Stardust

     The night started off awkwardly. July kept self-consciously sneaking looks at Lake’s face, trying to catch him looking at her tits as she sipped her whiskey, but he never did.

     They sat at the dining room table—a massive solid slab of wood so heavy and old it sank centimeters into the floor around it—and silently drank whiskey out of dusty wineglasses as the sun set. The room's sole window was massive, set into a comfortable window seat and stretching up almost all the way to the ceiling. It offered a gorgeous view of the sun slowly sinking into the red-orange sea of the horizon, low banks of clouds refracting red and gold as the hazy circle gradually disappeared behind them.

     The alcohol hit July much faster than she’d expected. She wasn’t even halfway through her first glass before her head began feeling extremely fuzzy and warm, and she felt the urge to titter girlishly as she caught Lake’s eye.

     Right around when the sky turned a deep, velvety red, Lake set his glass on the table with a soft clink and said “Be right back.”

     Without further explanation, he disappeared upstairs. July took a thoughtful sip of whiskey, rolling the harsh, woodsy flavor around in her mouth; she liked the way it burned her tongue, and the longer she swirled it over her taste buds, the more she could pick apart subtle hints of flavor underneath the burn. It reminded her of the smell of dry wood.

     Shadows began to lengthen and creep into the middle of the room. July got up and turned on the floor lamp in the corner; she highly preferred its soft, warm light, tinted slightly by the deep red shade, to the harsh overhead light set into the ceiling. While she was up, she also plugged in the orange-gold string lights they’d nailed up on the walls—Lake had brought them home a few weeks ago, and she felt they highly improved the room’s ambiance—and conscientiously poured herself a glass of water.

     It was only another couple of minutes before Lake returned, lugging a chunky, light gray stereo in his arms, a stack of CD jewel cases balanced precariously on top. When he set the whole pile on the table, the cases spilled out onto the wood with a loud clatter; Lake didn’t seem to pay that any mind, dropping to his hands and knees to fiddle with the outlet nearby.

     When he popped back up, he was grinning ear-to-ear. He gestured at the scattered colorful cases and said “Pick an album.”

     “Um,” July said. She took another long drink of whiskey, followed by a long sip of water. She hadn’t listened to music in a long time, and the last time she had, it was off Axel’s mp3 player, sharing a single pair of earbuds between them. What exactly were the criteria for picking an album?

     “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm,” Lake said cheerfully, plucking a case out of the pile.

     “Fuck off,” July said, in a stunning display of wit.

     Lake pressed a button on the stereo; a lid on top popped open, he put the CD in, closed it, and proceeded to fiddle with buttons while July watched the process with interest. A bright, peppy guitar chord rang out from the mesh speakers on the front of the device; Lake spun a dial, the cheerful pop sound getting louder, and then he sprang fully to his feet and held a hand out to her.

     July stared uncomprehendingly at his hand, then at his face. His grin had turned shit-eating.

     “Dance with me,” he said.

     She couldn’t help it—she cackled. “Me? Dance?”

     “Yeah, you.” Lake waggled his eyebrows goofily. “Come on, loosen up.”

     “I don’t like dancing,” July informed him.

     “Finish your drink and you will,” he said, and there was enough of a hint of a challenge in his voice that she bristled cheerfully, brought the glass to her lips, and chugged the entire thing in one go. It felt good, warm and thick in her chest as she put her glass down; July had heard the phrase “liquid courage” before, but she’d always written it off as bad purple prose.

     Now, though, she began to reconsider that opinion. She grabbed Lake’s hand and let him pull her to her feet, both of them giggling dizzily; the room spun idly around July as she gripped his forearms, letting him tug her over the threshold into the empty floor space of the living room. The open floor plan was a benefit at the moment; there were no walls in-between them and the stereo.

     Lake looked like an idiot when he danced. He wiggled his hips loosely and moved his arms seemingly entirely separately from the rest of the body; he brought to July’s mind memories of noodle-like inflatable mascots outside car dealerships.

     “You look stupid,” she giggled; he didn’t respond, just grabbed her hands and pulled her into a dizzy twirl, caught her by the arms again when she stumbled on the landing.

     July let go; she let herself fall into silly, senseless movement, shaking her hips and whirling around carelessly. The room continued to spin and she spun with it, laughing out loud for the first time in days, maybe weeks. The album continued to play, upbeat and old-school, filled with twangy guitars and harmonica—she wouldn’t have chosen it herself, but it fit the mood.

     After who-knew-how-long, July fell back into Lake’s arms, still shrieking with laughter, and let him pull her around the room in a clumsy, stumbling two-step. When she looked up into his face, he was still grinning, dark eyes twinkling, the lean angles of his face softened by joy. Overcome with a sudden impulse, July reached up and cupped the side of his face in one hand.

     With a toss of her hair, she pushed herself up on her tip-toes to lean in toward his face, keeping her gaze level with his gentle eyes.

     Lake pressed one finger to her nose and said “Boop.”

     This stopped her train of thought directly in its tracks. It continued to stall out, chugging heavily in place as she perched, frozen, on the balls of her feet.

