As They Slip Away (Across the Universe 2.50)

“It’s fine,” I say immediately. Better than fine.

“Luthe . . . he’s not . . . ” Bartie shifts again, glancing out the dark window. “He’s said things . . . I just . . . ”

“Victria should pay more attention to her love life and less to mine,” I snap.

“Listen,” Bartie says, leaning closer. “If Luthe has friends, then I’m one. And the way he talks about people . . . about girls . . . ”

“ Girls? More than one?” I ask, my heart plunging.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say. ”

I can’t help but let a sigh of relief escape my lips.

“ Just be careful, okay?” Bartie finally mumbles.

I nod, but I’m still not sure what he means.

Bartie’s hands drift back to his guitar. “Want to jam a bit?”

“ Jam? ” I laugh.

“I read about it. It’s what they used to call making music, back on Sol-Earth. ”

“Jam. ” I say again. Such a ridiculous word.

“I ’ve been working a bit on this,” Bartie adds, and he lifts the guitar up into its proper position, his calloused fingers pressing into the strings on the neck. He fumbles, listening to the chords, until he finds the right harmony.

The song is fast, and gets louder as he goes, but it still sounds melancholy to me. I think it’s the way that the notes weave in and out, always going back to the same deep, resonating chords, as if, no matter how quickly Bartie’s fingers dance on the strings, he can’t help but fall into the same sad melody.

When he glances up at me, he stops the song abruptly.

“ What is it?” I ask as the music dies.

“You looked as if you were going to cry,” he says.

I touch my cheek, but it’s dry.

“ How about this instead?” Bartie says, smiling, and he starts up on the same melody he’d made to match the song I wrote.

I smile, and as soon as I catch the rhythm, I open my mouth to sing. I don’t let the music rip from me as I did in the studio before; instead I force the song to stream from me like a steady flow of quiet water. I don’t want to wake anyone up, and even if the common room is separated from the rest of the Hospital, it’s not soundproof.

Still, the music overwhelms me. By the time I’m at the end, my voice is raised, and I am breathless.

And it’s not until then that I notice Luthor, standing in front of the elevator, watching me. Bartie presses his palm into the guitar strings, silencing them. Luthor doesn’t make a sound as his eyes dart from Bartie to me and back again. I’m suddenly aware of how close I am to Bartie, of the flush on my cheeks, of the way my fingers are almost touching his knee. I snatch my hand back.

Luthor walks out of the common room without saying a word.

When I wake up the next morning, my door is open. I know I closed it the night before, but it’s open now, light from the hallway streaming inside. I get up, rubbing my eyes and pulling my tank top down over my hips as I press the button to zip the door closed. I wonder if it was Victria, come to talk or barge in as usual, and if at the last minute she decided to let me sleep. Or maybe it was just a door malfunction.

I press the button on my wall for food delivery, and while I wait, I stick my fingers into the small cavity by the door. A small blue-and-white pill waits for me there. I stare at the capsule, wondering at how this tiny pill separates me from nearly everyone else on the ship outside the Hospital.

I swallow the pill dry. Doc says we’re loons, that our restlessness and artistic expression comes from this insanity, and that the Inhibitor pills are the only thing that keeps us from really losing it.

But I think Kayleigh is probably right. The Inhibitor pills don’t keep us from cracking; they keep us human, they keep us from turning into the passive nothingness the rest of the Feeders feel. The little compartment in my wall opens, and steam wafts out of it, leaving behind the scent of a meat pasty. I gobble it up as quickly as I can; wall food isn’t the best, and it’s unbearable to eat cold.

I must have overslept—no one’s around the common room, and the Hospital is empty. I head straight to the Recorder Hall. Orion nods at me in the entryway, but is busy working on a floppy.

Something blocks the door of our little studio, and I have to push hard to get inside. The first thing I notice is Luthor. He’s brown with clay, covered up to his elbows, with splotches of it decorating his clothes and great swaths over his brow. Little lines of sweat trickle through the dirt on his face.