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I didn’t know why, but in the end I sneaked out of the house to go to the party with Axel. I had already said that things were over between us. I’d told him the afternoon before, on the beach, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was used to me leaving and coming back right away. I hated myself for being so weak—well, for that and for a lot of other things. But my body had decided for me, yet again. There I was, walking toward the corner where we’d agreed to meet, with a thousand butterflies fluttering inside me. I’d never gotten butterflies in my stomach until Axel became part of my world. Before that if I ever had butterflies they were just the kind that flapped around in my head, and I knew how to get rid of those with paper and pencil.
Maybe it was what he told me during our walk along the beach, when we sat on the rocks. I guess that was what made me go to the party. I turned off of my street and saw him on the corner, waiting for me next to the wall. How could he look so calm? How could he smile like that? As if he hadn’t just told me everything that had happened in his life that morning. Even half of it would have been enough to make me give up, just like his father had.
“Hi,” I said in a small voice.
Axel took one look at me and pulled me into his arms. He kissed me slowly.
“Want to go?” he said after a moment.
For the first time since we’d met I walked along next to him without forcing any kind of interior monologue. For the first time everything was fine, no complications. Not even a trace of fear lying in wait for me, the fear that always kept my temper on edge.
“Was it hard to convince your parents to let you go out?”
Axel’s gaze no longer hurt me; it was like a caress.
“No, it was really easy.”
“As easy as climbing out a window?”
“I didn’t climb out!” I tried to muster up some indignation.
“No, no, of course not—who would think something like that!”
We shared a complicit glance as we walked along, arm in arm. Up above us the gulls sang in a summer sky that refused to turn dark.
“Seriously, though,” Axel pressed, “Does anyone know you’re out?”
I shook my head no.
“But nothing’s going to happen, right?” I said.
“No, of course not. You get a free pass your first time sneaking out. Nothing ever happens when you sneak out for the first time.”
Axel winked, but for an instant sadness clouded his eyes. It was as if he somehow knew that a few minutes later everything was going to change.
Everything got all twisted. At the party he stopped being himself, or maybe what happened was he finally started to be himself. I clutched my glass so hard that it was a miracle the crystal didn’t shatter. It took a colossal effort to start a conversation with Carl, the biggest idiot I’d ever met. Now, from a distance, I know that I always knew the truth about Axel. I knew it, but I refused to see it. More than once, when I hugged him, my hands felt a book in one of his pockets. It wasn’t just reading—for Axel, books were something more. The constant fear that he didn’t love me, that soon he would leave me, was all because of that insurmountable wall between us: books, which he loved and I hated in equal measure.
At the party, Carl’s jumpy little eyes moved over me, fondling me like some kind of repulsive tentacle. The way he looked me up and down made me feel like a black slug was crawling across my skin. How could Axel not realize what that revolting creep was doing? How could he be so close to me and not sense that I was overcome with disgust? Carl was my desperate last-ditch effort to get Axel’s attention—a totally new kind of effort for me.
“Will you please tell me what I did?” he asked as he followed me out onto the porch.
Take me out of the center of your life, that’s what you did! I wished I could scream it right in his face, the way my heart wanted me to. When did I stop mattering to you? I asked you silently, Axel, you should have known. But no—he insisted on making me talk even though each word felt like it was ripping its way out of my throat. Could he really not understand why I was so angry? How could someone I loved be so obtuse?
“I hate when you shut yourself up inside your shell...”
Why hadn’t Axel dared to say it to my face? Why did he have to whisper it?
“You hate it, huh?” I said, my eyes burning with helplessness.
“Yes,” he answered, “I don’t like when I don’t know what’s going on inside your head.”
“And you think I like not knowing what you do?”
Axel looked at me, stunned.
“What do you mean?” His question was just an attempt to delay the inevitable.
“What were you talking about with David? Why didn’t you ever tell me what you were studying?”
“You never asked.”
“How convenient! It’s so nice for you that I never specifically asked, isn’t it?”
“I write,” Axel said through clenched teeth.
