See Yourself Be Yourself

[47] Pain

Misty took a deep breath.

"Sure. I can do it."

She had never even touched the steering wheel of a truck before. However, as a teenager, Brent’s first driving experience was with the big, faded blue Ford Econoline family camper. Its transmission was only half alive, but that meant every vehicle afterward was a better drive. She could do this.

Lillis raised a hand and soon used it to cover her yawn. “Great. You’re probably gonna hear me snoring in the back the whole way. Have fun in the front.” She tossed the key fob to Misty, who caught it in her free hand. Valerie accepted care of Misty’s thrift-store dress bundle, like she was being handed a small, sacred mission.

Giving several long blinks, Lillis grumbled, "I got plenty of sleep and work was normal. I shouldn't be this exhausted."

With a shrug, Misty offered, "Maybe your alter ego Evangeline had a busy day?"

Lillis looked ready to offer some rationalist counter, but whatever words she had in mind vanished in the depths of another stifled yawn.

Misty felt more glee than she would’ve ever shown as Brent over something as simple as the key fob unlocking the truck for them.

Inside, she didn’t have to adjust the seat too much, but Lillis did like it back more than she found comfortable. Valerie pushed up the passenger seat as well while Lillis spread across the back seat with the blanket twisted at her middle. They could hear the sounds of snores before Misty even started the engine.

As Misty settled her hands on the wheel, Valerie pressed herself against the seat cushion, trying to vanish into it. She even glared down at the meager prominence of her chest, as though it were a cruel traitor to the cause. From her stealthy position, she scanned, hawklike, in all directions for the smallest trace of a dangerous obstacle. Misty had no trouble pulling out of the parking spot.

The truck was more responsive to her motions than Brent’s last car had been before he moved out of his parents’ place. Looking over, Misty narrowed her eyes and told Valerie, “Seatbelt.”

Valerie paused for a moment in her watchful search as she realized she hadn’t bothered to put her own seatbelt on. Even in her current state, Lillis had remembered that.

To compensate, Valerie pulled her belt so tight it looked like she might have trouble breathing. After a sharp wince, she adjusted it for a better fit.

Prentiss and Elisa’s dojo was already programmed into the dash as a regular location, so Valerie selected it for Misty. The faster, toll-free route was actually east around the San Gabriel Mountains and into the desert. Almost an hour and a half. Again, not a problem.

It would’ve made sense if this body she was still getting used to controlling in small, unexpected ways had issues with the muscle-memory task of driving, but nothing felt strange.

Dusk still had some life to it, casting burnt gold against the fading blue. No way to escape those colors.

“I’m still learning how to sit comfortably on mats like at the dojo. I can’t do squashed legs. Dad has that problem too when he travels for work. My right leg is getting numb just thinking about it. I’ll be fine, but I’ll definitely need some help getting up.” Valerie swallowed and turned away to look out the window, as if that much talking was more like diving underwater and she had to come back up for a breath.

Misty couldn’t remember whether she had ever been on dojo mats, but she did remember having to sit on the unapologetically hard wooden floors of the gym for assemblies, and even worse, out on the blacktop for gym. Valerie gave a reflexive grimace of pain when Misty shared that reflection.

“I did like the bleachers, especially when the coaches left me alone. I would sink down in the gaps and totally wreck my back. Occasionally, I even had enough time to doodle. The problem was volleyball…” Valerie admitted.

Scuffing her sneakers lightly on the floor, Valerie remained as small in her seat as she could. "Everyone else was better than me. I tried. If I had to serve, it booped off the net. If I was in front, then I had no chance to save it. I really tried. I swiftly crab shuffled around. Often, I'd freeze and watch it land because I didn't wanna get hurt. Most of the time I didn't hear the judging chuckles and comments of the blonde girls in the back who made every return and hit with pinpoint accuracy."

Shifting, Valerie grabbed the nearest water and took a few stealthy sips. Misty couldn’t help thinking about how Valerie’s aunt choked her for making too much sound. She couldn’t find a good way to tell Valerie that she didn’t mind if she was louder, but she offered, “It’s gonna be a bit of a drive. Get comfortable.”

