If there was ever anything worse than waiting for something to happen, it was waiting for someone else to do something. And while those two misfortunes may have some overlap, they are by and large distinct. While one can wait for the sun to rise, knowing it will eventually, one might wait for a parent to return home and be forever disappointed. The mechanisms of nature, while intricately intertwined, are relatively simple. The mechanisms of human thought and action are so absurd they cannot be reckoned with to any degree of certainty; to think otherwise is to dive deeper into the pot of swirling human motives and further complicate the lives of everyone else. The key difference is that a something will always act the way it is meant to, but a someone will just as often act contrary to its own designs as it will act in line with them.
And, while Josh was eager to have Margot return from her self imposed exile, there was an insufferable mix of the two problems in front of him. He had to wait for something he had finally decided that he wanted, a mark. And that mark was only going to happen by way of Margot, the someone who seemed to be acting on a particularly unfortunate time frame. The longer Josh waited, and the longer he went without a mark, the more it felt like he was going to miss his opportunity. Connor and Sara would have their marks activated and he would be left in the dust. Even if someone stayed close to keep an eye on him, he wouldn’t moving forward at the same rate as his friends. And he was already so far behind.
Two days after Josh and Connor had returned home, late on a Wednesday evening after classes, Josh sat on the window seat in the penthouse and looked out over the city he now towered over. It was confusing, in a way. Josh had never felt like he had ever wanted to live in such a place, something so lavish, but the thought that it was only a temporary luxury made it feel comfortable. The view was tranquil, perhaps even a little mesmerizing. It was completely distracting Josh was what he was trying to do.
As if the universe had commanded her, Sara had sat down next to him on the window seat and gestured to the notebook in Josh’s lap.
“Those don’t look like lecture notes. Not any notes I’ve ever seen at least.”
Josh looked down to where her finger was pointing before answering. “That’s… Actually, those are notes. Kind of.”
“Looks like alchemy to me.”
“It’s a logic diagram. It’s just a handy pattern to help people see whether or not a sentence structure could contain a verifiable factual statement. If the grand scheme of things, it’s virtually worthless. But it’s fundamental for more complicated rhetoric.”
“Uh huh… looks like it will tell you when you need to call for roadside assistant, internal affairs, or a video game production company.”
Josh chuckled at the implication. The acronyms were almost accurate. “Those just tell me what kind of structure I’m looking at. I see the structure, I put it in a quadrant, I compare it to the opposite and if it checks out it’s factual.”
“You don’t look like that’s what you’re doing though. You don’t have a textbook at least.”
“No. I’m actually using the other sheet.”
“Oh?”
“I’m writing a list.” Josh slid the notebook around all the way so Sara could see the second sheet he was open to. “Things that bother me, why they matter, and why I’m willing to deal with them.”
“Uh huh…” Sara chewed on her lip as she looked over the page. “This is kind of morbid, Josh.”
“What do you mean?”
“This says, I’m never going to see my family again and that’s okay because they’re awful.” Sara pressed her finger down on the page where Josh had written it down. “That’s sad.”
Josh frowned, nodded, and started to bite his lip nervously. “That’s why it bothers me.”
“And I don’t suppose there’s a particular reason you’re making this list in this notebook?” Sara had caught on, not that it had been too difficult to after he’d already described the diagram from his logic and rhetoric notes.
All he could do was nod and confirm her suspicions. “I’m writing them all down to see if my logic checks out. I’m testing my fears.”
“And do they check out?”
“Not really. But they’re not supposed to. It’s part of the reason with subjective arguments. It’s virtually impossible to find truth. You need to rely on proofs that have been worked on throughout history, and even then some of them get disproved by modern logicians.”
“Why check them then?” Sara was attempting to bring her smile into the conversation; tentatively at first, but the longer she spoke the closer to a real and gentle smile she got.
With a clap of pages, Josh shut the notebook closed on his lap and reclined against the window sill. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was testing his own fears and anxieties. “I’m not sure really. I suppose… I suppose I just want to actually put my arguments to paper. I can’t find any kind of real truth, but I can let them marinate and see what I think of them as though they had been presented to me.”
Sara let loose a real smile, bright and warm and understanding, as she said “I won’t say that this is silly, but you could have made a list.”
“I tried. But my brain just can’t make heads or tails of a list unless there’s a more complicated purpose or order to it.”
“You get so focused, sometimes. You know that?” Sara tapped Josh gently on the head with her fist like she was knocking on a door. “I think you’ve been sitting there for an hour now, and you’ve been reading your own list the whole time.”
“Has it really been an hour?”
“Just about.”
“That explains my stomach growling.” Josh’s stomach let out a low moaning gurgle as he said it. It had been making the same noise for a while. “And my eyes hurting.”
