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Confused, Isobel again checked the door, which, though now upright, somehow supported her full weight as if she were still horizontal, lying curled against it.
Beyond its splintered windowpane, rows of blue lockers lined the walls of a deserted Trenton hallway.
Another instantaneous switch had occurred, bringing her inside the classroom.
Heart pounding, Isobel swiveled her head back to Varen. As she did, one of the fluorescent fixtures directly over his head clinked, flickering out.
Isobel continued to hold tight to the doorknob, as if her clutching it was the only thing keeping her vertical. Then she carefully set her feet flat to the floor, one after the other, glad the industrial tiles proved as solid as they appeared. As she slipped free of the door, the folds of her tattered dress fell to hang loose around her legs once more, and, hands shaking, Isobel loosened her death grip on the knob.
Past the rows of empty chairs, through windows lining the back wall, the familiar landscape of the woodlands stretched as far as she could see. Now, though, a crimson sky radiated in place of the violet horizon.
“You’re late,” Varen said. His red-rimmed, shadow-lined eyes fell from her to the watch as he thumbed open its wings, and Isobel knew what he saw through its small window. A mixture of lies and truth.
This was a dream. She was a dream.
“No later than usual,” Isobel murmured, striving to flash a bit of her old spunk, though her voice sounded small even to her.
She needed to keep him talking, though. To keep him calm. Contained.
But what could she say? The words—the right words—evaded her.
“Varen,” Isobel began, taking a step toward him when he did not reply.
“I wanted you,” he said, interrupting her before she could continue, his gaze never lifting from the watch. “From that very first day. I can tell you that now, I guess.”
Isobel stopped, startled by his out-of-the-blue admission. Curious in spite of herself, she tilted her head, uncertain about what, exactly, the confession meant. Or where it had come from.
“I kept it to myself,” Varen went on, “like everything else that was happening to me. But in the beginning, it was all just superficial anyway. As shallow as I’d convinced myself you were.” He paused as if searching for a memory that had become distant, remote. “I meant it, you know, when I said you weren’t my type.”
A pained smile, involuntary, tugged at Isobel’s lips and then faded. She remembered that conversation. Of course she did. How could she forget their first phone call?
“And I meant it, when I told you I’d be back for you,” Isobel replied.
“Obviously. And that’s why, now, you never . . . ever . . . go away.”
Isobel kept her feet planted on the tile beneath her, fighting the impulse to go to him. She didn’t dare try. Not when that was precisely what all the doubles did. Not when the long-fingered, ring-lined hands holding her butterfly watch still frightened her.
Isobel winced inwardly, recalling how the same hands that had once communicated such gentleness had also gripped her with frightening force. How they’d tossed her to the side. And let her go . . .
“It was easier to hate you,” he said, snapping the watch closed with a sharp click. “A lot less painful, too.”
Vines of longing wrapped around her heart, urging her to tell him how she’d gotten there and what was happening—to explain how all this could be possible. Words continued to fail her, though, because his candid brashness and calm indifference all served to further confirm her fears that in his mind, he was only speaking to another figment—a soulless projection of his own consciousness.
“We were better off that way,” he went on, glancing up at her again. “Well, you were better off. Back when I assumed you thought you were better than everyone else, which—ironically enough—allowed me to go on telling myself that you were beneath me. Back when you believed I was everything everyone said I was.”
“I didn’t—”
“Admit it,” he said, cutting her off. “They were right about me, weren’t they?” An off-putting smile touched one corner of his mouth, causing his silver lip ring to glint. “Your friends. Your boyfriend. Your dad.” Just as quickly as it had appeared, his smile fell. His eyes darkened and slid to the far wall. “My dad.”
Isobel wanted to respond, to say the right thing, but she still didn’t know how to enter into the battle that was taking place before her. The one Varen was so clearly waging against himself.
It was never about you.
Pinfeathers’s words rose inside of her, right along with his final message of—
“‘I told you so,’” Varen said. “I bet that’s what they all wish they could say to you now that you’re gone. Your friends, your family—all our teachers. Hell, I wish I could tell you myself.”
“You have,” Isobel replied, forcing strength into her voice. “In a way. And you’re telling me right now, too. But . . . I’m here to prove that you’re wrong. Just like they were. Are.”
