Point B (a teleportation love story)

by Drew Magary

  She was still damp. The rent-a-cop hadn’t bothered to offer her a towel. He had marched her directly to Goren Hall, barefoot and pantsless. She could smell herself. She smelled like she lived at the bottom of that stupid river.

  Vick gestured for her to sit, browsing through a file with her name on it.

  “Annie, is that right?”

  “Anna.” Your name is right on the file. He botched it on purpose.

  “This is an unfortunate situation, Annie. As dean of students, it’s my job to keep all of you safe. It’s a responsibility that I take very seriously. So when something like this happens, the first question I ask is: what could Druskin have done better? Have we done enough to prevent this sort of behavior? Then I remember the preventive measures that I, along with the administration, have put in place here: measures that I know have served us well for some time. And so then I have to consider other factors.” There was that reedy voice again, making her flesh peel.

  “All we did was jump into a creek.”

  “Ah, see. I find it interesting that you said ‘we’. Wade, our head of security, says there were two other girls with you.”

  “I’m not selling anyone out.”

  “He also said he smelled scented cannabis oil. Marijuana.”

  “There’s no way your boy Wade could smell a thing with that much aftershave on him.”

  She laughed at her own joke to sell it, but that only made Vick angrier. He frightened her with his grimness. He seemed to bleed hate. Looking at him was like looking into the mouth of a very dark cave and knowing, instinctively, that you should avoid it. Somehow this was going even worse than she had pictured it.

  He pointed an angry finger at her. One of his eyes was perpetually jaundiced and cloudy, as if he had been bitten by the undead. Such a dour, hideous man. She couldn’t feel a soul anywhere inside of him.

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Vick said. “I find myself disheartened that a student such as you, on her first day no less, would have such a cavalier attitude toward such things. You know there’s no swimming in the Hobscott. You know there’s no drug use allowed on campus.”

  “I didn’t smoke any weed. Gimme a blood test if you want.”

  “That isn’t necessary, so long as you give me the names of your other two friends.”

  “It’s my first day. I don’t know anyone. People were just out there.”

  “You were holding hands with a girl when you jumped.”

  For a brief moment, Anna let herself remember what it was like to hold Lara’s hand and jump off together. It was just one moment, but it seemed to promise so many more. Lily Beach. Private villas. Candlelit boardwalks. Indian Ocean sunsets. They were gonna be everywhere. They had a plan. A scheme. She had never been part of a real scheme before, and she’d never felt cooler. She closed her eyes to get a better look at the memory and found herself grief-stricken—sick to death at the thought that her time with Lara might be ending just as it was beginning. She’d had crushes before—minor league infatuations with Danni Pullen in eighth grade and then Emma Chance in ninth grade, both of which went unrequited—but she had never run into this sensation, where every single thought of love (oh god, that word) just blows up inside you. Love becoming grief, grief becoming love. Adults didn’t understand this. They did at one point in their lives, but it was almost as if they had all forgotten how much love went into first love. Like they had never loved anyone at all.

  “It was nobody,” she told Vick.

  “Was it Lara Kirsch?” he asked, eyeing the rose pink bracelet.

  “No.”

  “As I said, this is all very unfortunate. You’ve put me in an awkward position where I feel compelled to call your mother—”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “—to discuss reducing your financial aid package, which appears to be far too generous.”

  That got her. Anna fell apart. She tried desperately to fight back the tears, but they found their way out regardless. A lone corner of Vick’s mouth turned up slightly and she felt a murderous rage toward him, all hot and primal. She could see herself wrapping her hands around Vick’s throat and making his tight veins go tighter, smashing his head against the desk over and over until his temporal bones collapsed and his head was nothing but a mound of blood and loose bone shards and jellied brain parts and unidentifiable gristle.

  They can try to tell us what to do, but that doesn’t mean we have to listen. That’s what Lara told Anna out on the bridge. She sniffed up whatever tears and snot she could, and then spat a final shot of courage at him: “I’m sorry, Dean. But I can’t help you.”