“Have you been blinking enough?”
“I don’t know. I should probably be drinking more water too.”
Sara stood and offered a hand to Josh. “Probably. But I think a different exercise could be helpful for your problems.”
There were only a few things she could have meant. And while Josh immediately dismissed the most illogical and stereotypical fantasies of what she could mean, they still crossed his mind. Her actual intent was quickly revealed.
“What kind of—” Josh couldn’t finish asking his question, as the acceptance of Sara’s hand prompted a jerking pull that more than lifted Josh from his feet.
“Sparring!” Sara’s voice was gleeful as she watched Josh roll across the floor towards the center of the apartment. “Hmmm, maybe I should have been gentler.”
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Across the room, reclining on the couch, Connor chuckled and corrected her. “Josh wouldn’t have laid a finger on you unless you gave him a reason to.”
It was more than a little annoying that Josh was being talked about as though he weren’t there, sprawled out on the floor like he was. And while Josh growled in frustration, he attempted to breath deeply and calm himself.
“I still don’t want to fight her.” Josh called back to Connor.
Sara groaned in frustration, as if that had been her plan all along. “Aw, come on. What if the next gray man is a gray woman? Are you going to object to fighting her?”
“That’s not”—Josh lunged from the floor towards Sara’s knees as he spoke—”why I don’t want to fight you.”
The lunge, despite being unprecedented and overshadowed by Josh’s words, was easily dodged. Sara jumped over Josh and landed gently in the middle of the apartment as if she had gently glided there on wings. She took up a defensive stance, expecting to fight, but Josh wasn’t eager to get off the ground and actually engage her in any kind of sparring.
“I don’t want to fight you because you know what you’re doing and I don’t.”
Josh was tempted to add in that his arm wasn’t at one hundred percent yet either, but the bandage was off and everyone could see that the lingering damage was almost entirely superficial. Even his head wound was mostly fine. All of his wounds were healing much faster than he thought they would, but that was one of the many things that had been on his list. It was under the subcategory he had titled, fear of being inhuman.
“Nah, don’t worry about that.” Connor said as he peeked his head over the back of the couch, clearly amused by the thought of Josh being knocked around the room. “You’re both pretty close to the same size, it should be a fair fight.”
There wasn’t going to be any way out of sparring, Josh quickly realized. It had been an inevitability from the moment Sara had decided it was going to happen. So, while Josh succumbed to the peer pressure and stood to face Sara, he held out his hands to make it clear he wasn’t going to start yet.
“Are there any rules?”
“Just don’t break anything.” Sara responded, grin on her face. “And try to stay away from furniture and sharp edges... but that’s more of a suggestion than a rule.”
Josh breathed out a long sigh of defeat as he tried to take a stance similar to he one Sara had. As soon as he lowered his hands, however, Sara was on him like lightning. Her movements were careful and her speed was intense. She cleared the roughly seven feet between them as fast as Josh could blink and before he could do anything, she had her arms wrapped around him and her leg was sweeping his out from under him. Her upper body followed Josh to the ground, but she kept her footing and managed to get on top of him and pin his shoulders to the had wood floor.
“Can you get out of that?” Sara grunted as she held Josh in place.
Her voice was both serious and playful. And while it was clear that she meant for this to be a somewhat instructional match, Josh wasn’t learning anything and Sara had clearly already gotten into a fighting mindset rather than a teaching one.
“No.” Josh grunted as he tried to push her directly off him.
It was no use, of course. Sara knew what she was doing. Her arms were wrapped around Josh’s head, one against his neck and one under his armpit, and her hands were locked together behind Josh’s neck. The full weight of her torso bore down on him and from her position kneeling right up against his side she was pushing down lightly too. No matter how much Josh pushed against her shoulders, Josh was still fighting against her entire body weight and part of his own as well.
“Can you move at all?” Sara checked again.
Josh tried to reposition his arms, but as soon he pulled them out from under Sara she hugged him closer and he couldn’t get a grip on her at all. His hands wouldn’t reach that close to him, and his elbows smacked the floor beneath him.
“No.” He whispered, deflated. He loosened his arms and let Sara grapple him tighter.
Connor, still watching, booed from his spot on the couch. “Come on, you didn’t do anything. You can totally get out of that.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me how?”
“Try and figure it out first. If you’re thinking about moves and maneuvers in a fight, you’re going to distract yourself and lose. It needs to be instinct.”
“A hint then?”
“I’m sure you can move something.” Sara huffed, her face nearly right next to Josh’s.
The proximity was starting to become noticeable. It hadn’t been as awkward at first, since it had felt more like Josh was being attacked. But now that he was basically limp and submitting, the closeness was creating a different sort of discomfort than it was intended to.
