Club Mutant

Four out of five readers preferred a good night's sleep.

2007-10-29T23:01:00.001-07:00

When is a story worth telling?

When it's you that's lived it? That can't be enough. That's inviting the whole world to become nothing but babble.

It's so hard to put words together into any shape worth the trouble.

I want this to be more than I-did-this. I-lived-that. I-was-here.

I want it to be a story worth hearing.

If it's really bleeding, will we feel it down here?

2007-08-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

"You should see this," Dog said.

He came over yesterday to lure me and Cam out to see an eclipse of the moon that night. Cam looked interested, if a little dubious.

"Isn't that at two-thirty in the morning or something?"

"Past your bedtime?" Dog asked.

"Some of us have to get up in the morning," Cam said.

Dog looked at me. I was in my usual spot -- wrapped up in everything I could find in the middle of the bed. I had on the jacket Dog left the last time he was here, and he smiled just a little when he saw it.

"It's really worth seeing," he said to me.

I shook my head. I've seen eclipses before.

"This isn't just any eclipse," Dog coaxed, as if I'd said it. "This one's going to be blood red. It'll be like having Mars up close and personal."

"I'm up for it if you are," Cam said to me. He looked at the jacket I was wearing as if he hadn't seen it before, and glanced at Dog. But he just added, "It's not like we have to travel or anything."

I don't think so, I said.

Cam looked at me again, surprised, and I felt vaguely guilty. I haven't been talking; I haven't been able to. But somehow Dog coming over like this, asking us to go out not to see a new group or a club but the night sky loosened me up. It made me feel like I was ten years old again, a bad girl sneaking out of my room in the middle of the night with that book about the stars someone gave me.

I didn't know what anything was about back then. I didn't know I was a catastrophe. I was just my family's child. Waiting until my parents were asleep, hiding in the dark under a sycamore tree too skinny to give me shelter by day, looking at my star book by the glow of a tiny flashlight I bought at the drug store for a couple of dollars, was the worst I could be accused of at that point.

It felt bad enough. It felt great. I was easy to please in the bad girl department. And they must have had even lower expectations, since they never caught me. One summer I went out almost every night, and still they never caught on.

I'd painted the lens of the flashlight pink with my mother's nail polish. The book said that a white flashlight was too glaring. You had to color it pink. They even suggested nail polish, and it wasn’t like I ever used that kind of thing. So I'd waited until my mother went to the store, and I'd used her really good polish -- the stuff she saved for weddings and funerals. Another betrayal of my parents' trust by their dastardly daughter.

"All we have to do is go outside," Dog said. "Nice of it to fall in the middle of the week like this. No crowds. All the losers with jobs will be asleep."

"Thanks," Cam said.

"Almost all of them."

"Again, much appreciated."

Dog looked at me expectantly. I shook my head again, but he didn't back off.

"You could use the air," he said.

Cold air. No, thanks.

"We'll bundle up. Bring a flask."

I don't drink, dummy.

"Maybe you should start."

Cam looked like he didn't know whose side he was on. "Fine," Dog said. "We'll bring cocoa."

"Look, if she doesn't want to -- " Cam began.

"Your government needs you," Dog talked right over him.

I gave him the look that deserved, and he smiled sardonically. "It's true," he said. "NASA wants the volunteer nerd squad looking for meteors hitting the moon. It's the kind of thing you can only spot during an eclipse."

Now Cam looked skeptical, too. "Since when are you an astronomy geek?"

Dog shrugged. "What can I say? When the universe starts acting up, I like to watch."

He smiled at me like we were alone in the room. "A blood red moon," he said. "When are you going to see that again?"

Verdict: The Angel in the House needs a party

2007-08-24T20:54:00.001-07:00

Dog came to see me today. He just came over. Cam wasn't even home. I guess he has a key. That's all right if it's only him. I don't think Cam would give one to anyone else anyway.

"Hey," he said. I like the way his voice rumbles just a little, even when he's speaking softly.

I nodded.

"I hear you've been holed up pretty tight back here," he said. "Thought you might like some company."

I smiled a little and nodded again.

He sat down at the foot of the bed. I was kind of wrapped up in the middle. I had taken everything off but the fitted sheet and just kind of fluffed it all around me. It was like a nest.

He looked at me. Dog doesn't ever seem like he's staring, even though he tends to keep a pretty long steady gaze on whoever he's with. Staring is uncomfortable. Dog's just paying attention.

"Not feeling too chatty," he said rather than asked.

I looked away.

"Cam's worried about you," he said.

I fiddled with the threadbare edge of a blanket and tried to imagine what Dog does all day. He doesn't seem like someone who has ordinary days.

He sat back and watched me for a while. I waited a bit, but Dog was obviously comfortable where he was. He wasn't going anywhere, and he'd already done the talking he was going to do for the moment.

I picked up the little notebook Cam got for me, and the pen I keep latched on to it. I don't want him to worry, I wrote.

Dog looked over at what I'd written. He cocked an eyebrow at me. "What's with the new medium?"

I can't exactly remember how to talk just now, I wrote.

Dog is about the only person in the world who could take a statement like that and just accept it for what it was: the truth. "That why you shut yourself up in here?" he asked.

I don't know, I wrote.

My hands started to shake. I put the pen and paper down quickly, but he noticed.

"Hey," he said. He got up and shrugged out of the jacket he was wearing and wrapped it around me. More of a shirt than a jacket. Heavy black corduroy. It felt warm from him.

"Come on," he said. He was still kind of holding it around me. Then he touched my face and I wondered why his fingers felt wet.

"You're in a bad way," he said.

I hate it when I don't know I'm crying. It's supposed to be about feeling bad enough to do it, and for me it doesn't seem to have anything to do with me. Like my hands shaking. I can sit and watch them and not feel a thing.

They took my body away when all that happened. It doesn't feel like mine any more.

"Okay," Dog said. His hands were on my shoulders. I could feel that, anyway. Dog knows how to make himself felt when he wants to be.

"We need to get you out of here," he said.

I shook my head. I knew he wanted to help, but out really wasn't what I was looking for.

Even when I lived with my parents, I liked my room best. The worse things got at home, the more I clung to it. Which doesn't make any sense, unless I was thinking maybe if things did get any better, I didn't want to miss it. But I just wanted to be where I felt safe.

Now that I have somewhere I really am safe, you couldn't knock me out of here with a cannon.

Cam's fine with that; I'm fine with it. Dog would just have to deal.

I didn't think I was saying anything, but maybe something came across. "Hey," he said. "I mean it. This isn't good for you, burying yourself alive back here. You're in need of a just plain good time."

I don't even know what that would be, I blurted out, and he smiled.

"Guess we'd better find out," he said.

Counting crows

2007-08-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

From where I'm sitting, I can see outside a bit, though no one could see in. The curtain isn't open, but one bit of it slipped to one side in kind of a fold.

Some birds are going crazy out there. Crows.

I read somewhere that crows are very intelligent, they can talk to each other. If you listen, they don't all sound alike at all. Even the same bird can sound completely different, depending on the situation.

They really do have different word-calls.

I think I could know what they were saying if I listened in just the right way, but it's kind of nice not to know.

For some reason, it used to really bother me that once I'd learned to read -- and I don't remember ever not knowing how -- I could never see words in print as just the lines and shapes they are. They would always tell me what they were saying before I had time to think about it.

I wanted to be able to choose to read or not to read. But it wasn't up to me any more.

I like looking at words in a language I don't know. They don't tell me anything. I have to go find out about them, or ask.

At least I can keep my eyes shut. Then all the books in the world could be around me and they wouldn't say a thing.

It must be terrible not to be able to shut things out.

I knew some people like that.

People who couldn't stop hearing.

It's terrible to hear things other people can't.

I like listening to the crows and not knowing what they're shouting to one another. Their voices carry. Anyone could hear them. Lots of people probably do right now.

I'm not any different from anyone else.

Warning: patient's parents may experience vast relief

2007-08-19T11:17:00.001-07:00

My mother sobbed and hitched about it. My father was more serious and silent even then before. They were both so terribly upset by what I'd done.

And so relieved.

So glad when I did something normal like "acting out," as they called it. That's the kind of thing teenagers do all the time. So ordinary.

And so sad, of course. If you're a perfectly normal middle-class couple who've always tried to be good parents -- gone to PTA meetings, baked cookies, lived in a good neighborhood -- then you get a year's free membership to the sympathy club (renewable annually) when your kid flips out and shatters all the breakables in your bedroom and threatens to do a lot worse than that.

Especially when you respond by getting her the help she needs. Get some really good doctors, and the hell with the expense. Put her somewhere where she can't hurt herself or anyone else.

They visited me for a while, until I made it really clear that it didn't matter how many drugs they pumped into me -- I was going to scream about what liars they were until they either admitted I was right or cleared out. And the way I screamed, I could make it hurt.

Not that they ever said that was the reason they stopped coming. They would go through any amount of pain for me, their only child. (And not that they would admit that there was any pain involved in getting near me when I didn't want them to, since that might get a little too close to the truth. Psycho-child was acceptable in their reasonably enlightened and liberal circle of friends; psychic was something else.)

No, they got a doctor to agree that their presence might be having a painfully agitating impact on me.

Which is the polite way of dumping your kid at the loony bin and going back to your normal lives.

Three roses, locked away

2007-08-15T23:56:00.000-07:00

I went into my parents' bedroom. My mother was on the phone downstairs, and there was one up here next to their bed.

I waited until I could hear my mother talking before I picked up. I wanted her to be concentrating on what she was saying, rather than listening to what was coming from the other end.

Just to throw her further off the scent, I tossed a little ambient noise her way. A tree branch snapping. The distant sound of a car. A phoebe singing just outside her window.

I was thinking too much about that to hear what she was saying for a minute. Then she stopped talking and my father started.

For a minute, I thought I'd made a mistake about who she was calling. His voice sounded so different. I thought it must be because I didn't usually hear it over the phone.

But it wasn't the sound quality. It was the tone, the whole feel of it.

I realized that he hadn't been using his real voice around me for so long that I didn't know it when I heard it.

"Christ, I don't know," he said, and it was nothing like his usual hail-fellow-well-met tones. "I just don't know if I can ignore this."

"Excuse me?" My mother's voice ranging high with disbelief and anger. "Did I ask you to ignore anything?"

"I mean, I don't know if I can just dismiss what he's saying if -- "

"Our daughter," my mother said, enunciating icily, "is not a freak."

I dropped the phone as if it had just started bleeding.

I didn't know why that was the worst thing she could have said.

It should be good news, right?

I mean, wouldn't it have been pretty horrible if she'd called my father and said just the opposite? "Our daughter is a -- "

A voice outside the door.

I heard my name.

"Are you in there?"

She couldn't get in. I hadn't noticed I'd pushed the little lock on their door. Theirs was the only door in this house that had a lock, other than the front.

Why was that?

The doorknob rattled.

"Open this door!"

Go away.

Quiet for a moment. Hesitation.

"Look, I know you're in there -- "

Nobody in here but us freaks.

"Let me in!"

You don't want to come in here. You just want me out.

I looked around. My mother's room.

I think it's always that way. One room can never belong to two people. It can't look like both of them, anyway. It should have been both of theirs, but really it was hers. He was an afterthought in here.

The mirror on one wall -- large, and shaped like a harp. The small tables at either side of the bed, and the delicate writing desk near the window. She used to watch for me to come home from school, sitting in that chair like wooden lace.

Three roses on the desk: china, crystal, brass. Buds, not blossoms.

I threw the first two at the mirror to see which would break.

The glass held up pretty well. One rose smashed; the other disintegrated.

"Stop it! What are you doing? Damn it, let me in!"

I told you, nobody's in here.

"Stop saying that!"

I picked up the brass rose. It was heavier than I expected.

My mother never let me touch any of these.

I'm not saying anything. My lips aren't moving. Just ask the doctor.

I waited.

If she'd wept, I'd have wept, too, and at least we'd be together. If she'd screamed, I'd have opened the door just to make her stop. Anything to make that stop.

She was quiet.

And then, "Show me," she said in a quieter voice. Negotiating. "Let's talk about this. Open the door so I can see what you mean."

Treating me like I was crazy.

She wanted me to be crazy.

Anything but that other thing.

You only see what you want to see, so what's the point?

"We need to talk about this, sweetheart."

She hadn't called me that since I was seven. The time I was drowning. Damaged, maybe, beyond repair.

I CAN'T TALK!

And just not to have to hear her answer to that, I threw the brass rose at the mirror.

It shattered the glass quite nicely, splintering it right down the middle.

The drowning girl is thrown overboard

2007-08-08T22:01:00.001-07:00

My mother drove us home from the doctor's office, coldly furious. "All these years," she said. "Here I thought we had a competent medical practitioner, and he turns out to be some -- some ideological crank.

"Where the hell did he get his medical degree, anyway?" she asked no one in particular. "Doctors 'R' Us?"