     While she was recovering, he sang softly along with the stereo, “’Cause I’m happy just to dance with you,” and then collapsed backwards onto the couch with a heavy whoof of displaced air. His limbs draped over the deep cushions at odd angles, head tilted up, base of his skull pressing into the backrest to keep grinning up at her—but there was an edge to his expression that she couldn’t quite identify.

     “What was that?” July said.

     “What was what?”

     She looked at him for a moment, struggling to string together a coherent thought with her brain packed with warm cotton balls. Finally, with a deep sigh, she sat down on the couch next to him. “Nevermind. I don’t know.”

     The song changed to something softer and sadder. July sat there, contemplating, until Lake pulled her sidelong into a hug and she toppled over to half-lay on his sprawled form, his hipbone jutting sharply into her ribs. She didn’t mind much.

     “What are you thinking about?” His voice was quiet, only a hair louder than the stereo.

     She let her head fall to rest on his ribs, just under his arm. “Do you ever miss Jasper?”

     Her mind had been fairly empty, actually, but it was the first question she thought of. And in the state she was in, she didn’t regret asking.

     Lake made a low sound deep in his chest. Then: “Yeah. Every day.”

     “Do you ever think about tracking him down?”

     “How?”

     That was a fair point. July huffed a sigh, her nose filling with his old-wood smell. “I don’t know. Could try going back to Olive’s?”

     “I did.” That made July sit up—which she instantly regretted as a wave of dizziness washed over her; Lake frowned, awkwardly rubbing her shoulder with one hand. “A couple of weeks after we got here, I felt up to making the trip again. Blinked out there, found the house mostly empty. Seemed like she moved in a hurry.”

     “That’s weird.” July wanted to stop thinking about it.

     “Getting back here put me back on your pain meds for another couple weeks, so I don’t want to try that again without a good reason.” Lake raised his arms over his head and stretched, the joints in his shoulders crackling as he did. “Do you miss Cass?”

     A flash of memory accosted July; an image of C—of her face in profile, sharp nose dominating her features, a half-smirk twisting her mouth, side-eyeing July conspiratorially. Her cheekbones cast sharp shadows over the side of her face, stark in the flickering white-blue light of the subway tunnels.

     July made a noise that was both embarrassing and incoherent.

     “I’m sorry,” Lake said.

     She looked at him. He was obviously earnest; his eyebrows were drawn together in a look of concern that twisted July’s stomach.

     “I’m going to bed,” she said.

###

     Skyscrapers loomed over your head, stretching endlessly up into the overcast sky. The streets were empty, save for you ambling slowly down the middle of the road, hands in your pockets.

     Wind whistled emptily around corners, through alleys and along the planes of buildings, occasionally tussling your ponytail. There were no cars, no buses, no rats or birds, nothing but you and the infinite concrete jungle.

     There was a scrap of paper in your pocket. You could feel its softened edges brushing against your fingertips as you walked. Without pausing your slow stroll, you withdrew it from your pocket and unfolded it, square by square.

     When it was entirely unfolded, you did pause—in fact, you stopped in your tracks entirely, staring down at the writing scrawled over it in a familiar hand. Loops on the tails of the “y”s. Letters cramped, running into each other as if desperately trying to ration space, despite only being a single sentence. A little heart scribbled in the corner of the scrap, like an afterthought. A queer chill ran over your skin, scalp to toe.

     YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER.

###

     Summer hit like a hot, wet brick to the stomach. July spent her days nodding off indoors as window air conditioning units desperately fought back against the sudden atmospheric assault.

     The plants in the garden grew, bloomed, burst with color and life, and were harvested. There was a several-week period where July found the kitchen overwhelmed with zucchini; it responded so enthusiastically to Lake’s tending that it filled their vegetable drawer and spilled over onto the lower shelves of the fridge, then the higher shelves, then filled bags in Lake’s truck that he hauled off to who-knew-where. There were tomatoes, little grape-sized ones bursting with flavor that July ate straight off the vine and ones the size of her fist they kept in the fridge til Lake cooked them into pasta sauce. There was a weird plant July had never seen before, green and thick like a pea pod, that Lake cut up into little star-shaped pieces and fried with garlic one night, and July decided it was her new favorite vegetable.

     Right around when the heat finally became too much to handle, even for an hour or two, the garden all but stopped producing, which July felt was a nice coincidence.

     As days crept on, she began to feel something like a ghost haunting her own home. Without anyone around but Lake, and with him gone most days, she felt like she was drifting through the halls immaterially, wandering from room to room without touching reality—like there was a clear pane of glass between her and the material plane, and she could never quite break through. Sometimes, she wondered wildly whether it was June who was dead, or if their places had swapped—if June was wandering the halls, padding around in sock feet and doing chores, while July disappeared around corners and taunted her with distant laughter.

     Whenever she felt especially distant, she’d go back to her room and take a nap. She’d wake up feeling like her head was full of bees, her muscles spasming and clenching at random, but at least she felt more real.

     The sun wheeled in its endless cycle over their house, hot and bright, sunlight a viscous gel coating the humid air. Bushes and trees in the backyard bloomed to life with fat heads of pink and white flowers, filling the air with cloying sweetness. Mosquitoes whined drearily in the air; July realized how much she appreciated the screened-in porch that season.

