25
Sasha
Isabelle said Heather Erin’s angry, and that’s what scares me most. Her viciousness will extend beyond the consequences of violating my contract.
After I left Cyprus’s, I went straight back to my apartment. I’ve barely left since. I’ve been ordering delivery and going into tailspins. The uncertainty makes it worse. I wonder how the Channel will treat me when they manage to get me back, how they could harm Lillian and Cyprus and Quinn.
If my friends learn about me, I could lose them. But that’s not the worst thing that could happen. Celebrity is a process of collateral damage. They could become part of knowingly keeping me from the Channel, complicit in my betrayal, candidates for vengeance.
I’m immobilized and alone for a week, trying to be a whisper. For the first time since I left, I consider admitting this was a mistake. Isabelle might be right. Maybe the best option is to go back to the Channel and see out my contract.
But today one of my plants died.
When I go outside to pour its remnants into the compost, one of my downstairs neighbors is working on part of the backyard collection of haphazard gardening projects.
I try to hide that I’m carrying a pot, but my neighbor is all friendly and makes me show it to him. Which I do with apologies and expressions of confusion at its fate.
He says no worries. He’s more than happy to provide another.
“You just overwatered it,”
he says, touching the soil.
I touch the dirt myself, where it’s soft and the mold has taken over.
“If you try too hard to keep them safe, they get smothered,”
he says.
“They didn’t evolve to be controlled. They survive great in the weather. It’s a bit nonsensical to try to grow them inside at all.”
He carries on with practical plant-care tips, but I have trouble listening.
I didn’t run away just to hide out again. If I keep my secret from my friends, I keep them in my life and keep them innocent. And I do have influence at the Channel, my own power, maybe enough to protect some people if it comes to that. I won’t be managed by fear.
My mind is out in the weather.