"I'm comfy. Thank you. Would you like to stop anywhere for a snack on the way? I can look up places." Valerie did scoot down slightly in her seat with her head turned towards Misty. Her smile was a little warmer like that than usual.

Misty flashed her grin. "What about you? You have to think about yourself sometimes."

Valerie's bright green eyes flicked down. "I'm fine with anything. I don't mind."

“But you’d like to stop somewhere…” Misty didn’t press that statement, instead letting it hang out there.

"...sure. Yes. I didn't think about eating earlier. I don't need much."

Thinking back a few hours, Misty recalled what one of her nicer coworkers was getting for lunch. "Maybe not need, but I heard about a pizza special that I think you would like."

Valerie's eyes widened, but she also gave a little cough and noted that it would be really messy to eat pizza in the car.

"Yeah, that's why we're gonna stop and eat. You need to eat. And I'd love to treat you to some pizza." Misty found it really hard to resist smiling through her words.

Trying to respond to that, Valerie made a lot of little perplexed noises before saying, "But Lillis is sleeping..."

From the backseat, they both heard her speak: “I’d like some pizza too.”

With a frown, Valerie responded, "I thought you were asleep."

"I can multitask," Lillis remarked. "We have enough time. And the others are eating before. Sounds good to me."

Valerie lightly cleared her throat, but had no reason to protest.

The pizza parlor was a familiar chain just off the highway, but the quality was fair and the special appealing, especially for the three of them. Lillis was barely awake, with tired, narrowed eyes, but she still managed to place her order, find a booth, and direct an amused look squarely at Valerie, her hand propping up her face.

Across the table, Valerie didn’t return the amusement, eyes scrunched in suspicion and slanted Lillis’s way. But that mood couldn’t last long against the warmth of Misty’s presence and the steaming, large pizza soon placed on the table, along with three quesadilla-like mini melts.

Valerie scrutinized the melts with highly animated eyebrows but went for the familiar option first. She also stacked herself an extra-tall pile of brown napkins and made sure everyone else had enough.

Rather than going straight for a slice of the traditional pizza, Misty reached for the melt first. It was incredibly hot, so she had to nibble carefully before venturing into the steamy interior. Watching Misty, Valerie finished a few bites of her slice before taking another look at the oddity in front of her.

Setting her pizza on a few of the napkins, which swiftly turned transparent with grease, Valerie sipped her soda and then reached for the melt. She bit hard and fast and soon regretted it. Rolling the flaming piece around in her mouth and puffing urgently only helped so much; she had to drown it in more soda.

Lillis gave a wary sigh but didn’t say anything as she carefully opened her melt to the air and cautiously puffed on it. Despite her best efforts, she still wound up suffering the same scorching discomfort.

Together, they did their best to tackle the meal, finishing the melts first and taking a good chunk out of the pizza before they had to pack up the remaining slices. Lillis snuggled the still-toasty pizza box as an awkward, impromptu blanket on the walk back to the truck.

Outside, the sun was fully consumed by the horizon, with only the faintest glimmer of deep blue clinging to the edge. Traffic had stacked up against them, eighteen-wheelers rumbling and puffing their way toward the Nevada border.

Once she was back in the truck, Lillis returned immediately to snoozing in the rear seat. Valerie looked ready to join her but soon shook it off for her co-pilot duties.

Misty remembered this route from when she was young. Direct to Vegas. It used to be nothing but desert. Now it was flush with identical housing tracts flanked by identical shopping centers. A small, silly comfort floated through her thoughts.

So many people out there. Millions. And that number could be counted thousands of times across the world. When you thought of it like that, how likely was it that some monolithic multinational conglomerate behind the boutique was watching their every moment, when they couldn’t possibly have that many eyes for so many people?

And if she let her mind really drift, she could imagine practically endless branching fractals of possibility for every choice, layered like holographic sheets upon the substance of reality. They were just one quiet speck in the cataclysmic afterglow of an explosion fizzling out over billions of years. What did they matter? A perfectly rational, Lillis-approved thought.