     Life continued, in its quiet, dull way.

###

      “I have some questions for you,” Sage said. The two of you sat on the very edge of the waterfront sidewalk; the concourse was entirely vacant, allowing you to sit and dangle your feet over the concrete into the murky waters of the river without fear of being yelled at (the fact that you had not encountered a single living soul in the city, apart from Sage, was irrelevant to your paranoia). Your toes barely breached the surface of the water; Sage’s feet disappeared into the cool depths.

     Historically speaking, you didn’t enjoy being interrogated. You shrugged and did not reply, staring out at the city skyline on the opposite shore. It was dark, tangled in thick masses of low-hanging clouds, the outlines of buildings blurring into one another.

     Sage, seemingly incapable of taking a hint, did not let the silence last long. “Did Cass have any family?”

     Little choppy waves formed on the water’s surface, smaller than your hand. You skimmed the toes of one foot over their crests. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

     This, to your mind, was a neat end to that line of questioning. The same could not be said for Sage’s perspective. She hummed low in her throat, a thoughtful sound. “Can you try?”

     “Why?”

     “Because I want to know.”

     You kicked your foot out along the surface of the water, sending a spray to wet Sage’s pants. She didn’t react. Feeling petulant, you let your spine curve into a lazy slump and draped your arms over your knees.

     The silence stretched on, much longer this time.

     You huffed a deep sigh, making your ill humor known before you finally spoke. “She had a brother and a mom. No dad. Same as me, sort of.”

     “Sort of?”

     “Dad was around sometimes when I was little, but I don’t remember him. He stopped visiting when I was like… two or three?” The dark water swirled lazily around your foot as you swung it in a little circular motion. “She never met hers, though.”

     “Thank you.” Sage sounded awfully pleased, considering the content of the conversation. You felt cheated.

     “What about you?” you said.

     “Things don’t really work like that where I come from.”

     You sat up straight to look at her. She was still gazing out over the breadth of the river, golden eyes half-lidded; from this close, you could see the bright contrast of her pink eyelashes against her skin. “How do they work, then?”

     She glanced sidelong at you. Your breath paused, briefly, as she caught your eye. “I don’t feel like talking about that.”

     You balled your fist up and punched her on the shoulder with quite a bit of force. Sage yelped and rubbed at the spot where you’d hit her; you stuck your tongue out as she looked at you, irritation blooming over her face.

     “You’re strong,” she said. You must have let your pride show on your face, because she very hastily followed up with, “And a brat.”

     It struck you that pouting in response to this would only prove her point. You pouted anyway, but with an exaggerated air that crossed into sarcastic. “Answer the question.”

     Sage continued to rub idly at the spot where you’d punched her, regarding you with a smoldering look you couldn’t quite parse, but which made you feel deeply restless, for reasons you also could not place. “There…” A deep frown wrinkled her face, as if she was fighting some unfathomable mental battle. “There isn’t a good English word for our family structures.”

     This read to you as evasive. You folded your arms over your chest, waiting.

     Her gaze drifted out aimlessly past you, frown worrying creases of concentration into her brow as she followed some deeply unknowable train of thought. “I wouldn’t even call them families. Aston translates them as ‘hearths,’ although I think that’s a bit needlessly arcane. They’re… large groups, mine was maybe fifty people, when I left at least. The wealthy ones are larger.” She began to punctuate her speech with short, jabbing gestures in the air with one hand. “You’re born into one and raised there, there aren’t… parents, like you have, you’re raised by all the adults in the hearth. I don’t even know who carried me to term, most people don’t…”

     You found her explanation extremely vague, but whether that was her fault, or the fault of a larger communication barrier, you weren’t sure. “So you don't have families, basically?”

     “Well,” she said, and paused to laugh—a light, breathy, entirely humorless sound. “Well,” she repeated, and then she looked directly at you again, something brittle and cool underneath her frown. The expression reminded you of Cass, something that shook you so thoroughly, you almost forgot to listen to what Sage was saying. “I think hearths are comparable. You have the same… responsibilities.”

     Still distracted by the sudden queasy feeling in your gut, you kicked your toes over the surface of the water again. Cold stabbed through the sole of your foot, bringing you back to the present. “Sounds shitty.”

     “It's just how things work.” Sage sounded injured. You winced.

     “No offense,” you said quickly. “Family's shitty, too.”

     Sage did not respond to this. Your words hung in the air for an agonizingly long time, leaving you to puzzle over why on earth you said that.

     Somewhere in the distance, out over the smoggy river, gulls cawed.

     “So,” you said, voice decidedly bright and a touch louder than you'd intended, “if you don't have parents or anything, how do you guys, like… get married? Or date, or whatever?”

     “Oh, we… don't?” Sage's tone was friendly and relaxed again; when you snuck a glance sidelong at her, she was staring up into the cloudy sky, leaning back against her palms pressed to the sidewalk, frown replaced with a soft, crooked tilt to the line of her lips. “Kids are born into hearths—you wouldn't reproduce with someone in a different hearth, that would be such a scandal, the inheritance troubles alone would—but that's a tangent for romance novels.” A wry chuckle, then: “Naturally, you love the people in your hearth, some of them even romantically, but that isn't quite as… tied to reproduction as it is for you.”

