Young Writers Society

There was a sharp pain in Belinda's arm when she thought of it. She had taken to writing in a diary so both of her would be aware of what was bugging the other. Things she didn't want other people knowing bugged her. Things like this.

She still couldn't picture it. Her in a bed with another man, a murderer no less. The thought of them in some motel somewhere kissing like her and David did. Maybe more than her and David did. How would she know if she had an STD? Or worse, was pregnant with that creep's kid. How would she know?

Her and Melanie were friends, they had been friends for years. Close enough to be sisters. Now there was another. Another young sister with, apparently, the hormonal craze of a teenager.

That word sent a stabbing pain into her stomach. Sex. It always made her uncomfortable, even when she was in high school. Even when she had a high school boyfriend there had been a thick line between her and that sort of relationship. It hurt to think about it, physically hurt.

Belinda turned over in her bed and rubbed her leg.

There was no way she would, not even as someone else. David was... David was hers. He was a necessity, she had convinced herself. She and Melanie agreed that he was the only man for them. That had to count for something. Or did it? Did her willpower mean nothing to her own head.

Belinda felt the pain spread through her spine and she couldn't sit still. All she could do was lie on her side in agony, silently crying.

This relationship wasn't possible, she decided. Not just for her own sanity, but time-wise, there was no way she and Melanie and everyone else wouldn't notice her disappearing.

The pain in her back subsided, but her legs still ached. She leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp. She picked up a Ten Thousand Wonders book and began to reread it.

***

Belinda woke up with a book crushed under her head. She threw it onto the ground and curled deeper into her covers in a vain attempt to fall back asleep. Staring up at the ceiling, thoughts began to crawl back into her head.

Am I bad? Am I a bad person when I think I'm doing the right thing? Could I not notice something like this? Does David love me? And how could that work out?

Tears fell onto the sheets and down onto the still open Ten Thousand Wonders book. For a second, Belinda tried so hard to only focus on those tears, and the little droplets they made on the paper. For a second the world was only her eye and the liquid film forming around her iris. The world was a drip of salt water falling from a dark blue sky into empty space dictated by simple physics. Slowly the world expanded past her into some new bigger force where it melted into virtual nonexistence.

Belinda knew very little about physics consciously, but subconsciously she was a prodigy. Like subconsciously, athletes just sort of know how to hit the ball or throw it or whatever. Belinda was also not very good at sports, but she imagined she would be if she could play them.

There was something spectacular about her gifts, but also something terrible.

***

Veronica and David stood in the doorway of Belinda's bedroom. Veronica frowned with concern. "I know after all she's been through with the..." Veronica paused to rephrase her initial sentence, "Whole situation... She needs sleep, but she's been in bed for two days. And she seemed fine before, if anything she seemed like she didn't really need all this break time."

"I know." David agreed, he watched Belinda's blanket rise and fall, the only evidence she was still alive.

"I've been leaving her food and water, which keeps disappearing so I know she's been up. And her sheets are clean so I know she's been up to pee. God only knows when. And she's not sick..."

"I'm not quite sure what you want me to do." David admitted.

"Talk to her. She's obviously depressed."

"But she's eating. She's going to the bathroom. She's not sick. She might just be taking advantage of her week off."

"Oh you know that's not true! She binge watched Doctor Who her first day, while doing sudoku puzzles and those other things she loves. Oh the... the... Anagram things."

"Nanograms."

"Yes! David, clearly something upset her the other day, now I don't know what you two did, but she needs to work that out with you."

"Fine." He sighed. David stepped over the stray books and the pile of clothes next to her dresser and kneeled down next to her bed. He stared at her thin arm peaking out of her sweatshirt as it pressed against her face. It was like a tooth pick, a pale tooth pick that had never seen the light of day. And her face was so at peace, so content, he didn't want to wake her. But Veronica slammed the door closed on her way out and Belinda's eyes flickered open.

"Hey." She said with a hoarse whisper. She scooted over to the far side of the bed to make room for him.

David slowly slipped under the covers, flinching at the shaking and squeaking he made. He rolled over on his side to face her. Belinda's eyes were half open and she pulled a pillow back under her head indicating that she did not want to sit up.

"Bells, what's up."

Her eyes flicked up quickly. "Ceiling." She whispered.

"You've been in bed for two days."

"So? It's not like we're in the middle of a case. I have a right to sleep." Belinda's eyes closed again and her legs fidgeted into a comfortable position. She reached over and pulled his right hand near her cheek.

"Bells, we know something's wrong, you... you got to talk... to..."

Belinda wrapped her arm around his waist, and David's thought disappeared from his head.

"Who are you right now?" David asked softly.

"I'm me." She said softly, her voice heavy with sleep.

"Are you sure? Because Melanie sometimes does this..."

"I'm Belinda, really."

David stared at her for a long time, carefully measuring her words to judge how honest she was. Then he scooted closer, close enough that Belinda had to open her eyes. There was blush in her cheeks and her leg tensed up where his touched hers. She kissed his hand and then his lips were on hers and then his hand was on her hip, and then her hand was under his shirt. And then her stomach erupted into pain and then up her spine to her head. Then everything was still. All the furious motion that started just a second ago, slowed back to normal. His hands were around her hands, holding them between the two of them.

It took a second for her vision to go back to normal, for a while all she could see was blurry peach skin and dark specks dancing across it. Then it cleared up and she saw him reach for her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" He asked.

"I'm so sorry..." She gasped, her chest was tight with pain, "I just know..."

"Bells." He put a hand around her shoulder and half hugged her. "Bells." Belinda stared into the white of his button up work shirt, tears falling half heartedly out of her eyes. "No, no, I don't need you to... I don't need you that way. Whatever that asshole told you, you don't need to be like that. I like how things are, I like being with you as you are."

