It had been a long day already, and I thought it might be best to avoid mentioning what had happened; it only made Charles retreat back into silence. He seemed happy enough reminiscing about our younger days, though, insofar as the word "happy" was appropriate for the situation. It felt more like he was talking about a relative who had passed away, remembering how much they meant to him but remembering also that there was no way to see them again.
He didn't once bring up anything about going to the other dimension. I had mentioned it early in the conversation, and he had responded by shifting uncomfortably in his chair and refusing to look at me. Apparently, this was not an approved topic either, and it was a long few moments before he spoke again.
It was strange being able to look back on everything that had happened with the one person who had gone through it with me. Granted, the one thing it seemed we had done most was grow further and further apart, but we had shared the experience in some way. We went into it together, we tried to fix things together, and in the end, it seems like we even gave up together, both knowing we had just let go without exchanging a word about it.
After that day in his room when I accused Charles of stealing Ashley from me, I expected him to stop talking to me altogether. I wasn't going to be the one to apologize, even if was willing to admit to myself it had been a little childish; I expected he'd do the same. The argument seemed to have ended without either of us apologizing, though. The next day at our lockers, Charles resumed the same awkward reconciliation we had attempted the day before. Ignoring things away hadn't worked before, but we kept trying. Our short, uninspired conversations were carried on an undercurrent of unresolved conflict. I knew there were things I had said that I wished I hadn't, and I assume Charles must have felt the same. You didn't get this kind of mutually artificial conversation unless both parties were in it together.
To our credit, we avoided any more major arguments. It would later occur to me that we both knew there was no point in arguing, as we also both knew that there wasn't anything worth arguing for any longer, nothing left to save. I do remember, though, the one event that almost set me off again. It was maybe two weeks or so after the blowup at Charles' house, and I had casually asked what his plans were for that night. He told me there was a party he was going to. Maybe he was distracted and it slipped his mind that he wasn't going to tell me about it, but the combination of guilt and shock that flashed across his face filled in the rest of the story: I wasn't supposed to know.
I tried to act nonchalant. "Oh. Whose party?"
"It's, um, it's Lannie's." Charles and Lannie had started spending a lot of time together since becoming the first two people at school to cross into the other dimension. A few more kids had picked up the skill by then, but the experience Charles and Lannie shared, the explorations they undertook together, it all must have done something, because she hadn't moved on to anyone else. I wasn't sure if they were dating, and Charles and I had reached a point now where that seemed somehow too personal of a question to ask. In the same vein, he was now attending parties to which I was apparently not invited.
"Oh," I replied. For as hard as I tried to conceal it, there's no way my disappointment didn't slip through to reveal itself in that one syllable. I pushed myself through the rest of my response. "Well, that's cool. Have fun, I guess." And in truth, it would have been fine; I didn't care much for parties anyway. But Lannie Sanders never had a party that Ashley didn't show up for; there was my investment. If I could put myself in that situation even just once, who's to say it wouldn't be the break I needed to finally talk to her? Charles held the key - he knew it too - and he expected me not to notice. "Well," I concluded, "I have to get to class." I waited a fraction of a moment for propriety's sake, theoretically hiding the fact that I was sulking, and walked away without giving Charles a chance to respond.
After school let out that day, I rounded the corner and saw Charles talking to Lannie and Ashley. He was there just barely long enough for me to register the surprised look on his face before he disappeared to the other dimension. He was avoiding me now in places I couldn't follow; this is what we'd come to. I never mentioned that I'd seen him do it, and he never brought it up either, but I suspected he knew. And for the rest of the time until we parted ways at graduation, the event hung in the air between us like the drone of a fly neither of us had the courage to swat.
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