     “Huh,” you said. You also thought Speak for yourself, but even your lapsed social skills were enough to determine it was not the time to delve into your distaste for the idea of bearing children.

     Her voice took on an idle, musing quality. You had the impression she was no longer speaking directly to you. “It’s common to join other hearths because you feel romantic toward some of the people in them, which would be the closest thing to your concept of marriage, I think… rarely, a group will come together and form their own, new hearth, because of multiple conflicting inter-hearth relationships… It’s all very political, of course. I almost wish I'd learned more about hearth politics, you know… before I left.”

     For a moment, you found yourself caught up in the narrative she laid out to you; you had never considered the existence of cultures where monogamy was not a prerequisite to romance before, and you were so caught up in this thought experiment, you nearly forgot your goal was intentional peevishness.

     At least, you forgot until, after a stretch of contemplative silence broken only by wind-whistles skimming across the river's gunmetal-grey surface, she stretched her arms out over her head and fell back to lay on the concrete. You brought your attention fully back to her.

     “So what was your hearth like?” you said, twisting around to half-lie on the sidewalk facing her, propped up by one elbow and your chin resting on your palm. When she glanced up at you, you fluttered your eyelashes at her innocently.

     “We didn’t get along,” she said, voice suddenly short and sharp. “I left before I came of age.”

     “Ooh, you’re a runaway,” you said, letting your voice edge into the realm of teasing.

     She looked thoughtful. “I guess so.”

###

     After the night they danced together, July made a habit of pouring herself a glass or two of whiskey and listening to an album on the old stereo in the evenings. Lake didn’t join her, most nights. It bothered her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, so she put the annoyance off to one side and resolutely put it back where it belonged every time it edged into her metaphorical field of vision.

     On the nights he did join her, they talked—about music, Lake telling her about his favorite songs and artists, about current events, him feeding her tidbits of news he caught from papers and government radio broadcasts. It was never anything that caught her interest—so-and-so public figure was caught in an infidelity scandal, someone a town over was arrested for stealing a car, there were wildfires in California again. Sometimes, he’d tell her stories about Jasper and Micah and Rhea—tidbits from the medical facility, she assumed, carefully stripped of references to Dusties, not that she minded—but never anyone else from his past.

     As the dog days of summer stretched on, panting and sweltering, and slowly fell away to an encroaching chill in the air, July found herself falling asleep more and more often during her evening ritual. She began setting herself up on the living room couch, with its massive old striped cushions and thick cushy throw pillows, so she didn’t fuck her neck up by sleeping slumped over a table or in a rocking chair on the porch.

     Alcohol seemed to only knock her out more and more efficiently over time. She was fairly sure this was the opposite of how tolerance was supposed to work. Still, even when it made her head fuzzy and dizzy, it filled her with a daring kind of warmth she felt hard-pressed to get anywhere else.

     Eventually, boredom prompted her to finally go through the makeup left on the vanity in her room. She considered throwing it away, briefly, but curiosity overcame her and she thought, well, why not try to teach herself to use it?

     At first, it made her look clownish, like a child who was trying too hard to appear adult, garish and annoying. It was only after a few days of applying various powders and creams, scrubbing her face raw and pink in frustration, and starting the entire process over until she grew too angry to continue, that she finally looked in the mirror and was pleasantly surprised by the results.

     The small bits of scarring on her face were almost entirely healed; they blended in nicely with her freckles. Mascara drew attention her eyes, making them look huge and liquid; her lipstick, bright red and flashy, looked sexy and alluring instead of cheap and tacky.

     July preened.

###

     One crisp day, when the leaves were orange and fell to the ground in slow, sunset-colored rain, July went out back to chop some firewood. The previous night was chilly and brisk, and while they sat out on the porch drinking tea in relative quiet, Lake had mentioned a fire might be nice.

     The backyard was bright and sunny, the sky a clear, crisp blue. July worked in silence, the crack of the axe the only sound in the midday chill.

     She must have spaced out; before she knew it, the entire pile of firewood was cut into appropriate sizes, and she felt sweaty and vaguely dissatisfied.

     Dishes, sweep the floors, then a shower. The rest of the day passed in a blink.

     When evening hit, July put on some mascara and a dark lipstick, wiggled into a long-sleeved sweater dress that hugged her curves close, and loaded the stereo with an album she particularly liked. She packed the fireplace with twigs and logs, sat on the couch, and waited for Lake to come home in silence, sipping her whiskey with a determined slowness.

     She managed to wait it out without falling asleep, that time. The front door opened and closed shortly after sundown; July immediately hit play on the album, folksy guitar chords spiraling softly through the air. She got to her feet, only a little dizzy, and said “Hey.”

     Lake stood in the doorway between the front hall and the living room, looking her up and down with a strange expression on his face. Finally, he said “That’s a nice dress.”

     “Thanks,” she said, “you chose it.”

     He snorted, tossing his messenger bag onto the floor as he walked in.

