Sveta and Kenzie talking, hanging out, more talks, Sveta looking upset, Kenzie giving Sveta a hug. Then Kenzie, Weld, and Sveta together in a domestic scene, Kenzie sitting on a couch with a blanket around her.

“Those last few didn’t actually happen,” she said.

“How do you keep track?” I asked.

“Color codes. It’s pretty intuitive for me, but I came up with it, so I don’t know. Hmm…”

She plugged another in, and hit the button on the top a few times before the first images had even snapped into existence.

Her and Mayday, Mayday’s hand on her shoulder.

Kenzie stood beside her projected image and looked up at Mayday. I walked around to look.

“Realistic.”

“Yup.”

“Did you tell Mrs. Yamada about this?”

“Oh,” Kenzie said, looking surprised. “Um.”

“You didn’t.”

“I mentioned that I was keeping a diary, and I was trying to put my dreams and hopes down in a more tangible way. I just… didn’t mention that it was visual.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I worried she might make me stop, and I don’t want to. This is a nice thing to do when I’m feeling down.”

I walked past her, looking at more of the scene. She clicked through it, stopping at an image of herself as Optics, the lenses on the gauntlets glowing bright. Her costume was torn, the lens on her mask broken, and she was bleeding.

“It’s kind of stupid, isn’t it?” she asked. “I save everyone, and then things are finally okay. The weirdness between me and others stops.”

“I don’t think that’s stupid,” I said. “You don’t have to show me, you know. If you want to keep it private—”

“I don’t really believe in privacy,” she said. “There’s a lot in that box, if you want to look at any.”

I walked over to the shoebox, peering inside.

“Um, maybe skip the ones with hot pink, unless you really, really want to. I’m still figuring that stuff out.”

“No hot pink, got it,” I said. I looked, trying to think of how to put my thoughts into words. She was showing me this for a reason.

I pulled out a card. “Red?”

“Hurt.”

“Purple?”

“Action scene. Put it in.”

“I’d feel awkward. If this is your diary, it’s too personal.”

“I’m an open book,” she said. “Put it in. I can’t remember what that one is.”

I popped out the one that was slotted into the top of the machine, and put the other in.

Kenzie crashing onto pavement, heels of her hands scraping, face distorted. An older boy stood behind her, black with a shaved head and a school uniform on.

“The lighter side of this is, I had to make a lot of funny faces before I got some expressions right.”

“Bully?” I asked.