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Colin arrives in the newspaper room, and leaves his backpack on his chair.

"Hi, Gretchen! I'm kind of looking for Sylvia. Did she drop by?" he says, rummaging in his bag.

"Nope," is the simple answer as she scoops something consisting of pasty blocks of soy into her mouth.  Gretchen seems subdued.

"There you are." he retrieves something out of his bag, and goes to a corner of the room, behind a bookshelf, not to disturb Gretchen. There he opens his hand, revealing his cellphone, and dials Sylvia's number. He hopes she has at least her phone on.

When her phone rings, Gretchen lets out a softly muttered string of profanity.  The illusion drops as she flicks the ringer off.  "What?" Sylvia says, rude in her annoyance.

"Oh." Colin says as the illusion drops, and Sylvia appears.

"I was a bit worried about you. You were hiding, so you probably don't want to talk with me at all. But... it's been proved several times already that if I'm left alone too long with my anger and my fears, I start thinking really stupid things. So I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to leave you alone either."

He grabs his chair and sits with his back to the wall, leaving her some space.

"I won't ask you about tonight. I think you were being honest, and he told you something stupid. And things went downhill from there. But how do you feel now? Did you manage to have some sleep?"

Sylvia gives him a look of aggrievement.  "God," she says, "you know what really sucks about all your friends having super powers?  Nothing's private.  Donnie doesn't punch a wall and walk away; he has to get on his frigging dragon and break half the windows on the block.  And whoever heard what we were talking about over the music inside and the noise outside has a big fat mouth.  It was humiliating enough to be told I was a slut for going to a stupid dance--"  Donnie's words are getting reinterpreted.  Hell hath no fury.  "--but now, at super-fucking-speed, everyone has something to say about it.

"How do I feel?  Let's just say that if I were Megan, I'd be in California by now.  If I were Kel, there are a couple of people who'd have lost teeth by now.  And if I were you. . . ."  Her vitriol runs dry.  It occurs to her that Colin's not good for anything in this situation.

"I don't think you'd like to know what I can do when I'm angry." Colin says without looking at her, rather matter-of-factly.

"And there would be rumors even though you had no powers. That's how these things go. If he really told you that, maybe losing some tooth would be in order. I don't think he meant it, but he screwed up big time."

"And if you were Sylvia?"

Sylvia softens.  She expected to be scolded by Saint Colin for who-knows-what, but here he's giving her sympathy.  "He did.  And I did," she says defiantly.  "But I wanted to fix things, and he just left.  What is that about?  Who leaves when someone else is saying sorry?"


She scowls again.  "If I were Sylvia, I'd button up like the pansy-ass I am and take it.  And then I'd hide.  Which I was doing pretty well till you called me.  I hate cell phones."  Even the pretty pink cell phone she picked out with Carolyn.

"No Sylvia I know is a pansy-ass. Especially not you."

He thinks for a moment.

"Sometimes, when we're hurt, or really angry, we just can't stay and listen to someone saying he's sorry. We can't take it. We have to let off some steam before. Anger is not something we have an on/off switch. Well, maybe it has for you, if you work on it, but normally, things may just take time."

"Who are you hiding from?"

She throws him a funny look, which grows in urgency and anxiety.  "What do you mean?  What are you talking about?"

"You told me you can make people feel things, do you remember? Has it gotten stronger lately?"

Sylvia gives him a hard look.  Colin knew?  Colin was paying attention that day?  Colin knew, and he never said a damned thing afterward?  She feels betrayed.  Saint Colin, full of wisdom and compassion, never offered her her share.  Her mouth crumples as if she's rolling something bitter on her tongue.  "Stronger than . . . me?"  She looks grumpy and turns back to her lunch.  "Yes."

"I'm afraid I haven't been a good friend for you. That day you looked so uncomfortable talking about that, I thought it best to wait for you to be ready, before asking again. I didn't mean to leave you alone with something that troubled you. I promised I would cure you, and I meant it, but I guess I didn't recognize the signs. I'm sorry."

"You could have come yourself, you know? You've been so mysterious lately, I thought you didn't want me around. Donnie was worried about it."

"Not your fault," she says in a way that suggests it's entirely his fault.


Some of her snippiness drops away.  "Worried today?"

"I think so. I saw him only briefly and he didn't tell me much, except asking to come over after school, so we could talk. But we talked, I think it was last week. He told me how happy he was with you, and how worried he was about all those secrets it looked like you kept locked in, how sometimes you evaded his questions. And you... well you called him Dylan once when you were... you know. He asked me if I knew him, if you told me about him."

"I told him that he was wrong to worry, because it was him you liked."

"Is this what was bugging you? What you were worried about when we talked about marbles?"

[She called him Dylan?  Really?  :D  ]

Sylvia looks embarrassed.  "That was just . . . that kind of thing doesn't mean anything.  Freud was a whack-job."

But once she gets past that, she's just kind of depressed.  "You know, half the time I'm just sorry.  I mean, I lied about spending Friday with Ginny, but I just didn't want to deal with having to tell him the whole story.  And half the time I'm so mad at him for--for leaving.  For being able to just get on that stupid dragon and ditch me."  She blinks back the spark of tears.  "He ditched me."  Her voice cracks, and it's like a little explosion.  Suddenly Colin has Crying Girl on his hands.  He should run now.  "He ditched me.  It was such a stupid thing, and he just left."  There's nothing pretty or delicate about her crying.  It's snot and tears and face in hands and slumped shoulders and . . . ugh.  She wails the last.  "And he wasn't even Donnie when he left."


She scrubs at her face with the heels of her hands.  "No.  Yes.  Someone--someone told me last night that I might have made him angry.  And if I made him angry, what else did I make him?  What if nothing's real, nothing at all?"

