Chapter VII (Part 1)

I've never been one for melodrama. Other girls would go on about how their crush set their skin ablaze, turned their blood to hot lava, set their heart to a hummingbird's pace, but for me, love was more noticeable in its absence, it was the relief from that sick, hollow, depraved hunger that was separation. The dependency of love didn't much suit me. I had grown up a loner. I was always self sufficient. My family had assured me I'd make friends and find my spot in society, and that my acceptance into one of the most elite of elite schools, reinforced by my "stellar" grades thus far, my amazing boyfriend, and a group of people I could truly call friends, were all proof that I had a place in this world. I remained unconvinced.

Jet and Alex were off somewhere being mysterious. I hadn't heard from either in nearly a week. They had prepared me for this, but it didn't do a whole lot of good. Despite promises to keep me more in the loop, it had been weeks since the concert hall massacre, and I'd learned nothing new about Mania nor Donovan, well, nothing new from Jet or Lex. My own efforts to piece together information hadn't been terribly successful either. The killings last October, the terrorist attack on the Cross building, and the more recent events -- I had come no closer to seeing how these were connected to Mania's wild quest for an old Clash recording.

"Allie!"

It's not that I hadn't done my share of withholding facts. I had downloaded The Card Cheat the night after watching Mania's home video. Every moment that wasn't occupied by Jet or the first two weeks of Spring classes was me reciting rendition after rendition of the song, continually disappointed to see not the slightest effect on myself. Why had Mania told me to find the song? I knew it was stupid to think something would happen. It made no sense. None. But she said that we were alike, and really, after what I'd seen lately, were things really supposed to make any sense?

"Allie, Allie, Allie!"

Jess chanted my name loud enough to warrant glances and shushes from neighboring classmates more interested in the lecture than whatever message she had for me. I scowled impatiently, audibly sighed, and surrendered, "What?"

"Do you think you could maybe do me a very small, microscopically small actually, favor?"

"That depends very much on the nature of said favor."

She paused, clearly deliberating on how to frame her request, and as usual, her shy blush gave away the fact that the request embarrassed her slightly, "Well, you seem like you're pretty good friends with Alex now." I grinned without meaning to, giving away my amusement. Her eyes exploded wider, 'What?!"

"It's just hilarious that you have a million guys always after you, and that you pick Alex of all people to have a thing for."

"That is so not true. And super tangential. But, um, I haven't seen Alex around since last week. Did something happen?"

I pushed my hair back and looked at my friend with more sincerity than the situation probably warranted, "Him and Jet have been gone all week. They didn't really tell me anything." I wasn't sure if I sounded angry. I wasn't sure if I was angry.

"Jet too? Oh, sorry." She resumed scribbling absently on her notebook. I guess she was taking notes, if you consider copying down totally random words from the blackboard into her notebook, notetaking. Actually, I suppose that is notetaking. Weird that she was so apologetic about just mentioning Jet. Did I sound that pissed? Why must I wear my emotions way so transparently?

"Nah, don't worry about it. I'm not that upset about it. You just caught me daydreaming."

She grinned and quickly abandoned her faux-studiousness. "Oh yeah? Daydreaming about Jet, huh?" She poked me playfully, and then in her best Captain Renault impersonation, "I'm shocked, shocked."

"Not in the way you're probably thinking." She gave me a look of genuine disbelief. "Well, maybe a little in the way you're thinking. Mostly, I miss him and am slightly pissed at the pair for ditching me for the week." This was true enough, although certainly not everything on my mind.

Jess looked like she was going to say something more, but our professor gave us a bit of a glare, and we went back to the diligent student act. The course was Contemporary Theory in International Relations. Neither Jess nor I had a clue what to study, but International Policy seemed as good as anything else, and it was one of the "better", whatever that meant, programs at school.

Today's lecture focused on the infertility epidemic of a generation ago. My aunt told me that, when she was a kid, there were nearly seven billion people. Seven billion. Two decades of near total infertility in some regions had halved that number, and even now, only half the women born are able to someday have children. It's hard to imagine that there was ever space for three and a half billion more people.

Instead of wallowing in my own thoughts, I tuned in to the professor for a while. "There's significant pressure in the Western European nations to allow for termination of sterile births. Obviously, many of these births are terminated for other reasons, but in the near future, it's likely that sterility alone will be enough justification for abortion." He continued on, and while I felt the slight sting of guilt to know that the topic only didn't interest me because I knew I could someday have children if I wanted, I still felt I had more immediate problems to obsess over.

Jess obviously felt the same way, "Um, Allie, you want to run when we're out of here?"

We ran three times a week. That's not true. We ran together three times a week. Jess ran every day. She wanted to do her second marathon in the fall, and while I had absolutely zero interest in putting myself through that, she had guilted me into helping her train with less suicidal eight milers.

I really didn't feel like running, "Didn't we run yesterday?"

"No. I ran yesterday. You sat around singing by yourself in front of the mirror like a freak."

"Really?" I'm sure we ran yesterday. Positive.

"I don't know what you were doing in front of the mirror yesterday, but usually, I only catch you singing."

"Jess!" And yeah, she had said it loud enough for the boys nearby to hear.

She ignored my outrage. "Since when are you a Clash fan anyways?"

Okay. I had sort of told Jess what had happened. I just left out the crazy blindness inducing singing, the part where I puked all over myself, and the part where the crazy girl comforted me like a lost kid sister.

"I'm not really. Just that one song." Had she heard me singing it? I better be more careful. What if, and this is a big crazy I-should-be-locked-up what if, the song could do something, and I ended up doing something horrible to Jess?

"The Card Cheat? No offense Allie...but that has to be one of the worst songs on that album."

I wasn't really listening to her. I'm sure she threw in a few more jabs. My mind had ventured into a place I really really didn't want it to go. Maybe the song does work. Just not on the singer.