Dealing with the world in short bursts was all Daniel could manage, too. He closed his eyes.
Every time the Dread Army breached his moat, it churned up buried memories, conversations long forgotten, cringeworthy things he’d said to Melissa, his teammates, his sisters, William. When he woke up this morning with sweaty sheets twined around his legs, the Dread Army was already clawing deep into his mind, demanding that he relive bits of the previous night in excruciating detail.
I’m sorry
For being me
It could have been a glorious evening. If only he’d kept it together, he and Melissa could have made up for missing last Wednesday.
There were even Jacuzzi jets in the bathtub. Not that it mattered now.
I’m sorry
He folded his arms over his chest and curled up tighter. The bench accommodated his position with a gentle shifting.
For being me
It was manipulative and weak, the kind of thing a guy might say to his girlfriend in order to make her feel scared for him, to give her the impression that she was dealing with an incredibly sensitive and depressed person who required special care and nurturing and constant reassurance.
Definitely not the kind of guy you wanted to break up with!
Who knows what might happen then!
By the time he’d woken up, Melissa had already eaten a yogurt, gone for a walk down East Broadway, and taken a swim in the hotel pool. It was one of her #lifehacks, something she’d read about self-actualization. Every day was a reset button. There was no reason to carry bad vibes from the night before into the next morning.
In the car, he opened one eye to watch as she began to paint her nails. She was wearing a sundress, bare knees pointed directly at him. There was the little smudge where the tip of a colored pencil had jabbed into her skin and broken off in third grade. He’d kissed that spot a thousand times.
What did it mean that she hadn’t asked him for nail art suggestions?
He noticed the blemish in the ceiling above her head where Otto had opened a vent to help soften the pungent reek of nail polish.
“Otto, main menu.” He lay flat on his back and spoke quietly, his voice barely audible above the music.
Otto’s home screen appeared on a small opaque segment of the window above his head.
“Give me EverView.”
It had taken some trial and error, but Christina had discovered the command to affix a floating mobile version of Otto’s screens to an area roughly two feet in front of the user’s face. When Daniel moved his head, the menu followed as if it were an extension of his vision. He swept through sub-menus for the gaming engine, appliances, and climate control, and found what he was looking for in Privacy Settings. He selected a one-person shroud, and the car’s interior fragmented into a web, as if it had been finely, minutely shattered. The lattice coalesced around him, and he was cocooned in darkness.
The EverView menu remained, dimming itself politely. He swept through his options. One-Way Mirror gave him a view into the car but did not allow anyone to see into his shroud. Princess Canopy pumped soft gauzy light into a bed enclosed by silk tapestries that billowed in an unfelt breeze, which reminded Daniel of soft-core porn. There were hundreds of customizations: Smurf Sheets, Rose Petals, Water Bed, DeLorean, Winter Flannel.
There was even a Coffin.
He settled on Sled Dog Race and found himself lying flat on his back while a team of magnificent huskies bore him gently along, sled runners cutting a soft path through snowdrifts.
He worked a hand deep into the pocket of his downy parka and retrieved his phone, scrolling back to February, the end of basketball season. He stopped at a video Melissa had shot at the finals of the Sectionals Tournament, Fremont Hills Spotted Owls versus Crandall Knights. With 4:03 remaining, the Knights were up 53–48, eating up the shot clock, flicking the ball around the perimeter of the Spotted Owls’ defense, biding their time until their point guard made a move to get open at the top of the key. The pass from the forward was crisp, but Daniel timed his reach perfectly.
Coach Quinn always said a textbook steal was like opening a door. When the ball popped loose, you stepped through, and on the other side was the freedom of an open court.
Daniel watched Movie Daniel step through the door with supreme confidence, controlling the ball and gliding across half-court. The crowd went to its feet, and the back of a man’s head obscured the camera. Melissa stood up and lifted the phone high in the air. Movie Daniel ate up the paint in three loping strides and finished the breakaway layup with eerily organic grace, a perennial unfurling its petals to set a basketball softly against the glass.
As simulated snow fell faintly all around him, Daniel replayed the video again and again, watching himself and listening to Melissa cheer him on. He was conscious of how transparent a gesture it was, how the Dread Army would see right through this latest ruse. Yet still he watched, pausing at the top of his jump, hitting rewind and play, rewind and play, telling himself This is what you are until his perfect form became indistinct and meaningless like a word repeated too many times.
To Christina, Daniel’s privacy shroud resembled a sleeping bag made from Spider-Man’s archnemesis, Venom: a symbiotic costume. It appeared entirely too constricting and made her heart race when she imagined being stuck inside it.
William was snoring at her side. Up front, Melissa was diving into SocialOracle. They’d compromised on ambient music, burbling electronica for their trip across the wilds of Pennsylvania, interminable stretches punctuated by the occasional train bridge or tollbooth. Unless she wanted to bore herself into a coma, looking out the window at Real American Scenery wasn’t all that rewarding.
Christina leaned forward and tilted her laptop so that her body was
