“Wow. Rough one, huh?”
Dan waited for Freya in the parking lot. She should have made a joke and acted like the session hadn’t been that bad. Instead, she crumpled against Dan. He hugged her and held on for as long as she thought she could.
“Yeah,” she managed, reluctantly letting go. “Let’s get out of here, please.”
Dan walked around the car and opened her door for her. Normally, it would seem kind of corny, but Freya needed anything she could get.
“Thank you,” she said, settling into the seat. When she closed the door, she felt better with a barrier between her and the office at 777 Emerson. She had only felt good in Dan’s car. Nothing inside had ever hurt her.
“Was it one of his exercises? The shore walk, or the ribbon one?”
“The ribbon one. What’s the shore walk?”
“I’m not sure if we should talk about it. It might be less effective if you know about it beforehand. I don’t want to mess up your treatment.”
“That’s fair,” Freya said. “I didn’t realize he did the same things with everyone.”
“I think he’s kind of like a comedian, where he has a bunch of routines he picks from. He might change up his delivery a bit depending on his audience. I remember the ribbon exercise very well. I was messed up for like three days after that.”
“Wait, did you see the statue, too?” Freya was excited by the idea Dan might have had the same vision. He looked around the car.
“Oh! I mean, when you were doing the exercise, did you imagine a big statue? “
“No, nothing like that,” he said, looking a bit perplexed. “Did you?”
“I kind of zoned out when he had me close my eyes. I sort of had a daydream,” she said, backtracking. “A colossus, bound in chains. It crashed into the sea and dragged me down with it.”
“Oh, wow. That’s intense. I just imagined my sister with the ribbons tied between us. Did he not do the thing where he had you talk about each ribbon, undoing the bow and putting it away?”
“No, it was something totally different. We didn’t do that.”
“Wow. Well, maybe it’s all less structured than I thought. What was the colossus like?”
Freya described the whole scene as they drove. She needed to tell someone. The Starball was warm, fighting against her sinking feeling. She wondered if there was a battery in it, what would she do if it ran out?
“Jesus, that’s wild,” Dan said, pulling into the parking lot of Flying Horse Regional Hospital. “Are you cool to go in?” he asked.
“Yeah, of course,” she said, trying to sound surer than she felt.
* * *
Radomir was in rough shape. He was in a neck brace with a wedge of bandages covering his nose, deep purple bruises running along his cheekbones. Looking at the glossy shiner on his left eye, Freya wondered if things really did come in threes. This was the third black eye.
Still, Radomir smiled when he saw them enter, and she didn’t see any teeth missing. Brad, Dan, Tate, and Jennette were already there, along with Radomir’s mother, Olga. It was crowded in the room. There were cards and flowers clustered all along the wide ledge on the window.
Dan stiffened when he saw Radomir, his hands curling into fists. He was furious, and Freya realized she was, too. There was an incipient shout building in her throat, an urge to grasp and tear rippling through her arms.
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She blinked at the feeling. This wasn’t how she got angry. Her anger sharp and quick, where this was slow and searing, with a dangerous sense it might explode at any time. Was the Starball trying to make her mad? She reached into her pocket and felt it growing warmer. She felt the cool, calming rush again, muted and ineffective, kind of removed.
“Are you okay?” Jennette asked, and it wasn’t clear if she was asking Dan or Freya.
“Yes,” they replied in unison, and everyone paused.
“I shouldn’t have let him run away,” Dan said, and Freya felt the guilt behind his anger, a flash of self-disgust he’d been afraid to get beaten up, and then the calm washed everything away. She was locked in place, trying to decide if she’d really felt what Dan felt or if she’d only imagined it.
“Even if you’d kicked his ass, he probably would have done some cowardly shit anyway. It might have been worse,” Cameron offered, and the hair on Freya’s arms stood up as she strained to feel what Dan did, but the moment was over.
“Twice my size, he does not even fight me. I was struck from behind. трус! Lucky for him he will be in jail when I am free from here.”