After a deep breath, Josh ran down the list of things he could try in his head. Hands and arms were a no go, Sara was blocking them out pretty effectively. Head might have been an option, but there wasn’t really enough space for Josh to build up force to make any kind of headbutt worth it. Shoulders were almost completely immobilized and there was no lifting his torso. He could move his legs pretty easily, but he was on his back and Sara was positioned almost entirely on his torso; so there was no way he could kick her.
“I can move a few things, but I can’t hit you.”
“But can you escape?” Connor asked, nodding slowly as though trying to nudge Josh on in the right direction.
For lack of a better strategy, Josh just flexed as many joints as he could to see what would actually give. There was a little shift in Sara’s hold from where he moved his arms, but Felt like he was going in the right direction with his legs. There was no way he could kick her or hit her with his knee, but he could start to lift himself up a little by pushing against the ground with his legs and forming a bridge.
“Yeah, you’re getting it.” Connor cheered on. “You want another tip?”
“Stop helping.” Sara growled as she struggled to try and keep Josh’s shoulders pinned to the floor.
“No, keep helping.” Josh grunted as he tried to tip Sara off his chest.
“Don’t just move in one direction with your legs. It’s easy to hamper movement in a straight line, not so much at a diagonal.” Connor carried on, completely ignoring Sara’s demand.
Josh took the advice and tried to figure out how best to implement it. There was no way he was going to lift Sara straight up off him, he didn’t have the abdominal strength or the leverage. But he could probably spin her off him. Josh braced his feet against the floor and attempted to push up and to the side, away from Sara. She gave way. Not completely, but she had to get onto her feet rather than rest on her knees. From there, Josh rocked back into her and managed to put pressure on her arms. Under the pressure Sara slipped and collapsed on top of Josh.
For a moment, Josh wasn’t being pinned down and he used it to get his arms back under Sara and push against the inside of her elbows to try and break her hands apart. Sara was back in her grappling position fast, but Josh was already prying her hands apart and breaking her hold. And as soon as her hands were apart, Josh slid out from between her arms a pushed himself away.
“Woooo, yeah!” Connor hollered from the couch. Josh could see that Connor was an engaged observer now. Snacks, though how much you can define orange slices as snacks is debatable, in hand and eyes locked on the action.
“I need a break.” Josh huffed as he got to his feet. “Please don’t tackle me again.”
Sara got back up on her feet as well, breathing a little less heavily than Josh was, and grinning in a way that glowed in a totally different light than her normal smile. There was mischief and glee in her, and Josh understood why. She enjoyed the challenge, and he couldn’t deny that it had been fun to actually pry himself free. Maybe less fun and more gratifying. Josh had never bothered to figure out how to physically defend himself, his brother Kyle had made it clear at a young age that he would never be able to protect himself if someone stronger wanted to hurt him. But that clearly wasn’t true.
“Oh, shoot, you’re bleeding, dude.” Sara’s voice changed instantly from competitive to worried as she realized that Josh’s arm had a light trickle of blood running down it.
It didn’t hurt, and Josh hadn’t even felt the blood, but that was probably due to the slight numbness that had been present in his left arm since taking off the bandages. The bandages had applied pressure that had helped him fee like he actually had an arm, but now it felt more like he had a skeletal limb.
But it wasn’t a skeletal limb. There was still skin. Very dry skin that was still healing on the surface. Except for a few spot where the damage had remained a bit deeper. Like where there was now a crack in the dry skin and blood trickling out.
“Heck.” Josh spat. “We don’t really have a ton of gauze left either.”
“Eh…” Connor winced as he tried to recall something. “Maybe just get a big bandage on that.”
“Right.” Josh ambled over to the kitchen and pulled some paper towels loose from their spool to cover the crack in the skin.
Sara was right behind him, digging around the designated drawer for their first aid kit and the single large adhesive bandage in it.
“I’m sorry, Josh. I thought you were good enough to… you know… we kind of promised you we’d show you how to protect yourself.” Sara stammered as she managed to get her hands on the bandage and peel off the backing.
“It’s fine. It doesn’t really hurt.” Josh said with an easy smile.
But it did hurt, and quite a lot as the adrenaline of sparring died down. But it was refreshing. The pain reminded Josh that he was actually still human. For now at least. And that was comforting. It was like the penthouse. Temporary, but pleasant while it lasted. Even the pain, uncomfortable as it was, was temporary.
It hadn’t helped in the way that Sara had intended, but sparring had brought Josh some mental peace. The effort had been refreshing, as had the victory and the pain that accompanied it. It was all temporary struggle. And just like waiting, it would end eventually.