Belen wasn’t that old, by Libby’s calculations. Only in her mid-fifties. Her hair was streaked with gray and her eyes creased with laugh lines that Libby had not been there to witness, but even so, in the six months since Libby had last seen her—which were years, even decades, for her—something intangible about Belen Jiménez had decayed beyond the normal consequences of age.
Libby stepped into the hospital room and sat in the chair beside the bed. A clock ticked nearby. Doctors spoke from the hallway. Nurses. Somewhere in the building were people just beginning to live.
“I would have been here sooner,” Libby said, clearing her throat. “But it took me a while to find you.”
Belen turned to her with a thin smile. “Liar.”
Right. “Well, it did take slightly longer than I thought.” Libby paused. “You changed your name.”
“Mm. It didn’t fit anymore.” Belen’s eyes were exactly the same, still dark and discerning. Libby felt impossibly young and horrifically old at the same time.
“So, um. What—” Another throat-clearing cough. “What happened?”
Belen looked at Libby blankly for a second.
“Oh,” she said after a moment. “You mean this?”
She raised a hand, which Libby realized had been handcuffed to the hospital bed.
“I’m under investigation for war crimes,” Belen said.
“Oh.” Libby had actually known that part, given that it was the main content of every article recently written about the woman Belen had become. “I … right. Well—”
“I have frontotemporal dementia,” Belen told her. “Early stages. For now.”
“Oh.” Something in Libby’s chest felt stepped on, like a creaky floorboard.
“I hear my case is unusually aggressive,” Belen commented. “Things in my brain appear to have been conveniently rearranged. A favor from a friend of mine, I suppose you could say, to help speed things along.” Her smile went dark, the way she used to look at her professors. The way she used to look at Mort and Fare, who felt as far away in Libby’s past as the distant future she’d fought so hard to protect. “If you happen to run into Nothazai, be sure to tell him where he can stick his thoughts and prayers.”
“Nothazai?” Libby echoed.
“The Forum clown. I hear he’s stepping down, which can only mean he’s found something more philanthropic to devote his particular skills to.” Another bleak look of humor, the likes of which only Belen could conjure.
“He’s … what, murdering you?” Libby asked, aghast. “Surely that’s—”
“I suppose it could have always been the outcome waiting for me. Who knows? I doubt he’s creative enough to choose this for an ending.” Belen shrugged. “I’m sure he considers it merciful, honestly, like administering a tranquilizer to pipe down my theatrics. The biomancer equivalent of prescribing me a seaside convalescence, with yellow wallpaper to boot.” Belen sat up, or tried to, the handcuff jingling on her wrist as she shifted on the bed and gestured to the abstract yellow painting on the wall. Libby’s face must have expressed her confusion, so Belen added, “He offered to fix me—you know, my little curse of womanly hysteria. I had my choice as to his form of repair.”
“And you picked dementia?” Libby asked doubtfully.
“I picked a few variations on ‘fuck you and the high horse you rode in on,’ so yeah, kind of,” Belen replied. “The federal investigation was a nice little cherry on top.”
“Oh.” Oh. As if that could encompass all of it, or any of it. “And the, uh. War crimes?”
“Really a matter of perspective,” Belen said. She was quiet again, like maybe she didn’t plan to say anything else, until she did. “Power isn’t something up for grabs,” she remarked to herself. “You have to take it from someone. You live with the cost.”
Her eyes caught Libby’s then, briefly. Libby cleared her throat.
“Right.” They sat in silence again, footsteps carrying from somewhere down the hall and then receding.
“Maybe I could fix it,” Libby said after a moment. “I owe you at least that much.”
“Fix what, my life? My death? How kind of you.” It was astounding that Belen’s voice had aged so much and yet remained so spitefully petty. As if thinking the same thing, Belen gave a low laugh. “Sorry. I’m old, Libby. Not wise.”
“You’re not old. You’re just—” A shrug. “Older.”
“Old enough to let go of old grudges, so they say. But you know what? I like them,” Belen said. “They keep me company. Keep me warm.”
It occurred to Libby that Belen likely did not want her there, and that coming here had been yet another act of selfishness. She could do very little about that now that she’d arrived. Or maybe not. She rose to her feet, thinking of leaving, but stopped.
“Did you come for absolution?” asked Belen mildly. “For forgiveness?”
