Life is Strange, page 14
“So, Barbazal breaks even on funding, and… loses water.”
“Listen, Jonah, it’s not my first choice either, okay? But we have donors out there who will be very, let’s just say, disappointed to learn that we had an opportunity to reduce their tax liability by reducing public expenditure and didn’t take it.”
I knew it.
All of this really is a cash grab for the rich! Just not in the way Steph and I thought. They’re not rerouting water to Denver just to water rich people’s lawns, they’re selling off hydropower to reduce public funding and lower taxes for high earners!
This all makes sense now…
Little Jonah Macon from Barbazal, who came out to Denver to work in a senator’s office, and—from how Senator Brickleby is talking to him, openly addressing him like he’s worth little more than a gnat circling the fruit in the breakroom—tried to make a difference, tried to offer important questions as feeders on stage during what I assume was a debate or a rally, and instead of protecting Barbazal, and other towns around it, his hands are tied.
Jonah watched them build the dam. He didn’t have a choice.
The woozy magenta air swells, and a wave of stuffy warmth floods me. No wonder there’s so much confusion here. Every good thing in Jonah’s past is all mixed up with its opposite. Even at the beginning of his career, he walked into his boss’s office wanting to make a difference, and instead he got roped into this scheme.
And now, with calls for Jonah to tear down the dam, and restore Barbazal’s water supply, what can he do but reassure his hometown that the dam is doing them good, and that the water shortage is due to climate change and not the water reroute?
If he doesn’t, he’ll lose his position. And without his position, how can he represent the small towns of Colorado?
It’s twisted, and I don’t agree with it, but I understand now.
That thundercloud flashes a final lightning flash, sending shockwaves through my body. My hands can’t stop shaking, and I feel glued to my chair. I shut my eyes against the shockwaves, which I realize are getting increasingly strong, until…
…I’m back at the lake.
And I feel tired, deeply, wholly. Every inch of me wants to sleep. I look over.
And that little Senate office employee, Jonah Macon, is standing before me, only years older but aged at least a decade, little purple stars dancing over his head. He looks over his shoulder at me again and smiles.
“It’ll all work out,” he says. “I just have to make Barbazal see it.”
Pity floods me, and I sigh. Jonah really does feel stuck. And I can’t tell if his fear is of being found out—he’s gotten great at covering up what’s really going on around here—or of something else.
“Jonah,” I begin, venturing into dangerous territory. “How much hydropower does the dam generate?”
“Oh, well I’d have to look up the numbers on that one, but last time I checked, we were spittin’ out enough energy to power half the state!” he says proudly.
“Does Barbazal use all of that power?”
“A farming community like us?” he asks. “Pfft, we go through power like—”
Like water, I’m sure he was going to say.
“Well, like air.”
Safer choice.
“You…” I say, thinking, “…You didn’t actually answer my question.”
“How many questions do you have exactly?” he chuckles. He glances down at his watch for effect, probably to rush me. “I’ve gotta get some breakfast soon.”
Well, Jonah, I think, I’ve got all morning.
“Just one more,” I promise. I have to make this one count. Really get to the heart of his fear and turn this around.
“When Barbazal finds out what you’re really up to, Jonah, what will they think of you?”
Jonah’s face goes completely pale. Totally devoid of color. A long pause passes between us—so long, I wonder if Jonah’s actually losing consciousness. Which would be extremely bad. I’m out here alone, with a politician, by a lake, with no cell reception. What if he has a heart attack and dies right here and everyone thinks I killed him?
No, shut up, brain, we’re fine, Jonah’s fine, everything’s fine.
That aura over Jonah’s head is a brilliant purple. The tendrils coil up, this time, like a crown of branches has taken root in his scalp. Spindly black spires that fork and breach and twist through the brilliant purple, sparkling with routes not taken. In them, I recognize the tree.
The minute he looks down at his shoes, I seize my chance. I reach in, one last time.