"UCLA," I said, but she didn't notice because she didn't want to know.

"Go upstairs," she said the second we got in the door. Not looking at me, walking away from me.

She didn't drink often, but I knew she was going to get something now. A glass of wine, at least. Didn't take any superpowers to figure that one out.

I was angry. What if I'd wanted something to drink, or eat? We'd been there a long time. It was almost dinnertime and I hadn't eaten since lunch, and not much of that because I'd been too clenched up about this appointment.

But I didn't say anything. I knew it wasn't any use.

I went up to my room, but didn't shut the door all the way. I sat on my bed and picked up a pillow just to have something to dig my fingers into.

The doctor believed me.

My mother didn't believe the doctor.

If he'd said what she wanted to hear -- that there was nothing going on, it was all a silly dream, nope, no mutants here -- then she'd have believed him. She wouldn't have called it belief, even. She would have called it facts. She'd have said that it wasn't just her opinion; she had scientific backup here. This guy was a doctor. A man of science. He had a degree. He had logic and evidence and facts.

Which was all exactly what she wanted, right up until they added up to something that she'd already decided wasn't true.

I lifted my head. Her voice, downstairs. She was on the phone.

Calling my father, probably. Telling him what a quack we'd been relying on all these years.

When I was little and my left lung collapsed and I thought I'd never be able to breathe again, that doctor was the one who helped me. I hadn't always enjoyed his attitude today, but at that early time there was something vastly reassuring about his looking and sounding so composed and slightly amused at any fuss about something that, after all, wasn't anything to be frightened of. I just needed a little repair job, and he'd be happy to give it to me. And I'd stopped being frightened even while I still felt like I was drowning on dry land.

I put the pillow down, wiggled my fingers to get some life back in them, and quietly pushed the door open. My mother's voice got a little more audible, still too far for me to make out words.

They thought I was listening in on them even when they weren't talking.

Might as well do a little old-fashioned eavesdropping.

We become what we're accused of.

A dragon doesn't care whose lamp he shatters

2007-08-06T22:54:00.001-07:00

"She gets headaches," my mother said.

I went ahead and let her talk for me. It had been so long since I'd spoken the old-fashioned lips-and-voice way, I wasn't sure I knew how anymore. And I was nervous now about talking the other way in front of her.

The doctor looked politely concerned. "I think they may be migraines," my mother added.

The doctor looked at me. "Is there anything in particular that seems to trigger them?" he said. To me, not her.

"She spends too much time shut up alone up in her room," my mother said. "Reading. I think maybe the combination of no fresh air and too much studying -- "

"Yes, I see," the doctor said. "I wonder if I might talk to your daughter alone for a minute."

It wasn't a question. My mother looked alarmed and slightly insulted. One glance at her face and then I kept my gaze nailed to the floor. This wasn't my idea; she had to know that.

"We won't be long," the doctor added, and my mother turned on her heel and stalked out.

I hadn't realized how hard I'd been hunching my shoulders until she was gone and they relaxed, like letting out a breath. The doctor didn't say anything, but I could see him biting back a smile.

"Anything you'd care to tell me?" he asked.

I'd known him for years. Never thought about him much one way or another. He was a nice doctor, he wasn't scary, and he always apologized when he had to give me a shot or prescribe some medicine. But he wasn't anyone I considered a big part of my life. Once we saw him at the supermarket, and it wasn't until my mother said hello to him that I knew who he was. I'd never even bothered to look all that closely at his face.

I did now, and I knew I could talk to him. Even if he noticed what kind of talking I did these days. (How long had it been? Had I ever known how to really talk? I must have. My parents had videos of me when I was little, and my voice was in them.)

It hurts my head when I don't talk, I said, watching him carefully.

He seemed fine with it. Either didn't notice anything amiss, or didn't care. "Can you tell me more about that?"

My parents are -- I stopped, trying to think of how to say it. They don't like the way I am. The way they think I might be. They're afraid I'm --

I broke off again, hoping he'd interrupt and make this easier for me. He was listening very seriously, but he wasn't going to help me. Not like that.

I don't talk like other people, I said. I talk with my head. And it scares them. They don't want me to be like that. One of -- you know. That kind of --

"A mutant," the doctor said, and I jumped a little. I hadn't used that word even to myself.

I guess.

"There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "It's a simple scientific fact."

They don't feel comfortable around me anymore.

Every door and keyhole in our house was one I could be listening at, no matter where I was. They thought.

"Is that why you haven't been talking?"

I nodded. And then I get these headaches. It feels like pressure. Like something's trying to get out.

"That's probably stress," he said. "I don't think that keeping your thoughts to yourself is doing you any physical harm, if that's what's worrying you."

I didn't like the slightly amused tone under the I'm The Doctor voice, but still it felt so good to be saying any of this. Scary as hell, but better than anything had in a while.

"Have you and your parents talked about this?"

I shook my head. It was just like that old saying about the elephant in the living room that everyone pretends isn't there. Except this was more like a dragon they were afraid to wake up.

We all knew it was there, and I at least wanted to touch the beautiful red scales, see the wings unfurl, look right into its glowing jeweled eyes. But it wasn't allowed.

"Do you mind if I try something?"

The doctor was still slightly amused. "If you'll excuse me," he went on. "Can you say your name?"

I stared at him. "Or anything you want," he said. "Just something you can say again exactly the same way. The first line of a poem, if you like."

The only thing I could think of was the one I loved from Alice in Wonderland. The Jabberwocky. I'd memorized it for English class one year. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves --

The doctor smiled. "Okay," he said. "Now, if it's all right -- " He put his hand out, slowly, until it covered my mouth. "Not very high-tech, but good enough for a government job," he said. "Can you breathe?"

I nodded.

"Is this okay?"

Nodded again.

"Keep your lips shut, all right? Now say it again."

I wasn't sure I could. I felt like I was suffocating, though I knew I could breathe just fine.

Then I thought of the dragon, turning its elegant head to look right at me. Unfolding its wings, not caring if it destroyed everything in the room when it took off.

It was so beautiful.

All I wanted was to go along for the ride.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves --

Loud and clear.

The doctor's hand pressed a little harder as I said it.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said, and he was smiling again. This time I didn't mind.

The ghost is afraid of the house she haunts

2007-08-04T00:41:00.001-07:00

It's frightening to realize that your parents are frightened. Especially when you find out that you're what's scaring them.

Here's what I can't understand: They always said not to worry about what other people thought. Don't dress or act or be like everyone else. My father kept saying that he didn't want a cookie-cutter kid. He said he'd rather I failed in school by being myself than got straight A's by just blindly repeating what was told to me. My mother the lawyer said she wanted me to set precedent, not follow it.

They wanted me to be something new and different until they started figuring out that maybe I really was something new and different.

Here's the other thing. When the evidence started rolling in that there were people who could do things that used to be the kind of thing that only happened in science fiction stories, my parents were interested. They read the articles. They talked about them.

They listened when James Randi started giving the specs about what telepathy really was, and how it was the only psychic power out there that had any evidence to support it. Thoughts have a tangible existence of their own, and the possibilities that opens up are interesting, but not endless.

My parents started being able to use the m-word, and talked about how glad they were that that nice young man who could touch things and tell something about the people who'd owned them was working with the police and not against them.

As long as the miracles and the mysteries were happening at a safe distance, my parents were fine with them.

Which wasn't at all the same thing as being able to cope with the idea of a real live telepath under their own roof.

They'd wanted me to be different, but not that different.

They started being less and less comfortable having me around.

I wanted to tell them that the thing they were most afraid of was exactly what they didn't have to worry about. I was a sender, not a receiver. I guess if I'd really tried, I might have been able to get into their heads, but it wasn't what I was good at and I wouldn't want to anyway.

But I couldn't tell them, because they kept making excuses not to be in the same room with me, and they certainly weren't going to have anything like a real conversation with me. If they talked about this, it might make it real. As long as we were all just kind of separately wondering and worrying, they were safe. They'd rather have all the doubt in the world than the wrong kind of certainty.

They finally took me to the doctor, and that’s when it all started to fall apart.

My mother the rose turns the music down

2007-07-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

Trying just to tell the story.

This is the story that came before I came here. This is the book I wanted to close.

It's easier for me to write sometimes when I have music on. It's like the sound drowns out everything I don't want to think about and lets me just write what I need to. I'm listening to some strange stuff right now that Cam brought home from work. A local group, women's voices. Very pretty and very angry.

I listen to music with headphones on even when nobody's around to not want to hear it. I always have.

When I hear that one song that just clicks for me, I want to get to know it. I listen to it again and again, and really loudly. I know you're not supposed to, especially with headphones on. You could damage your hearing, you'll be deaf by the time you're thirty, okay, okay; but if it's not going right through you, it's not music. It's just background noise.

I could be dead by the time I'm thirty, too, and then what good will all that pristinely preserved hearing do me?

The first few times I listen to a song, I can barely understand the words. I'm just listening to how the whole thing sounds. Then I start hearing, bit by bit, what's being said.

That must be what it's like before we learn to talk -- before we learn what language is at all. All those spoken sounds falling at us gently like balloons, and we just smile and reach up our hands for more.

Music has colors and shapes, but each note moves so quickly that it's gone almost before you can see it. That's another reason I need to relisten to one song so much. I want to see what it looks like. It ripples by like water and all I know is that something was there and I want it back again.

I wouldn't want to be able to stop it long enough to really get a clear look. That would be like killing a butterfly so I could stare at the pattern on its wings.

I don't remember what music I was listening to that afternoon. I remember the song seemed like a lot of tiny arcs caught inside one great one, all silver and crimson.

Whoever was singing was saying exactly what needed to be said, and I was happy to hear it. It was one of those songs that feels like it'll never wear out no matter how many times you play it.

The sun was piercing through a gap between my bedroom curtains at that angle that always looked like a celebration. Probably because it only looked that way in the late afternoon, when I was safely home from school and wouldn't have to think about going back until the next day at least.

I sort of knew my mother had come home, but it wasn't something I was particularly thinking about. I knew she was downstairs, just as I figured she knew I was upstairs.

When I was younger, when my mother or father or I came home, we'd check in with whoever was already there. If you were the first one home, you were supposed to leave a note.

Sometimes my mother would pick a rose instead and leave it on the table. That was her name, so she got to use it as her signature. You could tell how long she'd been waiting for you by how much it had wilted.

I used to save those roses. I dried them so they wouldn't rot. I'd never pick the roses from the garden -- she didn't like anyone else to touch them -- but I could keep one if she'd already taken it.

On the rare occasions that my father got home before either of us, he would leave one of his business cards. I never knew if we were supposed to be his clients, or if it was some quaint Victorian leave-your-card-for-the-ladies-of-the-house gesture.

I usually drew a picture, of something from whatever I was reading or something we'd learned about in school. Food, if I was hungry. Something I really wished they'd buy me, if there was a holiday coming up.

Whoever got home and found a note was supposed to go and find the person who'd left it; check in with them, talk to them for a minute. My mother said that was how civilized people behaved. You could even just say hello, but you had to say something.

Lately, we hadn't been doing that any more. My mother would get home from work and just go about her business, like she had roommates rather than a family. My father had been staying later and later at work; a lot of the time I'd be in bed by the time he got home.

They still talked to each other, but they talked at me rather than with me.

I was too afraid to ask what had changed and why, so I waited and hoped for it to change back.

That day I had some reading I was supposed to do, and some reading I wanted to do. I was putting it off just a little longer.

Sometimes I read while I'm listening to music. It makes it more intense. But it has to be a book I've read a million times before, and the song has to be just the right one.

Today I was just listening. It was all I could do to soak in the sound.

There's plenty of music I like; but there are some songs that make me fly. I don't even know why one song will strike me as that much better than another. Maybe it's not even the music itself, or all by itself. I was happy that day, I know that. No reason; I just was. And I was ready to be made happier. So maybe the song had stopped by at just the right time.

Every time I played it I turned it up a little. I really wouldn't have been surprised to open my eyes and find myself nose to nose with the ceiling.

There was a banging noise that didn't have anything to do with drums. Jagged and angry. And my name being shouted.

"Will you please turn that damned music down!"

My mother at the door. Which was still closed, fortunately.

I pushed "stop" and sat frozen, holding my breath.

"Thank you." A pause, as if for an answer. I didn't say anything, and she went on. "Please try to remember that you aren't the only person who lives here. Not all of us share your taste in music." That last word pronounced very sarcastically, as if music was the last word she'd use to describe what I listened to.

I didn't answer, and there was the sound of her footsteps moving deliberately down the stairs.

When I could move again, I pulled my headphones off and looked at them.

They'd been on the whole time. Plugged in. There was no other way for sound to get out of the player.

No one else should have been able to hear it at all, unless they were standing in the same room and heard that horrible hissing sound that other people's headphones playing other people's music give off. And even that wouldn't be so loud that somebody downstairs would come storming up demanding not to have to hear that hideous din any more.

