Traveler by L.E. DeLano (book suggestions .txt) 📕

Ben sits down on the couch next to me, wrapping an arm around me and pulling my head to his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he says, and I wonder if he’s saying it to me or for himself. “It’s all going to be okay.”

We stay that way for a long time, and somehow, eventually, I drift off.

I am sitting at my desk in the classroom when Mario steps in through the red door. Even in here, I feel the weight of Finn’s death. It’s all I can do to lift my head and look at him. He sits down at the desk in front of me, turning in the chair. He reaches out and takes my hands in his.

“Jessa … I’m so very, very sorry.”

I nod. There’s nothing to say.

“Rudy is on the run,” Mario says.

“How does that work? It’s not like he can come into our world.”

“No. But the dreamscape is virtually endless,” he says. “We’re looking where we can, following every trail, but…”

“But I’m still in danger,” I sigh. “I don’t care.”

“Eversor is still out there. We need to get you to safety.”

“Where?” I snap. “Where is there that could possibly be safe for me? Or for anyone who knows me?” I shake my head. “I’m staying where I am. I want to be home. If I get killed here and end up trapped in some other body in another reality, that’s worse than dead.”

“Very well,” Mario relents. “For now, you stay home. We’ll find him, Jessa,” he promises me. “He’s going to need to regroup to work around us, and that’s going to take time. We can use that time to get some work done.”

“I’m not up to traveling,” I say. “Not now. Maybe not ever.” I know I’m dreaming, but my voice breaks as my throat tightens.

“Jessa.” Mario’s voice softens. “You haven’t lost Finn, not really. You’ll see him again.”

All Finns are Finn. He told me so himself. He’s Finn no matter where he is. I feel my eyes filling with tears, and I begin to shake all over now. I am torn. I feel the grief ripping through me, the sheer impossibility of all this. I can barely speak around the lump in my throat.

“You can’t do that to me. I can’t see him again.”

“You will eventually, Jessa. I’m sorry if that’s difficult, but it is what it is.”

His eyes are apologetic, but I want to hit him. I want to claw at his face and scream until he’s sorry enough. Because he’s not sorry enough. I sink back down into my chair, and my hand is tight against my chest. I feel like I can’t breathe.

“You’re going to see him again and again,” Mario offers sympathetically. “It can’t be avoided. You have to learn to let it go.”

“Let it go?” I turn disbelieving eyes to Mario. “I lost him.” My voice cracks on the words.

“And you can find him again. You will find him again, the next time you travel. You need to make peace with that.” He shoots me another apologetic look that doesn’t do anything for my sore heart.

I tear my eyes away from him and look down at my hand. I watch a tear splash on the back of it.

“You’re not giving me a choice?”

Mario gives me a look that says No, not really. He reaches out and tries to take my other hand, but I pull it away.

“I’ll try to limit your exposure to him for a while,” he promises.

A while isn’t long enough, but I know better than to argue. I just nod mutely.

“Eventually, Jessa, you’ll have to get through this. You do understand that?”

No, I don’t. It’s too raw. I can’t do this. How do you walk and breathe and function in worlds full of ghosts?

“Here,” he says, getting out of the desk in front of me and moving back behind his teacher’s desk. He opens a drawer and reaches inside.

“I brought you something. Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

He gestures to me and I walk over as he sets down a dish, filled with sparkling glitter mousse, right in the center of the desk. I look at it in disbelief.

A hundred memories fill my head, sharp and poignant and overwhelming, and I wonder if my Finn was replaceable to him—another death among the thousands he’s seen or possibly even influenced across thousands of realities and thousands of years. Finn was a speck. A number in a sequence. A momentary bump on a long road that a bowl of glitter mousse will easily smooth over.

My hand sweeps out, flinging the mousse off the desk, and I watch it shatter against the wall.

“He was more,” I say to him through gritted teeth. “His name was Finn, and he was somebody. We’re all somebody.”

In two steps, I wrench the red door open. It slams behind me and I wake with a start as my mom calls my name from the laundry room.

Ben looks down at me and I take a moment to get my bearings.

“You ready to talk?” he asks in a low voice.

“No,” I sigh. “But I guess I have to do it anyway.”

46

Explanations and Allies

“Are you two hungry?” My Mom calls out as Ben helps me off the couch.

I know I won’t be able to eat, and Ben comes to my rescue.

“We’ll eat later,” he lies. “We’ve got a lot of history homework to finish up.”

“Another project?”

“Something like that,” I call back. “We’ll be upstairs if you need us.”

I drag myself up the stairs, with Ben behind me, and I hear him shut the door. A long silence stretches between us and I sink down onto the bed, not sure what I should tell him. I don’t want him knowing too much, but he has to know why a person was murdered in front of him, by a teacher who wants to deconstruct the universe.

The grief washes over me again, and I bury my face in my hands. I feel Ben sit down next to me, and his hand rubs