Our Infinite Sadness

Abandon

Edythe did have to get him back home, so she insisted on starting back, but she promised to drive slowly, so as not to rush him. Her martyred expression intrigued him.

"I like to drive fast," she explained.

Ben still had a hundred questions, but he discovered that he could no longer phrase a single one without referring to the recent experiences that he wanted so much to unsee. He wanted to ask her about her telepathy and its apparent limits. She had said that for the past two days she had been observing him at school from a fairly close distance, and tonight she had been blind to their attackers until they were either on the causeway or on its approach. But he didn't have to press her for specifics on her range. He knew the length of that road easily enough or could find it someday on Google Maps, should it ever truly matter to him.

He felt weary of his own questions, and he wanted to just be rid of them. Better to let them go. Perhaps if he could find the strength to relinquish his questions, she might abandon her walls.

The dark cabin's soft lights combined with the intoxicating aroma of cinnamon and honey into a potent soporific. He had trouble keeping his eyes open. She apparently realized this.

"On second thought, I'll take you straight home," she decided, pressing on the accelerator. "You've been through too much. You must get to bed."

"Okay— no. No, wait. I'm awake."

"Ben, you need to rest. We'll be together at school tomorrow; we can talk then."

"Promise?"

"I promise," she replied.

Somehow the quilt was around him. He vaguely realized that she was driving and wrapping him in honey-cinnamon swaddling at the same time. His eyes shot open, and he stubbornly shook his head.

"Stop trying to hypnotize me."

She laughed gently and murmured, "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, Ben, but I'm not a hypnotherapist."

He laughed shortly and said, "Those dimples on your cheeks could be patented. Please slow down. I'm not sleeping. I'm just ordering my thoughts."

She sadly whispered, as she decelerated again, "You don't believe me. When I tell you I'll be whatever you want. There's tomorrow. At the piano. And after school, too. We can hang out after Choir."

He shook his head. "Now's just as good. It's a forty minute drive."

"But you're so sleepy."

"Honestly, I just don't know how to begin."

Edythe suggested, "Why don't you start with when you first thought of it?"

He nodded. Yes, that made sense. Then, he reasoned, it would just flow. "Okay, yes. That's easy. On the gurney. At the hospital. Being wheeled out of the ambulance. I was still in the neck brace, but we briefly made eye contact, and that's when I first knew what you are. Do you remember that moment, when we saw each other?"

"Of course I do," she said, slowing down further. She had seen that he was safe and whole, that he had not been harmed, and up to that point in her life she had never felt happier.

He recalled that moment somewhat differently. He said, "I saw you watching over me, and I knew I was safe and that everything would be alright."

She abruptly clamped her mouth shut and cringed with chagrin, aware that he had just heard her teeth ring against each other, like metalloceramic china, in the small cabin. He was so observant, far too observant; he picked up on everything, remarkably attuned to all of his senses. He noticed everything about her. And yet, at the hospital, on the gurney, he had seen her as what? A guardian? A servant, of sorts? A bodyguard, moved by pity or perhaps even commissioned on some quid pro quo arrangement?