I knew the answer, of course, and it had to do with why they'd been avoiding me so much.

It was coming from me. It was me.

The music had been pouring through me, and I let it. I sent it.

I should have kept it to myself, but I didn't. Because if I sat and concentrated on making sure that no one else could hear it, that was admitting that there was something I could do that I shouldn't have been able to.

I didn't need speakers to make the world hear music. I didn't even have to open my mouth to talk.

I wondered how long it had been since I really had talked.

No more styrofoam strawberries

2007-07-28T22:06:00.001-07:00

Cam has all this great music, groups I never would have even heard of. He knows how to put himself in the way of it. He brings a lot home from his work.

Once a few days after I came here, Cam went out early and brought back some strawberries, fresh, from the farmers' market. I didn't like strawberries much, but I wasn't going to say that to someone who went out first thing in the morning to buy me food. So I tried one.

I hadn't realized until right then that the reason I didn't like strawberries was that I'd never been given one worth eating before. These were like a whole different species.

"They're called Brown Sugar," Cam said, pleased at my expression. "All the farmers have different names for their fruit."

I'd been eating plastic all my life, and after that I couldn't go back to it. Once you have a piece of good bread or real fruit, you can't go back to bubble wrap.

It was the same with the music he brought to me. I thought I'd listened to pretty decent stuff, and some of it still sounded all right. I'm not a snob or a purist or anything. I don't know enough about music to be able to judge like that, and I don't want to judge anyway. Music is hard enough to make, and if a piece gives someone pleasure, I'm not going to try to talk him out of it.

But now I just can't stand anything that sounds canned. It sounds like that ravioli in a tin tastes. A little off. Fake. Too smooth -- there's no body to it.

Cam's got an even lower tolerance. If something comes on the radio that sounds just a little too pop for him, he'll get this pained look on his face, like he needs to go to the dentist or something. "Oh, my favorite," he says. "Boys In The Sync."

The story ends, the story begins

2007-07-27T22:30:00.001-07:00

That night we met, Cam asked me if I needed a place to stay. "I've got plenty of room," he said.

"No strings attached," he said when I looked at him.

I was so tired, and that was why I didn't say yes right away. I didn't know if I was thinking straight. I felt like there must be something I wasn't seeing.

I felt like Cam was safe and kind and his offer was exactly what he said it was.

I guess it sounds crazy to say you'll go and live with someone you've just met.

But the fact that I needed somewhere to go so badly, and why, wasn't exactly a scene from Planet Sanity either.

Do you live by yourself?

"Yes."

I'm allergic to dogs. Also afraid of them, but he didn't need to know that.

"No pets, no smoking, no loud music after 10:00 PM."

I like loud music.

He laughed. "I made that one up, actually. I only have one neighbor, and she's partly deaf." He looked at me. "Will you come and see my place?"

He always phrased things like that, in the least threatening way possible.

Okay.

A box of one's own

2007-07-26T23:55:00.001-07:00

Today I didn't leave the bedroom. Even after Cam left, I stayed in here. I kept the door shut.

I just want the world to be as small as possible.

Actually, the world can be as big as it wants. I just want to be in this little room, far far away from it.

Cam's room is small, but it has everything you need. The bed, and a desk and the computer and a lot of books and music.

It reminds me of the houses I used to make when I was lucky enough to get a really big cardboard box. I'd bring a blanket and a flashlight and my favorite book and a box of crackers. There's a way of folding box lids so that you're closed right in and the flaps won't open. It's hard to do by yourself from the inside, but then there you are, in your own home. Nobody can tell anything from the outside. It's like you're not even there.

I don't have any food in here, but I'm not hungry. Cam brought me something to eat when he got home this afternoon. He's mad at me for not coming out of here. He says he isn't, but I don't know what else you'd call it. Upset.

I hate it when he's unhappy. I wish we could just be quiet together and not have so much to worry about.

When he leaves, everything goes blank. Not bad, but empty. It's all right. I sit in here and read stories or make up my own. Watch time passing.

I'm not hurting anything or anybody. If this is my version of happiness, I don't know why he can't just leave me to it and be glad I have one.

The $300,000 funeral

2007-07-25T22:36:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamed that my parents threw a very expensive funeral for me. It wasn't in a church; I couldn't tell quite where it was. A bright white room, white everywhere with no decoration or break. There were a lot of people there, and everyone held flowers because it was too crowded to put them down anywhere. They'd get stepped on.

I saw a beautiful coffin, glossy and dark. I knew I was supposed to be in it. I tried to remember why I wasn't. I'd done something wrong, I knew that much. Everything was thrown off schedule now. But my parents are diligent, organized people. They were doing the best they could to keep things in the proper order.

There was a black marble angel for a headstone. It should have been outside; maybe it was in here so everyone could see it without getting their shoes dirty. The angel's hair fell in long ringlets and it held a sword half-raised. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. Its face had a mischievous, indulgent smile I recognized from somewhere.

I heard someone say that the whole thing cost 300,000 dollars, and that didn't even include the food they were serving after.

I thought I was out of the way. I was behind a glass wall, off to one side. That was it -- the place was like a hospital, with those windowpane doors you try to peer through to see what they're doing. No one else seemed to notice or care that I was there, but my parents saw me watching and were furious. If I didn't leave, they were going to be humiliated in front of everyone, they said.

I told them I'd apologize if that would help, but they didn't listen. They didn't exactly talk right to me, either. They just kind of hissed me out of there, as if they were embarrassed to be seen near the likes of me.

Thou shalt not steal (unless thou art really, really hungry)

2007-07-24T22:59:00.001-07:00

I don't know if I was afraid when Cam looked at me in the club and I realized that I couldn't dodge him the way I could everyone else. I think I was, but only in the way that I was always afraid.

I guess I was more curious than anything else.

It's hard to be afraid of Cam.

"That was you, right?" he asked, as I stood there not knowing where to go or what to do. "Doing that to the music?"

I don't know, I said, and he smiled.

"I think it was," he said. "I think it was great."

I didn't mean to.

"But that's what's so great about it," he said. "It's just the music sounding better because we get to hear how it sounds to someone who thinks it's fantastic." He nodded toward the band. "Those guys ought to hire you."

I sat down because I was feeling shaky. I don't think they need the help.

"I hope they don't," he said. "They're really good. But there's so much competition out there. I've seen a lot of terrific bands go nowhere because they couldn't stick it out. It's so hard to keep going when you don't know if it's going to get you anywhere."

Are you a musician?

He smiled and started telling me about his job at the radio station where he goes to school. He does play music -- he knows how to, anyway, piano and guitar -- but that's not where his passion lies. He wants to work in the music industry. Helping, not playing.

Cam learned about music before he realized that he didn't want to play professionally, but it's good because after he finishes with school, he can teach if he has to. And he just likes knowing what goes into making music.

He told me all this without asking me anything.

He was watching me as he talked. Someone came a bit too close and I kind of ducked out of sight. I can't disappear like Lacy can, but if I try hard, I can make people just notice something else. Look somewhere else. Not be the thing they want to see.

I was able to get into the clubs by making whoever took the money see what he wanted to see: that I was paying what it cost to get in.

I was able to get a little money for food by making them see that I paid too much and needed change.

It was stealing. I know that. I know it was wrong. If it had been somebody's own money, I never would have done it.

I know it's just as wrong to steal from a place as from a person, but it doesn't feel as wrong. Three or five or ten dollars to a person, just one person, is a lot. To a business, it's nothing.

And I was hungry.

And if I asked -- for help, for money -- they might have asked me questions I couldn't answer. Like why I needed money so badly. Where I lived. Why my parents weren't taking care of me.

I don't want to write about this any more.

Twenty-four hours can't be that strong

2007-07-23T21:44:00.001-07:00

"You knew it was out there," Dog said. "That was the whole point."

Cam had invited him over. Lacy, too. And a friend of Lacy's, but I don't remember her name because I left before he could tell it to me.

Cam's bedroom has a door and I shut it. I didn't lock it because it is his room, and anyway if he wants to come in I guess I'd rather he just did than banged on the door or tried to talk through it.

It's his apartment, but he said I could stay here and I get to choose the room I want to be in at any given time.

I chose the one with nobody else in it.

I didn't feel like sitting with a bunch of other people arguing over whether we should watch a movie or go out, and then arguing some more over which movie or which club. I felt like seeing how far into the bed I could burrow and still be able to breathe.

I was hoping they'd go out, but they stayed. I think Cam was hoping I'd get bored and come out and play nice.

He drives me crazy.

Sometimes I feel like he knows me straight through, like I'm a crystal shell he can pick up and look all the way into any time he wants, and I don't even mind because I know he'd never break me; and sometimes I can't believe how he can't figure out the most basic ordinary obvious things about me.

Like that the last thing I'd want was to be reminded right then that there were plenty of other people on the planet.

Like I haven't had enough forcible reminders of that.

Why would he invite a stranger over?

They decided to watch a movie after all. I heard the kind of hollow booming that even his neighbor can hear sometimes. That's about the only frequency she's got left, I think. She'd be banging on the wall soon if things didn't stop blowing up.

A knock on my door.

I'm not here. Go away.

I heard the door slip open and then shut again. There's a chair next to Cam's computer, and someone sat down in it.

"Me," Dog said, and I cleared the covers back away over my head.

"Hey," he said when I looked at him.

Here's the thing: if it had been Cam that had come in, knowing how much I didn't want him right then, knowing I wanted to be alone, knowing why, I would have started screaming. I would have thrown something. Thrown him, if I could. Clawed until there was blood on the wall, and not cared much which of us it came from.

That never occurred to me with Dog. Not just because I don't think I could get anywhere near hurting him, unless he let me or I fought dirty and snapped out a real keeper of a headache at him. Dog just sat and took my measure, and everything along those lines was completely irrelevant.

"Heard you weren't in the mood for company," he said.

So you came in.

He smiled, just a little. His face never moves much. His eyes always stay locked on you whether it's you talking or him. Most people tend to look around a bit, especially when they're trying to find the right words. Like they think they'll see them on the shelf, or hanging just outside the window.

"I don't think of myself as company," Dog said.

His voice is so deep it's distracting. Sometimes it takes me a minute to know what he's saying. He doesn't mind. He just waits.
I didn't have an answer for him, so I piled up some pillows to lie on. I'm a pillow hog. Cam had to buy some more just to make sure he had a chance at getting one on any given night.

"Cam told me what was bothering you," he said. "I'm not sure I understand the problem, though."

Then go talk to him some more. Maybe he can explain a little better.

"No need to get nasty," he said. "You have to admit, it's kind of a contradiction."

I don't see why.

"If you didn't want anyone to see what you wrote, you shouldn't have put it out there."

I glared at him. He just took it. It wasn't for "anyone" to see. Cam's out a lot, and he likes to be able to see what I've been doing.

"What you've been writing, you mean."

So?

"So," Dog said, "he could have just had you email him, or put it in a document he could get to and no one else could. There are plenty of options for keeping that kind of thing private."

I slammed myself back, rattling the headboard. I felt Cam worrying from the other room, and I was glad.

I don't know about computers. He set this up. This is how he wanted it. It wasn't MY idea.

"Stop acting so powerless," Dog said. "You knew what he was doing. You could have said no."

Right. Say no to the one person who's standing between me and the street or worse. He's paying the rent and everything else and the way he never breathes a word about it you'd think that kind of thing just happens. He keeps me safe. I step on him when I walk in my sleep because he takes the floor at night so he'll be between me and the door just in case I start really heading somewhere. He brings me books and music and the way he looks at me you'd never think he knows I have a body.

All that, and he acts like he's grateful I'm here.

So of course if he asks if I'll please do something, one thing, I'm going to say no.

"You knew people could read whatever you wrote," Dog said. "You knew it was out there. That was the whole point."

Not for me.

"You're not the only one dealing with this kind of thing. The more that's out there about it, the better. People are just starting to face the fact that we're real. Sure, the science is adding up, but it's pretty abstract. We need more stories."

I think that was the most Dog has ever said to me in one big block.

I wished he'd keep talking. His voice is like a purr.

I didn't answer, and he asked, "Does it bother you that I've read what you wrote?"

Surprised, but not bothered. I shook my head. That's different. I know you.

"And those people -- the ones who left the messages -- are total strangers. They don't know you from Eve. For all they know, you're some forty-year-old guy with a goatee."

I smiled. "So why care?" he asked. "Especially if they like what you say, but even if they don't. What does it matter?"

I shook my head again. "So you don't mind friends, and you don't mind strangers," he said. "Who does that leave?"

I looked down at my hands. They burned a little after I got out, but when Cam took me in they paled right back up again.

"You afraid somebody's going to find you?" Dog asked.

"Quit curling up like that," he added. "I can't even see who I'm talking to."

He looked at me more curiously than usual. "Is it the police?" he asked.

I don't know, I said. I hadn't really thought about that. They might be looking for me. You're not supposed to leave that kind of place until they say you can.

