with life and nights are quiet. I’ve grown to like it.
We amble down the street, exchanging a few words about the spring weather until we reach our Chinese bar. It’s an outdoor bar; one sits with their back turned to the street and to a river of flowing people.
“Finally!” Rovy slides his bowl of steamy vegetables to his face and inhales the fumes. I do the same with much less enthusiasm. “So what’s up with you?” Splitting his chopsticks he spins on his bar stool to face me and murmurs something in French.
“You know I don’t speak French.” I split mine and keep facing the bar and the cook behind it.
“Everyone speaks French,” he says and spins away. We sit shoulder to shoulder now and it relieves me.
“I don’t.”
“Look, I get it,” he says with a slurp. “I know you’re still shaken from what happened two years ago—”
“Nothing happened,” I snap quietly. “I was beaten and I ran away from the foster care… failed to run away. That’s it.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he retorts without any insult at my subdued harshness. “Still, you recently started zoning out more. Is it your, you know, freak-out thing?” No doubt he tries to catch my glance, but I avoid his face by staring into my bowl.
My freak out thing. My bane. Over the few times he saw me react to seeing his life, he developed a thinking that I get occasional panic attacks.
I gulp, torn between two paths can I can take. Shy away or open up.
“Yes,” I utter, not sure he hears it.
He does, by reading my lips, but probably from the silent way I said it he doesn’t press further.
We fall into silence and warmth spreads over my chest, instantly overtaken by the dark memories of my past. Past? What past? I don’t have any. I opened my eyes in this giant maze of steel walls intertwined by endless roads when I was an eleven-year-old kid. Brisk rain chilled me to my bones as I was lying on a tiny park bench by a crowded street. I couldn’t remember anything. It’s as if I woke from a dream I forgot and had to live a life I didn’t know existed. I was petrified. I didn’t remember my past, my parents, my friends, if I even had them.
Jade Doe— I heard a cop say at the police station.
But I knew my name— Sevina, and that’s why I chose it.
I was alone amongst twenty-five million people. I knew the world and its history, but I was stripped of identity, of feelings but for one, the dominant emotion of fear that was, and still is, engrained in my mind.
Of course, it’s not until I admitted to the foster care that I discovered the source of my fear. It’s in that overpopulated house of five hundred brats that I found out what I can do.
The kids weren’t known for their hospitality. Lots of things happened in that building— beatings, hierarchies. I arrived a week after I had woken up. Other orphans took me into one of their kid gangs and even if I was another unit in the faction game all of them played I belonged. I had friends to care for and friends to take care of me. And after a year of getting used to being a part of something, after a year of trying to shed that fear of blankness that is my mind, I worked up the courage to look straight one of them in the eye for longer than a glance. I regretted it. The eyes revealed more than they should, more than I could ever comprehend. I became lost.
I tried to talk to my friends about it. They didn’t get it. Better yet they called me a weirdo, but didn’t cast me out until I avoided everyone’s eyes like a plague, until I couldn’t stand up for myself and for them, until I became a burden.
Soon enough I retreated from their ranks and their bullying skyrocketed. Teasing. “Why you’re so scared? Scared of your own friends, weirdo? Do you see ghosts? Maybe you’ll see your parents, ha!” Kids are cruel, their survival instincts raw and untamed. Give them a wounded prey and they’ll devour it in an instant. I was the prey in cool withdrawal, unable to do anything but deny their existence. They wouldn’t let it slide. Month after month they picked on me, made me into a jester for them to play with. Brawls broke out, ending with bruises on my face and me, running away. No kid group took me in, nor I wanted them to.
Until that one day when they collectively got me after school. I was ready to run away after that beating. But it didn’t come to be.
Rovy’s murmur, a few French words again, bring me back from my thoughts.
I softly bump his foot with mine, pretending I heard what he was talking about before the French words. “Shut up, you show-off.” I feel foolish with my gestures, but Rovy giggles as he tries to catch a vegetable in his bowl.
“You didn’t hear a single word I just said, did you?”
“I did,” I pipe. “Uh…you said, um…”
He laughs. “It’s okay. In short, I said I’m glad you’re with us. Helped me a lot, knowing I wasn’t the only one to have tough times.”
“Oh, now you’re getting melodramatic.” I fake a subdued smile. Pain and loss—I hate it. Hate talking about it, thinking about it. It makes the turmoil I feel a bit more… confusing.
“No, really. It helped.”
Rovy’s father had died before Rovy and his mother opened the restaurant. We never bonded much. After he and Mrs. Brice found me beaten and employed me I used to avoid him for half a year. He was as depressed as I was, so all we did was hang out close, working, but eventually, he began helping me out. Mrs. Brice was more of a caretaker for me, always asking how I am and if everything is going well. I never let her in too close.
