Didn’t matter. I gave her my back and started the car’s descent, though she was still visible in the reflection of the glass in front of me. But I couldn’t hear her with the closed door between us, and soon I wouldn’t be able to see her either.
So fucking stupid.
I shook my head at myself, exhaling slowly, lead in my chest, but relieved to have made it through this initial encounter without making an idiot of myself. Biting the inside of my lower lip, I stared at the snow beyond her reflection until she disappeared, feeling and welcoming the cold.
I’d caught Mona DaVinci’s testimony to Congress a few months ago. She’d been as eloquent as she’d been brutally brilliant, passing off cutting remarks as polite responses. Strangely, after watching her make fools of the most powerful people in the country, I felt like I’d also been torn to shreds. She was magnificent. She’d also been completely without emotion.
Still, even then, I doubted. I bargained with myself, I reasoned against the likelihood of such a scheme. Who would do that? And how dumb would I have to be to fall for it? Between the two possibilities of crazy or stupid, crazy seemed like the lesser of two evils. In pictures, Lisa looked like my Lisa. Yet, so did Mona.
But then, during an interview on the news several days after the testimony—I’ll never forget—Mona said, “I disagree. Senator Nevelson’s question was irrelevant and lacked a fundamental understanding of the scientific method, and then the wolves came.”
And then the wolves came.
Sometimes reality feels like a dream. Something happens, and it makes you question everything you know to be true, everything you take for granted about the world, about yourself. When that happens, your surroundings and interactions become likewise warped, like you’re watching those around you through a magnifying glass, or in high saturation color, and you can’t stop. You can’t make the world normal again, you know too much.
I’d spent two years doubting my sanity. Instead, I should have been doubting the fundamental goodness of people, my willingness to trust, and my intelligence.
And. Then. The. Wolves. Came.
So. Fucking. Stupid.
I stopped lying to myself, wishing for a different explanation, wishing my Lisa would somehow reappear and miraculously want to be with me. I stopped assuming people had good intentions. I stopped looking for the good. I stopped assuming the best, of anyone.
In that moment, I knew without a shadow of a doubt what they’d done. Nothing about that week had been real. Everything had been a lie.
But shame on me.
I should’ve listened to her the first time she told me to hold a grudge.
4
Electromagnetic Induction
*Abram*
Melvin reminded me of my uncle. They both gossiped. A lot.
No complaints. Melvin’s gossip served as a welcome distraction, as was the biting cold. It’s hard to remain focused on being pissed when your appendages are freezing.