Releasing a breath, Misty looked over at Valerie. In all that chaos, uncertainty, and fear, she met people who actually cared about her. Valerie looked back with concern but also quiet hope.

“I love you.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d said it; right now felt like the right time to say it again.

Also, it wasn’t her intent, but the words came out with much more of a feminine inflection and shape than she was expecting. Too melodic and rounded for something that could come from her mouth. Not bad. Just unexpected. She recalled when Valerie invoked the idea of a lost princess for her, and decided to lean into it.

“My dashing rogue prince…” Okay, maybe that was a bit too much, but she committed to it.

The initial trio of words brought a calm, clear smile to Valerie's face. The follow-up brought a moment of confusion before her smile brightened and split into giggles.

The giggles didn’t stop there. Valerie laughed so hard that she was out of breath. Even when she made an effort to calm down, the laughter just redoubled its efforts.

Between watching the road, Misty made sure that Valerie had some napkins from their leftovers to cough into. The worst fury of the laughter calmed down, but Valerie was still in the grips of giggles she couldn’t escape.

Even after a long time for the humor to deflate, she kept giggling as though it were a series of hiccups she couldn't shake. Valerie managed to get out that she half worried she was broken. And still the giggles continued.

It took the passage of several exits along the highway before Valerie could bring her body under some semblance of control. Still, everything she did popped out a few titters, and a smile refused to leave her face.

Drying her eyes, Valerie invoked a webcomic she remembered where the artist spent a long time in depression, empty of emotion and so deeply sad, until some small silly thing broke it and it was like a flood of all the happiness held back.

Through little cascades of laughter, Valerie clarified that she didn’t think she was depressed. Although she admitted she was probably the worst person to diagnose herself. She just would’ve preferred her happiness to come out in a more measured way.

"Still, thanks. Hehe... I love you too. Meant in the most serious way. Hehe."

Despite all their chaos up front, Lillis was still snoring in the back. The effusive joy dulled only slightly when Misty had to make a harder break than she wanted with a sudden traffic snarl. Checking with Google Maps, it reconfirmed that they were still on the fastest option. At least they still had a connection and traffic was nudging forward faster than Friday.

Valerie’s outburst of giggles slowly calmed down as she used the touchscreen to check their options.

When they both had a few moments to recover, Misty asked, with her voice dialed back slightly but still in the same range, "Too much? Do you like it?"

A little more laughter slipped out. "I like all flavors of your voice. It was the words that got me."

“I’m glad you find me a cunning linguist.” Oh, that was a lame quip, she told herself. But it just popped out. Happiness can leave you feeling almost drunk, with certain inhibitions dialed down. Her heart did pound a bit as a ghostly reminder of her usual anxiety.

Smiling but sticking out her tongue, Valerie commented, "Boooo... hehe. Leave those for Elisa."

And that was it. Part of Misty still fretted that she said the wrong thing. But this wasn't Dina. She could be herself. Down to every dumb idea that dribbled out.

"What was that fighting game again last night? I know one we played was Guilty Gear, but you mentioned another. With Jin?"

Another little flourish of giggles popped out as Valerie continued to smile. “BlazBlue. We have just enough time on this drive for me to give you the very basic introduction to the lore. It’s a wild one. Still no match for something like… sorry to invoke the big D, Kingdom Hearts, but there’s still a lot. I’ll try to go easy on you, and I’m probably gonna forget a bunch.” Misty giggled with her.

Her question was mostly just an excuse to find out what other games Valerie liked and see if they had any overlap, but this worked just as well.

Unfortunately, there was a lot. There were blue-shaded dimensions full of souls with scary consequences if you wound up there, like something out of Lovecraft. A multi-headed dark beast spreads a poison that destroys the world. Sword-angel girls are manufactured with strange technology so they can use the powers of the creepy dimension.

People can shape reality just by observing it. There’s also a huge goddess-thing constantly rewriting reality and messing with time. Valerie mentioned she had an unfinished story with a character whose backstory sounded similar.

