I was aware of my body, and nothing felt exactly right. Proportions, how my own body weight rested on different portions of my own body, head on neck, hip on thigh bone, leg pushing down against foot, foot inside a sandal that pushed into the earth. I couldn’t escape the visceral notion of meat against bone, grinding, crushing, like stray animals had been ground and crushed together, turned into a scrambled egg slurry of proteins and fats that were then pulled together to make a monstrous body. Reshaped again, hundreds of pounds of me pulled away and cast off, left behind to be devoured by scavengers. Animal meat returning to the animals.

“You zone out a lot,” Crystal commented.

“I’m going to do that. Can’t really help it.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make it a criticism. I hope it’s because you’re enjoying the day.”

I looked around. The city being built with a scary swiftness. Double-wide trucks rolled in from various portals, commissioned materials and building segments stacked along each. The city we were in was completed buildings to the east of us, and skeletons to the west of us, concrete and tinted glass finding their way onto the bones by the moment.

I could remember the day I had triggered, how I’d walked a line before a look at my parents and their avid disinterest had tipped me over the edge. I felt like that with everything now. A woman walking her dog, certain colors, hair types and clothing styles. People that walked in certain ways. Areas that were too sterile. Areas that were too dirty.

“Trying to,” I said, to fill the silence. Then, to explain why I was trying to fill the silence, I said, “I know I’m a bit of a wet blanket right now. I know I’m hard to talk to.”

“You’re family,” Crystal said. “I’m not doing very good at this either.”

I shook my head.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “And we’ll talk so easily it’ll annoy people.”

I smiled.

“Did you send the university thing?”

“The application? Yeah. I took it in to the application center. But I won’t get in.”

“You never know,” she said. “You’re pretty fantastic. Smart, good grades, special case…”

“I won’t get in this year. I rushed it, my head wasn’t in the right place, and it might not be in the right place if I got in. Mostly I used it as an excuse to figure out what to do for next summer.”

“What to do?”

“Prerequisites to meet. Having work experience would help. I used putting in the application as an excuse to visit and get a sense of the place, calibrate my expectations. They’re a mess right now, and ninety percent of what they’re doing is making sure they’re prepared for a larger cohort next year.”