“I see you,” a voice says, and suddenly I’m falling, like I’m in some kind of funnel and life is swirling dark around me, attaching its shadows to my transparent skin. I’m being conjured into being at the same time I’m being destroyed, going down, down, down while I’m being formed, and it’s infinite how far I can fall. I will be falling forever. I will never hit the ground.
“Hello?” the voice says, and at first I think it’s Lily. I open my eyes and all I see is the shadow of a face with a burst of sunlight behind it, and I remember I am in a hammock under Daddy’s fruit trees, it is my day off work, I was reading, and then my eyes closed, and then I was flying somewhere not here, and now there’s gravity again and my eyes are open and I’m squinting, trying to find detail in this new, unfamiliar light.
“Sorry,” the voice says. “Did I scare you?”
The light changes as the figure moves and I can see her face now: Ivy.
Finally.
I suddenly feel my body.
“No, hi,” I mumble, trying to sit up, but the hammock won’t let me, binding me in an awkward position where I can’t use my arms. “I guess I was napping. Sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize for napping. No one should ever apologize for napping.” Her dark eyes sear into mine. I wonder if she can see herself reflected.
I manage to set myself somewhat upright. “Did you walk here?” I say. She is wearing cutoff jean shorts and a wide-shouldered, thin white shirt that shows the outline of her black bra, and the kind of expensive athletic shoes that aren’t meant for actually exercising.
“Yeah, it’s a nice walk. I like walking. I think. I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what I like. It’s an assignment I have. Isn’t that weird? To not even know what I like? I mean, besides the obvious things that I’m not supposed to do anymore. That I don’t want to do anymore.” She pauses, looks at me, tilts her head. “Sorry, am I oversharing? I just don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk about anything real, so I’m like starving for it. And you seem like someone who does.”
“Does what?”
“Talks about things that are real.”
“Yes. I mean, I do. You can say whatever you want.”
She smiles and I feel my skin tighten, like I have been zipped up and put back together. Those eyes again, unblinking, staring into me. I want to look away but I can’t.
“Walking is good exercise and it helps clear your mind,” she says. “Like you can meditate while you do it. I’m supposed to meditate.”
“My dad meditates,” I say.
“Really?” She seems excited. “Do you?”
“No. He tried to teach me one time, but all that breathing just made me anxious.”
I should have lied. I should have told her I meditate. I will sit in the quiet with her for thirty minutes if she wants me to.
“I’m supposed to go to these meetings where you meditate and talk about your suffering.”
“That kind of sounds like the meetings my dad goes to.”
“Is he an addict?”
“No. Just a human.”
“Same thing really. Everybody’s addicted to something. It’s the human condition.” She smiles. For a moment, I’m pretty sure this is one of those dreams where I think I wake up but really it’s just the start of a new dream.
“I lost your number,” she says.
“It’s okay.”
“But I remembered you said you were my neighbor. So I wandered around and here you were.”
Here I am. She found me.
“Tell me your number,” she says. “I’ll text you mine.” I do. She does.
“I may have a party this weekend,” she says. “I don’t know. I’ll text you if I do. I may not even go.”
“You may not go to your own party?”
“It’s my mom’s idea. She’s always the one who wants to throw the parties. If she wants a party so bad, why doesn’t she throw one for people her own age? Why does it always have to be my party? She says it’s a good way for me to make friends, but I know she doesn’t give a shit if I make friends. She just wants to show off.”
“And you don’t?” I say. Where did that come from?
But Ivy smiles, and the music of her laugh makes everything shine. “Maybe I do,” she says. “Want to show off a little. But not like that. Not like her.” She looks at me with approval, and everything around us brightens. “I like you, Fern. You’re real. You’re not full of shit like everyone else.”
“Thank you.” What I want to say is, “You make me real.” What I want to say is, “I don’t even know who I was before this moment.”
“Can you make me a promise? Don’t lose that, okay? Don’t treat me like I’m special. Always tell me exactly what you think. Don’t let me get away with anything.”
“I don’t think I have that power.”
She puts her hands on my cheeks, cups my face, makes me a tulip.
“Oh, Fern. You have more power than you know.”
I want her to hold my face like this forever. I want the warmth of her hands around my jaw, her fingertips on my cheekbones, her thumbs so close to my lips I could put them in my mouth.
“I have to go,” she says, just as I realize my eyes are closed, just as I decide to open them.
“I’ll text you,” she says.
“Promise,” I call after her.
“I promise,” she says, looking at me over her shoulder, and the trees whisper their commentary, but I don’t know what they’re saying.