[Bill's doing, not mine]


Colin doesn't run at all. Actually he rushes to her help and offers her a kleenex.

"Well, that's the point, Sylvia. He wasn't himself. Remember what he told of me and Kel and Megan at Sammy's? He didn't really think those things. And I don't think he ditched you. He can be a fool but not such a fool. He's getting closer to his dragons, somehow, and it's affecting him. He too has yet to learn how to control himself. I can't believe he meant those things. I think you two sent each other over the edge, and lost control. It can happen. We're so young, and we have so much to learn."


"You asked me this same question that evening. You may have spiced things a bit, but I don't think you *made* him like you. He noticed you first. I remember the day he looked at you and ditched his lunch for a salad. He was so cute. And he likes you even when you're not around at all. You may get the whole audience of a football game to look at you, and that even without powers, but I don't think you can make him happy from miles away, while not even thinking about him. But if you're not sure, Syl, we can make experiments."

She blows her nose and keeps sobbing but, stubborn as a mule, continues to talk.  "Is he okay?  When you saw him, was he okay?  Would you know if there was something wrong with him?"


"Experiments.  You and your experiments.  What is it now?  More marbles?"

"He was as fine as can be expected of him after what happened. You didn't hurt him more than he hurt you. If it's gonna make you feel better, though, when he's coming to my house, this afternoon, I'll check him thoroughly, ok?"


"Nope. Marbles can't feel emotions. It would be you using me as a guinea pig, and see how far you can go."

Sylvia nods, and her sobbing abates a little.  Maybe that's closest to the heart of her anguish.  She's worried about Donnie.  She's worried about what's happening to him.


She sniffs and gives her nose another wipe.  "What do you want me to do?"

"I'm going out of the door. I'll be just behind this wall. Try sending me an emotion, and I'll tell you if I pick it up, and how long it lasts."

He goes out and prepares for her.

She closes her eyes when he leaves the room, and when she's alone, the silence there becomes something like the deceptive stillness of her own heart.  She's fourteen, and she's at that fragile age when her heart--not quite the calloused, fierce thing it becomes in adulthood and not quite the pure and uncomplicated thing it was in childhood--doesn't know itself.  It's Pandora's box, full of evils and promised treasures, and she feels an odd and novel freedom in Colin's permission to open it, to look into it, and to see what comes out.

First, fear--the gnawing worry for the future.  Rory died, and others have come to harm.  Enemies of faceless superiority circulate around them.

Then, yearning--for comfort, for love, for safety.  She sings a psychic elegy for the illusion of her family's snug invulnerability and the sanctuary of Donnie's uncomplicated affection.

Anger, frustration, worry, grief, lust, rage.  And somewhere at the bottom of the box, hope . . . and something that looks suspiciously like a wobbly and coltish love.  It's all there, and for the first time she holds up each emotion to look at and marvel over.

It seems to take longer than it does, and it takes more than a few minutes.

Colin feels a strange mix of emotions, ones that make no sense out of context, but he knows them all.  They resonate with him just as if they were his own, some familiar to him and some not as much, but all as real as any other emotion he's ever felt.

Colin hoped to feel nothing, but it was clearly not the case.


For a moment he wonders if she may be right. If she really made Donnie feel things he wouldn't have felt otherwise.


He can't believe that. His gut feeling is that Donnie truly liked her. Likes her. There must be a way to fix this.


He could lie to her. And tell her he felt nothing, that her powers didn't work.


He goes back through the door. And when he looks at her, he realizes he can't do that.

"I felt it. We'll have to try from further apart. I still believe what you had was not a lie, Syl. It'll just be a little more difficult to prove. But then again, even with no powers involved, how can one really tell if the other isn't lying?"

Sylvia, despite her sticky, tear-stained cheeks and the sodden Kleenex in her hand, looks calmer and clearer.  There's a long silence before she answers.  "It doesn't matter," she tells him.  "I figured it out."

Colin gives her a new kleenex.

"Figured out what?"

"What's real," she says simply and scrubs at her nostrils.  "Now I just have to figure out what's right."

She chews on her lip for a second, feeling her way through the complexity of the situation.  "Should I stay away from him?"

"No. I don't think you should. It's not a solution. Either your powers reach him anyway, then it won't change anything, or they never really reached to him in the first place, an then you'd be torturing yourself for something you've not done. I'd say you'd better take your time, and, when you're ready, talk about this with him."

She nods, gaze falling to the smooth linoleum.  Even clear and calm, she's glum.  "He doesn't want to talk to me.  And he probably shouldn't."  Her lower lip twitches but doesn't quiver.  It's a problem and solution in one.

"Syl, you made a mistake. Everyone does. Give him and yourself some time, but also give him the chance to forgive you. Give yourself that chance too."

She nods, almost indifferent in her resignation.  "Will you tell me how he's doing when you talk to him?"

"Yes. I will. I'll call you later."

He looks for her eyes.

"I believe in you, Sylvia. We may not always see eye to eye with each other, but I have faith in you. You'll get it under control. You're too strong for it to defeat you."

She makes no answer, unwilling to promise what she might not deliver.

"Were you looking for help about this at Mentano?"

The questions burned the back of his mind. Probably out of guilt for not being able to pick the signals.

"Did you find it?"

She nods to both questions.  "Someone's helping me.  We were talking that day you and Kel were there."

"I'm glad you found someone. Whenever you need to talk, or anything else, just call and I'll be there, ok?"

She nods again.  "It's okay, Colin.  You don't need to fix me anymore."  Then she offers him a little shrug as if to sum up her helplessness with regard to the rest of it.

"No need to fix you. You're not broken."

He smiles at her, in his usual sincere way.

No smile in return, unless you count the quiet appreciation in her eyes.  "You're right."