“I know.” My voice had a fog of disappointment. “Since when?”
“What do you mean since when? Dissie, you make it sound like something bad.”
I could have killed him with a look. My eyes were two chunks of ice about to smash into him.
“Since always. I’ve always written, you know? I’m sorry for doing something so awful!” Axel lifted both arms up as he spoke. “I am sorry,” he said again, trying to meet my gaze. “Not for writing, but for not telling you sooner. Your hate for books is irrational—don’t think I don’t know it. But I didn’t hide my dream of writing from you just to keep things going smoothly. Maybe it was at first, but the more I get to know you the more I’m sure there’s real pain behind those little-girl tantrums. Dissie, please—talk to me. Tell me what it is about books that scares you so much.”
I turned my back on him. The wind moved my dark hair.
“Dissie...” he said again.
There was no answer. I didn’t move an inch. Axel laid a hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me down.
“You know what I think of literature,” I say, spinning back around in a flash. “You knew it perfectly well, from the moment you met me.”
“Yes. And I also know that I shouldn’t have let your whims go this far.”
“Whims?”
“Yes. It’s ridiculous. If you don’t tell me what’s going on with you, I can’t help thinking it’s just a whim. To have such hatred for something you barely know... from what you’ve told me, you haven’t read a single book in your life. Your parents spend all day reading, sure, fine. They don’t pay attention to you, well—what a shame! Grow up already, Dissie. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
We both had tears in our eyes. We looked at each other in silence, our breath ragged.
“Tell me exactly what you study,” I said.
“Creative writing. Do you approve? Are you going to hate me for it? My Ph.D. is in creative writing—that’s what I was talking about with David, the novel I’m writing as part of my thesis. Is that enough information?”
“No!” I shouted. I felt betrayed, wounded in the deepest part of myself. Lost. Axel, the one thing in the entire world that I could navigate by, had disappeared. I held his gaze.
“I want to be a writer, yeah.” Axel’s voice was full of fear. “What else do you want to know?”
“How you could be so selfish—that’s what I want to know.”
“Selfish—me? Isn’t it the other way around? Can’t you see how important literature is to me?”
“See? It’s always about you. You might have given some thought to your father when you were deciding what to study.”
“My father?” asked Axel, utterly confused.
“You should have chosen something that would let you care for him, to start. And then you could have thought of studying in Edinburgh so you could stay near him.”
“But he doesn’t even speak to me! I don’t exist, for him. Why would I want to be near him?”
“He needs you! It’s amazing how irresponsible you are,” I said, shaking my head. “And somehow I’m the immature one.”
“My father doesn’t need me. I’ve been very clear on that for years now. There’s nothing left for me in Edinburgh, Dissie,” said Axel quietly. “And you know, I come back a lot anyway. Just to see how he is. Just to make sure that he still isn’t interested in coming back to the land of the living.”
“You’re very unfair to him,” I said.
“He wasn’t the only one who lost my mother. I don’t know if you’ve thought of that... Dissie, writing gives me life. It lets me create a different reality, lets me live life from a different perspective. For me writing is like breathing. I hope you understand.”
Axel reached for my hand, but I snatched it away.
“Sure...” You live for literature, I thought. But I live in spite of it. It was useless to go on talking about something that wasn’t going to change for either of us. “I always knew we were too different. I don’t know why I waited so long,” I said, looking down at the ground. “I guess this fantasy was bound to blow up eventually.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“There’s no going back.”
Axel embraced me.
“Dissie, please.”
I struggled to get away, but he only held me more tightly. With one shove I finally managed to get free. I looked at him for a long time, as a goodbye, and then I went into the living room. Carl was looking around for me. It was easy enough to go off with him.
I open my eyes. I’m lying on the floor of Sherlock’s living room. No one has even bothered to carry me to a sofa. I’m alone, with this palpable memory of my old life. It’s ironic that my last words in that world were there’s no going back... What has Morgan done to me? I’m sick of these Sphereans feeling like they have the right to send me back into my own memories without even asking.