     “Have a drink,” July said, heart racing. She picked up the spare glass she’d set on the end table earlier and filled it with whiskey before handing it to him; Lake raised his eyebrows at this, but accepted the glass without comment. From somewhere in the house, July heard the distinct sound of a girlish giggle, which she ignored.

     They lit the fire—Lake giving her a massive, appreciative grin when she showed him how she’d set it up—and drank and chatted and laughed for a while, entirely as normal; Lake told her about his day at the construction site—she laughed and said “Did I really need to get you drunk for you to tell me where you work?”

     “You’ve never asked before,” Lake said, shockingly earnest. This made her laugh harder, which made him look all the more earnestly confused.

     Eventually, July’s chest felt warm and bright and her head felt soft and stupid, and she found herself whirling around the room, giggling breathlessly while Lake watched from the couch. She stopped mid-twirl, pointed at him, and said “You!”

     “Me,” Lake said agreeably.

     “You never dance with me,” she said, pouting cutely.

     “Ah.” Lake made another couple of noises in his throat, as if he was struggling with something. Then he said, “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

     “Oh, come on,” July said, overcome with giggles again, and she grabbed both of his hands with her own and hauled him to his feet, ignoring the sleepy darkness threatening the back of her mind.

     She attached herself to his chest, head tucked under his chin and hands gripping his waist, and listened to his heart skitter-beat as she moved against him. The song was slow and funky, a groovy love song that July liked to sway her hips to when she was alone, and she was drunk enough to feel entirely confident in doing so now. The melody blended nicely with the now-gentle, low crackles of the embers in the fireplace, the firewood having burnt down to ashes.

     Lake’s heartbeat sped up even further, pounding hummingbird-quick against her cheek as she swayed against him. July moved her hands to his and intertwined her fingers with his, leaning back slightly to look up at him with a come-hither grin. He looked down at her, red creeping over his pale cheeks and nose as he met her eyes, just as quickly looking away.

     “You’re drunk, honey,” he said, his drawl even softer than normal, slurred and heavy.

     “So are you,” she pointed out, extremely reasonably.

     “Exactly.” Lake stepped back. July stumbled as he shifted away from her weight, her head reeling from the sudden change. She looked up at him, a knot forming in her chest, but he avoided her eyes still, moving back to stand near the doorway. “Let’s get you to bed.”

     “But—” she said, but he was already walking up the stairs. She found herself faced with the choice of either following him or being left alone in the living room; frustration simmering in her gut and the knot in her chest growing more with every passing second, she submitted herself to the mortifying ordeal of following him up the stairs.

     When they reached her room, she tried one last time to throw her arms around his neck and curl up close to him, but he said “Bed,” firmly and drew her covers back with the arm not occupied with warding her off.

     July still felt stupid, but it wasn’t in a fun way anymore. As she crawled into bed, her world lazily rocking back-and-forth like she was on a boat, Lake pressed a soft, warm kiss to her forehead and said “Come get me if you need anything.”

     After he turned the lights out and left, July felt warm arms wrap around her waist and a small face snuggle into the crook of her neck.

     “See you soon,” June whispered.

###

     Wandering the city streets alone quickly grew boring, particularly once you learned which dark alleys to avoid—which ones were scrawled with bright red spray-paintings of doors that threatened to crack open at any minute, revealing one of the many things you were trying to avoid.

     Whenever Sage appeared, as rare as that was, you found it much more interesting. You showed her the outskirts of your city—and it was your city, not New York, although the distinction was unfortunately lost on you—as the river’s shores were much more interesting than the endless empty skyscrapers and bare streets in the heart of town. It became very obvious, very quickly, that she was not nearly as interested in your various hidey-holes as she was in you.

     Her attention clung, sharp and eagle-eyed, to your movements at every turn; you often caught her staring at you even when you weren’t moving at all, just lying on chilly concrete, or squatting beside her on the riverbank, or perched on a park bench staring at the bare branches of dead trees overhead.

     She always found you, not the other way around. Long stretches would come and go where you were entirely alone in your city; then she would show up, seemingly at random, and start clinging to you like a very large, brightly-colored shadow.

     One time, long after you’d established this unofficial routine, she didn’t even bother greeting you, just popped out of a nearby alleyway and said “Do you know where you are?”

     You stopped stock-still in the middle of the street; you’d been pacing idly, thinking of nothing in particular while you did not look at the clouds swirling over your head. Your brows slightly furrowed, you looked around at the empty streets spread out all around you, gesturing broadly with your arms out as you did a quick spin. “It’s New York, isn’t it?”

     Sage ambled over, hands in her pockets. That day, she was wearing a pair of velvet overalls, which in your mind defeated the point of wearing overalls, but you found this criticism difficult to voice as she was wearing nothing underneath. Her shapely shoulders were entirely on display, and this was enough to arrest every single scrap of mental energy you had and redirect it toward examining Sage's musculature. You were so preoccupied, you barely registered it when she followed up with, “I meant when you’re awake.”

     “Awake?” Your eyes skimmed the swell of her bicep.

     She huffed impatiently. “Aren’t you dreaming?”

     “I guess you are a dream,” you said, with an entirely inappropriate tone and emphasis. It was an incredibly stupid thing to say, and much more irritating than it was charming, but Sage seemed to be caught off-guard by it in a positive way—her chin dipped down and she giggled awkwardly, biting her lower lip. You found yourself wondering how you could provoke that response again.