To Belen’s credit, she was never actively mean, or at least not mean enough that Libby felt she had to lie. “I mean, I’d take it if you had any to spare,” she admitted. They exchanged a grimace that was close enough to a laugh. “But no,” Libby sighed, “I think I just needed to see you. I guess for closure.”
“Ah yes, closure. I love endings,” said Belen.
Libby looked for bitterness. Unusual bitterness, anyway. She wasn’t sure whether to gauge Belen’s tone as a sign of personal enmity against Libby or some other sardonic disappointment in whatever remained of her life. “Are you sure I can’t—?”
“I’ve chosen to see this as a gilgul type of situation,” Belen replied with a shrug.
Libby frowned. “Gilgul?”
“Sort of an esoteric reincarnation thing. The soul having three chances to perfect itself.” Belen paused. “I’m choosing to believe this was only my first try.”
Helplessly, Libby laughed. It was always too easy to laugh with Belen, who smiled now, perennially amused with herself. “Belen, you’re Catholic.”
“So? You dumped me and set off a bomb. The kids call that an extreme form of ghosting now, did you know that? So this is a real pot calling the kettle fat situation.”
“Black.”
“I said what I said. And anyway, the point is I’ve got two more chances to get it right, so I’m not all that mad about it. Well,” Belen amended thoughtfully. “Not that mad, anyway.”
Libby sank back into the chair. Conversation seemed … not actively unwelcome. And as always, Belen’s presence was an improvement on her absence. However impractical that conclusion might have been now that there was no going back. No fixing things.
“You sound very actualized,” Libby noted. “Healthy, even.”
“Mm yes, you know me,” Belen agreed. “Self-actualized to a fault.”
“What would making it right look like, exactly?” Libby couldn’t help asking. “What would you do differently on your soul’s second try?”
“I take it by that you mean would I still pick you if I could do it over,” Belen bluntly rephrased.
“Kind of. I guess, yeah.” No point denying it now. Libby had done worse, clearly, than narcissistically seek atonement.
“Well, I wish I could say I’d tell my previous self to avoid you, but I understand my anarchistic tendencies at least well enough to know I wouldn’t have listened to myself.” Belen looked at Libby in silence for a long time. “And as for the rest … I’d still try to make things better. And,” she added, “some of those alleged war crimes had extremely expeditious effects, so. In terms of regrets, it’s not immediately clear—which as you might guess, my public defender really isn’t thrilled about. Not enough Lexapro in the world for this kind of shit.”
“So … you wouldn’t do anything differently, then?” Libby summarized.
“Not substantively, no. I guess not. I think I’d just—” A brief flutter of her hand. “Enjoy it more.”
“The war crimes?” Libby asked wryly.
“And the sex.” Belen’s smile in return was placid, but not antagonistic.
“Right.”
There was a sound behind them, a knock on the door, and Libby turned.
“Time for your afternoon medication, Dr. Araña.” The nurse looked warily at Libby, then back at Belen. “Shall I come back in five minutes?”
“Yes, please.”
The nurse nodded and was gone as Libby turned back to Belen. “Dr. Araña?”
“Yes. I, unlike you, am an actual professor, and I make the staff here use it because I’m also kind of a dick.” Belen’s smile was warmer then. “Anyway, if you’re still shooting for redemption, you’ve got five minutes left. Might as well make them count.”
“Fair enough. Well.” Libby picked at her cuticles. “I guess I can continue the war crimes for you, if you like. Help you carry out your legacy.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Belen said, seeming to grasp the joke.
Libby smiled and continued, “But really, if you want me to try and fix this, or if you want me to come back and—”
“Nah.” Belen shook her head. “Just … make someone deliriously happy for me and we’ll call it even. Give a youngish queer her first orgasm, on me.” A pause. “I meant that as something of a toast, by the way. Like, salud.”
“Got it.” Libby couldn’t fight a laugh. “That’s generous of you.”
“Not really,” Belen said. “I kind of fucking hate you, but I’ve chosen to do it with grace.”
Right. “Obviously.” Libby rose to her feet. “Well, it’s not redemption.”
“And with three minutes to spare,” Belen replied, miming the clink of a champagne glass.
Unexpectedly, Libby’s heart hurt to say goodbye this time. She also realized she had technically not gotten what she came for, though she’d gotten a lot of something else.
“Belen, I—”
“You’re young still,” interjected Belen, without waiting for the remainder of the question. “You have so many years left to feel pain and regret. Try not to get all your trauma from the very first quarter.”