Six heroes save what’s left of the world from the beast. A militant mage group rises to fill the void. In the first game, a vampire observer is trying to keep the catalysts from destroying everything, and there’s basically a Groundhog Day loop, while the antagonist keeps nudging it toward full annihilation. The second game brings in computer gods who try to use one of the characters to hard-reboot reality. There are clones who slowly gain humanity, and people who get merged with others but still leave traces of themselves behind. The third story layer involves dead echo timelines that shouldn’t even exist.

Eventually, everyone gets dropped into a battle-royale reality, with the villain wanting to end existence itself. The protective jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold main character, Ragna (Misty wondered if that was a nod to Ragnarok), turns out to be part of what was, is, and will become the beast. He chooses to save the world anyway and bring the destructive path of reality to an end.

Valerie declined to detail how the storyline had ended so far and instead drifted into talking about side characters.

Misty loved Valerie’s enthusiasm and tried not to think too much about the plot so she wouldn’t be primed before they got to play it together. She absorbed maybe a few droplets of the waterfall Valerie spilled out.

When Valerie got to the silly skit materials, the non-canonical, more slice-of-life bits, Misty warmed to those and was keen on Valerie’s proposal of watching some of them together for fun. Valerie noted that those would’ve been more entertaining and coherent lore drops than her rambling through what she could remember.

“Maybe,” Misty noted. “But I got to listen to you share something you love. That makes it totally worth it.”

The giggles flowed back, and Valerie pilfered Misty’s question before she could get to it. “What games do you like?”

She’d been about to hang her answers on whatever Valerie said first. That was a bad crutch, trained by Dina. She could just say what she thought.

…what games did she like? Shit. Every game she could think of was decades old. The time travel RPG. The fantasy series Japan loved. Several Mario games. She knew of Kingdom Hearts but had only watched the first one be played. She did have the farm game she liked on her phone. Start with that.

"Stardew Valley."

Valerie knew that one well. In fact, she knew every game Misty mentioned, even the much older ones. Portal came up as a game Valerie had made the favorite of one of her characters in an old story. Touching on sci-fi through that got them talking about shows and movies in the same genre.

They both mentioned Dune for Lillis’s benefit, even though she was still very much out of it. Misty knew enough about the film Arrival, while Valerie had read the original source material and it had messed with her head. They held different but respectful opinions about a bunch of time loop films. The Good Place made Valerie light up with joy when she talked about it.

As the conversation wound through their favorite stories, they turned onto a quieter highway that cut through the desert, with faint, twinkling traces of towns scattered across the horizon. The road was pleasant and not a two-lane stress fest.

Eventually, the topic started to run its course, and Valerie shifted to little games.

"This, that, or neither. Superpowers. Would you rather be able to fly, read minds, or neither?"

Misty nudged the truck over to the slow lane because there were tons of cars who would rather get the fuck out of this desert than spend a few minutes behind them. That gave her room to ease back and properly consider Valerie’s game.

"I would not want to read minds. I've seen too many shows and stories where telepaths and such go through a lot of problems. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad in real life, but I also think people should be able to hold onto their random thoughts as private. Fly."

Valerie agreed, although she admitted there were times she wished she could at least pick up on someone’s intentions, just to demystify situations where they were too hesitant to talk.

"I'd also really like flight, but I'd probably be too scared to show it off in public. You do one. Feel free to follow it up or come up with a different one."

After checking she had the format right, Misty came up with, “Staying with superpowers: the ability to breathe underwater, the ability to survive in space, or neither.”

Valerie answered easily: she’d want to breathe underwater. It sounded more practical; it was easier to get around by swimming and wearing a wetsuit than attempt to endlessly float through space.

They played a few more rounds before drifting into a variant of an emoji game, describing scenes from movies without giving too much away.

It was fun, but eventually it ran its course too. After a few moments of quiet thought, Misty found a question she really wanted answered.

“What kind of story would you like to make if you had no limitations? Or a song, a painting, or anything else that inspires you?” Checking the dashboard clock, Misty was surprised to see they had already spent an hour like this and weren’t that far from their destination.

Valerie took a breath and some time to really consider that question as they passed by a nice little seafood cantina.