And I’m standing behind Jonah and Clover as they sit in front of the magnolia tree. Jonah has a sandwich in his hand with a few bites taken out, and Clover is working on a pint-sized bowl of potato salad. Peak summer.
“You’re gonna let her die all over again, you know that?” she asks, her voice scathing and harried, a stark contrast to the joyful scene—the brilliant sun, the butterflies fluttering in the yard, the wildflowers dotting the grass. “You’re gonna kill her memory just like you’ve killed the rest of this town.”
“I’m working on it, alright, darling?”
“Don’t you call me darling,” she spits. Then she turns back to her potato salad, scooping up a spoonful, staring at it. “It’s enough to make a girl lose her appetite.”
“You think I’d let this place dry up? Think I’d let Magnolia’s tree dry up?” he asks, his voice earnest. “I’m doing all I can in Denver to fight this, but I have to do it the right way. What do you want me to do, take a sledgehammer to the dam in the middle of the night?”
“It would be better than lettin’ those pigs in Denver make all that money off what’s supposed to be ours.”
So, Clover knows the whole story.
“One hundred percent of that money should be ours,” she continues, “on top of the public funding we get, which is already stripped down to the pennies and bottlecaps at the bottom of Colorado’s pockets.”
“I know,” he says, “but how do you suggest I get my campaign off the ground if I fall out of favor with my biggest donors? I have to appease both—them and Barbazal.”
“And it’s real easy to appease Barbazal as long as they don’t have a clue what’s happenin’,” she hisses. “You’re as bad as they are.”
“Darling—”
“Don’t call me darling again until you grow a backbone and do something. I’m not moving. And I’m not raising this baby somewhere else just because you would let our town die.”
He pauses, sets the sandwich down on the plate in his lap, leans over, takes Clover’s free hand in his.
“You have my word,” he says. “I’ll find another source for Barbazal.”
“You gonna call water down from the sky with some kind of ritual?” she mocks. “Or maybe you plan on drivin’ Silas’s truck up into the mountains for ice so we can bring it down and melt it here in the valley! Anything to appease those donors, am I right? Anything to get that Senate seat, Jonah Henry Elias Macon.”
Jonah looks personally hurt by that statement. Clover rests her hand over her middle.
“I hope he’s nothing like you,” she mutters.
And that breaks him completely.
“Clover—”
But Clover’s already on her feet, marching away, and I can see her face now, framed by those red curls, the loose ones that escaped the braid down her back falling down either side of her cheeks, and I realize… this wasn’t long ago. This was recent.
Like, this week recent.
How often does Jonah make trips down here? Silas said it had been months, so that would mean…
Was this yesterday?
Is Clover pregnant right now?!
That explains the secret relationship. As blue as Colorado is, a baby born to unmarried parents still spells trouble for a politician, and a marriage to a politician’s daughter could be seen as some kind of twisted political move…
Goddamn, is everything in Jonah’s life so carefully orchestrated and over-analyzed?
I remember his secret order at the diner. Yes, it must be.
I’m back at the lake, staring up at Jonah Macon with silence settling between us like a fog, masking what either of us is really thinking. He’s staring back at me with the blankest face. Even. Unwavering.
“What do you mean?” he asks, coyly. “What exactly do you think I’m ‘up to’?”
But that purple glow is still over his head. He may not think I have all the cards, but he knows I have some. The question is, how much do I want to reveal that I know? I guess the answer to that question depends mostly on one ultimate question I’ve been tossing around in my brain like a loose marble. Am I staring into the face of a lost boy, a former intern who’s still scrambling to make a difference in the world… or am I looking at a political sellout, skimming off the top of his community to appease donors? Or some twisted combination of both?
His blue eyes are flickering with something, and he must realize I’m not going to give him an answer.