"Your family?"

I wanted another blanket, but I was too cold to go get one.

"You're an adult, right? Legally? They can't do anything to you."

That might be true. It is true, I guess, if he says it is.

It doesn't feel true.

How can two people have all the power in the world over you one day and none at all the next?

I don't want to be your pillar of salt

2007-07-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

Fight with Cam today. I hate that. It's like an earthquake. He's my safe place.

I pointed out to him that this marathon sleepwalking I've been doing really started up when I started writing more about the past. Which I was only doing because he wanted me to.

If it's supposed to be so wonderfully healthy and important to take a good hard unwavering uncomfortable look at things that have already happened and are over and done with, why do we have phrases like let sleeping dogs lie? Why do people say things like stop living in the past? You never hear anyone say I really wish you'd live in the past more.

Why would we have a myth about a woman who was turned into a pillar of salt for taking a glance over her shoulder at a place of ruin and destruction she was safely out of? Punishment for peeking back when she should have been living in the now and just happy to be alive.

That used to make me laugh — a pillar of salt, who even thought of that? Why salt? And if salt, why a pillar? It just didn't make sense.

Now I think it's horrible. To be alive and moving and warm, and then feel yourself hardening into a component element.

Did she feel it happening? See her own hands — too white, too beautiful — one last time before her eyes crystallized into solid tears?

Cam pointed out that I was sleepwalking before I started writing about the past, and also having nightmares. Which I haven't been having at all lately. The sleepwalking may be keeping him on his toes, but I haven't noticed a thing. And (he says) even I have to admit that I'm a lot calmer lately.

Am I?

"Aren't you?"

I guess it doesn't sound so bad when I write it out here, but I was really angry and he was really serious. And then I was almost crying, which made me even angrier.

"Maybe you need to be angry more often," Cam said. "It beats being afraid."

Not feeling like a good cause

2007-07-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

Threw out the keys again last night. This time down the drain and Cam, against his usual policy of not touching me when I'm asleep, took my hand when I tried to turn on the garbage disposal. I didn't insist, and after a minute I seemed to forget what I'd gotten up to do in the first place, so since he was still holding my hand he led me back to the bedroom. I slept peacefully the rest of the night.

He doesn't want to tell me these things because he's afraid of upsetting me, but I make him. It's more upsetting not to know what my body is up to when I'm not looking.

Is this worse than nightmares?

Absolutely not. For me, anyway. Cam's the one who has to be on guard duty. He says he doesn't mind, but I think it's starting to wear him out. He's tired all the time now.

He doesn't want me to worry about that.

"I was tired all the time before, dummy," Cam said. "I'm a student. That's my job."

This is different.

"Not so much."

Anyway, being tired all the time before was for a good cause. Doing work you like. Getting a degree. Staying up nights to babysit somebody who doesn't know enough to stay in bed after she falls asleep is just stupid.

"Yeah, well, call me weird," Cam said. "I like it."

Stop it.

"It's true. I don't mean I won’t be glad when you start feeling happier, more peaceful. But I like being there when you need me."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Try finishing what you were trying to tell about before," Cam said. "In your journal. Finish up with when we met. And maybe a little more about why. Maybe we'll both be able to sleep a little better if you do."

Or maybe I could just never ever think about anything that's happened to me ever again. I bet I'd be happy and peaceful then.

But he won't believe that.

Can't trust me even when I'm sleeping

2007-07-15T01:04:00.001-07:00

Cam had another set of keys made today. He wants to have extras around, just in case.

Just in case of me, to be exact. Last night while I was asleep, I threw his key ring away. Only in the trash, but he's worried about next time.

He's Mr. Adamant Gentleman now. I have to sleep in the bed. Sometimes he does, too. Very modestly and properly. Keeping between me and the door, which is always shut. Sometimes he camps out on the floor in his sleeping bag.

What if I step on you?

"Then I know where you are," he said. "Anyway, you're little."

ing is max and john

2007-07-11T22:17:00.001-07:00

Sitting, listening to ing.

The computer hates it when I type that. Keeps objecting to ing. Spell checking ing. What -ing? Put something in front of it!

Sorry.

The music sounds like I feel. Kind of far away and close all at once.

I'm not sure where I am, and I'm not going to move an inch until I find out.

darn, some ing fell off my plate.

Missing club ing

2007-07-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

Cam is nagging at me about going out. Tonight it was a concert. A couple of guys called ing. That’s the name of their group, anyway.

"It's not like a club scene," Cam said. "Some of the music is really pretty. Some of it's just kind of, I don't know, odd."

I didn't say anything.

"I think you'd like them," Cam said. "Not just their music, but the whole feel of it."

He found some of their music for me to listen to. It was really whole and clear and sweet. When I thought of just being there and getting to hear them play, I wanted it.

But when I thought of everything between where I am now and where they are, playing, I just couldn't.

It was more than I could imagine doing.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever have to go outside again. I wish I didn't.

I want to just stay here.

Voyage in the dark

2007-07-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

I don't want to see anybody right now. I don't want to talk.

I'm tired and I'm nervous and nothing feels right.

God hates me and my eyes don't work. I read that somewhere, I think. Some crazy novel.

I’m a crazy novel, and I’d like to be able to shut myself and put me on the shelf and pick up something funny instead.

The almost-official freak doesn't want her own show

2007-07-03T23:12:00.001-07:00

I don't know what they think they're proving. I don't know why they think it matters.

It doesn't feel any different to me to be an almost-official freak.

I really don't care if I could get the Randi seal of approval, assuming he has one.

2007-07-01T22:33:00.001-07:00

Dog didn't say there couldn't be words. Just not only words.

I thought about the night we went to see his band play. I remembered the song he told us he wrote.

I can't remember faces, or even names; but music stays with me.

I shut my eyes and really went there.

I felt the music going through me the way it did that night. That's what I like best about being in the same room with the music: it’s like you can touch it and see it as well as hear it.

I thought about how Dog and the rest of the group looked while they were playing. I thought about the light and the mostly darkness, and the scent of the drinks, and the people dancing and listening and talking.

I gathered all that up as best I could and I sent it to Dog.

"Damn," Dog said.

"Jesus," Cam said.

"Ouch," Lacy said.

I jumped. Someone was pounding furiously on the other side of Cam's wall. It sounded like they were using a broom.

Cam's deaf neighbor.

Dog smiled in her direction.

"Throw the cards away, Lacy," he said. "I think we've got ourselves a telepath."

2007-06-30T17:43:00.001-07:00

I set the deck down. Maybe another time, I said.

"Oh, come on," Lacy said.

"Leave her alone, Lacy." Cam sat down next to me. "You know you don't have to do anything you don't want to."

Dog stretched and sat up. "Do you think you can do pictures, Echo?" he asked. "Have you ever tried?"

I shook my head.

"Why don't you try on me," he said. "Forget the stupid cards.”

(“Hey,” Lacy said.)

“Just send me whatever you feel like,” he went on. “An image. An idea. Anything that isn't just words."

That sounded all right. It even sounded like fun.

I thought for a minute.

I thought about music.

2007-06-29T22:56:00.001-07:00

"Why don't you try it the other way?" Dog said. He looked at me. "You're a sender, right?"

I didn't answer, but Lacy went with it right off. "Here," she said, handing me the deck. "Hit me."

"Not literally," she added.

Thanks.

I held the cards and looked at Cam. He smiled at me. "You'll be fine," he said. "Why not give it a try."

Lacy sat down very precisely, cross-legged. She shut her eyes. "Okay, focus," she said.

I sighed. Cross, I sent her.

"Not like that," Lacy said, opening her eyes.

What do you mean?

"Well -- that's just, you know, talking."

I looked at Cam for help again. "Lacy, that's what she does," he said. "You wanted her to do it."

"Well, yeah, but...I think it's supposed to be more like a picture, you know?"

"Then you should have said so," Dog said.

"Fine. I just did."

2007-06-28T00:29:00.001-07:00

Lacy tried a few more times: the same. I just couldn't get past that feeling.

I thought it might have worked better if it had been Cam instead of her, but I didn't want to say so.

I kind of hated the whole thing anyway.

2007-06-25T22:46:00.001-07:00

"I'm going to look at a card," Lacy said. "I'll try to think just about the picture on it. You try to tell me which one I'm looking at, okay?"

I felt like an idiot.

Dog seemed to get that. He winked.

Okay, I said.

"Okay." Lacy sat and stared at a card.

And stared, and stared, and stared.

Cam watched me.

"Anything?" Lacy asked.

I shook my head.

I thought I could almost see the picture she was trying to show me, but it was like I'd have to push past something to get to it. It felt rude. It felt personal.

I was worried I might hurt her.

2007-06-24T23:02:00.001-07:00

"All you do," Lacy said, "is -- well, where you're sitting is fine. I guess. I mean, I guess James Randi would want you in another room or another apartment or something --"

"Lacy, come on," Cam said.

"Well, I'm just saying," Lacy said. "But for what we're doing now, this is fine. Just sit right there. And I'll sit right here."

"What about me?" Dog rumbled behind her. "Is this couch scientific enough, or should I move?"

"No, you're fine," Lacy said absently, shuffling through the cards. "Well, actually you can stay, but don't look at the cards, okay? I think. She's supposed to be trying to get the picture of the card in her head from me. Although I guess even if she's getting it from you, or both of us -- "

"Lacy, come on."

"Okay, all right, okay."

2007-06-21T22:46:00.001-07:00

I didn't dare look up. That would only make it worse.

I made an emptiness where I was standing. Wishing I could be a book on a shelf. Trying to be just a thicker piece of darkness.

I am not here is a contradiction in terms I'd been managing to get away with. It wasn't working now.

He kept looking at me, and after a while he started coming toward me.

I thought of leaving.

I'd have more places to hide.

But outside darkness is so open. Anyone could do anything there. There were limits in here, at least.

Anyway, he was between me and the door.

"Hey," he said. He was about my size. A little older. Pale.

"Hi," he said.

For all I knew, he wasn't even talking to me.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm not going to bother you or anything."

I was still shaking, but part of me registered that. I liked the way he phrased it. As if being "bothered" by someone was the biggest thing I could have to worry about, the worst threat either of us could think of.

"I'd just like to talk, if that's okay," he said. He wasn't talking loudly, but I could hear him easily. It was like he slipped the words under the music, like a letter under the door.

"Do you mind if I sit down?" Not asking me to, but taking a chair himself.

He just sat quietly for a minute. I thought I'd walk away, but what would I do if he followed me? Call for help?

You have to exist for that.

People who haven't been at the worst think that when you're up against something or being hunted down, eventually you just want to turn around, give up, let it happen. Get it over with. At least you'd be done.

Knowing what I'd be brought back to, all I wanted to know was which end of kill or be killed I was up for.

"The music sounded a lot better a minute ago," he said. "It felt really strong. I was hoping I could hear it like that again."

He looked at me, right at me. No one had done that for a while.

The last person who bothered only wanted to find me so he could hurt me.

2007-06-20T20:12:00.001-07:00

"These are the cards," Lacy said.

I looked. Each card had a line drawing on it.

Three wavy lines; square; circle; five-pointed star; truncated cross.

These are really lame.

"Well, they're not art, sure," Lacy said. "They're not supposed to be. Here, look at them again. It's good to know what they all are before we start."

I think I've got it. Trying hard not to sound sarcastic.

2007-06-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many days I'd been out when Cam found me. I don't think it was a week, but maybe around that.

I was awake, but very tired.

The music was really good, which helped. There weren't too many people there, which was a little scary. Nobody to hide behind.

I just stayed as background as I could and felt the sound. It was the first time the group had played this one song for an audience, and they were nervous but angry, too, daring us not to feel it the way they did. It was really beautiful, so rough and raw. Refusing to lie about anything. I forgot who I was, listening to that.

Until I felt someone looking at me.

I faded out, quick, but he still saw me.

2007-06-15T15:12:00.001-07:00

I'm everyone's science project now.

They're all being very kind, but just the same I could do without it.

"Look what I got," Lacy said. She was wearing a dress like a fishing net, only solid, and waving a little stack of cards.

"We used to play with these when I was a kid," Lacy said, fanning them like a poker hand. "Funny thing is? I was lousy at it."

"And yet what a talented young lady you grew up to be," Dog said, lounging on the couch behind her.

"That's different." She folded herself neatly on the floor.

"It's all the same."

"The same, but different. Here, Echo, try this."

I looked at her doubtfully. The cards she showed me had pictures on them, lame ones.

Why can't we just use normal cards?

"It's more, you know, official this way," Lacy said.

Behind her, Dog rolled his eyes.

"Come on. It'll be fun."

I don't know what to do.

"It's easy. Here, I'll show you."

2007-06-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

Cam and I met in a club.

That's as far back as I'm willing to go right now.

I was there for the reasons I was always at clubs.

I had just escaped and I had to have somewhere to go at night. Somewhere safe.

