NOVEL NEXT Chapter 121: Sad Boys
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Claire: Do you want me to tell you about all the fish in the sea yet, or are we still pretending to hate each other?
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November 27th, 2090, about 3:00 pm MST, Montana City
"That was rough," Karen told him gently. Despite the days since he'd returned, Gordon's feet felt wrong on the mat, like the gravity wasn't quite right. Karen stretched, her eyes focused on him and blond ponytail twitching like a cat's as she adjusted her neck. He'd been planning to sleep in—not that he didn't appreciate the push to work out, just his motivation wasn't entirely there.
"Do you need me to let you warm up?" she asked. Usually her voice would have a challenge in it, but this was just an honest question.
"I'm warm enough," he promised. His face was still flushed from Marie's stream, his dad's blistering commentary, and Karen's face when he retreated into his room and found her there, waiting with a bundle of practice swords and armor. Look, she'd said. A distraction.
She waited a beat, to let him commit to whatever absurd attack he wanted to try out today, but nothing came—he wasn't feeling it. Her saber flickered out at his face in a inward flick of her wrist, her feet shuffling forward over the distance in a martial artist's dash, balance impeccable. He ducked the first sword, deflected the second with his pommel, and knocked her off her feet with his right elbow, pushing /through/ her, then swiping down through the space she'd be occupying. Kneecap.
"Touche," she said brightly from the floor. "Gordon . . . that was a bit full-contact, for you. I know you're not happy, but are you okay?"
"I'll be fine."
"Okay," she said, clearly disbelieving. "Come here. Doctor's orders."
"You only have a masters," he chided her. Still, he put down the sword and sat on the mat where she'd indicated. The training mat creaked under his weight, the soft rubber giving slightly beneath him.
Karen dropped beside him with surprising grace for someone in sparring pads, then half-rolled into place until her shoulders were flat against the mat, her head settling upside-down across his ankles. Her hair spilled out past his knees, a gold fan brushing the floor. Her arms stretched outward in a lazy arc, one knee cocked, the other leg splayed.
From this angle, her face looked smaller, more fragile. Her voice was light but deliberate. "Look at me. I'm so small and harmless and you could squish me. Big bad Gordon's gonna squish the cute girl like a bug."
Gordon eyed her. It was hard to meet her gaze with upside down eyes. He found himself noticing how smooth the skin of her eyelids was, how long the lashes were. How blue the irises.
"Gordon, you aren't that guy. You're protective, safe. You didn't /mean/ to hurt Marie, you didn't plan for any of this to happen, and you're blaming yourself and lashing out and hitting your best friend with your elbow, right in the boob, and it's not your fault."
"Did you call her?" Karen asked.
"Do you really want to know?"
She sighed and rolled slightly, drawing her body into a loose and limber curl, her knees warm against his leg. She favored him with side eye. "Do I want to think about you two getting hot and heavy? Not really. A very aesthetic mental image, but it doesn't make me happy. That's not the same as me wanting to see you get hurt because you didn't follow through on the things you want, even if they aren't what I want you to want. Is that okay?"
He nodded. She cuddled him with her cheek, an arm curving down to approximate a warm embrace, her eyes closing. "You're so lonely, Gordon. Sometimes Harry and I worry we're the only people you listen to. I'm not going anywhere."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
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"Gordon," Karen said again, voice softer now, closer. He could feel her presence like heat on the side of his bed—not demanding, just there.
She was perched next to him, hair falling in that familiar tumble over her shoulder, the single curl curling rebelliously by her brow, shadowing those worried blue eyes.
"You haven't eaten breakfast in days. I don't know if you had lunch. We're going out."
He groaned and yanked the sheet over his head, a low, muffled protest.
"Wrong answer," she said flatly.
The mattress dipped with a thump as she flung herself down beside him without ceremony.
There was a pause. Then, casually:
"Your room is too chilly."
Before he could respond, she wiggled closer, her shoulder brushing his, cold feet seeking his shin like heat-seeking missiles.