     The two of you fell into lockstep, wordlessly strolling through the city together. You let yourself follow her, not paying attention to where she took you—it was all the same, anyway. Endless generic roads and empty shells of buildings; you had entered a few at random before, and were disappointed to learn they were all facade, just four walls like a set piece, not even a roof.

     Your desperate need to fill silence would be the death of you, one day. “I don’t know. I haven't asked. It’s warm where we are, though.”

     She made a noncommittal noise in reply; you, on the other hand, were becoming very aware of how close she was walking to you. Her body felt unnaturally warm, radiating heat through the mere couple of inches between your arms as you walked. You continued to talk, loud and brash and overly casual.

     “Lake doesn’t talk much. I guess the house was his mom’s, and she’s dead now, which he seems happy about.” You punctuated this information with an awkward little half-chuckle. “He used to talk more, but things have been changing. I sleep a lot, these days. He doesn’t look at me anymore.”

     “Why wouldn’t anyone want to look at you?” Sage sounded entirely, innocently sincere. It made your head light.

     “I thought it was the scars, but…” As you trailed off, she slowed to a stop; you were in a dead-end alleyway lined with empty dumpsters. She stood just in front of you, looking down at you with concern. Your brain struggled to continue operating as you met her eyes. “I’m a little crazy. I don’t think the meds are fixing me.”

     It was very difficult for you to admit that.

     Sage did not respond for a long time; as you waited in silence, the back of your neck started prickling, breaking out in cool drops of sweat. She worried her bottom lip with her front teeth, tapping her fingers against her thighs as she looked at you; your ears felt hot as you continued to sweat.

     Eventually, she said “May I give you a hug?”

     You did not mean to gasp, but you did, as if all the air was sucked from your lungs abruptly. She hastily stammered what sounded like the beginnings of an apology, but you cut her off with a rushed “No, no, please—” and an impotent half-raise of your arms. Tremors rattled your teeth as she bent down to wrap her arms around you, and you flung your own around her broad chest, briefly heedless of your own humiliation.

     Your skin burned where it came in contact with hers; the air returned to your lungs in one buoyant breath, filling you head-to-toe as you pressed your face into her chest. Her embrace was steady, warm and enveloping you entirely, one hand gently cupping your skull as you breathed her in.

     It was several long moments before your senses returned. Another hot flush of embarrassment hit you as you unstuck your cheek from the bare skin of her chest, tawny and shiny-slick with sweat that dampened the top hem of her overalls. Dizzy from the head-rush, you staggered back—then you caught sight of the dead end behind her and froze.

     It was odd to you, the way you could swing between emotional highs and lows in your dreams. It felt as though your dizzy head dropped straight through the floor, along with the rest of your guts.

     There was a door spray-painted in red at the end of the alleyway.

     “We need to go,” you said; Sage looked at you uncomprehendingly as you raised one shaking finger to point at the brick wall yards behind her. “We have to go, we can’t—we have to—“

     Your babbling was too little, too late. The door was already cracking open.

     Daggers of red-gold sunlight stabbed through cracks in the brickwork. Brief measures of birdsong stopped and started, piercing your ears in horrible sharp registers. You clenched your eyes shut, willing yourself to run, but your muscles didn’t respond to your pleading. Your feet were glued to the concrete below.

     The horrid light turned the insides of your eyelids bright glowing red; you moaned in distress and clapped your hands over your eyes, but it didn’t help, the light still stabbed through your skull, piercing your brain and pinning you to the dumpster behind you like a butterfly to an index card.

     And suddenly, it all stopped.

     You dropped your hands and cautiously opened your eyes one at a time. Sage was nowhere to be seen. The door was just a piece of graffiti, not even a door anymore, just a senseless red scribble.

     June stood in front of you, a ferocious expression on her face.

     “Quit running,” she snarled. She raised her hand, which held something long and shiny—a knife, a wicked thing with a carved wooden handle and a jagged edge to the blade.

     And then she was on you, pushing you up fully against the dumpster with her whole body, every inch of her skin pressed to yours. You could feel her pulse. Flesh and blood thrummed, warm and heavy against your body.

     Her hand fisted in your hair, pulling your head back to expose the tenderness of your neck; the other held the knife to your throat, its blade cool against your skin. Every one of your nerves sang. Your pulse thundered in unison with hers, twin heartbeats acting as one, pounding in your ears til it was all you could hear. Waves of feeling washed over your body—hot, giddy, incomprehensible feeling.

     “Just stop,” June breathed, almost a whisper. The knife pressed on the swell of your throat, stinging cruelly. Your heart skipped and stuttered. “Just stop, please, July… Stop running, stop hiding. I can help. You fucked it up, but I’m working on him, I can protect you… If you just let me, I can keep you safe here. I keep Nea safe, I can do it for you, too, I promise…”

     The knife’s edge slid across your throat, leaving you gasping in sudden pain. Wetness bubbled up, trickled down your neck and toward your collarbones. June moved, leaning further into you on her tip-toes; her hot lips pressed against your forehead and she whispered “Let your sister take care of it, okay?”