During the day was scary, too, but in a different way. I didn't have to hide, exactly. I just had to be.

Mostly I would go to the library. It felt so safe and good, being with all those books. I never could quite get up the nerve to try to check one out, but I read a lot.

I did my best to make sure that no one noticed me. I couldn't pull a Lacy, but I could kind of fade. Not out of sight, but out of mind.

It was kind of strange to watch gazes slip past me exactly as they would past a book on a shelf. I liked feeling like part of the collection.

I could get some sleep, but I had to be careful. I kind of had to keep an eye out, make sure that I just looked like someone with a book. It wasn't very restful, but it was better than nothing.

When I was feeling very brave or very tired, I would sleep outside. I found bus stops on quiet streets and made myself very neat and mostly let go. Still had to keep a bit of an eye out.

I would sleep some at night, at the clubs.

It was easier in some ways to disappear there. But it was more dangerous to get caught.

It was best to disappear into the music.

I was so tired I pretty much had to, anyway.

That was how Cam found me.

2007-06-11T17:53:00.001-07:00

Cam brought Lacy and Dog over again. I might have been happy to see them if I hadn't known they were there for an argument.

"So, how many interventions can one person have?" Lacy asked. "I mean, shouldn't there be a legal limit or something?" I couldn't tell if she minded for my sake or hers, but either way I was with her.

"This isn't the same as last time," Cam said. "Last time we were here to show Echo that she's not the only one who can do things. Now it turns out that she's fine with the idea that we can do things; she just doesn't think she can."

Dog was impassive and accepting, as usual. Lacy looked like she didn't know what to think.

"Well, she'd be the best person to judge that, wouldn't she?" she said reasonably.

Yes, I said.

"No," Cam said, almost angrily, and Dog smiled.

"How about we try to act like grownups, just for a change," he said, sitting up. "If there's something there, we can check it out. We can test for it."

"Hey, yeah," Lacy said, brightening up. "We could call The Amazing Randi or something." Then her face fell. "Oh. Wait. He's like three thousand miles away or something, isn't he. Does he make house calls? Or, hey," turning to me, "would you want to go to Florida?"

"Yeah, Lacy, that's a great idea," Cam said, unusually sarcastic for him. "Let's take your private jet."

"Excuse me for trying to help," she said, ruffling up like a falcon. "I thought that's what we were here for."

"Randi's got test centers all over the place," Dog said. "There's one not too far from here. But even if they'd be interested in us, and I think they charge for that kind of thing now -- "

"Figures," said Lacy.

" -- we might not be interested in them." Dog looked at me, and I could see just a hint of what he'd been the other night. I liked it. "I have the feeling that the last thing our little sister needs now is some experts poking at her."

I shook my head, hard, and Cam put his hand over mine.

"Don't," he said. "It's okay. We're not doing anything like that."

"Oh, we can do the kind of tests they do," Dog said easily. "Some of them, anyway. I've read about it. But it would help if I knew what we were looking at here."

"She's a telepath," Cam said.

I didn't know I'd hit him until I felt one of Dog's hands holding both of mine. "Keep it down," he said quietly, and looked over at Cam. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," Cam said in a muffled voice. One hand was to his face. I wanted to see what was behind it, but I was afraid to, too.

Lacy looked like she'd rented a romantic comedy and turned it on only to see the opening scenes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. "Okay, can I just say right now that that is not cool," she said. "We don't hit people, even when we don't like what they're saying."

"Thank you, Mr. Rogers," Dog said. Except I'm not sure "thank" was the word he used.

I didn't mean to, I said. I didn't even know I did it. I didn't want to.

"Of course you didn't," Dog said. He hadn't let go of my hands, and I didn't know if that was because he wanted to make me feel better or if he just didn't trust what I might do with them next.

"Honey, it's okay," Cam said. He'd put his hand down, and he didn't look bad. He looked at me, not angry. "I'm fine."

I'm sorry.

"I know." He smiled at me. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have outed you like that."

I didn't know what to say to that, but Dog did. For someone who doesn't talk much, it's weird how he's never at a loss for words, either. "We don't know that you did," Dog said to Cam. "Your word for it is all very well and good, but she's right to be skeptical. That's the kind of thing that's easy to say and hard to prove. Look how long it took the Randi Institute to come around."

"That's because most of the people who tried to take the prize were either lying, stupid, or crazy," Lacy said. "All of the above, sometimes."

"Knowing Echo's none of the above doesn't make her a telepath," Dog said. He looked at me for much longer than I could be comfortable with. "But this gives us something to work with. There are some things we can try that are pretty easy. No weird equipment or wires or anything."

My hands felt very cold, and Dog noticed, I guess. "Hey," he said. "Don't be like that. We don't do anything you don't want."

They were all looking at me. I really hate being looked at. I don't even know what you're talking about, I managed finally. I don't know what all this means.

"We start simple," Dog said. "I'm thinking of a number between one and a million. Stuff like that."

"Excuse me," Lacy said. She still looked like she was about to take this DVD back to the rental place. "I'm only bringing this up because it might maybe have something to do with what you guys are talking about."

We all looked at her. She was looking just at me.

"Has anybody noticed that she doesn't move her lips when she talks?" she asked.

2007-06-10T10:27:00.001-07:00

I haven't liked meat for a while, not the taste of it or the idea, but now sometimes I really need the cheeseburgers I had when I was a kid. Cam runs and gets some if I so much as blink in a burgery way.

He's so sweet, and I know I wouldn't even be alive without him, but sometimes it's too much pressure. Being cared about so much.

2007-06-09T13:20:00.001-07:00

Nag, nag, nag. When it's not about my writing here, it's about what I'm eating or not eating.

I wish he'd leave me alone.

Food comes and goes for me just now, but at least it's good sometimes. To Cam, it looks like me just not eating as often as he'd like, but I'm tired of forcing myself when it isn't really there for me. I'd rather wait.

I read somewhere that food isn't as good for you if you're not in the mood for it anyway.

Have to see if I can find anything about that on the computer and show it to His Camness.

2007-06-08T23:39:00.001-07:00

"Yeah, and you can't just pretend you don't have power just because you're not sure you'd like it to be true," Cam said. And made me write here.

Because apparently this isn't my place any more; it's the composition book for whatever He Who Is The Boss Of Me decides I ought to be writing about on any given day.

2007-06-08T20:01:00.001-07:00

Cam's mad at me again.

He's not being very reasonable, frankly, and I don't care if he hears it here.

All I said was that just because there are people who have -- who can do things, that doesn't automatically make me one of them.

To say that someone's able to do something other people can't do is a big deal. You can't just run around claiming that kind of thing.

2007-06-07T22:14:00.001-07:00

Cam had a couple of people come over last night.

Dog, and a friend of his named Lacy.

Lacy is one of those girls who's so pretty she can look as weird as she wants. She does want. Her hair is really random -- she took a snip off it while she was sitting with us, just talking and not even about hair or anything. She wasn't even looking in a mirror. Just pulled this pretty pair of gold scissors out of her sleeve and snap. It looked great.

Her hair is black and very straight.

She wears gloves that don't match, a skirt that looks like knotted strings, a blouse of some fabric I'm pretty sure used to be a couch.

She has a lot of metal, too, most of it poking into or out of her at angles you wouldn't expect.

Once you start looking at her, there's plenty to do.

She and Dog are really good friends, but that seems to be it. They don't touch or anything, or look at each other much.

Cam brought them over after he read the last thing I wrote. Sometimes I forget that he reads this. It feels so alone.

I wasn't doing anything when they came in. I'd been reading before, one of those Bronte books Cam brought me and teases me about. I get tired out reading much these days. My eyes, and my hands.

I was resting when they came in. Just sitting and thinking about Jane Eyre living alone in that little cottage.

I've never been as far away from the world as she is.

I know she's lonely, but still it must be nice to have your own little house just for you. And a warm fire and some books and nobody around.

The door opened and I was surprised. It was early for Cam to be home, and he hadn't said he wouldn't be alone.

"Hey," he said, sitting down next to me. "This is a friend of Dog's. Lacy."

"Hey," she said, and her voice was very sweet. I wondered if she was a singer. Maybe that was how Dog knew her.

I just looked at Cam, feeling stupid. I felt like the play had started and I was sitting right there in the middle of the stage with no idea what to say. I didn't even know what my name is.

"Echo needs something I can't give her," Cam said, talking to everyone but me. "Some people she should have been able to trust told her she was crazy, and she keeps believing them instead of me. I need help changing her mind."

Dog and Lacy looked at me. Dog with his usual expressionless expression, Lacy with lively interest. I was almost too embarrassed under their gaze to be angry with Cam, but part of me remembered to be pissed that he'd brought total strangers in and was now talking about me with them as if I were just an attractive corpse propped up in the corner or something.

Lacy at least had the manners to talk to me. "You don't look crazy to me," she said. "Of course, I'm not an expert or anything."

Thanks.

"I'm just saying."

"Why would you think you were crazy?" Dog asked, his voice sounding deeper than usual after Lacy's.

Everybody sat there waiting for me to answer. I felt like a Ouija board.

Finally Cam said, "She can do amazing things, but she doesn't want to believe it."

"Huh."

Dog seemed satisfied by this. He's not one to push. Lacy brightened up, though. "What kind of stuff?"

Cam, I swear to God I'm leaving. Now.

I even managed to stand up. Partway, anyway.

Why not? It was almost night. It couldn't be any worse out there than it was in here.

They all looked a little startled, even Dog. "Don't," Cam said. He doesn't usually touch me, but he put his hand on one of mine and kind of pulled me down. Just lightly. "Please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to gang up on you. I just don't know what else to do. I'm running out of ideas here. I feel like you're slipping away. I wish I could tell you how that makes me feel, but I don't know how I'd make you believe me."

I was still embarrassed, still feeling stared at, but you can't stay mad at Cam. I just didn't like the pressure, that was all. He let me stay with him, and then it was like I had to be a certain way for it to be okay for me to be here. When the whole point was supposed to be that I could just be here and be safe.

I'd had time to feel all these things and not really think them in so many words when Lacy stood up suddenly. I thought she was embarrassed too, maybe, and leaving, but she just stood there. "Hey, you want to see something you really can't believe?" she asked nobody in particular, but especially me.

"Bring it on," Dog said with a faint smile.

I looked at Cam, kind of nervous. I felt like I'd walked into the wrong party or something. He looked at me and pressed my hand.

"It's okay. This is what I wanted you to see. I hope it helps."

"Watch me," Lacy said. "Just watch."

I looked at her. She was so many different colors and textures. And then it was like she started to fade. Like someone pushed a dimmer switch on her.

And then she wasn't there at all. Not at all.

She hadn't left, she hadn't opened the door. She just disappeared.

We all sat there, and she was gone.

"I said watch me," she said, and then she was back again, following her voice, grinning.

I stared at her. Dog was smiling like it was a magic trick he'd seen before but always enjoyed. Cam was looking at me.

"You're not the only one who can do things," he said.

Lacy turned to Dog. "Your turn," she said. "I can't be the only clown in this circus."

"I'm not a clown." He didn't sound mad, just like he was correcting an error.

"Be a good dog, then."

He looked around doubtfully. "This place isn't very big," he said. "I like to have more room."

"Coward."

"I'm not. I just don't want to tear the place up."

"Dog's not housetrained," Lacy explained.

I was starting to feel a little faint. I wasn't sure I could stay with this much longer. "Shut up, Lacy," Cam said quietly, still holding my hand. "It's okay, Dog. Do whatever you need to. Just show her."

Dog looked at me and made me look at him. "Don't be scared," he said.

Nobody ever says that when things are going fine.

He stood up, found the place in the room where he was as much in the middle of the furniture and books as he could be, and seemed to look inside himself. I don't know what I was expecting, but he looked the same and he looked just like himself, and then there was a wolf in the room where he had been, and the growl of his voice was a real growl, a wild one.

I looked at him. I knew I should be scared, but he was beautiful. His eyes were yellow against his rough fur. His energy was contained, but I knew that if he let it go, he could tear the place apart and everyone in it. Not by trying, just by letting go.

I wanted him to. I wanted to see it happen.

I wouldn't have minded going down under those teeth and claws if it meant I got to see what happened when he followed them instead of holding back the way he always did.

He'd been staring at me the whole time, and when I thought that he bared his teeth almost silently.

I was really seeing him for the first time.

Now I knew how much he was holding back just being with us in the ordinary world.

They say that humans are the only ones who kill for sport, but that's not true. Wolves hunt for the sake of the hunt.

Dog looked desperate for a hunt.

"Hey," Cam said. "That's enough," and just like that Dog was back.

"Honey, I'm home," he said, climbing over the couch to sit down. "Anybody call while I was out?"

Cam was looking at me again, very serious. "Do you get it?" he said. "You're not the only one."

"You're not even the weirdest one," Lacy said helpfully.

I had to try for a second, but I was able to talk. What about you? I said to Cam.

"Me?"