  Vick took out his phone.

  “Well then, I guess I’ll have to make this call.”

  She couldn’t bear the thought of Sandy getting a call and hearing the news that her own daughter had submarined her Druskin career before it had even started. More tears came pouring out of her as she grasped for a solution, any solution. Her lips were hot and puffy. Vick was an impenetrable as the wall around Druskin, and all it took was three minutes for her to realize it. There was no use trying to find a soul in there.

  She weakened. A branch bent too far.

  “Wait,” she told him. “There must be some other way.”

  He stopped and pocketed the phone. The moment the offer left Anna’s mouth, she regretted it.

  SEWELL HALL

  When Anna got back to Sewell and dragged herself up to Room 24, she glanced at the threshold under Lara’s bedroom door and saw nothing but blackness. She stripped off her wet clothes, stuffed them into the white laundry bag, and then jammed wads of old newspaper into the soaked mary janes that Wade had left in the dorm’s lobby along with the rest of her unadorned wardrobe. She sat on the bed and went back to messy crying. The harder she tried to purge Vick from her brain, the more forcefully his vile, stone face came roaring back at her. It was like Vick knew he could take her brain hostage in addition to her body, and delighted in it. Before she was allowed to leave his office, he had given her a very specific directive:

  You are to report to my house on Wednesday evening at 7pm. You will dress lightly. You will not carry anything on you. You will tell no one, or else you’ll be expelled and the record will show it was due to you committing hate crimes. Do you understand?

  The instructions horrified her. She fought against the shame and the fear with all her might, along with the nagging voice inside her crowing that she deserved whatever consequences Vick had planned for her, because she had been such a fool. No. No, she would not accept that shame. She would only accept the anger. She was good at anger. She could hang with her anger all night, because it was so deserved and so righteous.

  In the meantime, she cried some more. Half of her wanted to see Lara open that door and come out to comfort her. The other half knew that her face currently looked like a tomato someone had dragged across a cheese grater.

  You should shower.

  She went to grab her bathroom kit but then heard Lara’s doorknob twist.

  Shit.

  Quickly, she went to bureau and grabbed a loose robe, cinching its belt so tight that it nearly cut her in half. The door swung open and Lara came over.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” said Anna.

  “What did they do?”

  “They took me to Vick’s office.” Just saying his name brought her to an elevated state of rage that was impossible to keep disguised. His hateful stare remained tattooed onto her brain.

  “What was he like?” Lara asked.

  Anna played it off. “He was a dick.”

  “I bet he was.”

  “I didn’t say anything though.”

  “It’s not fair that we put you through that. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Better me than all three of us.”

  “You were crying, though.”

  “Today was a lot,” Anna said. “More than I could handle. I wish I had someone to talk to about it.�
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  “You can talk to me.”

  “I can?”

  “You can tell me anything, Roomie.”

  “You don’t know what that means to me. Because I used to have someone I could vent to, but…” I have a sister but I don’t see her much anymore. I have a sister but I don’t see her much anymore. I have a sister but I don’t see her much anymore. I have a sister but I don’t see her much anymore. “She died.”

  “Anna?”

  “My sister, Sarah. I could tell her anything, but now I can’t.”

  “Oh god,” Lara said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t feel bad. No one else does.”

  “I do. What happened to her?”

  Don’t talk about it. All that does it make the hurt come back. “Someone killed Sarah, but I don’t know who. They ported into our house one night and disappeared and I don’t know who it was. I was asleep until the gun went off. I’m so sorry I’m unloading this on you.”

  Lara took Anna’s hand. That she was willing to hold hands with Anna so often felt like dumb luck: a thoughtless tic Lara might cut out the second she realized she was doing it. “Is that why you wanna break out of here?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if I want to find out what I might find out. Getting away to the Maldives with you seemed more pleasant.”

  “We can still go there.”

  “You have to mean it.”

