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Everything with Annie. With Claude. With Kie. I'd come here to talk to Ariel.
And found her unwilling to listen.
The tears I needed to blink away were both gratitude and rage. That she was healing. That she thought she could leave me.
Neither won. I simply turned and looked at her and found her calm. For all that she was trapped down here, as locked down as any prisoner in supermax solitary, she was calm and unworried.
I gestured at the screen. "Where is this?"
She shrugged. "Nowhere."
I felt the anger rise, that she was, even now, claiming not to matter. But stopped, reconsidered. "What do you mean?"
She glanced away from the screen, up at me, surprised. "Are you all right? You look weird." Then she giggled self consciously. "I mean… oh, well. You know."
My lips twitched. "Of course I don't look weird. So of course I don't know."
She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "Oh? Right. My mistake."
"So what do you mean nowhere?"
"I mean it's not a select college. That's..." she leaned on the couch to look past me, then rose and stalked past me. "Oh. San Diego. But it doesn't have to be."
"They probably think it does."
"I meant..." she realized I was teasing her. "I meant..." she said with emphasis, as if I were something less than the sharpest tool in the toolkit"...I'm not set on San Diego. Or anything. Just..." She broke off and looked up at me, big dark eyes, slim body. The scars on her arms were healing. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her bloody from self harm.
I could remember the last time for Annie, but I shrugged that away.
"Just, you're ready to go somewhere. Do something."
She looked up at me wordlessly. I stepped over to her and lay one hand on her cheek and she nestled her head into my palm.
"You're ready to live."
Her tears were sweet. "You sa – "
"No." I tightened my lips. "No. You did. You saved your own life, Ariel." But I didn't move to let her out and I didn't take the lead in discussing schools.
"What happens now?" Suddenly her eyes were wide, looking around the cell that held her.
I sat down next to her on the couch. "You've got some time before any summer sessions start, or were you hoping to start in fall?"
"Fall. I should." She stopped and swallowed audibly. She was shivering.
I nodded. "Yes. You should. Slowly. Because it would be possible to fall all over again if you scare yourself." Or let anybody else scare you.
She leaned against me and I put an arm around her. "I'm proud of you, Ariel."
"Do you know? What my next steps should be?"
"Not for certain. But I can help you through them. I think you come upstairs. Now. Tonight. You live in the compound. You talk to the guards and anyone who comes over. Eat your meals with other people around. Read. Watch the news."
"I've been watching the news." She wrinkled her nose. "Best reason I can think of to stay down here."
I laughed. "Put that way, I'm tempted to join you."
"So come upstairs and...?" She was stalling. That was all right. It was a lot to get past.