“But I,” Libby began, and faltered, because she still did not know how to put into words the thing she’d come to say. “I hurt someone,” she admitted. “And now—”
She stopped.
“Was it the hot British guy?” asked Belen, and Libby bit back a pained burst of laughter.
“No. He dumped me, kind of. But as far as I know he’s fine.” A tiny, ragged inhale. “It was … someone else. Someone who was maybe my other half. If that exists.”
“Could you have prevented it?” asked Belen. “Hurting them.”
Libby didn’t answer. In her head, though, she spun the conversation out, crucifying herself on the pain of unspoken hypotheticals. I could have stayed and had a life with you. I could have sacrificed myself for him and let him live a life with someone else.
Why didn’t you? asked an imaginary version of Belen.
Because I wanted to know what it felt like to win, replied an imaginary Libby. Because I chose greatness over goodness. Because doing otherwise would have felt too much like proof of everything I have ever thought about myself.
Imaginary Belen was patient, clear-eyed, journalistic. Which is?
That I am not enough.
“Ah,” said the real Belen, shifting on the bed to the extent that she was able. “Well. You don’t have a half,” she informed Libby stiffly, with an air of forgoing criticism not because it was undue, but because it was pointless. “You give yourself away to lots of people over time. You have a lot of fractures that you make and part with as life goes on. Which is not to lessen your guilt,” she added, “because as far as I’m concerned, Libby Rhodes, you have the potential to hurt a lot of people over the course of what could be a very selfish, harmful lifetime.”
A long pause.
“But if you’re worried you’ll never feel something again, then that’s, you know.” Another flutter of Belen’s hand, dismissively. “Bullshit.”
Another small knock came from behind Libby in the doorway.
The nurse again. “Miss?” she said to Libby, who took one last glance over her shoulder at Belen.
“Thank you,” Libby said, figuring that to be better and less insulting than I’m sorry.
“You’re welcome,” Belen replied, which was like I forgive you, but also, get out.
Libby stopped by LARCMA on her way out of town. The main building was the same, though its campus had spread across the landscape of downtown Los Angeles like a gentrifying rash. The dorm she’d once lived in was now luxury student housing. The old café she’d used to frequent was now a trendy vegan lemonade stand.
She stepped inside and blended immediately into the student population. They moved with the same rhythm, the same sounds, the bird’s nest elevators still going up and down in ceaseless transactions like always. She bumped into someone and apologized, realizing only belatedly that it was Professor Maxwell T. Mortimer, the former boy-man known as Mort.
The slacks that had been uncomfortably tight in the nineties were the same. Still uncharitably snug around the barrel of his middle, albeit less salmon-colored. He stared at Libby for a second, trying to place her. Then he lost interest, looking away and rushing off to the faculty parking lot. To his expensive car and unfortunate wife, Libby assumed.
She watched the elevators for another few hours, the Californian sun shifting buoyantly through the skylights from one side of the building to the other like a dimpled parting wave.
Then, finally, she got to her feet and left it all behind.
The residential street was dark and quiet by the time Libby’s rental car pulled in, so she turned off the headlights and parked at the foot of the driveway, not wanting to disturb the house’s occupants. She crept up to the door, which had been freshly painted, and spotted the usual hide-a-key that sat in a bed of wilting roses.
She’d let herself in with that key many times, fishing it out of the weird little frog’s mouth every afternoon when her parents had been at the hospital with Katherine. Every day, the same routine. Walk home. Frog’s mouth. Eat whatever snack her mom had left for her and do her homework quickly but quietly, taking the extra notes she’d been keeping for Katherine and then waiting outside for the neighbor to pick her up. Three hours a day at Katherine’s bedside, where sometimes Katherine was awake, but more often she was sleeping. Some days Libby did more homework or read a book and then left with her parents for the night without exchanging a word with Katherine at all. Eventually, the days were all like that.
Libby unlocked the front door of her childhood home and crept inside, removing her shoes and tiptoeing up the carpeted stairs. The living room was unchanged from the last time she’d seen it, which wasn’t much more than two years ago. Still, another lifetime now. She skipped the creaky step on the middle landing and hopped up the remainder of the stairs the way Katherine had always done. Katherine was light on her feet, a dancer. Also much more proficient than Libby at sneaking in or out of the house.
