the sharing

[instar]

Trouble is not back at school on Monday. At lunch, Bella sits with Andi who sits with Robin who sits with Ethan.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

"Yep."

[instar]

"Well, I don't imagine I have any particular sway over you, and if you do decide to go poke it with a stick, and your personality survives the experience, I would be a willing audience for anything you learned."

[aeskhyne]

"You got it," says Trouble. "If I go poking, I'll tell you what squeaks."

[instar]

"Thanks."

[aeskhyne]

"Who else am I gonna tell, right?"

[instar]

"You could conceivably not feel interested in telling anyone."

[aeskhyne]

He shrugs. "Yeah. But I wanna tell you."

[instar]

Bella nods.

"Be careful, if you go poking it."

[aeskhyne]

"What's the worst that could happen?"

[instar]

"Your brain could get eaten, reportedly."

[aeskhyne]

"Could be fun, depending how."

[instar]

"I think you're a bit too young to die, don't you?"

[aeskhyne]

"Not really."

[instar]

"...What, really?"

[aeskhyne]

He shrugs.

"I don't want to or anything, but I'm not desperate to avoid it, either. Death doesn't scare me."

[instar]

"Why not?"

[aeskhyne]

"Nobody lives forever, right? So what matters to me isn't how long I can hang on for, it's - I don't know, something else. Dying doesn't scare me. Another ten years in Reggie's house, that fucking scares me. Loving somebody who doesn't want me to. Having to live without being able to hurt. Those things are scary. Death just isn't."

[instar]

"Death is never getting to do anything, ever again, even be upset about that."

[aeskhyne]

"Yeah," says Trouble. "That's scary, sure. But there's no way out of it. It's not that I don't care that I'm going to die, exactly. It's that worrying about it won't make it go away, and since I can't just not die - and there's some ways it might turn out pretty awful if I could - I don't care that much whether it happens when I'm sixteen or when I'm sixty. What I want is for it to be - my choice. For it to happen because of a risk I took on purpose, or because I decide I'm done, and not just sneak up on me out of nowhere."

[instar]

"I don't think it's a law of nature that people have to die. I think someone might be able to fix it someday."

[aeskhyne]

He shrugs. "I'll believe that when I see it. But I bet I'll be dead first. I'm not seeing us getting there anytime soon."

[instar]

"I have every intention of working on it."

[aeskhyne]

"Good luck with that."

[instar]

"Look," says Bella. "You haven't known me very long, you're scared of me, you're prematurely cynical, etcetera, you have no reason to believe I'm good at anything except writing school essays - I understand you have no reason to believe I'm going to be able to accomplish anything remotely interesting with my life - but do you think you could stop steering our conversations straight into how very functionally worthless you think I am at anything except having charmingly naive good intentions?"

[aeskhyne]

"...What?" says Trouble.