I exhale, veggie soup warming my stomach. Rovy’s care softens the constant dread and gives me hope that I can be normal, that I can fit in no matter what. At least Rovy seems to enjoy my timidity. He doesn’t even look at me that much.
“I talked to my mom about leaving Havason,” Rovy says after a pause.
“And?”
He lifts his head and surveys the red, scruffy Chinese lanterns, swaying above our heads. “She said she’s not leaving.”
“She has a point. You two built your life here,” I say.
“I like this city, I do, but too many bad memories. I don’t see any future here. And mom keeps asking what I want to do once I graduate,” he pauses, “I have an aunt, Willow, she’s a detective. She’s still shaken by my father’s death and buries herself in work. But I figure she’d love to leave as well.” I saw Rovy’s life a few times since we met, but I still remember who Willow is. Though Rovy doesn’t know it.
“But where would you go?” The world has undergone some drastic changes in the early twenty-first century. History repeated itself and it started with a cold war between North America and Asia for some technological advances; some spies stole some revolutionary sustainable energy schemes or something, at least they teach that in school. As stupid to me as it seems, it was enough to spark a dissent between the countries. The tension grew as each nation, even in the Americas found more reasons to hate each other. It would’ve blossomed into a war if not for the Union Act between both American continents, establishing the United nations of Americas. One huge alliance.
“I don’t know, maybe South America.” Rovy shrugs. “They’re building another metropolis there, again. Like they did with Havason. Though it’s a shame they left this place for shit.”
“It is not that bad,” I protest. “Livable. You and I, we’re surviving fine.”
“Still, my father got shot,” Rovy says.
“People get shot everywhere. Not just in Havason.” His eyes jerk at me wryly. “Sorry,” I sigh.
For the population of twenty-five million the crime rate in Havason city is low. As long as one’s nose isn’t poking about without belonging all should be fine—that’s the rule most of us live by. Me for sure. Yet I’m disappointed with my insensitivity. I’ve known all about Rovy when I looked him in the eyes. I felt what it’s like to lose someone. Granted that the memory has long since faded away like all of them do, I still think I could be more encouraging. Somehow…
“It’s cool.” His words provide little comfort. I failed once again.
“Look, I gotta go. Thanks for the invite.” I put a few papers on the bar before I grab my backpack I had on the ground between my feet. I always carry the thing with me; scruffy but of a good make, was a fine deal I got in one of the thrift shops.
“What? Already?” Rovy grasps my backpack, not letting me flee. “Look, I didn’t get offended.” He swivels on his stool. “Sevina, it’s all cool.”
A guilty smile curves the corners of my lips and I bow my head to avoid his eyes. “Thanks, but—”
“Oh, wait!” He jerks his finger up, releasing my backpack. His hand dives into his jeans back pocket. “Look what I found. Someone left it on the restaurant table.”
I halt. “What is it?” He lifts a simple handmade bracelet. A couple blue beads on a firm elastic ring. “For me?”
“If you want it.” He lowers the trinket into my palm.
I slide it on my right wrist. “Thank you.” I twist my hand around. It’s a bit small. Some child must’ve forgotten it. “I still gotta go. Have to… study. Finals and all.”
In a polished bar reflection Rovy grins and straightens. Pride dances across his face. “See you.”
“Bye.”
I hasten to the subway, hoping not to appear too impolite. I got scared. I don’t want to leave Havason. I don’t want Rovy to leave as selfish as it sounds. But what did I hope for? Me bailing on him won’t change his mind.
With a cluster of people I stomp underground and swipe my phone against the panel installed on the turnstiles. Five passes left. A translucent gateway gleams approving blue and lets me through. I follow one of the tiled tunnels to the platform. Holograms shove the product into everyone’s face, and it feels like I’m walking through veils of advertisements. For reasons I can’t explain I find those pretty distractions repulsive.
But it’s better than the cold war the world was so immersed in over thirty years ago.They were built to let people merge and divide the growing population. New technological cities. Cheap to survive in but not lacking expensive things either. Perhaps, it was a part of the propaganda, but people flooded in crazy numbers, quadrupling the growth of the metropolises. It even attracted a decent number of immigrants. All the changes must’ve helped, because soon the continents across the ocean blew their steam off, ended the cold war over those schemes and went on to develop their tech and care for their people.
The subway platform stretches a quarter mile, kiosks and stalls lining its walls. Only poorer districts, and Coats is one of them, have allowed retailers in subways. One can get booze there no matter the age.
