She set the water glass down and slid to the floor. She could feel the cold through her pajama pants—the ones that had cats with laser eyes all over them—but it was grounding this time. Matt sat down next to the refrigerator in his boxers.
“Listen,” she started.
“You don’t have to say it.”
“Sure, I just almost stabbed you, but no apologies necessary.”
His eyes were soft. Worried. “I just want you to be okay.”
What had that awful article called him? “Quite possibly the kindest person alive”? She hadn’t disagreed with Rick Lane, Creepmaster 2000, on that point at least. Matt had eyebrows that squeezed together in the middle in a look of perpetual sympathy and the heart to match.
He reached for the butcher knife that lay on the floor near her ankle. It was big, almost as long as his forearm.
Her eyes burned. She closed them. “I’m really sorry.”
“I know you don’t want to talk to me about it,” Matt said. “But what about someone else?”
“Like who?”
“Dr. Novak, maybe? She works with the VA, remember? We did that talk together at the juvenile detention center.”
“I’m not a soldier,” Sloane said.
“Yeah, but she knows about PTSD.”
She had never needed an official diagnosis—PTSD was definitely what she had. But it was strange to hear Matt say it so comfortably, like it was the flu.
“All right.” She shrugged. “I’ll call her in the morning.”
“Anyone would need therapy, you know,” he said. “After what we’ve all been through. I mean, Ines went.”
“Ines went, and she’s still booby-trapping her apartment like she’s living out a Home Alone fantasy,” Sloane said.
“Okay, so she’s a bad example.” The floodlight on the back stairs glowed through the windows, all orange-yellow against Matt’s dark skin.
“You’ve never needed it,” Sloane said.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Where do you think I kept disappearing to the year after the Dark One died?”
“You told us you were going to doctor’s appointments.”
“What kind of doctor needs to see someone weekly for months?”
“I don’t know! I figured something was wrong with . . .” Sloane gestured vaguely to her crotch. “You know. The boys or something.”
“Let me get this straight.” He was grinning. “You thought I had some kind of embarrassing medical condition that necessitated at least six months of regular doctor visits . . . and you never asked me about it?”
She suppressed a smile of her own. “You almost sound disappointed in me.”
“No, no. I’m just impressed.”
He had been thirteen and lanky when she met him, a body of sharp edges with no sense of where it began or ended, but he had always had that smile.
She had fallen in love with him half a dozen times before she knew she had—when he was screaming orders over the deafening wind of a Drain, keeping them all alive; when he stayed awake with her on long night drives through the country even after everyone else had fallen asleep; when he called his grandmother and his voice went soft. He never left anyone behind.
She curled her toes into the tile. “I’ve been before, you know. To therapy,” she said. “I went for a few months when we were sixteen.”
“You did?” He frowned a little. “You never told me that.”
There were a lot of things she hadn’t told him, hadn’t told anyone. “I didn’t want to worry anybody,” she said. “And I still don’t, so . . . just don’t mention this to the others, okay? I don’t want to see it in fucking Esquire with the headline ‘Rick Lane Told You So.’ ”
“Of course.” Matt took her hand and twisted their fingers together. “We should go to bed. We have to get up in four hours for the monument dedication.”
Sloane nodded, but they still sat on the kitchen floor until the medicine kicked in and she stopped shaking. Then Matt put the knife away, helped her up, and they both went back to bed.
TOP SECRET
AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL
October 4, 2019
Ms. Sloane Andrews
[redacted]
[redacted]
Reference: H-20XX-74545
Dear Ms. Andrews:
On 13 September 2019, the office of the Information and Privacy Coordinator received your 12 September 2019 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information or records on Project Ringer.
Many of the requested records remain classified. However, due to your years of service to the United States government, we have granted you access to all but those requiring the highest level of security clearance. We searched our database of previously released records and located the enclosed documents, totaling 120 pages, which we believe to be responsive to your request. There is no charge for these documents.
Sincerely,
Mara Sanchez
Information and Privacy Coordinator
TOP SECRET
2
WHEN SLOANE’S ALARM went off the next morning, she took another benzo immediately. She would need it for the day ahead; that morning, she would attend the dedication of the Ten Years Monument, a memorial for the lives lost in the Dark One’s attacks, and that night, the Ten Years Peace gala, to celebrate the years since his defeat.
The city of Chicago had commissioned an artist named Gerald Frye to construct the monument. Judging by his portfolio, he had taken a great deal of inspiration from the work of minimalist Donald Judd, because the monument was actually just a metal box surrounded by a swath of empty land where the unsightly tower in the middle of the Loop had been, next to the river. It looked small by comparison to the high-rises around it, glittering in the sun as Sloane’s car pulled up on the day of the dedication.
Matt had hired them a driver so they wouldn’t have to park, which turned out to be a good idea, because the entire city was swarming with people, the crowd so thick the driver had to blast the horn of their black Lincoln to get through it. Even then, most people just ignored the sound until they felt the heat of the engine behind their knees.
Once they got close, a police officer let the car through a barrier and they cruised down a clear stretch of road to get to the monument. Sloane felt her pulse behind her eyes, like a headache. The second Matt opened the car door and stepped out into the light, everyone would know who they were. People would hold up their phones to record video. They would thrust pictures and notebooks and arms past the barriers to have them signed. They would scream Matt’s name and Sloane’s name, and weep and struggle forward and tell stories of who and what they had lost.
Sloane wished she could go home. But instead, she wiped her palms on the front of her dress, took a slow breath, and put her hand on Matt’s shoulder. The car eased to a stop. Matt opened the door.
Sloane stepped out behind him and into a wall of sound. Matt turned toward her, grinning, and said, right against her ear, “Don’t forget to smile.”