Freya was the first to reach for her bowl and begin the ritual. Mixing in the hot sauce and hoisin, then adding the jalapeño slivers, but not the bean sprouts. They’d brought her both lime and lemon wedges, and she squeezed in the lime and ignored the lemon.
Dan watched her preparations. She was worried he was too upset to eat. The hunger from running was stronger than his unease, and he tried a spoonful of the broth and looked relieved. She could tell he’d been worried he wouldn’t like it.
Freya couldn’t understand how people could be picky with food. She’d never had the option. With Lassa, you remained there until everything was eaten, there was no negotiation.
“What’s this stuff?” Dan pointed to the little bowls of sauce.
“The black one is hoisin, Chinese barbecue sauce. It’s salty and a little sweet, it’s usually made from soybeans. They add plums here. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. The red sauce is homemade Sriracha. The one they gave you shouldn’t be too hot.”
Dan dared to try a dab of it on his fingertip, and then the hoisin. When he didn’t burst into flames, he added them to his pho.
“How hot is yours?” Dan asked.
“Very,” Freya replied. She already started to feel the heat and knew it would only build as she ate.
Dan struggled with the chopsticks for a bit and finally abandoned them for a fork. Freya gave him an inviting look. If he’d asked, she would have showed Dan how to use the chopsticks, but she could tell it wasn’t the right time. He’d been stretched to his limit. She didn’t want him to snap.
It didn’t matter how they ate, the pho was superb. The broth was a complex mélange. There was a note of something she couldn’t quite place. She wondered if it was bergamot. Instead of the typical razor-thin shreds of beef, Hoan Kiem charbroiled skirt steak and sliced it thick enough for the centers to still be rare.
Freya felt her face reddening and sweat beading on her forehead. She welcomed the heat and the cease-fire it brought to their conversation. As they drank the dregs, Freya realized having a full stomach was much more effective at calming her down than that icy feeling the Starball used to pacify them. The mysterious ministrations of the orb were weaker than a bowl of soup.
“That was exactly what I needed. Great call,” Dan said at last, looking a little flushed himself. He’d demolished his pho. Only a few big slivers of onion remained in a tiny puddle of broth. There was nothing at all left in Freya’s.
The waitress brought the bill, and Freya slipped a card in.
Freya looked at Dan, she needed an answer. He didn’t have one. She reached into her pocket and felt for the Starball. There was no unusual heat. It wasn’t doing anything she could see. What did that mean? Had it given up on them? Had they already reached the conclusion it wanted?
“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” Freya said.
“You weren’t wrong. I’m not better, just better at acting,” Dan agreed. His eyes were hopeless wells, and she knew how he felt. His pain could have been an echo of her own. “I don’t know why I thought I could help you. I can barely keep it together myself. I’m sorry.”
It would have been easy to get angry at him. How very noble of Dan to take pity on poor helpless Freya and sally forth in his powder-blue jalopy and right all the wrongs. It was the kind of thing Lassa would have gotten furious about. She would have thrown things.
But Freya wasn’t her mother. She’d truly needed help. It was only stupid luck she sat at this table instead of rotting at the bottom of the river. She took his hand again.
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“Dan, you helped so much. You talked to me when I needed it. You stood up for me. Thank you. Whatever you’re afraid of, we can talk about it. I’m not going to freak out, I promise.”
He nearly spoke, but he shook his head at last.
“No, we can’t,” he said, and she heard the final note in his voice. They wouldn’t get anywhere on this tonight. She caught him glancing towards the door. Looking for a way out.
“Do you need time to think about it?” she asked, trying to leave some avenue for things to be okay.
“I really do. Sorry,” Dan said.
Freya nodded. She had the urge to lie and tell him it was okay, but it really wasn’t. She squeezed the Starball in her pocket, willing it to do something.
Why doesn’t it bring us back together? Why doesn’t it make him want me?
The thought was like bile in her mouth. She hated the idea, hated knowing she wouldn’t say no if it did. Things hadn’t gone her way, they never did, so why was she surprised?
“Dan, I need to know, will you tell anyone else about this?”
There was a long pause while he searched for an answer.
“I feel like I should,” he concluded with a pained look.
It felt like a hand tightened around her throat. She wasn’t only losing him, he was turning on her. He’d seen through her eyes, thought her thoughts, lived inside of her skin. Somehow, he could just let all of it go. It was the most complete rejection possible.
What would she do if he went to Dr. Garbuglio about this?
The only real proof of any of this was the Starball and the meteorite shell. If she hid them, everyone would just assume Dan was crazy. It was a shitty thing to do, but this was about survival. She didn’t want to live without him, but she couldn’t live without the Starball.
As she considered it, Freya remembered fishing the Starball out of the river, the way she’d unerringly known where it was. No matter how she hid the orb, Dan could find it again.
“I won’t tell,” Dan said. He watched her face. Her turmoil must have been obvious. “I promise. This is just so much to take.”
“I guess I’ve had a lot longer to wrap my mind around it,” Freya conceded, trying not let her bitterness slip into her voice. How could he even consider letting the bond between them go? A dead, gray blot spread inside of her, cancerous certainty she had already lost him. She would never be so close to anyone ever again. It was the numb, disconnected feeling she’d had on the bench spying on Radomir’s class. Freya was a distant observer, watching someone else collapse.
“Can you take me home, please?” Freya asked, her voice flat and empty. Dan took a deep breath before he nodded yes.
* * *
It was a long way home, and there was no kiss goodbye, just an awkward hug in the driveway that felt utterly unsatisfying. The driveway was empty, and Freya was surprised to find herself wishing Lassa was home. Even getting grilled by her mother would be better than being alone in the empty house tonight.
The garage door had been sanded and repainted. There was no trace of the graffiti. Freya wondered if her mother had hired a painter or if she’d just done the work herself. It was the kind of crazy thing Lassa would do.
“Call me if you need me,” she told Dan, almost pleading. He nodded in agreement, though she was convinced he wouldn’t. Freya wanted to ask if he still wanted to go to the concert with her, but she was sure the answer was no, and she just couldn’t take it. He searched for something in her face, and it felt like he couldn’t find it.
“Good night, Freya,” he said.
“Good night,” she replied, though it wouldn’t be. Her hand was in her pocket, clenched into a fist around the Starball. Dan drove off, and Freya watched his taillights disappear.
Redshift.
Everything in the universe was moving away from everything else. A year from now Dan would be at college, probably telling himself this had all been a dream. She would be alone with her pet rock. It would never be like that again.
Freya braced herself for the thoughts of the river, but they never came. She only felt more removed. Part of her was gone, she couldn’t get it back, that was all. She’d been so stupid to think this could ever work out.
She went inside and looked around for a note from Lassa but there was no sign of where she’d gone. Maybe she was drinking again. Freya wanted the Lunesta, wanted to just blot this all out, but Lassa had the bottle. She went and brushed her teeth, undressed, and got in bed, and then stared at the ceiling.
“No dreams,” she said to the Starball, and there was no sign if it had heard her or cared if it had.