Talk About It

What to do

"What do you mean, my phone is talking to you?" I asked Christina. I tried to not make it sound like I thought she was crazy, and either I had a career cut out for me in acting or Christina was really distracted because she didn't seem to notice my skepticism. My frantic mind started thinking about how grief could break a person and their mind and how best to handle the supposedly-deranged (and supposedly fictional) person sitting in my living room, but before my irrational fear-induced plan could form very much, Christina simply shook her head. "Sorry, I think someone from home was trying to tell me something. I'm pretty sure it was Caleb. Apparently he and his team sent me here because...because they'd finished developing this travel system and they - they wanted to test it on someone. Caleb said that he found out that the only way to fix my 'condition', as everyone calls it now, is to get me to talk to someone who 'may not understand, but whose trying to understand means more than anyone who can understand', according to the ex-Erudite genius."

I processed the information I'd just been given. "So, I'm meant to help you?" I asked, wondering how on earth I could possibly do that. Half the time, I couldn't even help myself!

"Umm, yeah, I guess," Christina replied. She looked about as doubtful as I felt, and quite frankly I wasn't at all surprised, but there was something else in her eyes that I could barely feel in my heart: hope. It was just a flicker, only just there, but I couldn't have smothered it, even if I was cruel enough to want to crush that hope. Who knew - maybe the flicker would turn into a fire.

I had no idea how I was meant to help Christina, but all I could think, for some reason, was: 'She used to be Candor.' Candor...Candor...it was something to do with Candor. Candor was the faction that valued honesty. That was it! To be honest, you had to...talk! Talking - that was how Christina would recover from whatever it was that others called her 'condition'. If Christina talked, then maybe she would feel better. And my job was? What was it? A voice in my mind rang out, clear and strong, sure of itself. It told me that my role was to listen. That was helpful - I knew how to listen. I could do that (I hoped I could). It sounded like a flimsy idea, a "maybe" plan, a backup or a filler for time while something that might actually have a shot at working was developed. But somehow, I just knew that talking would work, especially for Christina. I looked at her dead in the eyes and said, "I know how to help you." Her eyes right then - you should have seen them. I wish I'd had a camera or I'd switched my phone on. She was already a pretty stunning girl, even though her eyes were filled with sadness and she understandably looked like she spent several hours every day crying. But when I told her I knew how to help her, she went from stunning to absolutely beautiful. Her eyes literally lit up, like all the stars in the universe were in them, and then the rest of her face glowed with that flickering flame from before: hope. I could see it growing as Christina processed what I was telling her. In that moment, I should have been afraid. I wasn't. I would not - I knew I could not - crush that hope. I would not suffocate the flame, and the light in her eyes would stay there. I would do everything I could to make that light stay.

In that moment, the voice in my mind that knew what to do said to me:

"You know what to do. Now do it for her."