CHAPTER ELEVEN
Goodnight
Eric returned to Chevelle’s house shortly after his conversation with Heaven at his bike. He set his backpack on the floor and dropped onto the couch. For a few moments he just sat there silently, just being there. The freak tornado taking out his house would be bad enough, even losing his dad, but all of this came about by bringing half the city back from the past. Was it his fault? Was it a disaster that destroyed the houses on his block and took his dad’s life? Or was it a wonderful miracle that he brought thousands back from the dead?
There wasn’t an answer; the room wouldn’t give him one, no matter how long he waited. He held up his left hand and squeezed in his fingers a bit for the brackets he wore to trigger a holographic image of a phone in his hand. He took his right hand and drew a finger through the image to make a selection and the hologram of the phone became the image of a remote control for the TV. He switched on the TV and scanned through the channels until he could find something particularly action-packed to take his mind off things.
The television display started out as a flat projection. It was a bit annoying; he didn’t know why Chevy’s family liked to watch them like that. He punched his finger at the holoremote, switching the TV to an expanded holographic 3D mode, the way life was meant to be viewed.
“Hey Eric.” He glanced back to see Chevy coming down the stairs in a T-Shirt and pajamas, her hair still wet from the shower.
“Hey, where is everyone?” Eric tried not to think of Chevelle in the shower, or being alone together, and definitely not her just wearing pajamas. He had a date with someone, finally, and he liked it. He could stop mooning over Chevy. They would be just good friends, like they’ve always been.
“My parents went to the movies. Heaven is upstairs, in my bed,” she said, walking over to the kitchen. She grabbed a box of vanilla wafers from above the fridge and started snacking. “She had been traveling all day, and with the time difference it’s like twelve o’clock her time, so she said she’s wiped and she’s checking in early.”
Chevy meandered over to the couch and sat down beside him, putting her feet up on the coffee table. She offered him the bag of wafers so he took one. She grabbed another. His heart was pumping so hard in his chest and his arms felt weak, but he tried to ignore it. He wanted nothing more than to lean in closer to Chevy, to put his arm around her. The picture of her head on his shoulder made his head spin.
He took a deep breath and held it, trying to relax. While he wanted nothing more than to be with her, she was watching the TV holograms act out a prison escape. Romance was the farthest thing from her mind. He let the air out of his lungs in a long sigh. She was with Blayze this week. Next week, who knows? But not him. He was the boy next door; Chevy thought of him like a brother.
It was best to think of something about her that annoyed him, like the last movie they saw together, and how she talked through most of the movie, mocking it. Chevelle was into serious films, or those sci-fi and fantasy flicks, but he was interested in that movie. Of course, he hadn’t said anything; he had just played along to keep Chevy smiling.
“Eric, you know, I’ve been wondering,” Chevy said. And there it was again, always ready to ruin a good show with talking. “You remember that fort we built together?”
Eric nodded. He was proud of it then, but he wouldn’t want to do it again; it was too much work. For his kids, he figured, he’d go with one of the pre-built, modular forts they sold. Now it was gone, plucked right out of the tree by the tornado. He wondered what Chevelle wanted to say, but she didn’t go any further with it for a while. She was silent again until the scene cut to a commercial. As a setting from his phone, the TV switched to mute automatically.
Chevelle looked down into her bag of wafers, her face lowered in a solemn and mournful expression. “I’m really sorry about your dad,” she said. “I wish there was more I could do.”
“I know you do,” Eric said. “Really, you’ve done enough, letting me and Heaven stay with your family. It’s just—” Eric remembered then, last night as he had gone to bed. “Chevelle, I—” His voice caught in his throat and his eyes and cheeks hurt, trying to hold back tears. “The last thing I said to him, I can’t—”
“You can’t blame yourself,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t think like that.”
“You don’t understand. He was being a good father, trying to tell me how proud he was of me. It’s like he knew he was dying, from the encephalitis.”
