Three Sides of a Heart

by Natalie C. Parker

  Edie didn’t know why she still kept up with the Protectors, or with Kate’s work. She didn’t know why she stored all her Protectors stuff in the closet instead of tossing it. Or why it was easier to let go of Kate herself than the thing that had brought them together.

  “Hi!” Lynn said, a little too cheerfully. “Well . . . shall we? We want good seats, right?”

  They went in, scanning their tickets at the entrance. Conversation was sporadic, at best. It was like they were all leaving space for a fourth party to contribute, only that fourth party wasn’t there. Amy had always been critical of the comics, more so than Edie, Kate, or Lynn. Edie had thought Amy didn’t even like them, for a long time, before she saw Amy’s bedroom, and all the posters tacked to the walls there, and the stack of Protectors-themed T-shirts in Amy’s closet. It was just Amy’s nature to pick at things.

  They settled themselves in the middle of the theater, in the middle of the row. The floor was sticky under Edie’s shoes. She’d smuggled a box of candy into the theater—chocolate-covered raisins, her favorite. She buried her fingers in the box, and Kate eyed her for a second before sticking out her hand, silently asking for some. Edie provided them, automatically, her muscles remembering how to be Kate’s friend even if the rest of her didn’t.

  “I’m excited to see how they portray the Charge,” she said to Kate, across Lynn’s body. Lynn was a good mediator, and she had trouble taking sides. Amy had started fights, and Lynn had smoothed them over, time and time again. But Kate and Edie weren’t having a fight now, not exactly.

  Edie ran her fingers over the dark red velour that covered the seats, worn where most people’s legs pressed against it, and watched the little screen as she waited for Kate to respond. It was so early that the theater was playing trivia instead of coming attractions.

  “I’m nervous about that,” Kate said. “The budget wasn’t that high for this movie. You know, because it’s not a sure thing.”

  “Yeah, we all know lady-hero movies don’t make money,” Edie said, rolling her eyes. “Except, say, that Wonder Woman movie . . .”

  “And Black Widow!” Lynn piped up, her horns bouncing on their springs.

  “They’re just looking at the facts,” Edie said with false firmness. “Don’t get so emotional about it, ladies. Are you PMSing, by the way?”

  Kate laughed.

  “Shh,” Lynn said suddenly. “The lights are dimming.”

  And it all came back in a rush, that breathless feeling when all the expectations and hopes and fears formed over years were balanced on a knife’s edge. When you had loved something for so long and for so many reasons that all you wanted was for that love to expand inside you.

  She clenched a hand around the armrest and watched, forgetting about the chocolate-covered raisins spilling into her purse, and the tension that had driven her farther and farther away from Kate until they couldn’t even speak to each other anymore, and the way Lynn chewed so loudly Edie could hardly hear the quieter lines.

  She watched Vim and Vigor stumble out of uncertainty and embrace their heroism and save the city.

  She watched them grow up together, then break apart, and come back together again for the sake of something greater than either of them were alone.

  And in the climactic moments, where it looked like Vigor might be lost in the power of the Charge, directing it to destroy instead of to heal, she locked eyes with Kate and smiled.

  “And the part where Vim was double-fisting coffee cups with all those stacks of paper around?” Kate laughed.

  “Classic Vim. Can’t go anywhere without making a mess,” Edie said, almost proud, for some reason. After all, Vim had been hers.

  “The final act was a little fast, pacing wise,” Lynn said. “But I liked the rest. Wonder if it’ll do well.”

  “Hope so,” Kate said. “I really want a sequel.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Edie said, a little wistful. By the time a sequel came out, they would all be in college, and what if she didn’t find anyone to share the Protectors with there? Would she have to pretend like she was over it, like she did with Arianna?

  Kate checked her phone. “It’s still early. Want to go back to my place?”

  “Sure,” Edie agreed, though a second later she regretted it. Lynn had that look on her face, the one that said she was about to say no.

  “I have to head home,” Lynn said. “I didn’t finish my physics homework, and it’s not like I’m acing that class.”

