Mark put an arm around my shoulders while he went through the set-up process for a new smartphone. As far as I was aware, there wasn’t anything wrong with his old phone, and this one looked to be exactly the same model. Well, I couldn’t exactly fault him for spending money on things he didn’t need; he certainly didn’t need to help me pay for college. 

I read for a few hours, making an effort to not only store the information in Leah’s brain but also to understand the concepts I was reading. It was slow, painful going. Every few minutes, I ran into yet another word or phrase that required research on the internet or in Leah’s memories to discern its meaning. The mental effort of learning college-level subjects with prerequisites I’d never heard of, much less studied, was so taxing that I struggled to maintain control over my host at the same time. My hands fell from the keyboard, flopping at my sides. 

Glaring at my right hand, I willed it to lift off the couch. The fingers twitched like a dying spider. Groaning inwardly, I bent over and uncurled my antennae. They weren’t exactly made for a keyboard or trackpad, but they worked well enough. 

“You okay?” Mark asked. 

“I’m having a little t-” My vocal cords spasmed, making an awful noise. Sitting up, I tried to focus on speaking as my left eyelid fluttered incessantly. “It’s n-n-nothing serious. Just need to-” Another gutteral noise interrupted my speech. “-take a break.” I leaned back and released control of my host’s movements. My true body absorbed portal mist as I rested, refueling my strength. 

Within half an hour, I wasn’t nearly at full capacity, but I took control of my host’s movements with some effort. 

“That’s better.”

Mark gave me a strange look. “What happened?”

“The energy I use to control this body is somewhat finite. Studying subjects I have no experience in uses more of it than I expected.”

“Oddity classes are required in high school. Leah should have memories of them.”

I sighed. He still didn’t understand exactly how this whole ‘memory catalogue’ worked. “Her memories aren’t my memories. They’re merely videos with thoughts running through them as commentary. Imagine being able to view the internet with your mind, but the internet only contains the knowledge of one eighteen-year-old girl.”

“Oh.” He shifted, an uneasy expression on his face. “Do you think it’s possible to learn that book in three weeks?”

“Probably not, but I’m willing to try. Even if I fail, I’ll still learn a lot of useful stuff about Earth.” I wished he hadn’t lost faith in my chances of success so quickly. It would be hard enough to stay motivated with my own doubts coursing through my head; I didn’t want to hear his as well. 

“Whatever I can help you with, let me know.” He didn’t sound confident that his assistance would actually help me achieve my goal. 

“For now, I could do with some food.”

“Can do.” He hopped to his feet and passed me the new phone he’d been messing with. “Text me what you want.”

Before I could ask why he’d handed me the phone, he left. I looked over the device. It had all the apps and contacts from Leah’s old phone. It was an odd thing to do if he meant to use the phone for himself, so I could only assume he’d meant it as a gift. It was much appreciated. I sent him my order before looking through the other shopping bags he’d brought. There was a toiletry kit and several outfits with similar styles to the clothes he usually wore. Did he intend to stay here for a while? Why didn’t he just go back to his house and pick up his own things? If he didn’t want to see his parents, couldn’t he just ask Ethan to pick them up? Human behavior was a mystery to me. 

I set aside my laptop and stood to stretch. My legs were shaky enough that they threatened to deposit me on the ground. Leaning on the couch, I tried to walk a lap around it--‘tried’ being the operative word, as I soon ended up on the floor behind the couch. I’d pushed myself too far. Physically, there was nothing wrong with my host, and my true brain still worked well enough in theory, but the tendrils connecting my true and host bodies were weak from overwork. A nap could only do so much good. 

Trying to stand was a futile endeavor. Even crawling was nearly impossible. I staggered on my hands and knees for several steps before a particularly violent spasm smacked my shoulder against the back of the couch. This was much worse than any damage I could do in a few hours of studying. This was due to a month of pushing my true and host bodies to the limit constantly before being poisoned. 

Really, it was a wonder I hadn’t fallen apart earlier. The arytas back home might’ve been impressed at what I’d managed to do. Of course, they would call me an absolute idiot for fighting so hard to reform a corpse--especially at the risk of my own health--but it was still an impressive feat. 

What I needed was a few hours of soaking in Otherealm mist with my belly tendrils unburdened by puppeting this body. No, what I really needed was a few weeks of that. Weeks I didn’t have if I wanted to take advantage of the best chance I had at making a decent living here on Earth. I needed to get up and make myself presentable before Mark got back. He wouldn’t want to spend his time or money on someone who couldn’t even control their own body. 

I dragged myself to the end of the couch, but I couldn’t make my way around it. Collapsing to the ground, I struggled to maintain even breaths. The irony of it all was that I’d repaired enough of the brain stem to keep my host’s autonomic functions going without my input, but my spasming tendrils were disrupting them. I retracted some of my tendrils, and my breathing evened out. It was the slow, deep breathing of a sleeping body, which didn’t give my muscles enough oxygen to do much moving. 

For the moment, I would rest and regain some of my strength. Then I would drag myself onto the couch. In a minute. Or a few minutes. Just as long as I did it before Mark came back, I would be fine. 

After what felt like an age, I managed to crawl around the end of the couch. Pulling myself onto the couch was a different problem entirely. I grabbed the couch arm, braced myself against the coffee table, and forced my legs to straighten beneath me. They only kept me on my feet for a few moments before I collapsed on the couch face-first. 