“I’m so sorry.” She was trying to be comforting, but she couldn’t know how horrible he felt, how ashamed. The first tear rolled down his cheek and he couldn’t stop the rest from coming.
“I just dismissed him, just like that. Like I had better things to do than spend one last night with him.” Because I wanted to talk to you again, he thought but didn’t dare say. Because of this stupid teenage crush. “I treated him like a child. I told him not to give the nurse a hard time when she put him to bed. Those were my last words to him. What kind of a son am I?”
She pulled him in, placed his head on her shoulder, and just let him cry. He sobbed, maybe for minutes, until he finally felt like he could hold it back. He sniffed back the tears and pulled away. She handed him a box of tissues. After blowing his nose and wiping his cheeks he looked at her shoulder and a laugh sputtered through the pain.
“I got your shoulder all wet. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re a good a friend,” he said, and that’s all this was. She let him cry because she was a friend, not a lover. “You know, sometimes I don’t think we realize how good it is to be close friends like we are. Not many people have that.”
And that’s all we’ll ever be, he realized. Well, maybe that was the best. There were others, like Heaven. And if not her, he would fall in love with someone else. Chevelle would always be a good friend, and that really was something special.
***
The Minneapolis International Airport was a rush of activity. Dravin watched for a moment, Cecilia at his side, as everyone else ran around them.
The airport of the future seemed to have changed only on the surface from new technology. Holographic projections directed people where to go. The security gates were several columns of tall glass panes, the interlaced electronics barely discernible. A security guard sat at each lane examining the data collected by the glass as people walked through.
The technology changed, a little, but the airport continued to be the airport. Busy people anxiously waiting in line to check in their bags, or anxiously waiting in line to get past security and into the terminal. Dravin wondered briefly whether he should be surprised or relieved that things hadn’t changed more.
“Come on,” Dravin said. He walked over to a stand and set his briefcase down. A holointerface was projected above the surface of the stand. Dravin examined the metal strips on his hand, the phone that Mapiya’s Sheriff set him up with. Cecilia had one of her own, as well. It also worked as identification; his 2012 passport and license wouldn’t be accepted here, let alone his badge.
He flexed his hand and the soft blue holophone appeared. He played with it some more. Stretching his hand made the phone’s image disappear, then curling the fingers like he was holding something brought it back. When he held the phone out to the airport’s interface at the stand the projection changed to acknowledge him and register him for the flight.
“What are you trying to accomplish, anyway?” Cecilia asked. She looked around the airport, eyes darting from person to person. Dravin wondered what she looking for.
“That’s not your concern,” he said. “Now come check in.”
She stopped, her gaze resting on a security guard walking towards them. She snapped a glare at Dravin. “Why don’t we just end this right here, then?” she said, spinning around and marching off to the guard.
Dravin grabbed her arm. His grip held her tight like a vice. “Let go of me,” she demanded.
“Sure,” he said, curling up the corner of his mouth in a sly grin. The guard noticed them now and started approaching. “I’ll let you go turn me in. In fact, why don’t we give up and go back to Mapiya? We can sit down with Motega and Alina and tell them everything. Everything. What do you say?”
He let go of her arm and she didn’t move, just sliced him through with a vicious stare. The guard came up beside them, his right hand at the gun on his hip. “Is everything okay here?” he asked.
Dravin smiled and nodded to the man. “Quite all right,” he said. “Thank you so much for your concern, officer.”
The guard just shifted his stance, still wary. “Ma’am?” Cecilia held Dravin in her stare. What are you going to do? Dravin was asking with his eyes. “Ma’am?”
“Yes,” she said finally. “I’m fine, sorry officer. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Okay.” The guard relaxed and let go of his weapon. “Just let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks again, officer,” Dravin said. They both watched as the guard walked away. “Good choice,” he told Cecilia. “Now if you’re coming with me, go check in. Next stop, Washington.”