“Uciszyć!” Radomir’s mother commanded. Freya saw their eyes meet, the defiance in Radomir’s stare throwing sparks against his mother’s implacable will. The room grew silent, and Freya was anxious to break up the awkwardness.
“I brought you something,” Freya said. In her bag was a brand-new copy of Solaris. She remembered reading Randall’s copy, the 1971 UK first edition with an abstract tidal wave crashing across a cover that had once been pure white. She’d finished it on a rainy afternoon and just stared out the window for a long time afterward, feeling utterly desolate and alone. Radomir accepted the book and thanked her, flipping it over to look at the back cover copy.
“It’s the Polish edition!” Radomir exclaimed, his voice raising with excitement. “Where did you find this?”
“I had to order it!” Freya beamed at his response. “You’re lucky you can read Polish, there isn’t a direct English translation in print. I had to read a copy that was doubly translated, first from Polish to French, then from French to English. It was gruesome but, still, it’s an amazing book. Let me know how you like it.”
Radomir held the book in both hands as the thanked her. She knew she’d picked the right gift. Olga and Radomir were suddenly chattering back and forth excitedly in Polish. The tension between them vanished. He handed the book to his mother. She turned it over in her hands. Olga was farsighted, and she had to hold the book at arm’s length to read the back cover copy.
“I read this in school, at your same age! I have thought of it many times since. This is a marvelous gift!” Radomir’s mother smiled widely, and Freya was suddenly uncomfortable from all the attention.
She noticed a despairing look on Jennette’s face, and at once made the connection some of these flowers had surely come from her. With a note of regret, Freya wished she had thought to give the book to Jennette so she could claim the idea for her own. Jennette needed all the help she could get.
The visit went on until they could all see Radomir faded. It clearly took an effort to keep his eyes open. There was a catch in his voice as he thanked them all for coming. Freya’s eyes were damp, and she wasn’t the only one. The air hummed with a kind of warm camaraderie, and she had the echoing sensation of feeling more than just herself.
She found Dan’s hand and gave it a squeeze. His eyes met hers, and there was nothing else but that contact.
They all made their way out of the room, and Radomir’s mother wouldn’t let anyone pass until she’d swept them up in a fierce hug. The friends walked to the parking lot, shrouded in a solemn quiet until they stepped outside of the hospital. Freya took the chance to walk alongside Jennette.
“Raspberry Tim Tams are his favorite cookie. They have them at Harper’s on Thoreau Street,” Freya offered.
“Oh! Thank you,” Jennette said, understanding the gesture at once. “That book was so thoughtful. I didn’t even know he knew Polish!”
“It’s his first language. His parents are Polish. I think he was in Kiev until he was eight, and then they moved to Moscow. He speaks French as well. They have family in Cologne.”
Jennette’s eyes were bright as she absorbed everything Freya told her. She would gladly listen to Freya talk about Radomir all night, but Freya didn’t want to stoke the fire of misguided hope. Betty, Jane, and Freya had each made the same mistake, with the same outcome.
“I’m so sorry for everything that happened to you. It must have been an awful week,” Jennette said, dropping her voice.
Freya was struck by the thought. From the outside, it had been an awful week. But she didn’t feel any of it, nothing sticking to her.
“It hasn’t all been bad,” Freya said, tilting her head towards Dan with a grin, and Jennette smiled back.
“He really likes you,” Jennette confided. “I’m in three classes with him. I don’t think he’s stopped smiling since Sunday. It’s super cute.”
Freya felt a sudden warmth against the night air, and her face felt hot. It was such a relief to hear confirmation from someone else. Jennette covered her smile with her palm. She looked delighted. Freya couldn’t help but laugh and decided she liked Jennette. She was so earnest and tried so hard. She never tried to act cooler than she was or pretended she didn’t care. It was one of the things Freya loved about Betty.
The others had gotten ahead of them. Dan said something that made Tate laugh so hard he started snorting. They hurried to rejoin the pack.