The circuits that connect my eyes and my heart were cranked way, way up. I wondered for a second if Yusuf wanted me to invite him in, like Stockholm Syndrome was already tethering the both of us together, and we might as well have some fun. I wanted to. The same way the pounding music and twirling lights on the dance floor would see me hooking a finger into the belt-loops of a nearby guy to tug him closer. The crush of our bodies together, the clattering of lips. The spark in our eyes that lit me up because we were in love for at least as long as it took to find a dark corner or an open bathroom stall. I wanted to run my thumb over the arch of Yusuf’s eyebrows, but all of this seemed too weird even for me.

“Good night,” I said.

Eyes back on the floor, he bobbed his head at me in goodbye.

With the door closed, the coffin-sized space looked so much like my room a million years ago in rehab that hives prickled the back of my neck. I was finally alone for the first time since coming here.

I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t creep back to the machine and ask it for lotto numbers or something. Those jokes will come later and so often that Kaori will look at me, squeeze the bridge of her nose, and wonder out loud, “Do I need to restrict your access from the Envisioner or are you going to take this seriously?” Mostly, I was just trying to keep moving so the swamp of doubt wouldn’t suck my feet down, because Figueiredo’s face followed me in every room.

Not long ago I would’ve reached for a little help from the chemically calming department. I don’t fuck with opiates anymore since they almost killed me and all. But I’ve smoked or eaten enough Kaleidoscope Kush to go nebula-diving through thoughts of alternate universes and the mind-fuck of consciousness. Hours spent staring at a chair—between editing marathons of a doc that no one will watch—realizing that we were both made up of the same junk. Maybe there was another universe where the chair was alive and it just took a big bong rip and was staring at something you sit on called a Hayes.

So what do you do when you feel like your bones are too big for your skin? the Storyteller voice asked me.