  “I mean it,” Lara promised. “And I also mean it when I say that I can help you find whoever killed your sister, too.”

  “How?”

  “Emilia owns the company. I can figure out who ported in that night. When you port you leave a signature. I know how to find those.”

  “PortSys isn’t supposed to keep porting histories if people don’t give them permission.”

  “PortSys isn’t supposed to do a lot of shit. But I’ll help, I swear.”

  If Lara Kirsch meant it, she was a rare find, indeed. Everyone else the Huffs enlisted to help track down the intruder that killed Sarah proved worthless. Sarah’s bosses were worthless. Her friends were worthless. No one ever believed the Huffs. The police were the worst of the bunch. They were so profoundly useless when Sarah died, as if the only reason they showed up to Anna’s house the next day was to torture the Huff family with their boundless capacity for indifference.

  Anna was catatonic in the living room when they arrived on the scene. When she first saw Sarah’s body, she noticed an orange rope bracelet sitting on the nightstand, and the bracelet continued flashing through her mind while she was trying to process her shock. She remembered seeing her mother on the floor of Sarah’s room, clutching her sister’s lifeless body, her screams turning to loud heaves. There was so much dried blood that it had flecked off everywhere. The room was a haven of blood dust. The cops didn’t care. They ruled the death a simple suicide, and when Sandy insisted someone else had ported out of the house that night, they laughed at her. Could she identify the stranger? No, Sandy could not. Did Sandy have any idea who might have broken in? No, she did not. Did Sandy know her daughter owned a gun? No, Sandy did not. They told her that she had imagined the portclap, then laughed in her face for being such a comically oblivious parent. These cops weren’t gonna spend one extra minute to determine if this was one of the thousands of port break-ins that happened on a daily basis in the free zones. They had no interest in work, especially when that work didn’t involve the chance to fire a gun at somebody.

  The cops didn’t even bother talking to Anna. She was just a piece of furniture to them. All they did was crack wise about how Sarah was “probably a real looker,” and then they swiped a couple of croissants off the kitchen counter before porting out. Anna said nothing. Did nothing. There are those really big events in life where people stand idly by and stare in shocked disbelief as the tragedy rushes by them like a rampaging locomotive. They don’t react. They don’t say anything. They just freeze in place, unable to absorb it all. That’s what you did. You sat there by your sister’s corpse and let her death whizz right past.

  And now here was Lara Kirsch, offering a hand in every conceivable form. It was so wonderful, so easy, that it felt like it could all come undone at any second.

  “Thank you, Lara.”

  “You know it, Roomie.”

  “Your mom probably knows my sister is dead. That’s what she was getting at when she met me that first time.”

  “Fuck her. Whatever Emilia thinks she knows about you isn’t as important as what I know about you now.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “The key is Network Z.”

  “Network Z?” Anna asked.

  “Network Z.”

  “What is that?”

  “I can’t explain it right now, but you might be able find out about it if you look hard enough.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry I mentioned it to you,” Anna said. “I just miss having someone to talk to.”

  “I never had anyone to talk to,” Lara said.

  “I don’t buy that.”

  “Look at me.” Anna looked up from the floor and into Lara’s verdant green eyes. When Lara looked at you with those eyes, it felt like you were the only thing she wanted to look at. They were a truth serum.

  “I never had anyone to talk to," she told Anna. "I swear. Please believe me. People talk to me because I’m a Kirsch or whatever, but they’re not really interested. Know what I mean?”

  “I do.” All too well. Both Lara and Anna were demoralized from living in a time when it was nearly impossible to get other people to give a shit. They might pretend to give a shit by posting the occasional earnest WorldGram message when tragedy struck. But getting them to care to the point where they might act on that compassion, outside of them porting to an organized vigil to hold a candle for five minutes, was so fruitless that both girls had grown disillusioned: too numb to even attempt to get people to care about anything of consequence.

  Until this moment. There Anna and Lara were, face to face, eager to truly matter to one another.