“Well,” he concedes, kicking his leg up onto the end of the bench, furthest from the end where I’m sitting, and re-ties his shoe. “Whatever you think I’m ‘up to’,” God, he says “up to” like it’s such an outlandish idea—don’t protest too much, Jonah, “I hope to win your trust as a voter this election. Whatever you believe about me personally, I hope you can get behind my cause: protecting all the communities that make Colorado beautiful, and representing all the people that make up those communities in Washington.”
His foot meets the ground again, and he extends his hand to me for a parting handshake.
I glance down at it before looking back up at him, and I know I have a split-second decision to make. This might be my last chance to make things right here, to protect the water supply, and to stop Denver from pulling their “surplus” funding from Barbazal.
If I can just tap into Jonah’s mind one more time, maybe I can find something, anything, any solution.
I have to try.
Before I take his hand, I give him a smile—a grin that lingers a bit too long—a knowing expression that tells him whatever I know, it’s more than he wants me to know.
His smile falters just slightly, and that purple aura flares up again.
Gotcha.
I reach my hand forward for the handshake, and our fingers curve around each other’s palms, and I’m in.
One. Last. Time.
What is Jonah so afraid of?
I’m standing in a dark room. A bedroom, with a bed so big it would fill Owen’s entire living room. Two lumps are under the comforter, one twisting and turning frantically, whimpering in his sleep.
Is that Jonah?
He jolts upright in bed with a frantic yelp I’ve never heard a human make before, and the other lump jolts to meet him. Her arms encircle his torso, and she coos at him.
“Shh, shh,” she says, “It was a dream, dear.” I’d recognize Clover’s voice anywhere, though it sounds slightly more grave than usual. Her wild red hair falls in waves over her shoulders, and she hugs him close with a chuckle. “Were you dreaming about my dad? He thinks I’m here to get supplies, remember?”
Where is here?
Denver?
Am I in Jonah’s home?
Jonah, shirtless, caves in on himself, tries to slow his breathing, and looks to the window. I follow his gaze and realize I have a view like I’ve never seen before. The entire Denver skyline, mountains and all, lights up brilliantly against the pitch-black sky. The stars twinkle across it like I’ve only seen in small towns. Like Haven Springs.
Like Barbazal.
I wonder if Jonah chose this high-rise condo for that reason alone. I could see him, younger, wandering the space, unsure if he could call this home after living in Barbazal all his life, and opening the window to see the sky.
Maybe in that moment, he realized he could see himself here, in Denver, making a difference.
Then, to my shock and horror, he buries his face in his hands, and bursts into tears. Clover, somehow unfazed, turns to him, embraces him around his shoulders, runs her fingers through his hair as he embraces her back, grabbing a gentle fistful of her nightshirt like a drowning man clinging to a raft, about to be lost at sea.
He cries for what feels like forever, and I can’t imagine what he dreamed about that would make him so… so… like this. So broken.
“Clover,” he finally croaks, pulling away and dragging his wrist across his eyes. “I dreamed that—”
“Shh,” she says again. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
Yes he fucking does, I want to scream. He needs to get whatever this is out. But since they couldn’t hear me even if I did, I remain silent, listening.
“No, I need to talk about it,” he says, pulling his legs up to sit criss-cross, and taking both her hands in his. “I dreamed that I lost… everything. I lost you. I lost the baby. I lost—”
“What do you mean ‘lost’?” asks Clover, more intrigued than fearful, as if she’s been through this before.
“I mean,” he continues, “I was falling into a hole. An endless hole. Dark. Cold. Wet. Alone. You both,” he says, glancing down at her stomach, “just… watched it happen. Didn’t try to reach me. You looked… relieved. And I knew when I saw your face that I’d let you down. Both of you. And then, all of Barbazal went flying past me, all the faces I grew up with, everyone was staring at me in disappointment. Everyone was… just…” his voice threatens to break again.
I try to swallow, but my throat feels suddenly dry, remembering what it felt like to fall, endlessly, into a dark, deep hole.