What do you do?

He smiled. "I just know the cool people to hang with," he said.

2007-06-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

I know I didn't finish that last thing, but sometimes it just gets too hard to write. It's like I just can't talk about it any more.

I'm so tired.

All the way down.

Something in me is just worn out, worn thin. Almost gone, really.

I'm ready to go.

Cam asked me what I see when I look at the future.

I've been thinking about that all the time now.

People have things to do. To look forward to. They're moving toward things. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes just because they are.

There's nothing ahead of me.

I'm so tired.

2007-06-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up to music.

Cam was at a careful distance from me, and the latest Muse album was pouring out of the computer.

"Are you awake, honey?" he asked quietly.

I turned to look at him, then noticed I was holding something. A CD. I was standing in front of his CD player, which has about a trillion slots and which I've never been able to figure out how to make play exactly the disc I want to hear.

I thought we went to bed, I said stupidly.

"Okay, here's my idiot question of the day," he said. "You were asleep, right? Just a minute ago?"

Well, yeah.

"It's just that your eyes were open," he said.

Oh.

"I could tell you weren't exactly there, though," he said.

Not even a little.

The music was holding me up, and when the song ended I couldn't stay standing up.

"Hey," Cam said, rushing over.

The floor was soft enough. I'm okay.

"The hell you are." He helped me up and over to a chair.

I'm fine, I insisted, and realized I was crying. It all just felt so distant. Like a bad accident -- you're interested, but afraid to get too close, in case you see something you really didn't want to.

I don't have to stay here, I said. Not if it's too much. But Cam, even if I'm crazy, please don't make me go back there. I know it's supposed to be a place that helps people, but it isn't, it really isn't.

"Are you through?" he said. "You're not going anywhere, so cut it out."

But I'm doing things I don't even remember. I looked at the box I'd been holding. I don't even like this album.

He laughed a bit. "You were sleepwalking," he said. "That's perfectly normal. They have a word for it and everything."

But my eyes were open.

"Look, I don't know anything about it," he said. "Maybe that's what people do. Maybe that's how they keep from falling over."

I sat for a minute, just soaking in the comfort of being near him.

Why did you turn on the music? I asked at last.

"Well, it looked like you wanted to listen to something. And I thought it might wake you up better than I could."

You woke me up that time.

"Yeah, and I got punched in the eye for it."

I hit you?

"Only on the inside. It's okay. I was more surprised than anything."

I sat quiet again, but this time it was defeat.

I am crazy, Cam. They were right. I'm insane.

"Stop that right now," Cam said. "I'm not hearing that. You are not crazy. You're having a perfectly sane reaction to a horrible experience. It'd be pretty damned weird if you were just skipping around picking daisies after what they did to you."

2007-06-04T22:07:00.000-07:00

Food is strange again. Even when I feel hungry, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with me. I can feel an emptiness, but it doesn't seem connected with me or anything I can do. I eat because I know that's what I'm supposed to do, but if I had to figure it out for myself I wouldn't know what to do about it.

It doesn't even feel like eating. It's more like taking medicine. It's a prescription.

There's no sense left in it. No sensual. No wanting.

2007-06-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Cam's been staying at home more, skipping classes sometimes and even missing work. I'm worried about him.

"I'm worried about you, dummy," he said.

I'm fine.

"I just don't think you should be alone so much right now," he said.

I'm used to it.

"You shouldn't have to be."

2007-06-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

I think I slept better that night, having Cam right there. Even though he slept so far away from me that he was halfway to the floor, it seemed like. Poor guy.

I knew he wasn't going to try anything. He didn't have to worry so hard.

I thought I slept fine that night, with some human warmth concerned about me right there and the door closed (not locked) and the world safely shut away, but I don't think he slept an inch.

Poor Cam.

Why does he live like this?

If he really wants a roommate, why doesn't he find someone who pays some rent and lets him get a decent night's sleep now and then?

2007-06-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

I woke up standing. Cam was near me, rubbing his temple.

"Well, now I know why they say not to wake up sleepwalkers," he said.

I'd been sleepwalking? It didn't feel like it. It didn't feel like anything. Just that one minute I was lying there staring into the dark, and the next minute I was wondering why Cam had brought me into the living room without even turning on any lights.

What time is it? I asked.

"Almost two," he said. "Come on."

Where?

"My room. You're taking the bed. No arguing."

I don't want to. You have to work tomorrow, and I'm not even tired.

"You're taking the bed and I'm staying with you. The longer we argue about this, the less sleep I get, so let's just go, okay?"

He was edgier than I'd seen or heard him before. I went with him. It wasn't like I thought he'd try anything. It was just different.

I liked the idea of not being alone, though.

He sleeps in shorts usually. Tonight he pulled on a shirt, like he was modest now. I usually sleep in his biggest shirts, but he bought me some pajamas so I wear those when they're clean. They're soft.

I sat down on his bed, feeling a little shy. I felt like once when I slept over at a friend's house and we'd been playing and giggling until her mom came in and said it was TIME TO SLEEP. All of a sudden we felt very formal and embarrassed.

He shut the door and did something to the knob I couldn't quite see.

What is it?

"I'm locking the door," he said.

The room had been big enough a minute ago, but now it was pressing in against me until I barely had room to move, let alone breathe.

Open it.

"I'm worried you might -- "

OPEN IT.

He looked at me a minute, then undid whatever he'd just done. "It's unlocked," he said. "But I want to leave it shut. Okay? That way if you do get up, you'll have to open it to go anywhere, and I'll hear you. I hope."

I felt all right again. I'm not going anywhere.

"I'm not sure you're the one making all your plans any more."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that.

He sat down on the other side of the bed but didn't quite lie down. He's always kind of serious, kind of quiet, but now he seemed especially so. I looked a little closer and realized that he wasn't just worried; he felt guilty.

Don't be mad.

"I'm not."

I mean at you.

He smiled a little. "I'm doing a bang-up job of taking care of you, aren't I?"

You're the best.

He just shook his head.

2007-05-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

Dog came over, which was weird. Not that I minded seeing him, but having him in this context when I was used to his being part of the outside world.

I guess I did mind. Just having anyone over at all. Opening the door to people coming in to Cam's place. My place. The safe place.

The apartment felt small with Dog in it. I wasn't sure where in the room I ought to be. I didn't like the fact that he could just look for me and see me. At a club or even outside, if I wanted to get away I could.

But I like him. He's in some ways even lower key than Cam, which is really going some. Barely talked to me, but not in a mean way. Not like he was ignoring me or couldn't be bothered or anything. Just seemed to know I wasn't really there. He said hi, but didn't sit there staring at me for an answer.

We watched a movie. He's the kind who actually watches a movie, not the kind that talks all through it. It was a weird movie, about a world where everything is getting darker and darker, and I really had to pay attention to understand it.

"Honey?" Cam asked.

I realized that I was standing up. I didn't remember getting up, and the movie was in a completely different place than where I'd left it. Either a character was missing or I'd made someone up. It was like how reading has been lately, except that I couldn't check because I haven't seen this movie and there was no way I was going to ask.

"You okay?" Cam asked.

Dog was looking at me. Very quiet and alert.

I nodded and went into the kitchen for something to drink, like that was the whole reason I'd gotten up in the first place. They had some beers over with them, but I've never liked that kind of thing. My head doesn't need more messing with.

I sat down and I could tell that Dog was kind of keeping an eye on me even though he was also following the movie. It should have bothered me and I guess from pretty much anyone else it would have, but with him it just made me feel safe. I felt guarded. Cam would do anything he could for me, but if Dog decided I was on his list he'd tear apart anyone who tried something, and enjoy the exercise.

I don't like violence, but there it is.

I liked knowing that some of it would be on my side for once.

I opened my eyes and the movie was ending. Was already over, really, but they were watching the credits to see if there was anything hidden at the end. I didn't move or say anything, just opened my eyes, but Dog looked over at me. "Should we start it again?" he asked.

I shook my head, embarrassed and not looking at him.

Cam got up and stretched. "I'll be right back."

Dog kept looking at me. "What's going on, little sister?" he asked. "You're fading fast. You look like you were filmed in black and white."

I didn't know what to say, and then realized that I couldn't say anything anyway. I've been talking to Cam okay, but now with Dog I didn't know how.

Cam came back in. "So what are we doing?" he asked. "There's a sequel, or if you want to go out -- "

"I don't," Dog said. "Something to eat, maybe."

"I'll see what I've got," and he was gone again, rummaging around in the kitchen. Dog turned back to me.

"You need to get some rest," he said.

I shook my head, hard.

"Why not?"

I shook my head again.

"It's easy. You shut your eyes and -- "

No.

Well, I'd remembered how to talk. It was a lot louder than I'd planned, though. Dog looked a little surprised, but other than that he didn't care.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?"

I could scream. I have been.

"I can take it."

Cam came back in. "I don't know how old this is," he said, putting down some cold pizza. "If it's the stuff we ordered Saturday, it should be okay."

"Let me try it first," Dog said. "I've got a stomach of steel."

"Echo?"

I shook my head. I wished they would leave me alone. I had two blankets and I was sitting between them and I liked knowing they were there but I couldn't stand the other kind of taking care of me.

2007-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

"We're going out," Cam announced. Didn't ask if I wanted to, didn't give me any warning the way he usually does so I have time to get used to the idea. Just said it.

Where? Why?

"I don't know where. Just out somewhere. I need some air."

I don't.

"Dog's coming," he said, as if I hadn't said anything. "He doesn't have anything going on, either."

I don't want to go out.

"It's been too long. You need it."

I don't.

"Just for a little while."

No.

I think he was surprised. I don't usually say stuff like that to him. I'll choke down anchovies rather than tell him I don't like them. He's always on me to be more assertive and all that.

Except tonight, I guess.

He looked at me a long time, and then he sat down next to me. I was holding a book but I hadn't actually been reading it, and he set it aside.

"I'm worried about you," he said. "I don't know what to do to help."

You're already helping, I said. You're letting me be here.

"That's not enough."

I don't want to talk about this.

He looked at me again for a minute, and then he sighed. "Okay," he said. "Let's just go out for a bit, okay? I really think it'll be good for you."

I can't. I'm sorry.

"We don't have to go anywhere. Just outside. A little fresh air, that's all."

I'm just not up to it.

"Okay. We'll stay here, then." He didn't say it in a guilt way, but I still felt bad.

You can go. I don't mind.

"I mind."

2007-05-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Lately I can't read anything I haven't read before.

Because sometimes when I'm reading, the story will get really strange. I'll follow along for a while, just watching for what's going to happen next, and then it's like I snap out of it. I turn back a few pages and start reading again, and it turns out that nothing I thought I just read was really there.

I was reading Jane Eyre, and I got to this part that I never remembered reading before. The madwoman in the attic was telling me what she was thinking, and why she did what she did. She said the worst part about being crazy was that it was like dying. It froze everything into place. You couldn't get away from who you'd been, what you'd done. Nothing new could ever happen to you. That was why the lovers in Dante's Inferno whirled around in circles, tied forever to one another. That was all they were, now: a picture of their own passion. The outside and the inside were one and the same. And all she was was wanting and unwanted. She knew she shouldn't love Rochester any more -- she never should have, really -- and if she could just get her mind back for a minute, she'd be able to talk herself out of it. The heart follows the mind more often than we think, she told me. But she'd gone mad while she was still in love with him, and so now she was madly in love with him. It was humiliating.

I could have listened to her for hours, but when I looked at the page again, everything she'd said was gone. I looked through the whole book, but I couldn't find anywhere that she got to talk. I knew I must have just come up with it myself somehow, but it felt so real.

And when I tried to write down what she'd said to me, it was like trying to write about music. I knew how it made me feel, but I couldn't get it down just right so anyone else could hear it.

I guess I'm dreaming with my eyes open now.

That's okay. It's not bad, I guess. Just odd.

2007-05-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Cam says I can't get away from dreaming by not sleeping. But I've noticed that when I go to bed absolutely stupefied with tiredness, it's like I'm too tired to dream. That's good.

He makes me go to bed every night, but he can't make me sleep.

2007-05-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Feeling haunted, hemmed in. Tired. I'm not sleeping unless I can't help it, and it turns out I can help it a lot.

If that's what sleep is going to do to me, I'll damned well do without it.

2007-05-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

More bad dreams, and I don't know how they can be so frightening even when I can't remember them.

2007-05-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Bad dreams. Woke Cam up twice. On a night where he had to get up early for school the next day. Poor Cam.

2007-05-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

"You're safe."

I swear I almost hit him when he said that. Not nice, but true.

How can you say that? Are you saying if they came to get me, you could stop them?

I felt bad after I said that. Cam's not very big, physically, for a guy. He's not a dwarf or anything, he's just not huge. That's kind of part of why I feel safe with him -- I don't feel threatened. I didn't want him to think that I meant he wasn't a man or something. It has nothing to do with that. He could be twelve feet tall and not be able to keep me safe if it came down to it.