  Kate gave her a knowing look that made Edie realize how little she knew about Lynn’s life now. She had no idea if Kate or Lynn were acing their classes, or if either of them were dating anyone, or if they had had their first drink, their first grope, their first anything.

  And Edie had already agreed to go to Kate’s house. If she backed out now, it would be obvious that she didn’t feel comfortable alone with Kate anymore.

  “Um . . . meet you there?” she asked Kate.

  “Sure,” Kate said, sounding just as uncertain.

  Edie couldn’t help but think that everything would be easier if she could just say what was going on. Look, you and I clearly aren’t comfortable around each other without Lynn there, so maybe another time? But that just wasn’t what people did.

  Edie was always running into the barriers between people, wishing they were easier to break.

  Kate’s house was stark and modern, pale floors and white walls and stacks of glass blocks instead of windows. When Edie got there, she walked straight to the kitchen, where she knew Kate would be, dumping popcorn into a bowl and rustling in her white refrigerator for another can of soda.

  “Want one?” Kate asked her.

  “No, thanks,” Edie said. “Where are Dr. and Dr. Rhodes?” Her affectionate names for Kate’s parents, one of whom studied brains and the other, history.

  Kate’s dad—the famous Dr. Russell Rhodes—had invented the Elucidation Protocol, simulated reality technology that aided in clarity of thought and decision-making for people in high-stress fields. It essentially used extensive research and psychological and sociological principles, as well as personal beliefs, to reveal the likely outcomes of particular decisions through virtual reality. He had envisioned it being used to help world leaders make decisions, but it was the legal sector that had taken to it the most. It was currently used in prisons, to rehabilitate criminals, and in crime prevention with high-risk populations.

  “On a date.” Kate’s mouth twisted. “They do that now. They make out in the kitchen too.”

  Edie grinned. Her own parents slept in separate beds these days, claiming that her mother’s snores were the reason, but Edie knew that wasn’t all.

  “So.” Kate turned her soda can around in a circle. “Did you notice the Haze cameo at the end of the movie?”

  As if Edie could have missed the Haze cameo. Haze was the youngest superheroine in the Protectors, and the movie had set up her origin story, showing a teenage girl staring on from the crowd as Vim and Vigor claimed their victory over the supervillain.

  “Haze” was what they had called Amy. She had been the youngest of the four of them too.

  “Yeah,” Edie said. “Good casting, though. That red hair.”

  “Remember when Amy tried to dye her hair red in her bathroom and stained the tub permanently?” Kate smiled at her soda can. “Her mom was so mad. . . .”

  “Yeah, and it turned her highlights pink,” Edie pointed out. “Which I could have told her would happen, if she had asked, but no . . .”

  “You always were best at that kind of thing,” Kate said. “I guess it makes sense you’ve gone pro.”

  Edie looked down at her clothes—nothing special, just red jeans and a blazer with a little pin on the lapel. A skull and crossbones, to match the ones on the toes of her flat shoes. But it was more stylish than Kate’s baggy sweatshirt. “Are you referring to my outfit?”

  “Yeah.” Kate shook her head. Her freckled nose twitched. “Sorry, I . . . I think it’s cool,
that you know about all that stuff. I still remember the day my mom presented me with a hairbrush instead of a comb, like ‘Oh, I guess this might be easier for you.’”

  Kate’s mother had a short, practical haircut, and the most makeup Edie had seen her wear was a dab of concealer under her eyes. But Kate’s hair was wavy and thick, frizzing close to the scalp so it glowed when light shone through it, and she had the kind of long, curled eyelashes other people pined over. No need for mascara.

  “I remember that too,” Edie said. “We were fourteen, and the comb just broke in your hair.”

  She laughed, and so did Kate, and that was how they ended up in Kate’s bathroom, with her mom’s old cosmetics spread over the counter and Kate perched on a stool with Edie standing in front of her, talking to her about eyeliner.

