Chapter 16
JANE
PLAYLIST: CUT – PLUMB
Idon’t know exactly what happened to Amelie in the past two weeks, but she seemed to have changed.
As I watch her type rigorously on the keyboard, her face isn’t as hardened as before.
She seems to be less on edge, less harsh, less cold.
She smiles more, laughs more, and even jokes here and there, and I catch myself more than once just looking at her.
“What?” she asks me, as she looks up from the screen.
“Nothing,” I say.
She tilts her head and draws up an eyebrow.
“Come on,” she says. “You stared at me. Not the first time.”
“You are different,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says and smiles. A warm, kind, caring smile.
“What happened?” I ask.
She smirks as she gets up, grabs her phone, and scrolls a bit as she sits on my desk. She holds the phone in front of my face, a video playing.
It shows her riding a horse, racing over a field with her arms wide, pure joy on her face. So much joy, it affects me.
“It’s El’s mare,” she says. “I rode horses as a kid, and I forgot how much it meant to me.”
“You look content,” I say.
“Because I am,” she says and smiles widely. I should be happy for her, but instead, I feel a little stitch in my chest. A stitch that has no business being there.
I smile faintly and get a “I’m glad you are” over my lips while I dive into my mind, analyzing what just happened with me.
The rest of the day in the lab, I am distracted, even though I have to prepare everything for our departure to Florida tomorrow, and I should be focused. But I am not, I am everything but.
“Jane,” she says, and puts her hand on mine as we pack a bag with equipment, and stops my hand. “What’s up with you? You are distracted.”
“I’m not,” slips out before I think, and she calls me out on it before I can do so myself.
“Who’s the liar now?” she asks and takes the bag from my hand. “We don’t need the VR glasses. This is what we need,” she says and hands me the EEG equipment.
“I—“ I begin and stop mid-sentence.
She looks at me, expectantly.
“I don’t want to break the rules,” I say.
“In what way would you break them?”
“In asking personal questions.”
She chuckles.
“Ask,” she says, her tone demanding.
“No,” I say reluctantly and cross my arms.
“Jane, for fucks sake, you need to have your focus, ask. Fuck the damn rules, it’s not that you ask me to fuck with you in the middle of the lab.”
My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. I am at a loss for words because of her directness.
“That was a lot of fucks in one sentence,” I say, stupidly.
She looks at me like a reprimanding mother: One eyebrow drawn up, knowing look, not even saying a word, but making me spill all my secrets.
“Are you and El in a relationship?” I ask.
She laughs.
“No,” she says casually. “Not the one you mean, at least. Why?”
I recognize my body relaxing slightly.
“It just—you seem happier, and you spend a lot of time together, I just thought, maybe—just forget I asked.”
“And what if?” she asks, catching me completely off guard. “What if we were?”
“I—“ I stammer out, but nothing follows. Because the thought of it causes a heavy rock to appear in my stomach.
She leans on her hand. Suddenly, she is so close.
“You what?” she asks, her head tilted, challenging me.
My mind shuts off as she stares into my eyes like the very first day we met.
I have no words. I stare at her with a half-open mouth.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to navigate myself out of the grave I dug myself.
“You don’t know,” she repeats in a dangerously silent tone. “You know what I think? You are lying to yourself. ” And with that, she gets up and packs her stuff.
“See you tomorrow,” she says, and is gone. Leaving me once again with thoughts. All the thoughts.
“Wait,” I call after her. And she stops.
“Why do you think I am lying to myself?”
She turns to me, a faint smile on her face as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
“You are lying to yourself because acknowledging what you feel would change everything your world is built on.”
And with that, she is gone.
Morning comes, and I have been staring at the ceiling of my apartment all night, trying to get my mind straight about what Amelie said.
Maybe I am lying to myself. Maybe I simply do what is right. I don’t know. I don’t know anything at this point anymore. I have thought the same thought a hundred times, and I am no closer to a resolution than before.
When I get up, it is with dread. Dread, because I will spend four days in close contact with her. At least I’ll have the evenings and nights to myself.
I arrive at the airport an hour early and wait at the gate where we agreed to meet. In the meantime, I observe the crowd. Airports have always been a favorite spot of mine because there are so many people to watch and analyze, a passion I’ve carried from childhood to now.
What I dislike is flying, and the closer it gets to the departure, the sweatier and more agitated I become.
“Hi,” she says and falls onto the chair next to me. “You look tired.”
“Good morning to you, too,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Someone woke up on the wrong foot, hm?” she asks in her casual tone, very well knowing she is teasing me.
“More like didn’t sleep at all,” I say.
“Are you nervous?”
“No,” I say and look away.
“Gods, you are a terrible liar,” she says. “Why are you nervous? Do I need to be nervous, too?”
“No,” I say. “I simply dislike flying.”
She scoffs something that awfully sounds like “Contolfreak” and laughs. “We will be alright. The chances of a plane crashing are so low, you’d probably die more likely from being run over by a truck in Manhattan.”
“I know that,” I say, annoyed. “But I like my feet on the ground.”
“You like your feet in a predictable environment, different things.”
My hands snap into fists, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by her.
“Do I enrage you?” she asks, as if it were something to be proud of.
“You annoy me,” I say harshly.
“I can live with that,” she says. “I’m just giving you a sip of your own medicine.”
“So you say I annoy you?”
“No,” she says without even looking at me. “That’s your interpretation. I just point you towards the things you try to deny.”
“I’m not in denial,” I say with a raised voice.
“Sure, Karen, tell yourself that.”
I have the immediate desire to strangulate her. If not for the boarding call, I might have done it.
We enter the plane, and my heart beats up into my throat. Everything is tight and compressed, too many people.
“Take the window seat,” she orders me, but I am not opposed, because it means I have her between me and the rest of humanity on this plane.
I can’t stand the energies flying around. People are stressed and agitated, some are blunt idiots, others are arrogant bastards, and all their energies waft around. Everyone talks, the loud noises, the airplane beeping, and different scents.
I am completely overwhelmed.
Breathe. In and out, I tell myself, but I can’t calm myself down enough, and my fingertips dig painfully into my palms.
I don’t even look at Amelie. I just stare straight at the screen, my body tense.
The airplane moves, and I gasp for air.
It’s the moment she grasps my fist and slides her fingers into the compressed hand.
“Homeostasis maintains a consistent internal environment: the Example of thermoregulation,” she says completely out of context.
“Building on discoveries about cellular physiology, scientists in the nineteenth century realized that the body can be viewed as a self-contained environment, carefully regulated so as to provide optimal conditions for cells to live and grow.”
“Are you reciting the Breedlove have that in mind.”
“I’d appreciate it if you would stop referring to women as fragile,” she says clearly. “Because the last time I checked, I neutralized 300 pounds of flesh within thirty seconds.”
“Is that so?” asks the Director arrogantly.
“Would you like a demonstration?” Amelie asks provocatively as she steps in front of me. She might not notice it, but I do. The slip. Right now, I see the real Amelie. With an attitude. The one she tries so hard to hide.