"Scootch over," she added, with the tone of someone who absolutely would continue to worm under the covers uninvited if he didn't.
Gordon made a strangled noise under the sheet. "You're invading."
"Mmhm," she said, unapologetic. "I am also warm and affectionate and persistent. It's a package deal. Move."
With a sigh that bordered on theatrical, he shifted a few inches. She slipped into the space immediately, wrapping her arms around him in a surprisingly fierce hug that pinned him under blankets and guilt.
"I know you don't want to talk," she murmured against his shoulder, "so we don't have to. But you don't get to starve yourself and hibernate until the pain goes away. That's not how it works. So you'll let me hold you like a sad teddy bear for five minutes, then we're getting a salad. That's the deal."
He didn't say anything.
But he didn't move away, either
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The sun hit his face with more warmth than he expected. Thin, crisp air carried the scent of pine and the bite of distant snow, but the sunshine was insistent—enough to make him squint and feel something close to awake.
Karen walked beside him, one hand in the pocket of her puffy vest, the other holding a biodegradable takeout bag. She hadn't said much on the drive. Just hummed along with the radio, one pop song after another, and occasionally tapped his thigh when she caught him zoning too deep into the middle distance.
They ended up at a picnic table outside the co-op. One of those reclaimed-wood things with awkward legs and paint chipping from the corner, but the bench was dry and the light was golden, and it didn't feel like a punishment.
She placed the compostable container in front of him and pulled off the lid.
Salad. Spinach, arugula, grape tomatoes. Chopped grilled chicken breast, a hard-boiled egg, a little cheese, and croutons that looked unnervingly enthusiastic. Slivers of beetroot.
Gordon stared at it. Then up at her.
"I'm not hungry."
His portable buzzed. Marie, for the first time all day. He looked at it—then looked away. Not disgusted, but possibly a bit hurt. "How do you think people figured out that cheese was edible?" it said. All day, after all this, and that's what she chose to send.
But, maybe she was trying to cheer him up. He'd try too. "My bet's that someone's four year old put some in their mouth and then didn't die.""
Karen sat across from him, opened her own container, and took a deliberately slow bite of what looked like quinoa and roasted veggies. She didn't ask about the message, but prodded him with her toe.
"Gooooordon, eat your food," she demanded, mouth full. "Eat."
He picked up the fork. Took a bite.
She didn't speak. Just kept chewing her own lunch, occasionally glancing up at him with all the subtlety of a hawk watching a squirrel.
Three bites in, he said, "I could've stayed, you know."
She stopped mid-chew. Eyed him. Swallowed.
"Then why didn't you?"
He shook his head, stabbed a piece of chicken, and shrugged. "I thought it was over. That I didn't have a choice. That they'd bundle me into a cargo crate and ship me offworld that way."
"Do you still think it's over—now?"
"I don't know." He chewed, swallowed. "But I keep thinking about it in retrospect. Like. . . the decision to go along with it and do what I was told was the last opportunity to become who I wanted, I had it, and it's gone now, and I have to find a way to settle for the second-best version of myself moving forward."
Karen didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was soft.
"Well," she said, "let's maybe start with rebuilding the version of you who eats a full lunch. And then we'll work our way up."
He looked at her. She smiled—just steady, and present, clear blue eyes intent on his.
He kept eating
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Karen pulled the car up to the curb in front of Gordon's building, shifting into park with a practiced flick. The sun had already dropped low enough to bathe the hills in gold and cast long blue shadows across the pavement.
He unbuckled his seatbelt slowly, like someone expecting to be pulled back by something invisible.
"You've been mouldering alone for too long," she said as he reached for the door handle.
He paused. She was watching him again—not critically, but carefully. Like he was something rare that might crack if left untended too long.
"I'll be back tonight," she added, as if it were already a certainty. "And you'd better have a movie queued up. I mean it."
He gave her a ghost of a smile. "Any requests?"
She considered. "Nothing depressing. No sad boys allowed tonight."
He nodded, stepped out, then leaned down to meet her eyes through the open window.
"Thanks."