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Chapter Twenty-Nine

LUNA

I reach out my hand to the fireplace and use my will to make the fire smaller. Nothing happens. Either I do not possess immense and terrible power, or matter came before consciousness.

“Or… and hear me out… consciousness ain’t my business.”

It’s reaching for you.

“What does that even mean?”

I hold out my hand again, think about valence, which is a word I never heard before in my life but understand on an instinctual level. It’s the chariot that carries the meaning. It’s the -ness in goodness, badness, fierceness, stillness.

Emptiness where he should be.

Brokenness between us.

Anxiousness until I find him.

I imagine the fire smaller, cooler, but my arm aches and the magic fire does what magic fires do. Nothing.

Whatever. My mother is here making shit up.

Out the window, the draining house is the same. I’m different after the depths of pain and the heights of pleasure. If I go there, lie in the chair, and let Mom scrape the edges of my brain, maybe I’ll feel it all again. Maybe I’ll feel something besides the agony of being separated from him.

When my stomach growls, I realize more than my heart is hungry.