“They all hated me,” he practically squeaks. Clover pulls him against her again.
“No one hates you,” she assures him. “But they might if you don’t do something.”
Damn. Clover can be direct. Kind, but direct.
He nods.
“I know.”
He knows?! If he knows, why hasn’t he done something?! Judging by this condo, Jonah Macon is secure enough—even if it’s with Clover’s money—and judging by his political reach, influential enough to build his entire platform on straight-up anarchy. Down with pollution, fuck the establishment and all that! Surely there would be enough people across all of Denver to get his vote. Why toe the line, when Maisie Dorsey is far right enough to have all the red votes?
I hear myself grumble, a sound I don’t recognize from my own throat. Frustration.
But then I realize…
I’ve found my chance.
“I know,” he says again with a nod. “I’m just… What if I do something and it ends up being too drastic? What if it fails?”
And then, after a long pause, so long, I wonder who’s going to talk next…
“What if I fail?”
Oh my god. Jonah Macon? Bigshot Jonah Macon? He’s not afraid of climate change or public ridicule or private ridicule for that matter.
It’s much deeper than that. Jonah Macon, like me, is most afraid of failure.
Of being a failure.
Of people thinking he’s a failure.
And maybe, if I can make Jonah Macon so afraid of failure, he’ll try to succeed. Whatever it takes. Maybe he’ll finally, as Clover’s been begging him all this time, do something.
I’m getting back in that car today and driving to Fort Collins with the girl I love, and if I only have this moment to help a town of thousands preserve their livelihood then this is the moment I’ll take.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach out to Jonah, sitting there in bed with Clover, reach into his chest and find the heart of that purple aura, twisty and sick like a snake coiling itself around a branch, crushing Jonah’s heart and his resolve.
I remember Steph’s words.
You’re not just playing with emotions, Alex. You’re playing with people’s lives.
“Don’t worry, Steph,” I whisper to myself.
And then, with all the force of Jonah’s fear in my hand, I turn my wrist, rotating my fingers like I’m holding an invisible dial, turning and turning, feeling the tingling grow and grow. My skin prickles, at first like my hand is falling asleep, then like my hand has been asleep for several minutes and someone’s kicked it with a steel-toed boot, and then, like cactus spines are, one by one, digging into my flesh.
It burns.
It stings.
I feel tears bud at the corners of my eyes, and I shut them, grinding my teeth against the pain so intense it feels like it’s ringing in my ears. It feels like I’ve reached into a jellyfish and grabbed it by its tentacles, which are slowly wrapping around my fingers, hand, and forearm.
But as the pain sears my hand, I hear Clover’s voice somewhere far away.
“Jonah?” she asks, “Are you okay?”
“I, um…” he says. I hear the ruffling of bed sheets, and I force a single eye open to see what’s going on out there in Jonah’s memory. He goes slowly, agonizingly for me, to the huge window overlooking the city, and stands, looking, thinking.
“What if you do nothing?” I growl through gritted teeth. “What if everyone you know and love finds out you’ve sold them out to the state? What if they find out, Jonah Macon? What then?”
A new wave of searing hot pain envelops my arm, and I resist the urge to drop to my knees for some kind of reprieve. I keep talking as I force my hand to turn further, feeding the flames of fear I can feel growing and shifting within him.
“What about your baby? What happens when they grow up and find out their father let a dam destroy his own hometown? What happens when they find out you’re a monster?”
I whimper just a little, the pain unbearable now. I know I have maybe a few words left.
“If you don’t do something, Jonah Macon,” I squeak out, “you are a failure.”
Even if I could scrounge around in the strongest parts of my mind to find stamina to withstand this level of pain, I can’t. If I was reaching into a jellyfish earlier, it explodes now, sending me flying backwards. My feet feel nothing below them. I’m completely airborne, falling in slow motion. I hear a scream escape my throat and I shut my eyes and brace for the impact of whatever I’m going to fly into behind me.
