And doing.
“You’re avoiding me,” I said, leaning against the hood of the car.
He shook his head no.
I shook my head yes.
He shrugged. “Been busy.”
“You’re never busy,” I said.
“Things change.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
“Walker, I…”
“What?”
I let myself sink back against the car. It was a thing; it had no choice but to hold me up. “It’s been a long week, that’s all.”
“You want to… talk about it?”
“Not really.” And I wasn’t even saying that because I knew he wanted me to, although he clearly did. Mostly I just wanted him to kiss me again, for real this time. But what was I supposed to do. Ask?
“So… you want to get something to eat?”
I just looked at him.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”
“No problem.” He would learn; we would adjust.
“You want to come over, play some Akira?” he said.
We’d been into the game for months, although he liked it more than I did, especially since he spent most of his play on hunting ghosts in Akira’s craggy moonscape, and zooming down the canyons and slithering through the worm-ridden tunnels always made me a little motion sick. Not that queasiness was much of a problem anymore, but boredom was. Generally after twenty minutes or so of busting virtual creepy crawlies while Walker flirted with slutty snake-women, their naked chests covered with shimmering scales and their users probably a thousand miles away, looking for a quick and easy love-link, I was ready for a nap. Or at least, I was ready to lie down. Usually, with the right combination of sulk and seduction, with Walker on top of me. And maybe that was the point.
“Sure.”
And soon, side by side on his couch, goggled up and strapped in, we disappeared into the world of the game, his av and mine creeping down haunted hallways, hand in hand, touching without feeling, reality forgotten, or at least irrelevant, which was enough.
It was enough until it wasn’t anymore, and then I slipped out of the game and back into the world. He stayed in, twitching, ducking his head, clutching the air, and grabbing for invisible demons, a careful space between us. I could have touched him then. He was too lost in the virtual universe to notice a hand on his leg, his lower back, his face. I’d done it before, more than once, making a game of it; how far could I go before calling him back to the surface, how deep had he sunk, how quickly could I reel him back in. But I didn’t touch him, just waited for him to tire of the game, and when he did, I went home.
“No,” the coach said when I finally found the courage to ask her. “I’m sorry, Lia. I wish I could, but… no.”
“I know I’m out of shape, but I can get up to speed. I know I can.”
“It’s not that.” She was slim and blond, and I wondered, as I often did, why she’d chosen coaching as her hobby instead of teaching or crafts. Something cozy and indoors, like most in her position, afraid of leathering their skin under the open sky. I got that she had to do something. It was a social imperative for the jobless rich, since the children of the wealthy weren’t going to raise themselves (nor, obviously, be raised by the parents of the poor), but why opt for something that required so much actual work?
I suspected it was because, like me, she loved to run. Missed it, missed the uniforms and the competitions and the trophies and even the outdoors. I could imagine myself doing the same thing—except, of course, that I was destined for productivity. Let my spouse, whoever he turned out to be, ply his hobbies. I’d been informed from day one—still in diapers, spitting and drooling—that I would have a career. Eventually.
In the meantime I would run.
“Did you give my spot away?” I asked, glancing over at the track. Zo was powering through her second mile. We had the same genetic advantages, I reminded myself. The same muscle tone, coordination, stamina—she’d just never bothered to use hers before. And meanwhile I’d used mine up.
“It’s not that, either.”
“What, then?”
“It’s…” She looked me up and down, then grimaced, like it was my fault for making her say it. “Lia, I can’t let you run with the team, not like this. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“What’s not fair?” I asked. “It’s not like I can run any faster.”
“I have no evidence of that,” she said. “As far as the league is concerned, you’d be running with an unfair advantage.”
That was almost funny. “Trust me, there’s no advantage.”
“It’s just not natural.”
I couldn’t believe it. More to the point, I couldn’t accept it. I needed to run. “Jay Chesin runs with a prosthetic leg—that’s not natural.”
“That’s different.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I caught her sagging a bit in relief, as if she’d spent the whole conversation waiting—in vain—for me to blink.
“What about the Ana League? I’d run with them if I had to.” As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t real running, not if you were chemically amping your strength and speed. I knew I’d never be able to keep up if I ran natural, but much as I loved my trophies, I didn’t need to win. I needed to run.
The coach shook her head again. “They won’t let you run either.”
“But they’re anabolic,” I said. Paused, reminded myself not to whine. Be calm. Be rational. Be irrefutable. “It’s a whole league for people who don’t play fair. How can I be against the rules if there are no rules?”
“There are rules,” she said, mouthing the official party line, even though everyone knew the Ana League was anything goes. “They wouldn’t let you drive a car to the finish line… and they won’t let you run. Not like this.”
“But—”
“Lia, be realistic,” she snapped. “You don’t breathe. You don’t get tired. For all anyone knows, you can run as fast as you want, as far as you want. Slotting you in would make a mockery of the whole race. Do you really want to ruin things for everyone else?”
I didn’t care about everyone else. And until recently I’d never needed to pretend I did. When you’re winning, no one expects you to care. They only expect you to keep winning.
“I guess not,” I said.
“I really am sorry.” Like we could be friends again, now that I’d let her pretend she was doing the right thing.
“Can I ask you something?”