Robin Wasserman - Frozen

Whatever.

That was the first day. And the next few weren’t any better. My social life was hemorrhaging. And time, contrary to popular opinion, did not heal the wound. I retrofitted my wardrobe; I stuck it out through one lunch after another, b-mod haze and all. I did not ask Zo how she’d managed to weasel her way into every corner of my life or what had happened to her own life and the randoms she used to know and love. I didn’t ask Zo much of anything. We shared a house, shared a lunch table, a set of friends, even—despite a lack of permission and my conviction that I was probably risking infestation from whatever hardy insects had survived all those decades in someone’s moldy attic—her clothes. But we didn’t talk. Which was fine with me.

I didn’t talk to Cass or Terra, either, not about anything that mattered. And when I asked them about Zo… The first time we were alone, there it was, flat out: Since when don’t we hate my sister? The conversation didn’t get very far.

“After, you know, what happened,” Cass stammered. “We were…”

“Upset,” Terra said. “And worried about her.”

“About you too, of course.”

“But you weren’t here.”

“And you weren’t linked in.”

I waited for them to say they were just being nice—out of character, maybe, but not out of the realm of possibility. That Zo had been so distraught by “what happened” that they’d needed to comfort her, to include her, what any friends would do for a suffering little sister. They didn’t.

“So no one knew what was going on with you…”

“And Zo just…”

“Surprised us,” Cass said.

“She’s different now,” Terra said.

I wasn’t buying it. “Seems the same to me.” Even though that wasn’t quite true either.

Cass looked away. “Maybe that’s because you’re different too.”

After that, we didn’t talk about it anymore.

Walker and I, on the other hand, did nothing but talk. Which wasn’t exactly our strong suit. I didn’t see him at school, not for days. That was no accident. He was avoiding me, and for a while, I let him. I wasn’t stupid. It’s not like I expected we’d just keep going like nothing had happened. Not right away, at least. He was weirded out, so for a few days, I let him hide. But I knew Walker, and I knew what he needed, even if he didn’t. He needed me.

I staked out his car. He emerged from the building surrounded by people—girls, to be specific, but there was nothing new about that. Walker was that type; he got off on it. But that was fine, because he always ended up with me. As he did this time. The girls spotted me before he did, and faded away.

I watched him walk. It was more of a lope, arms swinging wide, legs sucking up pavement. Walker had never asked me out, not in any kind of sweaty-palmed, bumbling, would-you-like-to-whatever kind of thing, not that anyone did that, but if someone were going to, it wouldn’t be Walker. When it happened, it had happened fast and unmemorably, as if all along both of us had known we would eventually end up together. There had been yet another party, yet another buzz. There had been a late-night, early-morning haze, a group of us sprawled on someone’s floor, heads on stomachs, legs tangled, fingers absent-mindedly intertwined, lids dropping shut until only two of us were awake, and while I hadn’t been waiting up for him and he hadn’t been waiting up for me, it seemed like we had. Like the whole night—the party, the group, everything—had been expressly designed to deliver us to this point, to an empty patch of carpet shadowed by the couch, to his arm oh-so-casually sprawled across my thigh, to whatever would happen when he slid toward me and I rolled to face him and our bodies ate up the space between. By which I mean, I had known him forever, but I had never wanted him—until that night, when I suddenly did. He was the one who acted. Brushed my hair out of my face. Kissed me, sleepy-eyed and loose-lipped, soft, and then, like we’d waited too long, even though we hadn’t waited at all, hard. Afterward, when it was already obvious that this wasn’t just another night, that this was a beginning of something, he pretended that he’d been planning it for a while, secretly pining and plotting. He wasn’t lying, not to me, at least. I knew he believed it. But I also knew it had been the same for him as it was for me: lying there, fighting sleep without knowing why, knowing there was a reason to stay awake, something that needed doing, and then, somehow, just knowing .

And doing.

“You’re avoiding me,” I said, leaning against the hood of the car.

He shook his head no.

I shook my head yes.

He shrugged. “Been busy.”

“You’re never busy,” I said.

“Things change.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Walker, I…”

“What?”

I let myself sink back against the car. It was a thing; it had no choice but to hold me up. “It’s been a long week, that’s all.”

“You want to… talk about it?”

“Not really.” And I wasn’t even saying that because I knew he wanted me to, although he clearly did. Mostly I just wanted him to kiss me again, for real this time. But what was I supposed to do. Ask?

“So… you want to get something to eat?”

I just looked at him.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No problem.” He would learn; we would adjust.

“You want to come over, play some Akira?” he said.

We’d been into the game for months, although he liked it more than I did, especially since he spent most of his play on hunting ghosts in Akira’s craggy moonscape, and zooming down the canyons and slithering through the worm-ridden tunnels always made me a little motion sick. Not that queasiness was much of a problem anymore, but boredom was. Generally after twenty minutes or so of busting virtual creepy crawlies while Walker flirted with slutty snake-women, their naked chests covered with shimmering scales and their users probably a thousand miles away, looking for a quick and easy love-link, I was ready for a nap. Or at least, I was ready to lie down. Usually, with the right combination of sulk and seduction, with Walker on top of me. And maybe that was the point.

“Sure.”

And soon, side by side on his couch, goggled up and strapped in, we disappeared into the world of the game, his av and mine creeping down haunted hallways, hand in hand, touching without feeling, reality forgotten, or at least irrelevant, which was enough.

It was enough until it wasn’t anymore, and then I slipped out of the game and back into the world. He stayed in, twitching, ducking his head, clutching the air, and grabbing for invisible demons, a careful space between us. I could have touched him then. He was too lost in the virtual universe to notice a hand on his leg, his lower back, his face. I’d done it before, more than once, making a game of it; how far could I go before calling him back to the surface, how deep had he sunk, how quickly could I reel him back in. But I didn’t touch him, just waited for him to tire of the game, and when he did, I went home.

“No,” the coach said when I finally found the courage to ask her. “I’m sorry, Lia. I wish I could, but… no.”

“I know I’m out of shape, but I can get up to speed. I know I can.”

“It’s not that.” She was slim and blond, and I wondered, as I often did, why she’d chosen coaching as her hobby instead of teaching or crafts. Something cozy and indoors, like most in her position, afraid of leathering their skin under the open sky. I got that she had to do something . It was a social imperative for the jobless rich, since the children of the wealthy weren’t going to raise themselves (nor, obviously, be raised by the parents of the poor), but why opt for something that required so much actual work?