  After giving up on the sparkly eye shadow (“If I wanted to look like New Year’s Eve threw up on my face, I have a bag of confetti I could use,” Kate had remarked. “Why do you have a bag of confetti?” Edie had asked, laughing), Edie and Kate sat on stools in the kitchen, tossing popcorn into their mouths. Then Edie thought to check her phone, which had been on silent since she got home from school that day.

  There were three missed messages.

  Arianna: Don’t leave me in suspense!

  Chris: ???

  Evan: Up for a smoke tomorrow during lunch?

  Edie stared at Chris’s question marks, and her heart began to pound. “???” was right.

  She didn’t know why it was so hard to make this decision—it was prom, after all, not life or death—but the thought of the way Evan’s eyebrows would pinch in the middle, half disappointed and half critical, or the way Chris’s eyes would avoid hers in the hallway again, as they had since the breakup, was just . . . too much. Right now, before she decided anything, all the different parts of her life were suspended in midair. And once she did, everything would come crashing down, she just knew it.

  Kate must have seen the panic flash in her eyes, because she let the popcorn kernel fall on the floor and asked, “You okay, Vim?”

  The casual use of the nickname—probably unintentional—made tears prick in Edie’s eyes. And then she had an idea.

  “Hey, you know that prototype your dad has in the basement?” she asked. “For the Elucidation Protocol? Do you think he would mind if we . . . used it?”

  Kate raised her eyebrows.

  “Let’s see. Would my dad mind if I touched the thing he’s always telling me not to touch under pain of death and the removal of my bedroom door?” She scratched her chin. “Yeah, Edie, pretty sure he would. Why?”

  “I just . . .” Edie closed her eyes. “There’s a decision I need to make, and it’s kind of a big deal, and I just . . . I thought the EP could help.”

  “That is what it’s designed for,” Kate admitted. “Um . . .” She chewed her lip, the way she always did right before she suggested something stupid. This time was no exception. “Let’s do it anyway.”

  Edie brightened. “Really?”

  “Yeah, Dad’s not going to be home until late,” Kate said. She paused, tilting her head as she looked Edie over. “It really is important, right?”

  Edie hesitated.

  “Yeah,” she said finally. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

  The prototype of the Elucidation Protocol was a little disappointing when you came face-to-face with it. The first time, Edie had narrowed her eyes and said to Dr. Rhodes, “This is it?” It looked like a headband with a bunch of wires attached to it, running along the floor to a little computer. The device wasn’t the revolutionary part, Dr. Rhodes had explained. The substance that triggered the program was. He had made batches and batches of it, to the point that the other Dr. Rhodes, his wife, insisted he stop bringing it home, particularly when the protocol moved to its next stages and the original formula was no longer viable.

  So she wasn’t surprised when Kate plucked a vial of the stuff from a shelf in the—completely packed—closet of identical vials, without a second thought. She even tossed it to Edie, who caught it, thankfully. She sat in the padded chair—ripped across the seat from overuse—and buzzed with nerves as Kate arranged the wired crown atop her head like she was some kind of sci-fi prom queen.

  “Wrap that heart monitor thing around your arm, will you?” Kate said. She was in scientist mode now. She had never been into science the way Edie was, but she was capable enough, growing up under her father’s watchful eye. It was Edie, though, who knew how to attach the heart monitor to her arm so that it would pick up her pulse, who untangled the wires and made sure the leads were secured to her temples.

  “You know the drill, but I’m going to give you the whole speech anyway, okay?” Kate said as she sat behind the computer to set up the program. “The protocol will run twice, once for each of the options you’re considering. It doesn’t see the future; it just helps you to see what you think would happen in each of two scenarios. The prototype is flawed in that it can’t account for any other factors aside from the knowledge that you yourself possess, though it does assist in clarity of thought.”

  Edie nodded. She knew all this. Her hand was getting sweaty around the vial of substrate. She was worried it would tremble when she brought it up to her mouth to drink, and Kate would see it and know how terrified she was. About prom dates, of all things.

  But it was more than that, wasn’t it? Evan was intellectual, daring, opinionated. Chris was kind, openhearted, enthusiastic. And when she was with either of them, she was those things too; she was more than she could ever be alone, like Vim and Vigor and the Charge. It was a choice between dates, sure, but it was also a choice between Edies.

