Emergency Contact(86)

“Fine,” she replied. “Tell me more.”

“You want to know the most psychotic part of it?”

She nodded.

“Part of me was so happy she’d be stuck with me.”

“Ew,” said Jude. “Like you’d trapped her?”

It was so ugly when it was worded that way.

“I was out of my mind trying to figure out a way to get it under control. I had this panic attack and I thought it was a heart attack. It was insane and scary and I had no one to talk to. That’s actually how Penny and I became friends,” he said. “Right in the middle of when I thought I was dying, she found me on Sixth Street and took me to the emergency room. You should’ve seen her. She was so mad at me because she was terrified. She kept reciting these statistics on coronaries and feeding me nuts and making me drink her horchata.”

Jude snorted. “Sounds about right.”

“I thought that by not telling anyone else, it would make it less real, you know?” he said. “She was my anxiety sponsor, my emergency contact, and it was perfect. The only reason she didn’t tell you is because I told her not to. I didn’t want you to know about any of this. I didn’t want anybody to know.”

“I would’ve made a pretty good anxiety sponsor,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to blow me off so many times.”

“You’re right,” he told her. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You know, I’m going through things too. Believe it or not, I’m not normally this needy. My parents splitting up is a big deal to me. I know you’re not a huge fan of my family, but it hurts my feelings that both of you basically pretended not to hear me when I needed to talk.” Sam watched his niece’s eyes water. Jude seemed so happy and capable that he hadn’t considered she might need anything.

Sam wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re right,” he said again. “I did a shitty job of hearing you.”

Jude sniffed. “I need people on my side too, you know.”

“Of course you do.”

They sat.

Sam thought back to Jude as a buck-toothed kid. It was a miracle she’d turned out so sweet given her upbringing.

“God, I wish Penny were here,” she said. “I need a tissue.”

They laughed. Sam wished she were there too. He had no idea what the hell he’d say to her.

Jude leaned over and jabbed him in the ribs. “I know you’re a real person or whatever, but, Sam,” she said, “you’re not that old. You’re basically a kid too. You’ve got your best screwing-up years ahead of you.” She nudged him with her leg. “So everything’s okay with Lola?”

“Lola’s swell.”

“And what about Penny who’s in love you?”

Sam laughed. “I don’t know that it’s a thing,” he said. “Me and Penny, we’re friends. Good friends. I put her through so much already, between talking her ear off about me and Lorraine. She knows everything about me, even the terrible stuff, and I don’t know . . .”

Sam thought about the kiss.

Penny’s pink, coaxing mouth was insane in real life. Out of the metal box. In meatspace on Planet Earth. Her lips were so full that it was as if they were smushed under glass. And her skin. And how she’d looked as she’d appeared to realize how incorrect it all was and sprinted from his room. He felt a tightening in his chest.

“Nobody knows anything,” said Jude. “But you know how Penny’s from a different planet?”

Sam nodded.

“So if you like that one, where the hell else are you going to find another one?”





PENNY.


As far as Penny was concerned she deserved an award for making it to any of her courses. She sat in J.A.’s class in a daze. If she hadn’t sent in new pages yesterday, she would have ditched.

This was it. It was time. And I was ready. Tonight would bring the culling, the beginning of the Forfeiture, when I would refuse to lay down my life. In preparation I’d convinced Mother to stay here with me. Four days. It was her longest stay yet and I could feel the quickening. I was becoming more powerful the more tired she became. Our interlacing was complete, yet she worried about me, my behavior, why it seemed that I, her Anima, had turned on her during a time when we should feel closest. When she departed for the un-here, I was confident she’d be back. By now I could move around in the game of my own accord. I didn’t have to wait for her or heed her.

Animas never misbehaved. There was trickery, yes, rather an impish naughtiness at times, but an outright revolt didn’t exist in the gameplay. Until I made it exist. Mother became increasingly devoted to me the more unpredictably I behaved. On the morning of the Forfeiture she was agitated. Distracted. Almost incoherent. She spoke of other responsibilities and of duty. Mere hours before we would depart for Soludos, embarking on the lair of dragons, she left again. Again she promised she’d return. And again I followed her into the light and voices. It was mayhem. I heard sobbing. An animalistic howl. Mother was crying. There was another baby. An Anima in the “un-here” they called Love. And Love was dead.


“Finally,” said J.A., tapping the printouts with her pen. She rose from her seat in her tiny office, applauding slowly and dramatically in a golf clap. “We’ve arrived at the first person. I was wondering when you’d start telling the story from inside the Anima.”