But I don’t fly into anything.
“Listen, Jonah, it’s not my first choice either, okay? But we have donors out there who will be very, let’s just say, disappointed to learn that we had an opportunity to reduce their tax liability by reducing public expenditure and didn’t take it.”
I knew it.
All of this really is a cash grab for the rich! Just not in the way Steph and I thought. They’re not rerouting water to Denver just to water rich people’s lawns, they’re selling off hydropower to reduce public funding and lower taxes for high earners!
This all makes sense now…
Little Jonah Macon from Barbazal, who came out to Denver to work in a senator’s office, and—from how Senator Brickleby is talking to him, openly addressing him like he’s worth little more than a gnat circling the fruit in the breakroom—tried to make a difference, tried to offer important questions as feeders on stage during what I assume was a debate or a rally, and instead of protecting Barbazal, and other towns around it, his hands are tied.
Jonah watched them build the dam. He didn’t have a choice.
The woozy magenta air swells, and a wave of stuffy warmth floods me. No wonder there’s so much confusion here. Every good thing in Jonah’s past is all mixed up with its opposite. Even at the beginning of his career, he walked into his boss’s office wanting to make a difference, and instead he got roped into this scheme.
And now, with calls for Jonah to tear down the dam, and restore Barbazal’s water supply, what can he do but reassure his hometown that the dam is doing them good, and that the water shortage is due to climate change and not the water reroute?
If he doesn’t, he’ll lose his position. And without his position, how can he represent the small towns of Colorado?
It’s twisted, and I don’t agree with it, but I understand now.
That thundercloud flashes a final lightning flash, sending shockwaves through my body. My hands can’t stop shaking, and I feel glued to my chair. I shut my eyes against the shockwaves, which I realize are getting increasingly strong, until…
…I’m back at the lake.
And I feel tired, deeply, wholly. Every inch of me wants to sleep. I look over.
And that little Senate office employee, Jonah Macon, is standing before me, only years older but aged at least a decade, little purple stars dancing over his head. He looks over his shoulder at me again and smiles.
“It’ll all work out,” he says. “I just have to make Barbazal see it.”
Pity floods me, and I sigh. Jonah really does feel stuck. And I can’t tell if his fear is of being found out—he’s gotten great at covering up what’s really going on around here—or of something else.
“Jonah,” I begin, venturing into dangerous territory. “How much hydropower does the dam generate?”
“Oh, well I’d have to look up the numbers on that one, but last time I checked, we were spittin’ out enough energy to power half the state!” he says proudly.
“Does Barbazal use all of that power?”
“A farming community like us?” he asks. “Pfft, we go through power like—”
Like water, I’m sure he was going to say.
“Well, like air.”
Safer choice.
“You…” I say, thinking, “…You didn’t actually answer my question.”
“How many questions do you have exactly?” he chuckles. He glances down at his watch for effect, probably to rush me. “I’ve gotta get some breakfast soon.”
Well, Jonah, I think, I’ve got all morning.
“Just one more,” I promise. I have to make this one count. Really get to the heart of his fear and turn this around.
“When Barbazal finds out what you’re really up to, Jonah, what will they think of you?”
Jonah’s face goes completely pale. Totally devoid of color. A long pause passes between us—so long, I wonder if Jonah’s actually losing consciousness. Which would be extremely bad. I’m out here alone, with a politician, by a lake, with no cell reception. What if he has a heart attack and dies right here and everyone thinks I killed him?
No, shut up, brain, we’re fine, Jonah’s fine, everything’s fine.
That aura over Jonah’s head is a brilliant purple. The tendrils coil up, this time, like a crown of branches has taken root in his scalp. Spindly black spires that fork and breach and twist through the brilliant purple, sparkling with routes not taken. In them, I recognize the tree.
The minute he looks down at his shoes, I seize my chance. I reach in, one last time.
