“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Tami says. “He’s not going anywhere with you. You know why? Because you’re not going anywhere. You think he’s going to run away from home with you? To do what? To wait tables and live in some studio apartment and take buses everywhere so you can play at being authentic artists or some bullshit? That’d be fun for about a week, tops. You think he’s going to run away from his future for that? For you? People don’t do that. Honestly, I feel sorry for you. Some of us have a future, some of us don’t.”
“I want to go home,” is all Ash can say.
“Do you realize what a luxury you have?” Tami says to Ivy. “That you get to fall apart? It’s almost part of your job. And people care enough to keep watching. It’s part of the show. It makes them even more interested in you. Other people don’t have that privilege.”
“Tell her you don’t love her,” Ivy says to Ash. She can’t hear a word Tami says.
“Don’t say something you’ll regret,” says Tami. “Don’t say something you can’t take back.”
“Tell her!”
“I can’t,” Ash says, burying his head in his hands.
“I think we should go,” I say, but no one hears me. A toxic sludge of liquor and stomach acid burns in my guts. I try to stand up again, but I am not connected to any of my limbs.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Ivy says.
“I need time to figure things out,” he says, staring at his lap.
“This isn’t something to figure out,” Ivy says. “It’s not about thinking. That’s your problem, Ash. You need to let yourself feel.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tami says. “Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?”
“Show us how you’re really feeling,” Ivy insists. “Stop trying to control it.”
“What?” Ash snaps. “And be out of control like you?” He is finally looking at her. His cracks are showing for all to see, but it’s not light behind them now. It’s just more shadow.
Tami laughs and laughs and laughs.
Finally, I manage to stand up. A giant mirror on the wall behind us reflects the vague glow of the city’s lights through the thick smoke outside, with Ivy, Ash, and Tami frozen in the foreground. I am nowhere to be seen. I wave my arms around, but the only thing that moves is Tami’s eyelashes as she blinks.
“I don’t understand,” Ivy says pathetically, and I think no truer words have ever been said.
“God, what a waste of a day,” Tami says, pulling out her phone. “I’m not going to let you two ruin my night. Take that ridiculous car and get out of my face.”
Ivy and Ash just stare, confused, unsure of what to do.
“I’m serious,” Tami says, looking up from her phone. “I want you both to leave. Now.”
But what about me?
29
An elevator. A dropping through space. All I am is one pulsing foot. The rest of me is ether.
We are three people, not looking at one another.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Ivy whispers. “Why didn’t you tell her you’re through?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“But love should make things easy.”
Ash looks at Ivy with disbelief. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
And I think this is it. This is the moment he confesses he never had any intention of leaving Tami, that he never planned to give up being a prince. Being different was only ever a hobby, a place he went when he felt moody and misunderstood. But being understood is not his goal. What matters is being worshipped, being surrounded by special people. Ivy was once one of those special people, but she has lost all her shiny things.
“Ash,” she pleads. “I—” But then her voice cuts off and her face softens. Her eyes turn slightly dull. “Oh,” she says.
Ash is smiling, his eyes as dull as hers. “Yes,” he says.
“I think the Freedom just kicked in,” Ivy says. “What were we talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
With the right pill, nothing matters. With the right pill, all you are is a body falling through space and you don’t care if there’s anyone to catch you.
In the parking garage, Ivy’s car comes to greet her, drives right up, headlights blinking in some automated, false friendliness, loyal like a pet dog.
“Get in,” she says. “I’ll put it in self-driving mode.”
“I want to drive,” says Ash. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of these.”
How can he think about cars at a time like this?
I get in the back. We sit in the car, unmoving, as Ash runs his hands over everything, eyes sparkling. It is so easy to forget the world is on fire.
Ivy is in her own little world, miles and miles and miles away. “It’s going to be okay,” she says. Then she says it again, and again, and again, and every time she says it, I believe it less.
“Why have I never tried this pill?” Ash says.
Ivy smiles and meets his eye. “We’re free.”
But I don’t believe either of them.
“Car, on,” Ivy says.
“Would you like to engage automated driver assistance?” says the car.
“No,” Ash says. “I want to be in control.”
We peel out of the parking garage, and for a split second everything is weightless, and the world shifts and there is no gravity and the constant pressure in my chest turns to bubbles, and I think I can feel the Freedom too, and now, yes, I believe in them, I believe in us, I think this could really happen, Ivy and Ash could really happen, Ivy’s dream could actually come true, this could be a world with possibility where people can transform themselves and start over and go anywhere. We are flying onto the street, wheels not touching the ground, and I think we may just keep going, up and up until the car transforms into a jet, with a course set straight for that island in Brazil that the ocean has not claimed yet, with the perfect beach where true love was born and where fruity drinks with umbrellas will be waiting for us.
But the car is just a car, and whatever air we temporarily gained was only centimeters, and now we are on the ground again, heavy with all we have done, heavy with laws of nature and truth we cannot outrun, and there is a thump of something else, something soft and rounded, in front, then beneath us, not road, not something tires are supposed to touch.