Gale #3
In high school, I suffered from countless dreams where I attended class naked.
The horror at discovering my clothes were gone, that I’d forgotten to dress, left a lasting impression.
Even after waking, I heard my classmate’s laughter for days and was unable to shake the panic, no matter how many times I reminded myself that it hadn’t happened.
Becca’s question stirred a similar disquiet. It left me with raw nerves. A sense of exposure. A feeling of deep humiliation and shame.
And the camera. The camera, the camera, the camera.
“Gale?”
“I-I don’t want to talk about that,” I stammered.
“Okay.” She tried a few more questions, but my responses must not have been good enough. Arty cut the interview short, and Becca thanked me, but it didn’t take a genius to see she wasn’t happy.
The instant I was free to go, I grabbed my camera and backpack and vanished into the field until long past the dinner hour.
I didn’t take pictures. Instead, I sat at the base of the ancient walnut tree and journaled.
It was therapeutic. My online psychology studies had suggested it as a form of recalibrating.
I read the classic novel I’d started a few weeks ago, and I spent time with my thoughts, picking them apart and putting them back together.
When I checked the time on my phone and saw an alert from YouTube that a photographer I followed had posted something new, I opened the app and viewed it.
When it finished, I guiltily went to Twisted Fates’ channel and selected a random video.
Before we visited CineVision Entertainment, my obsession with Elk City’s bad boy had been controlled.
Browsing Ozrik’s social media was a guilty pleasure I indulged on occasion, but something had happened to me that day.
Running into him in the bathroom, the random wink, the moments when he openly stared for no reason at all, I couldn’t get them out of my head.
Now, I devoured his content with an obsession that frightened me.
Each video opened cinematically with clips from Twisted Fates’ previous chases. After a few seconds, letters twisted tornado-like onto the screen, arranging themselves until they spelled the group’s name. Noah’s clever work, I presumed.
When the introduction faded on the video I’d selected, Ozrik and four other guys appeared on the screen, hanging out in what looked like someone’s garage. Metal shelving bursting with gear. A complex computer area. Posters and maps pinned to the wall. The modified vehicle they used on chases.
The members of Twisted Fates bantered with one another. The ribbing, pushing, and shoving held a certain appeal. Jazz was right. People would relate to their casual friendship.
Several monitors on the desk in the background displayed weather patterns for different areas. I recognized the choppy advances marking the upcoming hours before it snapped back to the present. The screens were too far away to get a read on what areas they covered or the broadcast activity.
The map on the wall contained handwritten sticky notes and several colored pins. I studied the steel shelves, identifying some of the instruments. Handheld radios. Headcams. When the camera panned, I got a better view of their modified vehicle.
The chatter on the screen calmed, and Ozrik flashed his devilish smile at the camera. I hit pause, drinking in every detail and nuance of his God-given perfection. No one was around to hear my heart race or see my cheeks flame. The thoughts scrambling around my brain were mine alone.
If my blood ran hot and thick through my veins, concentrating in private regions, it was no one else’s business. I would take care of it later, behind a locked bathroom door, under the concealment of a running shower.
I watched the video twice, then several others until I couldn’t sit still.
Nothing new had been posted since last season.
Part of the contract stated that all recorded footage for the 2026 season belonged to CineVision, so Ozrik’s and Olivia’s YouTube channels wouldn’t be updated for the foreseeable future.
I put my phone away and pressed a palm to my groin, easing the ache without easing the ache, and praying for something I couldn’t articulate.
Eventually, having regained control, I returned to my book and read until the sun went down and I could no longer see.
Olivia didn’t come looking for me—I suspected she’d gone home to her rented apartment—but as I sat under the knotted walnut tree as the first stars pieced the velvet sky, my father appeared.
He didn’t approach or say anything, but I sensed he was checking on me.
I’d been gone for hours. Ever since my return from the seminary five years ago, he worried.
It was a quiet worry. One cultivated, I assumed, in fear that I might do something horrible.
Dad knew I wasn’t all right, no matter how many reassuring words he spoke.
He knew I harbored secrets I couldn’t voice.
Respectfully, he never pushed. He never asked. Some days, I suspected he knew all I couldn’t say.
It lingered between us. An elephant in the room.
If I could find the words…
The courage…