Page 44 of In What World

No response.

“Where are you going?” I ask, just to be positive she’s pretending I don’t exist as the two of us move through the auditorium like we’re competing against each other in a professional speedwalking competition.

Marlowe takes a left outside the theater. Since she isn’t responding to me, I decide to spy on her like there are no consequences—I’m apparently invisible anyway—anglingmyself so I can see her phone screen as she stalks through the hallways.

She has the screen open to a contact named Lana. She presses the call button and puts the phone to her ear. What she expects to happen, I don’t know, but she holds it there far longer than she should.

When she finally accepts that her phone still doesn’t work, she comes to an abrupt stop and my foot jams into her heel from the sudden halt in movement. I jostle into her back, and her phone goes sliding across the linoleum.

“Fuck!” she shouts. The sound echoes, bouncing off the lockers and back to me.

Oh no.

No, no, no.

Here come my tears. Being ignored and then yelled at punctures my defenses, way too close to what I remember from growing up with parents who didn’t want me around, no matter how charming I made myself to win their favor. This pain happened to me so long ago, but it still lives far closer to the surface than it should. No amount of ignoring it ever seems to make it lessen.

I slump against the lockers until I’m sitting on the floor, gripping the mic pack so tightly it starts to crack. “You know, I don’t want to be here right now any more than you do. This was fun at first. But it’s not fun when the only person I know in the entire multiverse is acting like I don’t exist.”

This gets Marlowe to look at me. When she sees I’m crying, the furrow in her brow releases.

“Why did you do that?” she asks. “Why did you get up on that stage and make a fool out of me?”

“I saw you and Teacher Priscilla laughing,” I tell her honestly. “And I wanted that to be me.”

Her sigh blows her bangs off her forehead. “Cilla, you have been alone with me across two whole worlds. You listened to me share one truth about you in the hallway, inprivate, and said nothing in return. Instead, you chose a stage with lights, and an audience—pausing a real production, mind you—to respond. It was just another performance. That’s all it ever is with you.”

I’d love to be the type of person who pays it all back, ignoring her just as long as she ignored me—maybe even saying some harsh things—but I can’t find the strength to do it. And really, I don’t have anything harsh to say. Everything she’s accused me of is true. That’s the worst part. I’m like Tinker Bell, dying without an audience who will clap for me.

“I’m so tired of arguing,” I tell her, the exhaustion bone-deep.

“Me too,” she says quickly.

“Who were you trying to call?” I ask.

“My sister.”

“Did I forget you had a sister? The only sibling I remember you having is an older—”

“I still only have the one sibling,” she says, cutting me off. “Lana transitioned about six years ago now.”

“Oh. Very nice. Good for her.”

“Yeah.”

Two girls exit a classroom farther down the hall, and the prideful side of me forces my composure. I brush away my tears and paste on a smile as they pass. “Hello, girls!” I say, cheerily as I can manage. “Lovely day we’re having, isn’t it?”

They glare in response.

Once they’re far enough away, they glance back at me and start whispering.

I choke out a bitter laugh. “Great news for us,” I say to Marlowe. “Everyone in this reality is super friendly!”

“I don’t know a single teenage girl who responds positively to an adult stranger acting like you just did.”

“You know what’s impressive? I’m both too out of touch and somehow too new to the scene to make any further headway in my career,” I say.

“I wouldn’t call being an award nominee new to the scene,” she replies.