magic smoke, like a tab of enlightenment melting on my tongue:
she means Henry. the half-life of Henry.
His orbit is the perfect place for our shrieking, shrinking, fractured souls.
she may not know she means it, but she does. i see it as sharply as emmett must see leila’s black-widow webbing.
“lots of room here for anyone who wants to come and share in Henry’s love.”
her eyes sparkle. she overflows with Henry’s love. she is bursting with it.
and something else. something i can’t quite put my finger on.
something i maybe don’t want to think about.
shelly is my sister. and that is enough. for now.
more than enough.
for now.
that is everything.
“if we can keep it under control, fly under the radar? we could stay here forever.”
the lilt to shelly’s voice tells me she would like this, that forever is what she yearns for.
i have to wonder, even just for a moment, what sorts of things need to be kept under control.
no matter; i am well versed in the fine art of flying under the radar.
i should fit in well here, soaking in the syrup-strong glory of Henry’s love. in the orbit of His half-life.
i could overflow here, burst. with love. and maybe something else.
shelly is wrong, though. about Henry being jesus christ.
i don’t tell her as much—those sparkling, forever -eyes worry me in some secret corner i choose to shy away from—but i’m sure of it in my soul. it’s an inescapable fact, like two plus two being four, or me having dirt-brown eyes, or uncle jack and his drinking:
Henry can’t be jesus.
jesus never did anything for me.
i don’t believe in jesus christ.
only in Henry.
leila
i only had twenty-one dollars on me when i arrived at the ranch, lucky jeans having finally given out, a thin layer of dust coating one of my two favorite tops, the straps of my sandals loosening from their scuffed foot beds.
it was enough for leila.
she smiled at me. it was a different smile than the one Henry had flashed when He came upon me at the park bench, like the messiah ready to show me to the gates of ever after.
leila’s smile was closed and mysterious, like she’d read your diary or visited you in your dreams at night. like she knew your dirty secrets.
like she knew how best to make you bleed.
“i’ll need your wallet.” her lips parted. she wore her hair like mine, in a braid, but hers was tighter, her eyebrows creeping steadily toward her scalp.
i blinked, disoriented from the three-day trip spent in Henry’s van. leila’s face was expressionless, save for the parted lips. at first i didn’t realize that this was how she smiled. how she said hello.
how she asserted herself.
“go easy on a new sister,” Henry said.
even with His easy tone, it wasn’t a suggestion. with Henry, it was never a suggestion. never anything less than gospel.
“i’ll need your wallet.” leila didn’t flinch. i guessed that she was my age, but older. somehow.
there was a hidden language, a code shared between leila and Henry. i was jealous. i’d stumbled upon a lost world, an ancient language, and i’d misplaced my guidebook. their eyes were a sealed fort, unified. i was weaponless, guileless. adrift as ever.
i gave her my wallet.
“i don’t have much cash,” i said, handing the lump of weather-beaten leather to her.
she nodded, not looking at me, flipping the wallet open. she glanced at my ID: a driver’s license showing a snapshot of another girl, a mel from the before.
“melinda jensen. seventeen years old.”
i thought again:
she, leila—
she is my age. but older, somehow.
i shrugged. “that’s me.” i peered at the picture upside down in her smooth, pale palm.
even then, there had been cracks behind my eyes. a camera couldn’t hide those sorts of fissures, rivulets, fault lines. i could see them, now, from where i stood. Henry had seen them. leila could see them. they were permanent.
leila slipped the license out of the wallet, quickly dropping it into a tin