by Sevan Paris
Gabe sighs. “I stayed because I thought you’d need me.”
I snort. “Need you? Let me tell you something, Garrison, I’ve never need—” I trail off, realizing that’s not quiet right. It’s not that I never need anybody. It’s that I never have anybody. “Sorry … old habits.”
A silence passes, filled only with my drifting back and forth. I want to ask them. I have to ask them. I’m ashamed to ask them: “The memories, mine and hers are a jumbled mess. I’m still trying to figure out what’s what, but I … am I as horrible of a person as I feel like I am?”
Gabe’s mouth moves, but no words come out.
Casa winces after a swallow of bourbon. “Yep.”
“Casa …” Gabe takes a step in his direction, right hand balled into a fist.
Casa lifts a finger away from the glass, pointing it at Gabe. “Don’t blame me for saying what you’re thinking. Of course she’s horrible. Everybody is. Our species’ very evolution has depended on its ability to treat everyone and everything in its environment like crap. But we can balance it with the other side, the better one. The one that acts in direct opposition to our other self. Daisy, however, was isolated from that part, exposing her … unfettered horribleness to the world.”
“If I was really that bad, why did you recruit me or whatever five years ago?”
Casa stares into his glass, swirling the drink. “The Pink part was the stronger part. The more you part. But it wasn’t the horrible part.” Casa finishes his drink with a careful swallow, seems to think about saying something else, but walks out of my bedroom instead. The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I hike a thumb at the door “Did he just … like, say something—something nice? Or something mean?”
“Who knows,” Gabe says. I guess a sucky day can bring even the Grinch down to Whoville.”
A rush of emotions come back to me, about the auditorium, about the people that were in it. “I didn’t come to help, you know. Not really. Mystick had some sort of whacky idea about you controlling who I possessed and who I didn’t. But since I’m all … together, all I can think about is how much I’ve hurt people. I can’t—don’t even want to think about using my power now. It just reminds me too much of the …” I shake my head. “Gabe, you saw everything, right? The freaky Afterschool Special that is my life?”
Gabe slides back to the floor. “Yeah …”
I look at him. “And?”
“I thought … really? Bubble Trouble?”
Despite everything, I laugh. Gabe laughs too. It feels good, honest.
After a silence so long it goes awkward, I say, “Black shared everything in that room. I was pulled apart, left for everyone to judge. Everyone to hate. Them. Casa. You. Even though the other people aren’t going to remember it, you will and … you can’t imagine what that’s like. To have all of you out there, just taken from you. It exposes you and isolates you so much it’s stupid.”
“I …” He picks up an empty Starbucks coffee cup from the floor, suddenly finding it far more interesting than it has any right to be. After a long forever filled only with the sound of his popping the cup’s lid on and off, Gabe’s eyes finally meet mine. He takes a long, shaky breath. “Let me tell you about somebody I call … M.”
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