As I rested for a moment, the door opened. Mark came in with a couple of to-go boxes. 

“I’m guessing it’s not going well?”

How could he know- no, he was talking about studying. I must’ve looked like I’d face-planted into the couch in frustration. “You could say that.” I rolled until I had my back to the back of the couch. My leg jerked, kicking the coffee table. I lifted my hand with the intent to reach for a to-go box, but my extremely twitchy fingers reminded me that there was no way I could feed myself with my current lack of coordination. 

As Mark sat next to me, he frowned at my hand. “Does that hurt?”

“Not really.” My hand itself didn’t feel any pain at all when it spasmed, but my entire spinal cord--both spinal cords, really--felt like they were on fire every time I lost control. I gritted my teeth as another painful spasm seared my tendrils. 

Still looking suspicious, Mark watched me as he ate. “I thought you couldn’t lie.”

“I can lie; I’m just not good at it.” 

“I won’t argue with that.” He snorted. “Why lie about not hurting?”

“You asked if my hand hurt. It doesn’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I asked if ‘that’ hurt--‘that’ being whatever’s going on with your limbs.”

“Hmm. Yes, ‘that’ hurts, but it’s… tolerable.” Barely. 

He ate for a minute before asking, “Think some venom would help?”

I honestly wasn’t sure. If his venom only sped my body’s natural recovery times, that was the last thing I needed right now. Going at top speed for a month was the whole reason I was in this predicament to begin with. Venom might dull the pain for now, but it would cause a whole lot of pain in the near future. Though, if I wanted to pass as someone who was remotely capable, suppressing the pain--even for a short time--would be useful. But at the same time, less pain didn’t mean I would have more control over my limbs. 

“I’d better not risk it.”

He nodded at the other to-go box. “You gonna eat?”

“Not right this moment.” My traitorous stomach grumbled. 

“Do you need help eating?”

The idea of being hand-fed like an invalid made my skin itch. “I’m not completely helpless.”

“Okay. Take this out of the package.” He held out a plastic fork wrapped in plastic. 

I reached for the fork, but my arm spasmed, and I jabbed my fingers into his shoulder. In a desperate attempt to overcorrect, I back-handed the fork across the room. 

Looking bemused, Mark set his meal aside and retrieved the fork. After removing it from its package, he sat to open the second to-go box. “Think you can swallow without choking?”

“Yes.” I paused. “I mean, I think so.” I hoped so. 

“Do you know how long it’ll take you to recover?” He scooped a spoon of soup and held it near my mouth. 

“I’ll likely recover soon.” At least, ‘soon’ in the general sense of the word. Not trusting my ability to move my head without head-butting the spoon, I opened my mouth. He spoon-fed me. I concentrated very hard on swallowing without breathing. Luckily, I managed to do it without choking. That didn’t change the fact that I was completely pathetic. 

“How soon?” He collected another spoonful of soup. 

“Soon enough to pass the OOU tests.” 

I let him feed me for a while before he said anything else. 

“Are you sure about that, or do you just hope that?”

I really didn’t want to answer that question. “What does it matter?”

His shoulders slumped. “If the nutmeg hurt you worse than you’re letting on, you shouldn’t keep training.”

“I’m going to do whatever I can to pass the tests.” 

“Even if it permanently injures you?”

What was I supposed to say to that? “I don’t have any better options right now.”

He paused to scan my face with a slight frown. “I want you to go to OOU--if you want to--but I don’t want you hurting yourself to do it. If you can’t pass the exams safely this year, my offer won’t expire before next year.”

I’d been holding out hope that he and I could be on the same team, since his had an opening. If we were in different years, we wouldn’t be able to work together in classes. But it wasn’t like I needed to be on his team. Understanding everything I was taught would be just as difficult with him as without him, since he couldn’t exactly be answering all my questions during class--and whatever he said about having a small homework load, he wouldn’t actually have the time--or at least the energy and willingness--to teach me after being in classes all day.

So it shouldn’t matter whether I was in his class or not. It really shouldn’t. And yet… it did matter to me. I wanted to work with him. I wanted to keep spending time with him. The idea of seeing him rarely, if at all, until next summer made loneliness crush my throat. 

“If I passed the test this year, could I be on your team?”

“If the majority of the team agrees, yes.” He swallowed. “I’d love to have you on the team, but you shouldn’t push yourself past your limits.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but what common sense said I should or shouldn’t do didn’t really determine my choice. “I want to pass the tests this year.” Sensing an argument brewing, I added, “I know it’s dangerous and inadvisable, but I want to do it.” I wanted to be with him, no matter what it took to do so. Tashi would ridicule me out of the tree if she caught me risking anything, much less my health, for sentimentality’s sake, but I didn’t care. 

“I’ll help you train under one condition--if I say you need to stop and rest, you do it. You don’t push yourself until you can’t even hold a fork. Agreed?”

Seeing as pushing myself too far would only slow my progress, I didn’t have a good reason to say no. “Agreed.”

“Good.” He offered me another spoon of soup. “Today is a rest day. No more studying, no physical training.”

The thought of wasting a whole day irked me, but I knew it wasn’t really a waste. Healing now would allow me to work harder soon. Hopefully. 

“Okay.” I ate the soup.