Libby’s room was closer to the stairwell. Katherine’s was at the end of the hall, their rooms connected by the bathroom. Libby paused beside her own bedroom door, which was open, and instead walked to Katherine’s, which was shut. She turned the knob slowly and stepped inside, unsurprised to find no evidence of dust. Her mother had continued cleaning this room for as long as Libby could remember. But surprisingly, there was a small pile of trinkets on the desk, as if something new had been recently unearthed.
Oh yes, Libby remembered now. Something about the upstairs plumbing. Her mother had told her about it over a year ago while Libby had been in the middle of puzzling out wormholes with Nico, so she hadn’t been paying attention. There was a fresh coat of paint on Katherine’s wall, around a vent that Katherine must have secretly used to store things.
On the desk was a small journal, the cover warped with water stains. Two bottles of dried-up black nail polish, which their mother hadn’t cared for until she’d stopped bothering to harangue Katherine about her nail color at all. A fake nose ring. God, of course. Libby put it on, inspecting herself in the mirror. She didn’t look remotely as cool as Reina, but then again, a nose ring did not a cool girl make.
Libby took the nose ring off and picked up the journal, opening to a random page. It wasn’t dated—only nerds would do that, she imagined Katherine saying—but based on the events that Katherine described, she must have been fifteen, which made Libby eleven or twelve. Katherine would have been sick already, but not as sick as she would later get.
—such a freaking tattletale I swear to god ahhhhhhhh I hate it here, seriously. I can’t wait to get out of this house—
Libby stopped and slammed the book shut, exhaling.
Inhaling.
Then she picked it up again and continued reading.
—miss going to school. Can you believe that? SCHOOL.
Libby flipped some pages, skimming some things here and there about Katherine’s friends who were going to parties without her, about a boy that Libby only half remembered. Josh. Did she still know a Josh? She wondered if Josh was married now, whoever he was. If he had babies with someone who wasn’t Katherine. She wondered if Josh had been able to move on.
Libby paused on another page, catching her own name. She swallowed a mouthful of shame, realizing it was the last time she and Katherine had fought. Libby had found Katherine on the back porch with a bottle of beer, and a boy who must have been Josh with his hand up her sister’s shirt. Libby remembered now, like a lightning bolt of clarity, that he’d had an earring and what Libby had thought was a tattoo, but he’d just drawn on his arm in Sharpie. Libby had told their mother and Katherine had screamed until she fainted and Libby had thought see, I’m just protecting you. See? I’m just trying to keep you healthy, keep you well.
—but it’s like, what is the point of being alive if I can’t drink ONE beer and get kissed so hard I can’t see? God she’s so annoying—
Libby looked up and cleared her throat, fingers poised to turn the page, skip the pain.
She must have picked up Tristan’s masochism, though, and kept reading.
—love her though. She tries so hard. It’s cute and it’s lame and it’s sad. I just wish she’d calm down and realize that I would rather die doing something amazing than spend the next however many months just lying in my stupid bed. Mom doesn’t want me to talk about dying because she’s afraid Libby will get scared or something but hello??? It’s scary and that’s GOOD. Which is apparently not a good argument for getting my tongue pierced even though I already told her it was my idea and not Josh’s.
Nico would have loved Katherine. Oh god, Libby thought with repulsion, Nico would have definitely tried to sleep with Katherine. She swallowed a burst of something horrific and made a face, reading on, running a finger down the page, mourning her losses. Tracing the shapes of Katherine’s letters as she turned the diary’s final page.
I feel bad writing mean things about Libby because she’s just a baby and she doesn’t know anything. And Mom is too busy worrying about me so nobody is paying enough attention to whether or not Libby will grow up a narc. Oh my god can you imagine.
Only a few lines left of Katherine before the book ran out. Libby inhaled shakily, wanting to save it, to savor it somehow. To let it be goodbye, like turning a corner in a dream and just … coasting to a stop. Letting Katherine disappear. Letting her go.
You don’t have a half, Libby told herself, allowing it to mean peace. She exhaled, ready for her sister’s parting message.
Okay but seriously I do love her, she just wants everything to be good even if that’s impossible. She’ll get it someday. And in the meantime I’ll be nice. Nicer anyway. As nice as I can be even though it makes my head hurt. Oh and also this is THE LAST MEAN THING I PROMISE but seriously.
Her bangs are so bad.
In the silence of her sister’s bedroom, Libby Rhodes laughed until she cried.