And I’m standing behind Jonah and Clover as they sit in front of the magnolia tree. Jonah has a sandwich in his hand with a few bites taken out, and Clover is working on a pint-sized bowl of potato salad. Peak summer.
“You’re gonna let her die all over again, you know that?” she asks, her voice scathing and harried, a stark contrast to the joyful scene—the brilliant sun, the butterflies fluttering in the yard, the wildflowers dotting the grass. “You’re gonna kill her memory just like you’ve killed the rest of this town.”
“I’m working on it, alright, darling?”
“Don’t you call me darling,” she spits. Then she turns back to her potato salad, scooping up a spoonful, staring at it. “It’s enough to make a girl lose her appetite.”
“You think I’d let this place dry up? Think I’d let Magnolia’s tree dry up?” he asks, his voice earnest. “I’m doing all I can in Denver to fight this, but I have to do it the right way. What do you want me to do, take a sledgehammer to the dam in the middle of the night?”
“It would be better than lettin’ those pigs in Denver make all that money off what’s supposed to be ours.”
So, Clover knows the whole story.
“One hundred percent of that money should be ours,” she continues, “on top of the public funding we get, which is already stripped down to the pennies and bottlecaps at the bottom of Colorado’s pockets.”
“I know,” he says, “but how do you suggest I get my campaign off the ground if I fall out of favor with my biggest donors? I have to appease both—them and Barbazal.”
“And it’s real easy to appease Barbazal as long as they don’t have a clue what’s happenin’,” she hisses. “You’re as bad as they are.”
“Darling—”
“Don’t call me darling again until you grow a backbone and do something. I’m not moving. And I’m not raising this baby somewhere else just because you would let our town die.”
He pauses, sets the sandwich down on the plate in his lap, leans over, takes Clover’s free hand in his.
“You have my word,” he says. “I’ll find another source for Barbazal.”
“You gonna call water down from the sky with some kind of ritual?” she mocks. “Or maybe you plan on drivin’ Silas’s truck up into the mountains for ice so we can bring it down and melt it here in the valley! Anything to appease those donors, am I right? Anything to get that Senate seat, Jonah Henry Elias Macon.”
Jonah looks personally hurt by that statement. Clover rests her hand over her middle.
“I hope he’s nothing like you,” she mutters.
And that breaks him completely.
“Clover—”
But Clover’s already on her feet, marching away, and I can see her face now, framed by those red curls, the loose ones that escaped the braid down her back falling down either side of her cheeks, and I realize… this wasn’t long ago. This was recent.
Like, this week recent.
How often does Jonah make trips down here? Silas said it had been months, so that would mean…
Was this yesterday?
Is Clover pregnant right now?!
That explains the secret relationship. As blue as Colorado is, a baby born to unmarried parents still spells trouble for a politician, and a marriage to a politician’s daughter could be seen as some kind of twisted political move…
Goddamn, is everything in Jonah’s life so carefully orchestrated and over-analyzed?
I remember his secret order at the diner. Yes, it must be.
I’m back at the lake, staring up at Jonah Macon with silence settling between us like a fog, masking what either of us is really thinking. He’s staring back at me with the blankest face. Even. Unwavering.
“What do you mean?” he asks, coyly. “What exactly do you think I’m ‘up to’?”
But that purple glow is still over his head. He may not think I have all the cards, but he knows I have some. The question is, how much do I want to reveal that I know? I guess the answer to that question depends mostly on one ultimate question I’ve been tossing around in my brain like a loose marble. Am I staring into the face of a lost boy, a former intern who’s still scrambling to make a difference in the world… or am I looking at a political sellout, skimming off the top of his community to appease donors? Or some twisted combination of both?
His blue eyes are flickering with something, and he must realize I’m not going to give him an answer.
