“Not
really,” Neil said, “Dave said he was looking for me. He had his phone on
silent so he didn’t get any of the messages I’d sent him. He said he was
worried it’d go off the way mine did.”
“Wait,” Mary said.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I
should have had it on silent,” Neil said.
Mary thought a lot of things that
weren’t very conductive to not having guilt. She made the connection that it’d
been her text message that must have given Neil away.
“Seriously,” Neil said, seeing her
thoughts sculpted on her face via affect in real time, “Don’t worry about it.
It’s my fault for hanging out with David anymore. Shit, that sounded really
bad. That’s not what I meant.”
Dani and Mary were silent.
“It’s just that he’s been trying to
do more and more dangerous stuff lately,” Neil said, “And I feel like at this
point it’s some kind of a test for him. Like. He just keeps going faster and
faster and I can’t keep up any more. He’s changing too much for me.”
“Awe,” Dani said, “Don’t think like
that. I’m sure there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”
“What? What is going on? He tells me
everything that goes on at his house, and I’ve been over there enough that I’d
be able to tell if he was lying. His parents love him and he keeps testing
them. He keeps testing me too. He keeps threatening to…”
Dani raised an eyebrow.
“And it’s like… I kind of… Hey, can
we not talk about this?”
“Yeah sure,” Mary said.
When Neil left for the x-ray, Mary
turned to Dani, “This really isn’t like him. I think he’s more freaked out
about being attacked than he’s letting on.”
“Of course he is,” Dani said,
“What’s interesting is I can’t tell if he’s not letting on because he doesn’t
know, he’s trying to be tough, or if he doesn’t want you to worry.”
“You really think he might be trying
to keep me from worrying?”
“Yeah. He’s pulling the old ‘nice
guy’ on you. Watch out though. He’s going to be throwing around the term friend zone a looooot if you turn him
down.”
“Come on, he’s not like that. He’s
mature.”
“I feel like you keep saying that,”
Dani said, “And you don’t quite know what it means.”
“Ok, fine, whatever,” Mary said, “I
hope he doesn’t have a concussion and we can all go home. Maybe Neil has a
point about… How you seem to always try to…”
“Go on,” Dani said.
In some situations, people know
exactly what the other is thinking, or at least they know it enough that they
could paraphrase it to other people. Mary was comparing Dani to David in such a
manner that Dani might find unfavorable. In a manner related to going faster
and faster, testing the boundaries of what’s acceptable and not acceptable.
People living fast and loose on the
bounds of space and time.
“Maybe we can do something like go
to a movie the next time you’re feeling awful,” Mary said, “Instead of going
into dark eldritch tunnels hidden underneath the ruins of burnt cabins.”
“Hey that’s pretty fair,” Dani said,
“Elys might want to do that sort of thing anyway. She can be my tunnelbuddy.”
“I guess what you do with Elys is up
to you and Elys. I don’t want to try to get between you and her,” Mary said,
“And hey, I don’t know, maybe I kind of liked going down into that tunnel and
getting chased. I might be saying that just because I didn’t die and we never
got attacked, but the adrenaline was nice.”
“Nicer than reading a book and
staying in on a Friday night?”
“Fuck you, there’s nothing wrong
with that,” Mary said with more venom than she’d intended, “You should try it
sometime.”
“Yeah, OKAY,” Dani said, “I’ll just pick up a copy of Moby Dick and get
real nice and comfortable with Captain Nemo.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever
seen you read something that wasn’t for school,” Mary said.
“I read sometimes,” Dani said, “But
only practical stuff. Stuff about science. Or self-defense.”
“You don’t have any idea how lame
that sounded,” Mary said, “Besides, do you even understand half the stuff about
science that you read? Like do astrophysics really just provide easy reading
for you?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Dani said, “Did you
ever think that maybe I understand everything
about the astros and the
physics?”
“The way you said that, it makes me
think that you don’t know what either of those words mean.”
“Better check your sass supply because
I think it’s out of control,” Dani said.
“You’re sort of deflecting the
question.”
“You’re sort of… Nuh.”
“Nuh?”
“Yeah totally.” Dani sat back.
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