So Douglas told him I was home, and Rob came by my house that very afternoon, purring up on the self-same cherried-out Indian on which he’d given me that very first ride, so many years before.

He seemed pretty surprised when I told him to get the hell off my property. Even more surprised when I told him I’d seen him with the blonde.

At first I think he thought I was kidding. Then, when he saw I wasn’t, he got mad. He said I didn’t know what I was talking about. He also said the Jess he’d known wouldn’t have run away just because she saw some girl kissing him. He said the Jess he’d known would have stuck around and knocked his (not to mention the girl’s) block off.

He also said that I didn’t know what it had been like for him, with me gone and him not knowing where I was, if I was getting blown up or what (because of course it wasn’t like they’d let me call and tell people where I was, or anything like that, when I’d been overseas).

I guess it never occurred to Rob that it hadn’t been any big picnic for me, either. You’d think he might have been able to tell, what with all of the newspapers trumpeting my ignominious return home, and return to normalcy (“Spark’s Gone for Lightning Girl” and “Hero Comes Home, Psychic No Longer—Gave All to War Effort”).

I guess it never occurred to Rob that I WASN’T the Jess he’d known, the one who’d have knocked his block off. Not anymore.

I was the one who’d suggested a cooling-off period.

He was the one who said that maybe that would be a good idea.

And then I got the call from Juilliard: my spot on the wait list—I barely remembered auditioning. It had been during one of my leaves home—had come up. Classes started the very next day. Did I still want it?

Did I still want it? A chance to lose myself in music? The opportunity to get away from myself, the nightmares, the blonde with the head-sized boobs, my mother?