“Honestly… I don’t think anything would change. What I make is already the stuff of my dreams. No real limitations. If I had all the time and resources, I would still probably just doubt myself and waste the extra time stressing out.

“The only thing I might add would be extra details to settings. I’d love to have a better sense of Europe. I remember Victoria during a family trip, and just arriving at the waterfront on the ferry was an absolute shock because the legislature building was right there. With a big fancy dome and way too many colonnades. Intimidating. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen in person. A little spooky.”

Even with the refresher of a few sips of water, it felt like both of them had exhausted their words. For now. Valerie didn’t bother picking up her phone, instead checking on the pizza leftovers.

Soon, they rolled into a small town with a couple of tourist traps and plenty of farmers’ markets. From there, it spread out into a more regular city, with patches of open land scattered between strip malls. Some of it actually looked worth checking out, but they had a schedule to keep. The dashboard map recommended a freeway, but Elisa had texted them a few minutes before to advise that the adjacent smaller highway was better at this hour because of commuter traffic.

The route was absolutely more scenic, although crowded with car repair businesses, storage places, and a quaint city hall. More desert followed until they made a turn at the surprisingly massive county courthouse, with a good number of colonnades that Valerie pointed at playfully.

Their destination was past a few doctors’ offices crammed into buildings clearly not originally meant for them, with the dojo right next to a fun-looking but unfortunately already closed comic book shop.

Pulling the truck into park, Misty did a few stretches, her ankles audibly popping, before announcing, “We’re here. Lillis?”

The snores dropped off for several seconds before returning in a quieter, cautious form.

Stretching her back, Valerie cleared her throat, hugged her seat, and called out to Lillis, "We're here! Time to get up! Hope you had a nice sleep."

A small sound like a cough came from Lillis, followed by a few tense pants. Her voice almost sounded feral as she gasped through her teeth.

"Where? What?"

“We’ve arrived,” Misty explained, retrieving the key fob for Lillis.

“…Where… where’s… my daughter?! WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!”

Of all the things Misty might’ve expected her to say, that was far from it. She turned toward the back seat, and Lillis looked ready to pounce on both of them. Her eyes were wide and fearful; her hands tightened into fists.

Cautiously, Misty spread her hands and tried not to look alarmed. “Daughter? I’m sorry?”

Slowly, Lillis collapsed, her hands covering her face as pained sobs wailed through them. She cried harder than Misty had cried the day she lost everything, harder than she’d ever seen anyone cry. So hard that Misty was afraid she might hurt herself.

Moving swiftly, Valerie unbuckled herself and somehow managed to hop into the small space separating the front and back seats, joining Lillis. She wrapped her arms around her and urged her to sit up.

Looking at Valerie through red, streaked eyes, Lillis squeezed her so tight, so desperately, like she was afraid Valerie might disappear if she let go. Valerie didn’t flinch. She said softly, “I’m here. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Her cries slowly waned as Lillis loosened her grip on Valerie and, breath by breath, seemed to come back to herself.

"I'm sorry. Nightmare. Bad one. I didn't know what I was saying. God. Probably look like a mess. What will the others say?"

Valerie gently tapped her forehead against Lillis’s while rubbing her shoulder. “You had a long day. If anyone has a problem, I’ll distract them with my tears.”

Grunting softly, Lillis gave Valerie a thankful hug and then repeated her apology directly to Misty, who smiled and assured her it was fine.

“I need some air. I need to stretch. Please,” Lillis managed, trying to straighten her legs in the tangle of her position and the blanket.

Quickly, Valerie got the door open and guided her, inch by uncomfortable inch, until she staggered to her feet. Once again, when she joined them, Misty’s right leg had the most to say about the state of affairs, throbbing gently in complaint. Valerie did something reminiscent of a yoga pose but also stuck close to Lillis in case she wobbled.

It wasn’t long before her pride kicked in, and Lillis assured them both that she could walk on her own without assistance. Misty offered her the key fob, but Lillis hesitated, held up a hand, and told her she could hang onto it for now.

“At least we’re on time. Come on, let’s go watch our friends beat each other up.”