Chapter Three

"Charles?"

I started walking back the twenty feet or so to where I'd last seen him. "Charles?" I began rapidly scanning my surroundings, my head whipping quickly back and forth in the erratic pattern of rising panic. I spun around to find Charles standing just inches away. I let out a short, startled cry.

"Whoa. That was weird." Charles' eyes were wide behind his glasses, and he looked out of breath.

"What happened?" I demanded.

"I did it."

"Did what?" In part of my mind, I knew this question was just for show, a token display of disbelief. A related part recognized the futility in denying that I had just witnessed the event again.

"I went there. The other dimension. It was ..." Every sentence was a breathless burst. He couldn't seem to organize his thoughts. "It was ... really cool." We stared at each other for a few moments, allowing the situation's gravity to settle between us, and then, without exchanging a word, we sprinted the two blocks to Charles' house.



In his room, Charles and I couldn't stand still. The same floor on which we had lain for hours holding video game controllers on countless afternoons suddenly became a pathway for frantic pacing. I felt like jumping, stomping my feet, pounding the bed. Excitement and vague fear coursed through every nerve in my body and bridged the air between Charles and me, filling the room with the palpable sense of new discoveries.

"How?" I asked.

"Just like Lannie said. Move inwards."

"That still doesn't make sense!"

"You just have to do it, just know you can do it and do it."

"That doesn't-" My sentence cut itself off to make room for my newest thought. "That's like Peter Pan."

Charles stopped pacing. "What?"

"It's like in Peter Pan. When you really believe something and suddenly it's real."

Charles was staring at me, confused. "The one with Robin Williams?"

"Yeah." I still hadn't been able to control my emotions enough to stop pacing.

Charles grabbed my arms and held me in place. "Adam."

He almost never used my name, and hearing him say it did more than anything else to bring me back to my senses. "Yeah?"

"This is amazing," he said. It was a simple statement, but it seemed to be the best way either of us could sum up the situation.

I stared down at the floor, the short space between us. As I worked to slow my breathing, I tried as best I could to imagine another spot within that spot, tried to imagine walking into it. I looked up into the face of my best friend. I had seen him so many times, almost every day for the last three years, but now he looked somehow different - changed. "Charles," I said, almost whispering, "I'm going to try."

He let go of my arms, stepped back. "Okay."

My stomach dropped slightly. I had been expecting him to offer some gesture of caution, a warning; at the very least, I expected him to ask if I was sure. He was only watching me. I gathered myself, my thoughts, my fears, and focused them all on the space within a space. The other dimension. I began to take my first step, quickly stopped. "How do I get back?"

Charles seemed to snap out of some far-off thought. He had been staring down at my feet, but his eyes now again found mine. "What?"

"Once I'm there. How do I get back? What do I do? What if I get stuck?"

"I don't know, just the same way you went in. It was easy to get back out. Like I knew where I was trying to go; it was a lot easier than getting in."

"You do it again. Show me." I was trying to pass off fear as caution, but I knew he wasn't buying it. The faintest glimmer of annoyance slid through his eyes.

"Just-" He was gone. Disappeared. And then back only seconds later. "Just like that. It's easy. It's like once you do it, it's just another place you can go. It's as easy as stepping to your left or your right."

If I hadn't imagined it and Charles really had been somewhat annoyed at my hesitance, I was even more annoyed at his impromptu demonstration. It seemed like showing off, in a way. His words carried veiled threats of some new superiority. I quickly steeled myself, imagined the inwards space. I took a step.

I was one space closer to Charles, nothing more. I stepped back again, resumed my spot. Imagined, stepped. Still nothing.

"Into your own stomach, remember? Inside the space you're in."

"Yeah, Charles, I got it." I wasn't trying to hide the annoyance anymore, and I knew I'd have to apologize for that later. But all I could focus on was that moment, that one step. I tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

Seeing my growing frustration, Charles finally stepped in. He made a move to take hold of my arms again, but I threw my hands between us. "It's fine," I shot.

"Hey, come on," Charles said in a soft voice. "You don't have to do it right now. You'll get it." My irritation was already giving way to disappointment; if Charles hadn't been there, I might have cried. My mind flashed back to Little League and my teammates openly complaining about my presence whenever I went up to bat. To Charles' credit, he stopped trying to talk me down, probably realizing he was bordering on condescension. Instead, standing there together in his room with what felt like a canyon of difference now between us, he patted me reassuringly on the back. It did little to dissuade my feelings.

Looking back on it, I can see now that hand on my back, that one, seemingly insignificant gesture was the first sign Charles and I had begun moving in our separate directions.