“Well,” he concedes, kicking his leg up onto the end of the bench, furthest from the end where I’m sitting, and re-ties his shoe. “Whatever you think I’m ‘up to’,” God, he says “up to” like it’s such an outlandish idea—don’t protest too much, Jonah, “I hope to win your trust as a voter this election. Whatever you believe about me personally, I hope you can get behind my cause: protecting all the communities that make Colorado beautiful, and representing all the people that make up those communities in Washington.”
His foot meets the ground again, and he extends his hand to me for a parting handshake.
I glance down at it before looking back up at him, and I know I have a split-second decision to make. This might be my last chance to make things right here, to protect the water supply, and to stop Denver from pulling their “surplus” funding from Barbazal.
If I can just tap into Jonah’s mind one more time, maybe I can find something, anything, any solution.
I have to try.
Before I take his hand, I give him a smile—a grin that lingers a bit too long—a knowing expression that tells him whatever I know, it’s more than he wants me to know.
His smile falters just slightly, and that purple aura flares up again.
Gotcha.
I reach my hand forward for the handshake, and our fingers curve around each other’s palms, and I’m in.
One. Last. Time.
What is Jonah so afraid of?
I’m standing in a dark room. A bedroom, with a bed so big it would fill Owen’s entire living room. Two lumps are under the comforter, one twisting and turning frantically, whimpering in his sleep.
Is that Jonah?
He jolts upright in bed with a frantic yelp I’ve never heard a human make before, and the other lump jolts to meet him. Her arms encircle his torso, and she coos at him.
“Shh, shh,” she says, “It was a dream, dear.” I’d recognize Clover’s voice anywhere, though it sounds slightly more grave than usual. Her wild red hair falls in waves over her shoulders, and she hugs him close with a chuckle. “Were you dreaming about my dad? He thinks I’m here to get supplies, remember?”
Where is here?
Denver?
Am I in Jonah’s home?
Jonah, shirtless, caves in on himself, tries to slow his breathing, and looks to the window. I follow his gaze and realize I have a view like I’ve never seen before. The entire Denver skyline, mountains and all, lights up brilliantly against the pitch-black sky. The stars twinkle across it like I’ve only seen in small towns. Like Haven Springs.
Like Barbazal.
I wonder if Jonah chose this high-rise condo for that reason alone. I could see him, younger, wandering the space, unsure if he could call this home after living in Barbazal all his life, and opening the window to see the sky.
Maybe in that moment, he realized he could see himself here, in Denver, making a difference.
Then, to my shock and horror, he buries his face in his hands, and bursts into tears. Clover, somehow unfazed, turns to him, embraces him around his shoulders, runs her fingers through his hair as he embraces her back, grabbing a gentle fistful of her nightshirt like a drowning man clinging to a raft, about to be lost at sea.
He cries for what feels like forever, and I can’t imagine what he dreamed about that would make him so… so… like this. So broken.
“Clover,” he finally croaks, pulling away and dragging his wrist across his eyes. “I dreamed that—”
“Shh,” she says again. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
Yes he fucking does, I want to scream. He needs to get whatever this is out. But since they couldn’t hear me even if I did, I remain silent, listening.
“No, I need to talk about it,” he says, pulling his legs up to sit criss-cross, and taking both her hands in his. “I dreamed that I lost… everything. I lost you. I lost the baby. I lost—”
“What do you mean ‘lost’?” asks Clover, more intrigued than fearful, as if she’s been through this before.
“I mean,” he continues, “I was falling into a hole. An endless hole. Dark. Cold. Wet. Alone. You both,” he says, glancing down at her stomach, “just… watched it happen. Didn’t try to reach me. You looked… relieved. And I knew when I saw your face that I’d let you down. Both of you. And then, all of Barbazal went flying past me, all the faces I grew up with, everyone was staring at me in disappointment. Everyone was… just…” his voice threatens to break again.
I try to swallow, but my throat feels suddenly dry, remembering what it felt like to fall, endlessly, into a dark, deep hole.
“They all hated me,” he practically squeaks. Clover pulls him against her again.
