My body trembles like a personal earthquake - armageddon in a private earth - devastating no one but me, upsetting nothing but my stomach.

My hands shake so much as I try to do my makeup that I just give up, shoving the lipstick back onto the shelf, tying my hair back into a nervous braid, all shambles and loose strands draping like wavy streaks of lightning. I look like the cover girl for “Hot Mess Magazine.” But I guess that won’t matter much if they fire me. 

I won’t be in any more photoshoots or magazines.

I sigh and shake my head, blowing the maverick curls off my forehead and out of my eyes. The girl staring back at me looks like a doe in headlights, begging me to let her disappear back into the darkness.

“If we fail you can go back to your little bubble forever,” I promise, hoping with everything in me that that won’t be the case.

The drive to The Foundation feels longer than the train ride ever did - the walk from my car to the front door like an odyssey. 

The shadow pleads with me every step of the way - clinging to my dress and skin like hitchhikers burrowing their way in - heavier than they ought to be - when it realizes there’s nothing it can do to stop me.

At least not this time.

We have to at least…

I promised-

It takes me three attempts to will myself into knocking on the secret door. When I do, I’m greeted by that low, feminine voice saying “Enter,” with an almost impossible amount of regality.

The gravity of that tone threatens to shatter me - like I’m falling from the sky faster than the speed of light - the whole world seems to blur into darkness as I step through the door quickly before I can stop myself- feeling my skin burn hotter at each step- terminal velocity-

I’m hit by a human meteorite the second I step into the room.

The world spins around me for one second - a confused sphere of blinding white as I try to make sense of the noise and color, chirping in front of me.

At first, I’m not even sure who or what I’m looking at - vaguely conscious of a young-ish woman, even shorter than me, speaking a million miles an hour. 

She’s wearing a plaid dress that’s designed to look like a long button-up in an ambiguous shade of lavender plum and a name tag that says “Melissa X.”

So this is Mrs. Xochitl? 

Considering her name, I'm caught off guard by the strong Jewish accent, as she practically squeals, clapping my cheeks in both of her ice-cold hands-

“Oh my goish!” she laughs shrilly - her jaw dropping and eyes wide - “So this is the doll face everyone has been talking about! You're even prettier than you were in the video! I love your shoes! Huh! I love your hair! I'm so glad I finally get to meet you in person! I wasn't able to make it to the ceremony cuz my son had the worst cough you ever saw in your life and he gets to be such a baby whenever he's sick - You and me have the exact same taste in footwear. I'm going to be hitting you up for the rest of your life to talk about shoes, just you count on it-"

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mrs. King leaning against the back of her office chair, one velveteen elbow cradled in the palm of her left hand, a pen swaying exasperatedly in her right. 

The expression on her face tells me that this is a common occurrence, and she rolls her eyes at this last comment on ‘footwear,’ prying the giddy ‘munchkin’ away from me with one very stern, ‘mommish’ cough.

"Alright Melissa, if you're done with your meet and greet, we have to discuss a certain, very important meeting..."

At the emphasized word ‘very’ Melissa forces herself to relinquish my face, with a jut of her lip like a child forced to put a doll back at the toy store.

She looks at me, rather than Mrs. King, with an apologetic shake of her head, "Oh my goish. I totally forgot - you have to forgive me. I always forget. You can just take this chair here, Ms. Palmero."

She offers me the chair directly in front of Mrs. King’s desk, plopping down in the other, and adjusting her seat, for all the world, like a grade-schooler, grinding it along the floor until it’s positioned beside mine. Mrs. King watches all of these motions with that same mom-ish energy as if she’s expecting Melissa to get distracted again. 

I shrug under the tension - every moment I’m forced to sit still and wait feeling like a good time to run - run away-

The whole room suddenly turns deathly quiet.

Mrs. King looks at me as if to say, “Well?”

Breathe Alicia…

We’re not dead yet -

We at least have to try.

*

Mrs. King lays one of her purple-painted hands on the big desk, leaning forward slightly, saying with steady professionalism, "We’re going to have to arrange an interview with the people from our team who deal with these sorts of issues and have you answer a few questions. But your safety…” 

I see her business air waver, and behind her eyes, something like dismay-

“-Your safety is important to us, Ms. Palmero. We will do what we can to get to the bottom of this issue.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The world swirls with legalese and vivid velvet suits-

Is it over?