  “Everyone lies to me,” Lara said. “All the time. Even the people who are trying to be nice.”

  “I’ll never lie to you.”

  “I’m just decoration to a lot of people, Emilia and Jason included,” Lara went on, wrapping her hands around her own arms and swaying. “My family doesn’t care about me, but they don’t understand the damage that I can do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see when we bust out of here. I know some things about those two, and I’ll show you them.”

  “I think I can figure out how to get past that portwall.”

  “I bet you can. I believe in you,” Lara told her. “Shit being how it is right now, people don’t make any effort to know my soul. But you can. You can help take me away from the parts of me I wish didn’t exist.” Lara had no clue how mutual that feeling was.

  “So we can talk then? To each other?”

  “Anytime, Roomie. I’ll talk to you all night. I told I liked you and I meant it.”

  She likes you. Lara was pulling that black curtain away, letting sunlight into Anna’s mind for the first time in well over a year. Anna was still crying but the tears were almost joyful now. “Thank you. I stink. I really oughtta shower.”

  Lara grabbed Anna and hugged her tight, her neon bracelets jangling behind Anna’s neck. Charles Vick beat a hasty retreat from Anna’s thoughts. Her robe belt cut deeper into her waist, but she could barely feel it now because love was unloading on her so quickly. I like you. Will you come away with me? I’ll talk to you all night. Love everywhere. Love in Lara’s velveteen black hair. Love in her soft, freckly shoulders. Love in her cute little crab shorts. Love in her tiny stud earrings. Love in those green eyes. It was all hot, fast, relentless love porting directly into Anna. It was built on scraps: moments of unsolicited kindness and brief intense encounters and clandestine plots, but it was love all the same: a feeling of total freedom, a lack of encumbrance that bordered on the mystical.
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  Druskin told every student on campus that they were exceptional. And Anna’s mother always insisted that her little girl was special. But with Lara, Anna at last felt exceptional: treated as extraordinary by someone who had no obligation to do so. Once Lara had asked Anna to come away, and to help avenge Sarah, the world rebooted for her. Every city and continent and island held new potential, new daydreams, new culprits to apprehend. Love made everything feel new. She had no idea what to do with this love. It was embarrassing. She was that roommate now: the obsessive, psycho roommate. Awesome. Just fucking awesome. Don’t hug back too hard. Don’t push it, girl. You smell, remember. You are wet and in your robe. Don’t say anything dumb. Do not say anything dumb.

  “I’m glad you’re my roommate.” Anna whispered to her. Dumb.

  “Me too. You have no idea. I don’t even know why I’m at this school, really. But at least we found each other, right?”

  “Yeah.” Anna sensed their faces were drawing closer. She was ready to close her eyes and tilt her head ever so slightly, to accelerate something that was already moving at warp speed.

  Instead, Lara let her go. “Okay you really do stink,” she joked. That was it for hugs, for now. “But I owe you one. Got any favors you need done?”

  A few, yes. “Yeah, don’t tell anyone I smell this bad.”

  Lara laughed. “I won’t.” She walked over to Anna’s desk and scribbled down a 917 phone number. “Here: I’m gonna give you my PortPhone number so that you always have it.”

  Holy shit, you got her contact.

  Anna wrote her own contact info down for Lara, then grabbed her toilet kit and trudged upstairs to the hallway bathroom. In the shower stall, she pressed both hands against the grimy white tiles and aimed the crown of her head at the hot spray. She closed her eyes and saw Vick’s face staring back at her with his clouded, undead eye: pulsing with fury. She jacked up the hot water until it burned.

  When Anna got out and dried off, she looked under the stall door and saw the Shit Memoirs laying there. She was about to snatch it from the floor when suddenly, she heard shouting. She put on her robe, grabbed her kit, and went out to the stairwell. It was clear that the shouting was coming from her and Lara’s room. Though it was muffled behind a gauntlet of closed doors, she could still make out Emilia Kirsch’s curt voice.