Fallout Dreams

mia 05

monday afternoon, mia stomped through the chainlink fence, across the grass, and onto the track where gari-jean was reaching for the sky. "my sister's got a boyfriend."

gari lowered her arms and stretched toward the gravel. "ave? is that you?"

"she's got a boyfriend and she's hiding him from me."

"you MUST be ava since i haven't seen mia in weeks!"

"a boyfriend explains the watch, the lies, that wry little smile..."

gari groaned, raised her torso, and stretched from side to side. "how could she possibly have a boyfriend with everything else going on?"

"she's alone eighty percent of the time. maybe it's jeff... maybe she helped him kill gary and now she's hiding him until the shit blows over."

"this is a joke, right? this is another twin prank?"

"maybe it's dean," she continued. "they'd be able to spend every day together since neither of them have school or a job... but then why would would he call her a demon?"

"dean called her a demon?"

"maybe..." mia paused. "maybe you could talk to her."

"she's not my sister!"

"she's been weird with me."

"can't you telekinesis that shit?"

"not since the accident."

gari dropped to her ass, stuck out her legs, and reached for her feet. "does she act like she's in love? does she seem happy?"

"it's not that she's happy..." (because happiness wasn't black paint, white lies, and spooky prayers), "she's... content. she acts like she's above me." mia's mind leapt to the image of ava floating naked in nothingness and she shivered. "it's like she has this happy little secret—"

"and you want to be in on it."

"i want to know what the hell is going on in my sister's brain."

gari pressed the soles of her sneakers together and pulled her heels to her crotch. "you want me to text her?"

"take her out. bring her to dickson. get a couple drinks in her."

"how do i get her out of the house? your mom already knows she's not going to college so you lost your blackmail."

"tell her you need your twin fix and i'm being anti-social."

"not entirely untrue..."

"if you invite her, she'll do it."

gari pushed herself from the ground and squeezed mia's shoulders. "new backpack?"

mia nodded. "it smells like the first day of kindergarten."

"that's fantastic, hon." gari shook her head and released a flamboyant sigh. "i'm free on wednesday."

mia jumped and hugged her. "are you sure you wanna be seen in public with one of the lane twins?"

"how shallow do you think i am?"

* * *

a thousand times mia tried to turn on music, but the speakers wouldn't allow it.

she suddenly realized just how creepy the house could be when she was alone. it didn't help that gari-jean wasn't responding (probably because ava wasn't letting her text and drive), so mia sat in silence outside her sister's bedroom with a five gallon bucket of white primer trying not to imagine government satellites watching her from space, piercing the roof with heat sensors, and targeting the little red blip sitting all by her lonesome on the living room floor. she imagined the NSA listening to every brush stroke and nervous sigh through her phone or tv or the fancy wi-fi thermostat above her head.