  Wasn’t it?

  “I’ll cue you verbally to start the second phase,” Kate said. “So drink up, and it should set in after ten seconds. Don’t be alarmed when your scenery shifts, it’s perfectly normal.”

  Edie nodded and tipped the vial’s bluish contents into her mouth.

  Edie twisted her arms behind her back to push up the zipper on her black dress. It was simple, hanging from off-the-shoulder straps and clinging just enough—not too much—to her belly and thighs. She tucked a stray curl into the twist at the back of her head; then, making sure that her little brother wasn’t anywhere nearby, sniffed under each armpit to make sure she had remembered deodorant.

  “Edie!” her mother sang from the first floor. “There’s a boy here for you!”

  “Coming!” she crowed back. She checked her winged eyeliner one last time in the mirror, stuffed a Band-Aid in her silver clutch in case her shoes gave her blisters, and made her way downstairs.

  Evan waited by the door. He wasn’t carrying a corsage, and she hadn’t expected him to, but it was still vaguely disappointing, like he couldn’t be bothered to do something silly even if it was just a nice gesture. But she pushed that thought aside as she went down the steps, particularly as his lips twitched into a smile.

  He wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie. Classic. And at least he wasn’t wearing flannel. His hair had just as much product in it as it usually did, and it looked so thick she wanted to bury her hands in it.

  “Let me get a picture of you two!” Edie’s mother said, and she rustled in her purse for her phone. Poking at it like it was a typewriter, she found her way to the camera app and held it up. Evan pulled Edie close to his side, grinning.

  She smiled back, and with a click, the moment was captured.

  After a hug that lingered a beat too long, Edie broke away from her mother and followed Evan to his old green Saab. She loved the way the car smelled, like old tobacco and men’s deodorant. She wondered what she would find if she opened the center console, and made a list of guesses. A tin of mints, a lighter with half the fluid gone. Maybe, if she dug deep, the stub of a joint and a button from a winter coat. People’s scraps said so much about them.

  They didn’t talk much on the way there, as Evan parked and they piled into one of the buses with everybody else. Edie loved
seeing all the people in their formal wear stuffed between bus seats, some of the skirts so big they fluffed up by a girl’s face. Evan chose a seat in the back, next to an open window, and he sat a little closer to her than was strictly necessary.

  “You didn’t want to sit near your friend? What’s her name?” Evan asked. “Arianna, right?”

  “She went on the early bus—yep, it’s Arianna,” she said, inordinately pleased that he remembered Arianna’s name. “You corrected her grammar once, remember?” she added, on a whim, a little smile on her lips.

  “Did I? God, she must hate me.” Evan laughed. “It’s a reflex. My mom used to make a horrible sound every time we made a grammar misstep. I think it was her attempt at classical conditioning.”

  “What was the sound?”

  Evan’s face contorted, and he let out a loud “EHH!” Like a warning buzzer mixed with an old car horn. There was a rustle of skirts as some of their classmates turned toward the sound.

  Edie mimicked Evan’s expression of horror. “She did that every time?”

  “God forbid we used the word ‘like’ as a filler word,” he replied sourly. “My parents split up when I was twelve, though, so her influence wasn’t as strong after that. But you know what they say about the formative years.”

  “They form you,” Edie supplied. “You lived with your dad then?”

  “He’s the responsible one,” Evan replied, nodding. “So to speak. He hasn’t noticed my unexcused absences yet, but I’m not complaining.”

  He was complaining, Edie knew. The same way she complained about her parents avoiding each other’s eyes when they were in the same room together—by pretending it was better that way.

  She wasn’t sure where the question came from, but it was bubbling from her mouth. “Why did you want to be my friend, Evan?”

  She had wondered more than once. And the answers she came up with ranged from “because I wanted to get in your pants” to “because your knowledge of cutting-edge neuroscience is downright alluring” and everywhere in between, but what he said surprised her anyway.