Raze (Riven 3)

“You’re right. I know you’re right.”

“The sweetest words in the English language.” She grinned.

We lay on the bed next to each other in silence.

“I’m still mad at you, you know?” I said after a while.

“I know.”

“So,” I said, stealing her pillow. “How’s this whole rock-star thing going for ya?”

Her eyes lit up. “You’ll have to come and see tonight.”

* * *

—

My sister was a revelation. She was glorious, incandescent, impish, powerful. She was every single part of her personality all at once, each with the volume turned to ten, projected out over thousands and thousands of screaming fans. I felt like I was watching someone I had once known, a long, long time ago, who had become famous. Then I had to remind myself over and over that it was Sofia. The crowd screamed for her, sang for her, laughed with her, and cried with her.

Before the last song, she said, “Thank you so much, Baltimore!”

They screamed.

“Will you help me out with something, Baltimore?” she yelled.

They screamed.

“My brother’s here tonight. He’s the best brother anyone could ask for, and he needs a little encouragement.”

My heart raced and I tried to hide behind the woman in front of me, suddenly terrified Sofia might make me come up onstage or something. I reassured myself that she wouldn’t do that because she knew I’d kill her in her sleep.

Someone yelled something near the front of the stage.

“No, I’m not gonna tell you what he needs encouragement with—what are we, best friends?”

“Yesyesyes!” the crowd chanted.

She grinned, and the video monitor above the stage projected her grin a hundred times its size, like the audience was as close to her as I had been.

“Tell my brother with me, okay? Say, ‘You can do it, Felix!’ Okay?”

And slowly, as I stood anonymously among them, the crowd’s din coalesced into a chant.

“You can do it, Felix! You can do it, Felix!” they chanted.

Tears blurred my eyes.

“You can do it, Felix,” I whispered.

The guy standing next to me, chanting enthusiastically, grinned at me like he was happy I got with the program.

“You can do it, Felix!” I screamed at myself as the crowd went wild.

* * *

—

I let myself into Dane’s apartment with the key under the mat. I knew he’d be at the gym and then going to the market because it was Wednesday, so I figured I had enough time to make something simple for us to eat and have it ready by the time he came home. I wanted to do this face to face.

When I stepped inside, though, Dane jumped to his feet from the floor where he’d been doing push-ups. His muscles bulged and a light sweat gleamed on his skin. His mouth dropped open when he saw me, and he looked down at himself.

He was wearing only boxer briefs and his exposed skin was covered with a labyrinth of black words, layers faded and overwritten into meaninglessness. He wrote those things on himself for guidance and comfort; I shuddered at how much comfort he must have needed to result in that thicket of words.

“Dane, I…I thought you’d be…I wanted to…”

I’d spent the whole bus ride back from Baltimore planning all the things I’d say to him, all the things I’d explain. But now, faced with my boyfriend, gorgeous and harrowed and looking like the gladiator Sofia had compared him to, everything faded away except the absolute most important thing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so, so sorry. I was horrible and everything went wrong. Can we talk?”

Dane nodded. He pulled on the T-shirt lying on the back of the couch, but then he stood there, staring at me like he couldn’t quite believe I was there. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and I started to lose my nerve.

“Are you…Can you give me just an idea of how mad you are? Like…like pretty mad, super mad, so mad you can’t even talk? Just so I know where to start.”

He shook his head and said nothing, which seemed to support the third option.

“Not mad,” he said finally. “I thought…I looked for you, but…” He shook his head. “Thought maybe you were just done with me.”

“No, no, I acted like such a dick. You have to be mad.”

“No, I don’t.”

At first I thought he was being argumentative, then realized he was just stating a fact.

I launched into my prepared remarks before I could get too thrown, but somehow they didn’t come out the way I’d practiced on the bus.

“Look, I, um. I’ve never…I don’t know how to fight. With you. And I think maybe you don’t know how to fight with me? But I met this awesome woman in the museum—well, I think I did? I’m still slightly convinced maybe she was a super-elaborate figment of my imagination? And she—the woman, I mean—took me around. And holy shit, Dane, the exhibits after hours are bananas, just so, so cool. Okay, but sorry, anyway, I was trying to say I’ve never really fought with, like, a boyfriendish person before. And I didn’t do a good job. And also that day my timing was bad, I know now. Really, really bad. And you just left, and it was like, ugh, how do we do anything? And—and—and— Anyway, my point was that I don’t know how to fight with you, but I want to learn how to fight with you. And be with you. You know?”