I’m not crazy. I know he isn’t, not really. As soon as my runs are done and I’m hobbling back to the church basement, it hits me like a wall: the stupidity of it all, the pointlessness. Alex is gone, and no amount of running or pushing or bleeding will bring him back.
I know it. But here’s the thing: When I’m running, there’s always this split second when the pain is ripping through me and I can hardly breathe and all I see is color and blur—and in that split second, right as the pain crests, and becomes too much, and there’s a whiteness going through me, I see something to my left, a flicker of color (auburn hair, burning, a crown of leaves)—and I know then, too, that if I only turn my head he’ll be there, laughing, watching me, holding out his arms.
I don’t ever turn my head to look, of course. But one day I will. One day I will, and he’ll be back, and everything will be okay.
And until then: I run.
now
After the DFA meeting, I follow the crowd streaming out into the watery, early spring light. The energy is still there, pulsing through us all, but in the sunshine and the cold it feels meaner, harder-edged: an impulse to destroy.
Several buses are waiting at the curb, and already the lines to board zigzag back up the stairs of the Javits Center. I’ve been waiting for half an hour, and have already seen three different rotations of buses, when I realize I’ve left one of my gloves inside the auditorium. I stop myself from cursing. I am packed among the cured, surrounded by them, and don’t want to raise any alarms.
I’m only twenty people from the front of the line now, and for a moment I consider leaving the glove. But the past six months have taught me too much about wanting: In the Wilds it is practically a sin to waste, and it is definitely bad luck. Waste today, want tomorrow—another of Raven’s favorite mantras.
I slip out of line, attracting puzzled looks and frowns, and head back up the stairs to the polished glass doors. The regulator who was manning the metal detector is gone, though he has left a portable radio on, and a half-drunk cup of coffee, lid off, sitting next to it. The woman who checked my ID has also disappeared, and the folding table has been cleared of DFA leaflets. The overhead lights have been turned off, and the room feels even vaster than usual.
Swinging open the auditorium doors, I am momentarily disoriented. I am staring, suddenly, at the enormous peak of a snow-capped mountain as though falling toward it from above. The picture is projected, huge, on the screen where Julian Fineman’s face was enlarged earlier. But the room is otherwise dark, and the image is sharp and vivid. I can make out the dense ring of trees, like a black fur, at its base, and the sharp, bladelike peaks at its summit, crowned with lacy white caps. My breath catches a little. It’s beautiful.
Then the picture changes. This time I am looking at a pale, sandy beach, and a swirling blue-green ocean. I take several steps into the room, suppressing a cry. I haven’t seen the ocean since leaving Portland.
The picture changes again. Now the screen is full of huge trees, shooting up toward the sky, which is just visible through the canopy of thick branches. Sunlight slants at steep angles across the reddish trunks and the undergrowth of curling green ferns and flowers. I move forward again—entranced, compelled—and bump against one of the metal folding chairs. Instantly a person jumps from the front row, and a shadow silhouette floats onto the screen, obscuring a portion of the forest. Then the screen goes blank and the lights go on, and the silhouette is Julian Fineman. He is holding a remote control.
“What are you doing here?” he demands. I’ve clearly caught him off guard. Without waiting for me to reply, he says, “The meeting’s over.”
Beneath the aggression, I sense something else: embarrassment. And I am positive, then, that this is Julian Fineman’s secret: He sits in the dark, he imagines himself into other places. He looks at beautiful pictures.
I’m so surprised I can barely stammer out a reply. “I—I lost my glove.”
Julian looks away from me. I see his fingers tighten on the remote control. But when his eyes slide back to mine, he has regained his composure, his politeness. “Where were you sitting?” he asks me. “I can help you look for it.”
“No,” I burst out too loudly. I’m still in shock. The air between us still feels charged and unstable, like it did during the meeting. Something deep inside of me is aching—those pictures, that ocean, blown up on the enormous screen, made me feel as though I could fall through space and into the forest, could lick the snow off the mountaintop like whipped cream from a spoon. I wish I could ask him to turn off the lights, to show me again.
But he is Julian Fineman, and he is everything I hate, and I will not ask him for anything.