We’re still alive.

I hear Mrs. King say - back in that same mechanical mask - that they’ll arrange a meeting for me with another agent, one of the other two who wanted to work with me.

I say thank you for the bazillionth time - trying to shake myself from the bad dream-

Am I even awake?

That same sense of unreality eats at me as I make my way dizzily through the lobby - 

Paperwork - interviews -

There’s too much - 

I’m just glad to be free for the moment at least from the never-ending echo-

I’m just outside the front door when I’m struck by a human avalanche-

Before I can take my bearings Melissa has wrapped me up in a big bear hug, squeezing the life out of me-

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry for what he...”

I’m so shocked I don’t even know what to say - don’t even fight it. Nobody has ever…

-Ever held me like this when it hurt.

Not since that day when I was sixteen.

I’m so stunned I can’t even cry as Melissa separates herself from me and kisses my forehead.

“I’m so sorry, but Juana won’t let me hug the other employees in the building,” she smiles a little tragically, and I manage to smile back, like a fragile android, as she puts one of her hands up to my hair, and smooths the ruffled mess.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says softly, “I know that it hurts, but it won’t forever.”

I try to think of something to say but my brain flashes an error code - opening my mouth and closing it again like I’m swallowing her words-

With that, she forces another smile, this one wide, and almost professional, “I’ve gotta get back to work or I’ll be in trouble.” She has one hand on the knob when she turns and calls back, “I am seriously going to call you about the shoes, though.”

“Alright,” I manage, with a sort of half-wave, “I’ll hold you to that.”

*

It takes me a minute to be able to start thinking cognitively again.

For the first time in a long time, my mind isn’t screaming at me - there are no dizzy thoughts - just bright, pure white - like a blank page - an empty canvas.

What was I even planning to do? 

I reach up to put my hand to my hair - brushing back the loose strands where I still feel Melissa’s delicate touch - my keys jingle like sleigh bells.

That’s right, I was going to go see Kattar.

With that same, too familiar feeling of sleep-walking I climb into the car, before pausing, staring for a long time into nothingness and the steering wheel all at once. 

I turn the keys in the ignition and turn on the radio. ‘Frankie Valley and the Four Season’ are just queuing up the only song of theirs I like and I turn the sound up a little louder until the car hums along to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”

It’s been so long since I listened to that song, but I still know the words by heart.

Is it maybe…too good to be true?

When we were 16, Kattar and I both decided to burn CDs of our top twenty favorite songs and spent an evening razzing literally every artist the other chose.

“Boo. Are you allergic to music made in this century?”

“Are you allergic to musicians that can actually sing?”

I snatched the radio out of his lap in the middle of one particularly obnoxious emo or pop-punk song, and turned the sound down to an inaudible mutter, hiding the radio under my shirt.

“Give it back.”

“Not on your life. How can you listen to this stuff? It sounds like bad feelings.”

“That’s kind of the point. Music is about expressing how you feel.”

“What kind of feeling exactly is a “Chemical Romance?”

“I don’t know… hormones?”

“That is so gross.”

…

“Just give it back.”

“Never.”

He hesitates.

I wonder how many signs there were that I missed. How many times he showed in subtle ways that he liked me - and I didn’t even notice them - too busy believing that nobody did - that nobody ever would.

I wonder how many times I hurt him without even realizing it.

“I have one more stupid joke.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I have to be Frank with you, “The Four Seasons” are the worst band I’ve ever heard.”

“How can you even say that? You’re listening to people MOANING about CANCER, right now.”

“Every song you listen to is just some guy gushing about how beautiful somebody is. How can you listen to stuff like that?”

“Um, because it’s nice to imagine what it’s like to have people say nice things about you - to have someone care enough to want people to know how much they love you-”

I wonder what that’s like…

“-Maybe you don’t care because you’re a boy. You guys are all like ‘death and misery, rock and roll…’”

“Guys DO like to hear nice things about themselves too sometimes…”

“Is that so? Well, fortunately for you, you have fifty percent of the school at your disposal. Why don’t you ask some of the cheerleaders to write you a ballad?”

…

Maybe I sort of knew.