"I can't. I can't. It hurts..." Belinda clutched her stomach.

David let go of her shoulder. "What hurts? Belinda are you okay?"

"He has to be lying. There's no way..." Belinda rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

"Bells."

Belinda didn't say anything. She just rapped her arms around her stomach and cried for a minute with her eyes closed. David sat up and watched her, then when she didn't stop he got up and walked out.

He walked downstairs and stuck his head into the living room where Veronica was watching TV. "She's not going to talk to me."

"Then that's it!?" Veronica scolded. "You tried for a whole ten minutes? So we better give up."

"No, I think... I think she just won't talk to us... She doesn't trust us."

"You're her boyfriend! You've known her the longest, who would she trust more than you?"

***

Emily sat in a kitchen chair they had pulled upstairs next to Belinda's bed. She was flipping through a magazine when Belinda opened her eyes again.

"Hey." Belinda muttered.

"Hey." Emily flipped to a picture of a shirtless guy and smiled. "You're up early."

Belinda smiled and sat up. "Did Veronica send you to check on me?"

"Yup." Emily set the magazine aside and put her feet up on the edge of the bed so that she could lean back.

"I'm fine. Really." Belinda brushed her fingertips over the slight purple spot on her neck that was her bruise. "I almost died, I think I can afford to take it easy for a few days."

Emily shook her head. "Come on, we both know this isn't taking it easy. This is avoidance. And you weren't avoiding anything a few days ago. So what's worse than almost dying, Belinda?"

"Well for one, dying. Which is sort of my life." Belinda half shrugged. "You know 'cept for when I actually died-"

"Belinda." Emily interrupted, "You're stalling."

"Yes, and if you'd let me I'd like to continue."

"Look, I know somethings up, and it's not going to get better if you don't talk about it."

Belinda pulled a pillow under her arms and waved a finger in her direction. "You realize I don't remember half of my life, and up until now I've been fine not talking about it. I feel like that's a legitimate way to not feel sad."

"Well what did you have to be sad about?"

Belinda shrugged. "I have no idea, so it works."

"Is this about Jogger? Because, you'll find his boss eventually-"

Belinda slammed her forehead into the pillow and screamed. "Nuh!"

"'Nuh' as in it's not about jogger, or it is and you don't want to talk about it?"

Belinda held three fingers up.

"Yes option three. Obviously. How silly of me."

"Alter number three." Belinda moaned.

"Oh... Oh!" Emily sat up. "Belinda, that wasn't you. That was you not being you."

"But it was my body!" Belinda slammed her pillow against the edge of the bed. "It was my life, and there's no way-"

"Belinda, it's not you fault-"

"Yes it is! Of course it is!" Belinda rolled over onto the side of the bed not facing Emily. "How could she not like David." She mumbled.

"She's different."

"Not that different. Melanie likes David. I like David. She's in the same body. How could she not like my boyfriend."

"Well, maybe she didn't know about David. You certainly didn't know about her."

"She's impossible. I would know if I had a third alter."

"None of us noticed. It's not your fault."

"It's too convenient." Belinda rubbed her aching leg. "Being connected to one person in two completely different ways."

Emily thought for a second. "What's that detective you love?"

"Sherlock?"

"No the other one-"

Belinda rolled over and tucked her hands under her head like a kid. "Nancy Drew?"

"No the weird one."

"Svlad Cjelli?"

"Who?"

"Dirk Gently, his name is Svlad."

"Yes that one." Emily leaned down to look Belinda in the eyes. "He solves cases based on the idea that all things are fundamentally interconnected. This is you connecting all things."

"It's also sci-fi... And a book."

"Just think about it. You," Emily poked her nose, "have an exceptional ability. Is it all possible that your subconscious picked up on some tiny details in earlier cases that didn't reach you? And those details stuck in Janice's head when she picked out her boyfriend."

Belinda shook her head.

"No. It's completely impossible."

"Exactly." Emily told her.

***

"Just stay out here for now." Melanie told Ravi. Ravi was a good kid. He was the sort of kid that would beg his mother in the middle of the night to drive his neighbor to a nursing home. She took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. She stepped in and saw that the occupant was reading a thick novel with a hunky guy with a machete on the front. He had a determined look in his eye and a model torso.

Theodora set her reading glasses and the book aside. She frowned as Melanie sat in the chair next to her.

"What's wrong?" She set a thin wrinkled hand on Melanie's shoulder and the tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh, Jackie!" Theodora slowly got out of bed and pulled her granddaughter into a hug. "Oh, baby, what's wrong? What happened?"

Melanie just cried, snot running down her face and seeping into her grandmother's shirt. The tears just took over and there was nothing she could do but gasp for air between sobs. Theodora brushed her head and hummed "shhhhh.... Shhhh..." Into her ear until Melanie just sat there with just the sound of her grandmother's humming and her heartbeat.

"Jackie, what's wrong?" She asked again.

"I- I have- done something."

"What?"

"I-I" Melanie hiccuped.

"Shhh... Shh... You don't have to say right now." Theodora sat down on the edge of her bed. "Just calm down."

"I- I can't have. I know I didn't."

"What?"

"I- I-" Melanie broke into tears again and Theodora tried to calm her down, but Melanie rushed out of the room and fell to the floor of the hall in the fetal position. Her back arched against the wall and her head between her aching knees. She felt like she wasn't even in the world anymore. Like she, for the first time in days, had no need to be afraid.

A single hand tore her out of it. A small hispanic hand on her shoulder and then another one on her other shoulder. She looked up and through her tears she saw Ravi crying on her shoulder with her. His own body swaying in the force of his sobs. Melanie stared at him for a second, then whispered into his ear, "Shhhh... Shhhhh... It's okay. It's okay."