He seemed to understand what I meant, though. He didn't seem hurt or anything, just concerned. "They're not going to -- "

How do you know? Why won't they? Because they can't find me, or because they won't bother to look?

His face got that puckered expression.

"I don't know how to tell you this," he said. "I don't want it to come out wrong. I'm not coming on to you or anything, you know that. But I'd die before I let anything happen to you."

I looked at him, but he didn't let me say anything. "Let me finish," he said. "The thing is, I don't think you'd let that happen. I think that if someone did come for you, you'd be so afraid that you'd freeze up and let them take you away. That's what you're afraid of, and you're right -- that's probably what you'd do. But if they tried to hurt me -- and they'd have to, to get you -- you'd stop them."

I had no idea what to say to that.

"You're so afraid of how much power you might have that you spend all your time either tamping it down or pretending it isn't there," he said. "Or you let yourself believe what they tried to tell you -- that there's nothing there, you're just crazy. But you're not. And if push ever comes to shove, I feel sorry for anyone who tries to hurt someone you care about."

I think you're the one who's crazy.

He just smiled.

2007-05-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Cam, trying to be nice again.

"You'll be okay. I promise."

I didn't think I could ever be angry at him, but I really was when he said that.

As much as he cares -- and I know he does -- it's way too easy for him to say that. He's not the one who has to deal with it, not in the same way anyway, if he's wrong.

It would be bad enough to have to look back at -- to look back. Just looking at it. Why would anyone want to go there? If I was really safe. If I could know it could never happen again.

But I'm not. I don't. I can't. It could.

2007-05-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

He didn't. He just asked me to finish saying what was really bothering me about looking back.

The dreams aren't bad enough?

It's true. They're not. They're really not the worst.

What I'm most afraid of is that if I look back, I won't be able to do anything else. I'll be trapped there. Not turned to salt, but turned to stone.

My past is a gorgon.

2007-05-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

I thought I was telling the truth, but I wasn't. Not completely.

I am afraid of having dreams, it's true. God, so much. I can't even tell what it's like to feel like those are waiting for me.

I live with a monster I'm afraid of waking up.

The worst part is that no matter what it does, how often it attacks me, how much blood it draws, it won't kill me. I'll still be there for more.

I haven't had a good dream in so long. But I remember what they're like. So fragile. Flighty. Indifferent. If I move or blink or a breeze blows by, it'll fly away and won't come back no matter how still and quiet I lie.

Nightmares care. They're just so glad to be with you. Even if you manage to get away, they're so polite. They think you only had to step away for a moment. They're more than happy to wait for you to come back.

They'll wait forever for you.

I was reading one of Cam's magazines today. It had a cartoon of this man lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Over his head was this thought bubble. There were a bunch of sheep in it, waiting to jump that fence sheep always leap in cartoons when someone's trying to fall asleep. But these sheep weren't jumping. They were cowed, cowering. The man thinking them looked pretty cowed himself. On the other side of the fence was a grinning wolf. Just waiting for the feast.

I'm going to show that to Cam. Maybe he'll stop bugging me.

2007-05-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how.

It should be as easy as writing about any other day or night. Just say what happened.

2007-05-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

Cam is bugging me to write more.

"You started to write about the night we met," he said. "That's good."

I didn't say anything.

"Why don't you finish writing that?"

Nothing.

"I'll give you a dollar."

Didn't smile.

"Those doughnuts you like?"

I glared at him.

"Hey, I'm just saying I'd do a lot for a box of my favorite doughnuts. Nothing wrong with being cheap sometimes.

"What's it going to hurt?" he asked. "It happened, you write about it, you prove to yourself that you can go back and take a look at whatever you want whenever you want to."

Except I don't want to.

"It's one thing not to want to," he said. "It's another thing not to be able to. All this stuff that happened to you has power over you if you can't face it."

I don't want to have more dreams.

"I'll be there for you."

I don't want you to have to be.

"I don't mind."

I just don't see the point of going back there. We both know it happened.

"Let me ask you something," Cam said. "When you look ahead at the future, what do you see?"

I thought for a minute. Nothing.

"Yeah, and it's going to stay that way until you've faced your past. You're not a whole person until you do that."

Just because somebody saves you doesn't give them the right to be a pain in the ass.

When did you turn into a self-help book?

"I'm a selfish jerk," Cam said. "I love having you here. I love how we are now. I'd be happy to live this life for the rest of my life."

Then why do you keep poking at me? Why can't we just keep things the way they are, if we're both happy that way?

"Because I don't think you're happy, and I'd like you to be. I'd rather risk losing you than not do right by you."

It had been a long time since I felt really terrified. They say you don't remember pain, but I hadn't forgotten an inch of that.

I'm not going anywhere.

"I know you're not."

Are you going to let me stay?

"Let you? I'm asking you to. But I want it to be a choice for you. Right now it isn't. That makes me feel mean. Like I'm using you."

I looked at him in amazement. What was he talking about? He's given me safety, warmth, cleanness and softness, hot water and stories and food. I can't pay him a dime. And he's so hands-off it's almost silly. I half expect him to put on a chastity belt every night before he goes to bed.

How could he be using me?

"I can't explain," he said. It was nice when I didn't have to go to the trouble of asking questions and he'd answer them anyway. "I've never lied to you, so you're just going to have to take my word for it."

Okay.

"Will you please try to do what I asked?"

I'd almost forgotten what we were talking about. Didn't like being reminded.

I thought for a minute. He didn't push me.

Can I really have the doughnuts?

He smiled.

2007-05-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

We went out again. Dog's band was playing, and we went to see them.

They were good. Dog mostly played guitar. I liked the way his face looked when he played. Just really focused. Even when he saw us, and he was glad to see us, his expression didn't change. He was concentrating.

The music was hard, really fierce. I had to be careful not to let myself get too tangled up in it. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get back out.

One song, though, really took me with it. I went ahead and let it. It felt so good to step into the storm instead of making myself an eye the way I usually have to.

Cam touched me on the arm, gently. He was smiling.

"Hey," he said. "Check out the room."

I looked around. I didn't see anything much.

"They're loving it," he said. "They're feeling that extra edge."

It's a good song.

"It's not just a good song."

Dog came over after they were done playing. "What'd you think?" he asked.

I nodded. Cam glanced at me sideways, trying not to smile. "I really liked that one song, especially," he said. "About looking for darkness."

"Yeah?" Dog said. "I wrote that."

"It works."

"Thanks."

He stayed with us until we left. People came up and talked to him sometimes, but he didn't give them anything much and they'd leave after a minute. I liked him, but I was nervous about being with him. I was worried about talking. It was going to come up sooner or later.

It came up when it was Cam's turn to go get drinks. "You never told me what you thought of the music," Dog said the second he was gone.

I didn't know where to look. He was looking right at me, and he wouldn't look away.

"That bad, huh?"

I shook my head.

"Here's what's weird about how loud it is in here," he said. "It's actually easier to hear somebody when they're talking quietly. It's like it goes under the noise level or something."

I really liked the music.

"Yeah?" He didn't act like anything was any kind of deal.

Too much.

"Didn't know there was such a thing."

It makes me feel bad to have to come back to regular life.

"At least you know you can get away again."

Cam came up just then. He kind of looked at me, but didn't say anything. I felt like he was upset. I wasn't sure. Maybe I was just worried he would be.

I didn't say anything else that night.

2007-05-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

I don't remember having a dream and I don't remember what it was about. I opened my eyes and Cam was next to me, talking, trying to wake me up.

"Hey," he said. "It's okay. You're okay. You're safe now."

Here's something: There was a clear few seconds between his saying that and my remembering where I was, who I was, and what it was all about; and that was the sweetest time I've ever had. I knew he was telling the truth, and I could just feel safe without knowing what, exactly, I was safe from. Just for a minute, I got to not be the person all that happened to.

"Are you all right?" Cam asked.

I nodded, wishing I could have stayed there in that safe place. Did I make any noise?

"Only to me," he said. "Don't worry."

It was a night he'd actually let me have the couch, and he wanted to trade, to make me feel better. I wouldn't, though. Bad enough I'd woken him up.

I'm going to start sleeping during the day for a while.

2007-05-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

But doesn't that depend? Cam and I read that Wells story together, about the man who could see in the country of the blind. That man had a sense no one else did. He should have been king. Didn't quite work out that way.

Or look at people who have too many fingers. I've heard they do surgery on that kind of thing, get rid of it. You'd think an extra digit could be an asset, but it isn't. Because the world isn't set up for it.

If you don't have all the senses everyone is supposed to, they'll help you out. But I don't think it's out of the kindness of their heart. They just want everyone at a certain level.

When I was in kindergarten, the teacher said to stop reading at school. The other kids didn't know how, and it would make them feel bad.

I spent pretty much the whole time in school being teased for being too smart. It started getting better in high school, because people started caring about their grades. One guy was really nice to me. I knew it was because I helped him with his homework whenever he asked, but I didn't care. I was just so glad that somebody was even pretending to like me.

He wasn't completely pretending. There were other smart people, and he picked me. We had even started hanging out together.

That was when they took me out of school, and I didn't see him again after that.

I wonder if he wondered where I went.

2007-05-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Cam gave me a hard time today. About something I wrote here.

"How can you think you were wrong?" he asked. "How can you even imagine that?"

I didn't have an answer for that. I wished I could keep reading. Rochester just proposed to Jane. But Cam wouldn't leave it alone, so I listened.

"Do you think I'm wrong?" he asked.

I looked at him curiously.

"This is the kind of thing I know," he said. "I don't make mistakes about this."

I nodded. I didn't want to have that argument.

"It's a gift," he said. "It's not a curse."

2007-05-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

We argue about books. Not fight, just bicker back and forth. Cam likes books that are like real life. Even old books have to pass the test: could this really have happened? Jack London and J.D. Salinger, yes; Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, maybe; the Brontes, no way.

I like books where there's no way it could be true, but you wish it were. What's the point of reading about reality? That's what I'm trying to get away from.

So he goes to the used bookstore and gets me the books I used to look at when I spent my days in the library. Books about fairies -- not the cute kind, but the ones who look and act more like demons. Ghost stories. Charlotte and Emily Bronte.

"Cathy!" he groaned when he handed me a used copy of Wuthering Heights.

Shut up.

He grinned.

Our only meeting place is, we both like monster stories. The old kind. Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, and Jekyll and Hyde. H. G. Wells, but I had to stop reading The Island of Dr. Moreau. It just felt a little too close to home.

I read all day, almost, when Cam's gone, wrapped up in the quilt that smells like his shampoo; and when he's home I bake things. They don't always turn out very well, but it makes the place warm and baking is like coffee, it smells better than it tastes.

I'd like to mess around in the kitchen when he's out. He doesn't care if I do, in fact I think he'd like it. But when he's gone I go into hiding. I hate making any noise at all, and a scent would be just as easy to trace.

2007-05-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

Cam's place is so small it only has one full-sized window. I wish it didn't have any. I don't want to look out and I don't like the feeling that someone could look in.

He never says anything, just keeps things shut. When I'm in the bath or something, he'll open things up to air the place out a bit. But he closes them up before I come out. He likes things dark anyway. He says he's a night person.

I don't know what I am, if I'm anything. I feel safer at night, if that counts.

2007-05-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

I don't want to think about the past. I don't want to write about it.

It isn't good news, either way.

Either I was right and almost everyone else was wrong, in which case I have to live with the idea of being something a lot more than just the sum of my parents' parts; or I was wrong, in which case I really was insane.

2007-05-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

Cam and I met in a club.

That's the kind of thing he wants me to write about. He won't mind so much being in the story if it's my story I'm writing.

Cam and I met in a club.

He wants me to go back to that and then back more. Make my story whole.

I can barely talk about just that one night, and that was the night I was technically safe and started being safer. Found a home and didn't have to be cold any more because:

Cam and I --

I'm not writing about it now. It's giving me a headache and I've had enough of those.

2007-05-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

I couldn't eat all day, and maybe that was why it didn't go too well at first. I was shaky, I could barely get dressed. He got me some jeans, and a pretty purple shirt. Swears he didn't even pay ten dollars altogether for both, and how much would he have to pay for the kind of live-in maid service he's getting now? Coffee and a clean bathroom every morning?

He took my hand and kind of pulled me along when it was time to go. I've watched him go out that door every day, but I haven't been through it myself since he brought me home.

"Hey," he said. "What's wrong?"

I was holding the doorknob, and I couldn't let go.

"Honey, we're coming back," he said. "I promise. We're going to go out, listen to some music, watch people dance stupid, have a drink, come home, and sleep in. Crash until noon if we feel like it. I have the whole day off tomorrow. We can watch a monster movie, maybe some Buffy reruns."

I knew that. I knew all that. It was ridiculous to think he was going to dump me somewhere like a stray puppy. If he didn't want me staying with him any more, he wouldn't have to work that hard to get rid of me.