“No one hates you,” she assures him. “But they might if you don’t do something.”
Damn. Clover can be direct. Kind, but direct.
He nods.
“I know.”
He knows?! If he knows, why hasn’t he done something?! Judging by this condo, Jonah Macon is secure enough—even if it’s with Clover’s money—and judging by his political reach, influential enough to build his entire platform on straight-up anarchy. Down with pollution, fuck the establishment and all that! Surely there would be enough people across all of Denver to get his vote. Why toe the line, when Maisie Dorsey is far right enough to have all the red votes?
I hear myself grumble, a sound I don’t recognize from my own throat. Frustration.
But then I realize…
I’ve found my chance.
“I know,” he says again with a nod. “I’m just… What if I do something and it ends up being too drastic? What if it fails?”
And then, after a long pause, so long, I wonder who’s going to talk next…
“What if I fail?”
Oh my god. Jonah Macon? Bigshot Jonah Macon? He’s not afraid of climate change or public ridicule or private ridicule for that matter.
It’s much deeper than that. Jonah Macon, like me, is most afraid of failure.
Of being a failure.
Of people thinking he’s a failure.
And maybe, if I can make Jonah Macon so afraid of failure, he’ll try to succeed. Whatever it takes. Maybe he’ll finally, as Clover’s been begging him all this time, do something.
I’m getting back in that car today and driving to Fort Collins with the girl I love, and if I only have this moment to help a town of thousands preserve their livelihood then this is the moment I’ll take.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach out to Jonah, sitting there in bed with Clover, reach into his chest and find the heart of that purple aura, twisty and sick like a snake coiling itself around a branch, crushing Jonah’s heart and his resolve.
I remember Steph’s words.
You’re not just playing with emotions, Alex. You’re playing with people’s lives.
“Don’t worry, Steph,” I whisper to myself.
And then, with all the force of Jonah’s fear in my hand, I turn my wrist, rotating my fingers like I’m holding an invisible dial, turning and turning, feeling the tingling grow and grow. My skin prickles, at first like my hand is falling asleep, then like my hand has been asleep for several minutes and someone’s kicked it with a steel-toed boot, and then, like cactus spines are, one by one, digging into my flesh.
It burns.
It stings.
I feel tears bud at the corners of my eyes, and I shut them, grinding my teeth against the pain so intense it feels like it’s ringing in my ears. It feels like I’ve reached into a jellyfish and grabbed it by its tentacles, which are slowly wrapping around my fingers, hand, and forearm.
But as the pain sears my hand, I hear Clover’s voice somewhere far away.
“Jonah?” she asks, “Are you okay?”
“I, um…” he says. I hear the ruffling of bed sheets, and I force a single eye open to see what’s going on out there in Jonah’s memory. He goes slowly, agonizingly for me, to the huge window overlooking the city, and stands, looking, thinking.
“What if you do nothing?” I growl through gritted teeth. “What if everyone you know and love finds out you’ve sold them out to the state? What if they find out, Jonah Macon? What then?”
A new wave of searing hot pain envelops my arm, and I resist the urge to drop to my knees for some kind of reprieve. I keep talking as I force my hand to turn further, feeding the flames of fear I can feel growing and shifting within him.
“What about your baby? What happens when they grow up and find out their father let a dam destroy his own hometown? What happens when they find out you’re a monster?”
I whimper just a little, the pain unbearable now. I know I have maybe a few words left.
“If you don’t do something, Jonah Macon,” I squeak out, “you are a failure.”
Even if I could scrounge around in the strongest parts of my mind to find stamina to withstand this level of pain, I can’t. If I was reaching into a jellyfish earlier, it explodes now, sending me flying backwards. My feet feel nothing below them. I’m completely airborne, falling in slow motion. I hear a scream escape my throat and I shut my eyes and brace for the impact of whatever I’m going to fly into behind me.
But I don’t fly into anything.