Between the kiosks, I find a tight seat among other people. I’ve grown to like this city. This district has become my home, but crowded places like this are beyond me. I have troubles withstanding eight people in our kitchen.
I watch a hologram of a lady with shampoo in her hands. She smiles at everyone who passes by or through her, then the sleek, graffiti ornamented, subway skids up.
Coats is a square shaped district stacked with similar, sand-colored buildings, each of them at least fifteen stories high. Residents call them ant houses because of their tiny windows and dense population. Of course one must not forget the ant roads; the district streets are narrowest in the entire city, and alleys as wide as gaps between the paper book pages.
My ant house is on the south side of the Coats, closer to the edge of the city. It’s not new. The humid corridors stink of piss and at night annoying haggles of neighbors echo through the thin walls. Back when they were built, they sold out in a month or so. Cozy and small, plus cheap to upkeep.
The key scrapes against the rusty keyhole as I unlock my door. I push it open with my foot. It creaks, presenting a narrow silver toned corridor. I’m not too fond of this place, but it’s better than the foster care I had lived in, so I’m not complaining. The foster care has a dozen apartments they rent out to kids who come of age. Not by the book, but beneficial due to rent increasing year by year. My case was different as I got my apartment after the beating. The director saw that everyone hated me and paired me with another girl who lived here. But she, an asshat, ran away a year ago and it all fell on my head. I came back to report, but the director’s hand carelessly flew across the air. “Well, good luck to her. You stay there instead of causing a ruckus here. We’ll send someone to you,” he said. “When there’s someone of age that will be able to live with you. Peacefully.”
“What of the rent?” I asked.
“If you get a job, pay for it. If not, it goes into your debt until you’re eighteen.”
Other kids have nowhere to go after they age out, so if they want to keep the apartment they have to pay. Or be in debt. Debt—shackles on your feet, chained to the place. And I already have a year worth of it.
White light seeps into the room through the only window. I take off my jacket and slip out of my worn black boots. With its bright purple walls, the living room appears even smaller than it is. The room just fits a sleeper sofa I never bother to unfold and a desk with my digital tab on it. That thing barely holds a charge. To the right— a tiny, seatless kitchen with an oven, a counter, and a tiny refrigerator. To the left; a door to the same-sized bathroom. Yet despite the poverty the place is clean. Like Mrs. Brice, I like things neat. With a mess of a mind I have at least my surroundings have to be organized.
I let my hair loose and grab a spoon before I spread out on the sofa. I bring my knees to my chest and pull out the box of ice-cream, or watery cream by now. I take a runny spoonful, recalling the precious quarter I left by the refrigerator. I need to study. Prepare for the finals. What’s the point? It doesn't matter. My whole life is a sequence of things I cannot control. Or perhaps I lack the conviction to. Can I trust myself? With what I can see? With what I will be forced to see if I listen to that aggravating desire?
Should I call this constant pestering in my brain a desire? It nags like a fat retailer at the Coat’s market stall. I can’t go on, living like this, my brain screams… I can do better!
I can’t. Even if I had cash for college what could I do that doesn’t require confidence? That does not require to look at people and keep my head up? Accept all I would see calmly? No way.
I would always appear timid. Invisible to others and the world around me. If they can't see me I can’t see them. It’s safer this way. Strength and I have never had much in common anyway.
I sigh, fingering the bracelet on my wrist, spoon in my mouth. I pivot my head to the window above the sofa. Blue city hues blend with golden light from the ant house windows. Distant sirens, the humming of cars and sweet voices of advertisements roll over the streets—the noises unwelcoming but too monotonous to pay any attention to.
I want to do more, but I know that with my torturous abilities all roads for me lead to that restaurant at the end of the street. To Rovy and to his mother and the warmth they provided me with. People I’ve known everything about, into whose eyes I looked and not once I felt scared. No doubt they’ll let me keep the job.
But if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with them, hopefully between those dining tables and the clinging kitchen, I have to repay them. They deserve to know what I can do.
…
I’m eager to see Rovy and hope to be productive today. And… tell him. He has to understand me, accept me for who I am. I’ll tell him. I’m brave enough to travel by the least treacherous road, that’s what I’ve been stuffing my head with for the past…twenty-four hours.
Something pokes my shoulder and Rovy greets me. I realize I got lost in my thought and spaced out, water piling under my mop on the floor.
I lift my head, poised to return a smile, but halt at the sight of an unfamiliar guy, standing by Rovy. An apron hangs around his stocky waistline and his deep blue eyes suit his oval face. His slim lips curve, forming an attractive smile. I drop my head.
“Sevina, Corrin. Corrin, Sevina. A new guy. Show him the ropes.” Rovy smirks at me.