It didn't make any sense for it to be so hard. For me to be afraid to be outside, and seen. No one was going to recognize me, and as Cam pointed out, I'd been going to clubs every night when we met.

But that was to have somewhere safe to hide. This was supposed to be for fun. And I had so much more to lose now. Cam. Home.

He's the one person I can't hide from, so I tamped it all down before you could really call it panic and went along.

It was cold out. It had been so long since I'd been outside, I was startled by the air moving against my skin.

Just to make up for lost time, I'd be happy to stay inside forever. As long as it's this kind of inside. The good kind.

It was crowded when we got there, but not too much so. The music wasn't bad, wasn't great. Nothing for me to hang onto. Cam didn't say anything about that, just got us something to drink. Didn't ask me to dance. I don't know how to, maybe he knew. There's something missing where dancing should be in me. I love to watch other people doing it, though. Not to learn -- I'll never be able to do that. I especially love the ones who look completely absurd. I love how they're willing to just move, never mind how it looks.

For all I know, they look great by anything like normal standards. I'm no judge.

We sat quietly, just taking it all in. The music got a little better, a bit of an edge. Someone Cam knew came over to where we were.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Cam said, and looked at me. "This is Dog," he said.

I nodded. It was funny, because he looked like a dog. Not a mean dog, or a cute puppy. Just the way he held himself, the way he looked around. He looked completely relaxed, but it was just because he was holding on to it, the way a dog on a loose leash looks when he's just walking along, indifferent until he smells something or hears another dog and goes from zero to crazy and the leash snaps taut. He didn't have any hair, and that made him look more animal. He was big, but not scary so.

"Dog," Cam said, "meet Echo."

I smiled. I didn't know he was going to name me. That was nice.

I felt safer after that. I was still lying low, but it was as if it didn't matter as much if anyone saw me. I had someone else to be.

Dog stayed with us most of the time. I liked him, and I could tell he liked me. He and Cam talked some, mostly about music. Cam works at the radio station at the college. Dog plays music. He looks like he'd be good at it. Serious about it.

He didn't talk to me much. He seemed to know that wasn't something I could do. Once when Cam had left for a minute, he sat listening for a minute and then looked at me. "You guys aren't dating, right?"

I shook my head.

"But you're staying with him."

I nodded, wondering how he knew. I didn't think Cam would have told him. He said he wasn't going to tell anyone.

"We'll be playing here next week," he said. "You guys should come see us."

I nodded again. I wanted to say that I'd like that, but I didn't quite have the nerve. I wasn't sure if he'd notice about my talking. He seemed the kind of person who noticed things. Didn't mind or make a big deal, but noticed.

He seemed to get that my not talking wasn't about him, and didn't say anything else until Cam came back. They'd just been playing music up to that point, but there was going to be a band. A pretty good one, Dog said. Worth staying for.

We stayed. I like it when the music is live, even if it isn't the greatest. It's just different when it's right in front of you like that. Really coming from somewhere. Even when people aren't dancing or really listening to it, their energy kind of leans toward it, like a compass needle curving north.

I let myself lean in, too. Cam was right. No one was going to notice if I let go a little. The music would just have a bit of extra spark to it.

Once I looked up and saw Dog looking at me, looking kind of puzzled. Not upset; just trying to figure something out. Cam caught his eye and just smiled and shook his head at him.

It was a pretty nice night. Cam did a little I-told-you-soing about that when we left, but it wasn't unbearable.

It was nice to get home, though. Once we got there and I just wrapped the place around me like a blanket, I wondered how I'd ever been able to leave.

"We should go see Dog when they play," Cam said before we fell asleep. "His band is really good."

2007-04-17T22:07:00.001-07:00

Cam wants to go out and hear some music tonight. He wants me to go with him.

"Why not?" he said. I hadn't even said anything yet, but he knew.

Why not? As if he didn't know.

"You used to go out to clubs every night," he said.

That was different. I had to.

"You'll be with me," he said. "It'll be totally normal. If it's too date-like, we can pretend we're cousins. Or sisters."

I smiled, halfheartedly. "So what?" he went on. "Maybe people will have an extra good time if we're there. Wonder if they're playing the music louder than usual, picking better songs. That's a nice thing to be able to do. It's like giving them a gift."

I looked at him. Didn't say anything.

He didn't back down. He came over and took my hand.

"You shouldn't be afraid of what you can do," he said. "You should be happy. You should be proud."

Were the people who were burned at the stake for being witches proud of what they could do?

I don't have anything to wear.

"I'll get you something," Cam said.

I don't want you spending money on me.

"I'll go to the thrift store. I need to get you some jeans, anyway." He looked at me again. "Will you try?"

I nodded.

2007-04-14T16:58:00.001-07:00

I have to be quiet while Cam's gone.

Because of the way his building is laid out and where his apartment is in it, he only shares a wall with one neighbor. And she's not home much. But I always feel around and lay out a good thick blanket of quietness after Cam leaves every day.

It's not the kind of building where people can come and knock on your door if they don't live there, or where they would even if they do. So that's good.

2007-04-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

"You're still writing about me too much," Cam said.

2007-04-08T19:55:00.001-07:00

We still fight over who sleeps in the bed. Cam wants me to all the time, but that's too guiltifying even if he doesn't mean it that way. Especially since he doesn't. He's too nice. I can't do that to him. It's his bed.

Besides, I feel safer on the couch. I like leaning against the back of it, feeling held. But he says he feels like a jerk if he has the bed all the time.

We'll take turns, I said.

And he said he would. But he still fights.

2007-04-07T23:43:00.001-07:00

It makes me feel better to have a routine. I get up, make the coffee, scrub the tub. Take a shower while Cam figures out where he keeps the coffee mugs. Get dressed while he takes his shower. Eat breakfast with him. Wash up the dishes after he leaves. Wipe the counters. Scrub the sink. Make the bed. Fold up the blankets on the couch.

It sounds like a lot, but it doesn't take long.

Then I read. I do some writing here. I think about what to eat.

I'm starting to be hungry a lot. Things are getting their taste back. I like pickles that are sharp enough to make my eyes water. Bread and butter. Sweet things. Cupcakes.

I plan out what I'm going to eat, and when. If I'm hungry beforehand, I make myself wait.

I make a schedule for myself because no one else is making one for me.

Is that bad? Cam says he wants me to be free.

But he's free, and he has a schedule. He has things to do, places to be. He has to be on time to work, to classes.

So it must be normal, really, to have a routine.

That would be funny, wouldn't it? Me, normal.

2007-04-05T22:06:00.001-07:00

Every morning I wake up and have to force myself even to open my eyes.

It's not that I'm tired. I don't want to be in bed or asleep, necessarily. It's just that I have no idea what to do.

I think I've forgotten how to do anything I'm not being forced to do.

One more thing they took away from me. The only thing there is, maybe.

If I can't want, how can I be?

They've taken me away. I'm not a person any more.

I used to want. I remember that. I used to wake up and want and hope and reach. Important things, stupid stuff. Breakfast cereal. A new blouse. A new song.

So much music.

Do you want to hear something stupid? I'm angry at everyone who kept making music when I wasn't allowed to hear it.

I guess I exist if I'm angry.

I'm scared.

Sometimes I'm hungry.

I'm cold a lot.

Shouldn't there be more than that?

2007-04-04T21:56:00.001-07:00

I thought Cam would be happy I'm doing what he asked, but when he read what I've been writing he kind of frowned.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he said before I could even ask. "It's just -- this is all about me."

No, it isn't, I said. And anyway, I live with you. Who am I supposed to write about? Mussolini?

"You," he said. "This is supposed to be your story."

It is. I'm writing a little about what I do every day.

He sighed. "I know, but -- I think it would be good if you wrote more about what you think about. Who you are. What you like, what you don't like." He hesitated, then added, "Why you're here."

What happened before.

"Well -- "

I don't like that. I'm here now. I like that.

"I'm glad. I like it, too. Will you just do me one favor?"

What?

"Try writing at least one paragraph a day that doesn't have me in it."

2007-04-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to figure out what I can do around here.

Obviously I can't do the grocery shopping.

I don't know how to cook.

It's actually pretty hard to clean somebody else's place. Like, what if I
straighten up and he can't find anything? Alphabetize his books and it
turns out he likes them sorted by country, or century, or which ones he's
read and which he hasn't yet?

Vacuuming is noisy.

The laundry room is right there. I could wait until it's empty and be in
and out so quickly with our dirty duds.

I don't quite have the nerve, it turns out. Not yet.

2007-03-25T22:14:00.001-07:00

"Kafka," Cam said when he saw what I'd been reading. "Not exactly comfort food."

I'd just started The Trial. I'm sure it's supposed to be scary, but to me it seems, I don't know, funny. I mean, one morning instead of breakfast in bed from your landlady, some strangers come in and tell you you're a criminal. They can't tell you what you did or what's going to happen to you, but you can forget about those eggs.

I like it.

He still looked worried, and I added, Do you not want me to read it?

"I just thought you might want something a little more chipper," he said. "All things considered."

There didn't seem to be any way of explaining that, all things considered, this was chipper.

Pick something for me, I said. Something you like, so we can talk about it.

"I'm not the boss of you, honey," he said. "I want you to do what you want. That's my goal."

What if what I'd like to do is what you'd like me to do?

He kind of laughed. "That doesn't count."

2007-03-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to dream again.

It's been a while.

Before I got out, I had too much stuff in my system to dream. Sleep was strange and muddy, but I wouldn't call it dreaming.

After I got out, I wasn't sleeping often or long enough to have time for dreams.

And then for the first few nights here, I was still making sure I was safe.

It's been pretty quiet so far, but I can feel something muttering around the edges.

Maybe nothing will come of it.

I hope I don’t wake Cam up.

2007-03-21T00:02:00.001-07:00

Cam's place is little, and he has a lot of books. I like that all the books aren't about the same thing. Most people only have books on one or two subjects, and then whatever they have left from school that they didn't sell or throw out.

But Cam's books are great, and you never know what you're going to find. I sat down with this great story today, about an animal in its burrow for the winter. I just finished it, and I don't even remember one thing about it. It was just cozy. I wanted to crawl in and live there.

I'm starting to feel that way now. Starting to feel safe.

Well, ready to feel safe, at least. It’s not quite the same thing.

2007-03-19T22:04:00.001-07:00

Cam is just enough bigger than me that I can wear his clothes without its being completely ridiculous. The jeans are fitting a little weird now -- I've gained some weight -- but everything else is fine.

"Thanks," he said when I came out of the bathroom, and he smiled.

There was coffee brewing. I didn't have any, but I like the way it smells.

I want to start getting up before Cam. Not just to hog the shower. I want him to wake up to coffee. He's a very healthy person in pretty much every way, but he really needs caffeine first thing in the morning. Every day it takes him about fifteen minutes to figure out how to make his coffee, even though he's had the same coffee maker for a long time and he uses it every morning. Once he's had even a sip he's okay, he can really rattle through the morning and do whatever he needs to. He might have a little more coffee in the afternoon, but that's just for fun. He doesn't require it. It's just that first shot in the morning.

I'll make it for him tomorrow.

2007-03-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

This morning I used up almost all the hot water. I was in the shower and it was such a comfort. The water, of course, but mostly just knowing I didn't have to move or leave or worry about who might be waiting for me. It felt so clean and good.

Poor Cam was nice about it. "You ever coming out of there?" he hollered over the water noise and steam.

Apparently not.

"I need to destinkify before class," he said. "It's too damned hot today to wear the anti-smell-ray sweater."

Five more minutes.

"Honey, come on. I don't want to be late."

Two? But I turned off the water and started drying off.

My own towel. Soft.

Cam's mom gave him a stack of nice ones when he moved out on his own, and a package of those soaps shaped like little fruits and a special bowl to put them in. They're pretty dusty now.

I'll clean them today.

How do you clean soap? If you wash it, it just leaves.

I'll figure something out. I want to do something for Cam.

Not that he cares about how his soap looks.

Two hours, again. But it felt a little easier today. Dumber, but easier.

2007-03-16T22:55:00.001-07:00

I've wanted to do this for so long -- talk -- and now that I finally can, the words keep skittering away from me, as if they're as scared as I am.

Cam wants me to do this. He says it's important, and not just to me. He never pressures me, but he's given me so much, I can't just say no. Not when it's something that ought to be so easy. And even if it's hard, I have all the time in the world to figure it out.

It's so weird to be free.

I feel so blank. I wake up and just have no idea what to do.

Physical necessities are a relief, but they can only take me so far.

It's still hard to eat. Things taste strange. And I never know what I want to have.

It's not so bad when Cam's here. He makes breakfast, whatever he feels like having, and I have that too. He never asks what I want, which is nice.

But most of the time he's at school or at work, and I have to figure things out for myself.

Okay, this has taken me almost two hours to write. That's just plain humiliating. But no one can say I didn't try.

Cam, if you're reading this, I'll do more tomorrow.