###

     On a brisk fall morning, late in the season, when the trees were nearly bare and just after the garden yielded a healthy crop of broccoli, July woke up with a stinging pain in her neck.

     She dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. Outside, sunlight was already streaming down, the hazy yellow orb already well into the midday sky. Images of her dead sister chased themselves in circles across the inside of her skull. She swallowed down a wave of nausea.

     July slumped over the bathroom sink. The sight of her reflection sent her spinning out of her body; her mind slid, abruptly and violently, three feet to the left of herself as she stared at the mirror.

     There was a thin, surface-level cut lengthwise across her throat.

###

     Fall turned into winter. July did not mention the cut to Lake. She wasn’t even sure if it was real; he never brought it up, and as the flickers in the edges of her vision increased and she began to hear June’s laughter from distant rooms more and more, she worried the Seroquel wasn’t working.

     She didn’t mention that to him, either.

     One evening, when the sky was pitch-black despite the digital readout on the oven claiming it was only 5 PM, July had just finished washing the dishes when she heard the door open and close. She dried her hands off on the scratchy yellow dish towel and wandered out into the front hall, where Lake was hanging his coat up, nose and cheeks flushed bright red and ridiculously long hair tangled and standing up every which way.

     “You have hat hair,” she told him, smirking.

     “I know,” he said, voice scratchy with irritation. He briskly rubbed his hands together, warming them, and followed up with “Got any solutions?”

     “Haircut?” she offered.

     “Yeah, let me know when you figure out where to get one of those,” he said, brushing past her into the kitchen. July trailed after him. He opened the fridge, leaning the whole awkward length of him down to root around in it; his voice rose, slightly muffled, from inside. “I don’t trust anyone local with my hair, they’ll make me look like a heterosexual.”

     July laughed. “I could try.”

     “Yeah?” He popped back out of the fridge bearing their half-empty carton of orange juice, which he began chugging straight from the carton while eyeing her thoughtfully.

     “Sure, why not?”

     That was how July found herself bent over Lake’s head in the bathroom as he perched on the edge of the tub, shoulders hunched over awkwardly. She wielded a dull pair of office scissors in one hand and a comb in the other, and as she began clumsily snipping at locks of hair, drawing them through the fine teeth of the comb, watching them straighten and snap back to loose curls once free of its grasp, she realized she had no idea what she was doing.

     “Sorry if it looks like shit,” she said. Lake shrugged wordlessly.

     His hair was thick and fluffy, seemingly endless in its soft layers. July parted it in the middle and began carefully combing through it, finding the edges where strands frayed and parted and closing the scissors over them at a slant. Their blunt blades snicked satisfyingly as she worked; dark tufts drifted down to sit on the bottom of the bathtub.

     “Do you celebrate Christmas?” Lake said abruptly.

     It was a weird conversation topic, but July could work with it. “No,” she said. “I mean, people in the Resistance were big on it, but… I’ve never been a very big Aragorn fan, if you know what I mean.”

     Lake chuckled. His shoulders shook as he laughed; July politely waited for him to be done before she brought the blades back within reach of his neck. “Hannukah, then?”

     “Not really. Mom said it was too nationalist for her.” There was a mole on the shell of Lake’s left ear that she’d never seen before. “We lit candles in the bookstore window, but that’s about it.”

     He made a low noise of acknowledgment. July took her time with the hair around his ears—their thin, pale skin felt delicate.

     After a few moments of careful concentration, she said “Why?”

     “Christmas is next week,” he said. “Figured if you wanted to do anything, I should pick up supplies, like… tomorrow.”

     It was July’s term to hum wordlessly. This started her thinking—she hadn’t considered celebrating holidays in a long time, winter or otherwise. “I… don’t know how I’d figure out when Hannukah is this year, actually. It’s probably already happened.” Through the flat, gray fog that dominated her emotional landscape, July felt a small pit form in her chest.

     “I’m—” Lake started to say something, but suddenly, the muscles in July’s scissors-bearing arm jerked and spasmed. She hissed in a sharp breath through her teeth as her fingers contracted and the scissors clattered to the floor, rattling loudly against the porcelain. She stumbled—Lake turned around, face full of concern.

     “I’m fine,” she managed through gritted teeth, rubbing the clenched muscles in firm, tight circles with her opposite hand. “It happens.”

     He continued to hover over her, but she pointedly ignored his silent offers of help.

     His hair looked a little goofy, but at least it wasn’t any messier than before she cut it. It fell around his cheekbones now, stopping short at his chin. No more locks creeping down the back of his neck or curling around his shoulders.

     Lake, when it became obvious she wouldn’t accept any mother-henning from him, went to look at himself in the mirror. He ruffled his hair, turning his head every which way, the planes and angles of his gaunt face shifting under the dull yellow light.

     “Looks good,” he finally said.

     She barked a laugh, short and sarcastic. Rubbing the tension out of her arm was starting to work, but only barely, and it still hurt. “Don’t baby me.”

     “I mean it,” he said. “You did good.”

###

     It had been an awfully long time since you were in the garden. Lying with your face pressed into the warm, damp earth, nose filled with the dark smell of rich soil mixed with the saccharine smell of roses, you felt rather nostalgic.

