“A-as the girl who is kind of in your bed right now, if I could kiss you I don’t think I would ever stop. You are beautiful and handsome and sexy and I would stake my life on the fact that there are thousands, tens of thousands of girls out there who would die happy if you would love them and let them love you. If you let them see the you that is kind to children and who stands up to bullies. If you let them see the you that listens to anti-music and laughs so hard, or the you that looks so happy when another Case Fifty-Three has an achievement or hits a personal milestone.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, you know,” he told her. “Not many people could say all that, so well or so convincingly.”

“I can say it because I mean it, and if there’s anything I want to come from our friendship or my embarrassing myself like this, I want you to believe it too, okay? I want you to get to where you find a girl and you believe everything I just said.”

He reached out, and her tendrils snapped to his arm. Impulsively, she brought her face close to his, and she kissed him.

Then she pulled away. She reached for music she knew he liked and put it on.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m running away,” she said. “Because I’m so embarrassed I can’t think straight. Hamster ball for me, I’m going to roll out into the nearest ditch and bury myself.”

“Don’t. Stay.”

“I can’t, I shouldn’t, I don’t know, I’m sorry,” she said. Her feelings and thoughts were all fireworks, still, but now they were explosions of doubt, and a chasing shadow of blood, past and future.

“If I want anything from this, I want you to get to where you don’t feel you have to run, and where you don’t feel like you have to apologize.”

The music swelled.

“Good choice,” he said. “Don’t be gone too long or I’ll worry.”

Hamster ball. Lid on but ajar, door opened, lid screwed in. This one had pegs she could use to propel herself. She went out the open door.

The other trucks and vehicles were crowded around. One of the Case Fifty-Threes was acting as a television, projecting signals onto the side of a truck.

She fled from all of them, the surge of positive emotion giving way to doubts and anxieties. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she hadn’t said anything and she couldn’t forgive herself now that she had.