All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders Page 0,78
was swept back, and her face had a beaconlike quality to it that went along with the intentness of her gaze.
Laurence had a moment of counting up how many of his secrets Patricia knew, and feeling good about it. He felt a weird sense of pride that he had found someone he trusted so much. Like he’d chosen well, even if it was mostly by accident.
He walked her home, fighting the urge to embrace her randomly. She was laughing and shaking her head. “God, it was iffy for a few moments there,” she said. “Your friend got pretty lost. Plus it’s a miracle she didn’t get squashed by the weird gravitational effects of the space she was in.”
“I wonder how many other things in our world are just the shadows of things in other places,” Laurence said, forming the thought as he spoke. “I mean, we always suspected that gravity was so weak in our world because most of it was in another dimension. But what else? Light? Time? Some of our emotions? I mean, the longer I live, the more I feel like the stuff I see and feel is like a tracing of the outline of the real stuff that’s beyond our perceptions.”
“Like Plato’s cave,” Patricia said.
“Like Plato’s cave,” Laurence agreed.
“I don’t know,” Patricia said. “I mean, we’re grown-ups now. Allegedly. And we feel things less than we did when we were kids, because we’ve grown so much scar tissue, or our senses have dulled. I think it’s probably healthy. I mean, little kids don’t have to make decisions, unless something’s very wrong. Maybe you can’t make up your mind as easily, if you feel too much. You know?”
But in fact, Laurence was feeling sensations and emotions more vividly than he had since he was little. The streetlights and car headlights and neon signs were blazing with life, and he felt his heart expand and contract, and he could smell charcoal burning someplace nearby. He turned to look into Patricia’s bright, sad smile.
“Patricia,” he said. “I really really appreciate your help. And more than that, I am so damn glad to know you. I’m so sorry I ran out on you when you talked to your cat, when we were kids. I will never run out on you again. That’s a promise I’m giving you, free and clear. I’m probably not supposed to make promises to someone like you, either, right? But I don’t care. Thank you for being my friend.”
“You’re welcome,” Patricia said. They had reached her front door. “Same to you. All of it. I’m super-lucky to have you as a friend too. And I’ll never run out on you, either.”
They stood at her door. At some point, their hands had started touching. And they just stood there, looking at each other, hands in hands.
Patricia’s smile turned sadder, as if she knew something that Laurence hadn’t figured out yet. “Don’t forget the thing you owe me,” she said. “Or it’ll be very bad. I’m sorry.” Then she went inside her house and the door slammed shut.
Laurence was still jangling with a mixture of tipsiness, relief, and emotional gushiness, the whole way home. But he was also feeling a smidge uneasy about the “smallest thing” thing. No big deal, most likely, but Patricia had seemed kind of intense about it. Laurence actually clicked his heels together as he crossed the street in big, hungry strides. He had never done Ecstasy or any kind of mood elevator, but he sort of imagined this is how they would feel.
When he got home, he crashed. The elation wore off so fast, he had to sit down. He was so drained, he felt like he was going to pass out if he didn’t get to sleep right away. And then he thought about the “smallest thing” that he had to give to Patricia. He could look for it in the morning, or in a couple days, or whatever. She hadn’t specified a time limit, or anything … he probably had a few days to find it.
But then Laurence started wondering what it could be and how he was supposed to know. Was it the smallest by volume? By weight? Or just overall size? He owned some pieces of lint that were beyond tiny, but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t count. To be fair, he had to pick something he owned, which meant something that had at least a nominal resale value. You don’t own something you couldn’t sell, right?