     It took you a while, but you eventually picked yourself up and sat upright, brushing layers of earth off your nightgown.

     The garden was, of course, ever-unchanging. It still shone with brilliant golden light, still sang with trilling birdsong, still hung heavy with humidity. The roses still draped wetly from their bushes, the bird bath still stood calmly by the stone bench, and June still sat nearby, playing with something in her lap.

     She looked up at you as you rose, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. The thing in her lap was the knife she’d cut you with, you realized. “Morning.”

     You didn’t respond, looking around for an exit. Last time you were there, you climbed the walls to get out, and you considered doing so again.

     “Don’t bother trying to leave,” June said. Her voice was oddly warm. “You can wander around all you want when we get you here for real, just… be patient for now, okay?”

###

     Winter seemed unseasonably warm. It didn’t snow. July realized, in a distant and vague way, that she missed the snow.

     It didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though she’d been able to see it much back in New York, either—she’d been stuck underground all the time.

     As July worked in the backyard, pinning damp laundry to a clothesline hung between bare magnolia trees in the brisk winter air, she carefully approached this line of thought. It had been a long time since she’d let herself consider her time in the Resistance in too much detail. In her current state, it didn’t bother her very much—there was a little twinge in her chest when she thought about C—about her former friends, but it was just that, a twinge. A little shock of pain, and then it was gone.

     July finished pinning a pair of lacy panties to the line and paused to take a sip of her whiskey, which she’d set on the wood of a nearby garden bed while she worked. The warmth in her gut felt pleasant in the chilly midday air; as she stood back up, the weight of her dog tags hit the center of her sternum, an insistent, gentle pressure.

     They'd been lying on her vanity for months, ever since that day she and Lake shot a deer. Every time she looked at them, she'd hastily let her gaze skim over them without thinking about it—she didn't even dust that vanity anymore. For some reason she couldn't even articulate to herself, she'd put them on that morning. It felt like the right thing to do.

     Maybe, she thought idly, staring at the strung-up parade of underwear, maybe everything was better off this way. It wasn’t hard to get used to the dull, easy flatness of daily living. She’d thought it was the meds at first, but maybe that was just what normal life was like. No adrenaline rushes, no desperate yearning, no rush of feeling in her gut—but also no life-or-death, no pistol whippings, no shootouts with Dusties, no barked orders or broken bones. No frantically wiping herself down with baby wipes in the shared restroom in lieu of showering.

     She tilted her head back and let the rest of the whiskey pour down her throat. Pleased at how her thoughts blurred around the edges, July returned to her laundry, humming a track from one of her favorite albums as she did.

     Time stretched into an indistinct haze as she worked. Her head continued to fill with fuzz. She was content to let it.

     Something rustled in the distance; July didn’t bother paying attention to it. Not at first, at least.

     The rustling built, though, and suddenly, something in her brain clicked and she registered… footsteps.

     Not Lake. Multiple sets of footsteps.

     July spun around, looking around the yard, and her head spun with her. The sky reeled dizzily over her head.

     Black-clad figures spilled out from around the corners of the house—gangly, skinny figures, with shiny, mirrored helmets perched on their shoulders. Icy fear stabbed through July’s gut, cutting cruelly through her haze.

     Someone yelled to put her hands up, but she was already running toward the back door, stumbling gracelessly over the cold dirt.

     She tripped and sprawled onto the back steps, her jaw banging off the edge of the porch and clattering her teeth together—it resonated through her skull painfully, violently, shaking her brain in its cradle. Her tags were squashed between her chest and the porch steps, stabbing into her flesh through the thin barrier of her shirt. The only thing she could think was that there was a gun in the basement. Their hunting rifles were in the basement.

     Her fingernails scrabbled at the wood of the porch, scraping over its splintered surface; she tried fruitlessly to drag herself up, to fight the sick, paralyzing terror creeping through her limbs. If she could get her gun—

     Someone grabbed her by the back of her shirt and dragged her mercilessly away. They tossed her to the ground; her head banged off the edge of a garden bed and she groaned, trying to roll herself over—something heavy and hard hit her in the stomach and she gasped, clutching her gut as she instinctively curled in on herself, struggling to sip tiny little breaths of air.

     Through the spinning, roiling fog, through the tears hazing her vision and the confused frenzy of movements, July made out a figure hovering over her. It placed two long, double-jointed fingers to the side of her neck, its skin cool and rough against her frantic pulse. It wasn’t wearing a helmet—it had a long, bright red crest that bristled as it looked at July, and its eyes were huge, bright green with massively dilated pupils.

     It looked away and said something she didn’t understand. July trembled and shook, fighting back dry-heaves. There was more movement; the Dusty was saying something to one of its helmeted comrades, then she felt a sharp pinch at her arm.

     Blackness tugged at July’s head and crept over her vision. She tried, one last time, to drag herself upright, swaying back and forth, but then something hit the side of her face, hard and fast and sharp, and she tumbled back to the ground.

     As she slid into unconsciousness, she heard June’s excited squeal somewhere in the distance.

     “Welcome home!”

END OF INTERMISSION ONE