“Don’t you start. You didn’t even know him,” Kenzie said, jabbing her partially-eaten taco at the projected Ashley to her left. “When he was nice he was so nice. So clever and thoughtful. There was something in there, that he had to keep protected and secret.”

“She’s not wrong. I’ve told you that you have to watch out for people like that,” our Ashley said. “When someone treats you badly nine times out of ten, and treat you really nice the rest of the time, that means they’re bad for you. It’s easy to fake being nice the one time out of ten.”

“He wasn’t nice only one time out of ten, okay? Please and thank you,” Kenzie said. “He was the first friend I ever made that was close to my own age, who stayed with me more than a couple of weeks. He listened to me geek out and watched stuff or read stuff because I mentioned it. He’s one of only a couple of people I ever knew who understood what it was like to be one hundred percent lonely.”

“One hundred percent lonely?” Sveta asked. “I think a lot of people have experienced that.”

“I don’t know exactly how to put it. A bunch of people here probably get it, or they got a taste of it,” Kenzie said. “You don’t get powers unless you don’t have anyone to turn to, or something? But there’s a difference between being totally alone the once and being totally, one hundred percent alone because that’s the way things are, or it’s the way you are, and it’s a pattern. And because it’s a pattern you’ll probably be this alone again in five years or ten years. It’s a loneliness that’s lonelier because there’s no way it can get better.”

“I think you’d be surprised how others relate to that,” Sveta said.

“I guess so,” Kenzie said. “I haven’t thought that much about it.”

“I hope you know that pattern ended here,” our Ashley said. “I’m with you.”

“Except you promised me that and you went to jail,” Kenzie said. She stopped herself, then smiled at Ashley. “Sorry to say it like that. You did stay in touch but you did go to jail too.”

I saw Ashley digest that, then nod.

“Um. Anyway, that pattern? There’s more to it. Chris gets it, I think. He welcomes it, encourages it. We’re different because I don’t want it, but he and I have that common ground. We’ve both nosedived into big projects that you can only really do if you don’t do anything else, and we can talk about those things. That was a me and him thing.”

“Hobbies?” Rain asked.