Rain streaked grayly on the outside of the apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows. People below hurried by, their umbrellas tiny dots of lightly tinted plastic. Valerie sat down on her couch, leaning back until her head rested against the cold glass behind her, closing her eyes and listening to the thudding drops, drawing in deep shaky breaths.
She wasn't going to cry. Valerie never cried. But it had been an extremely long, terrible day. One of the worst she could remember, all in all. Now that she was back in safe, familiar surroundings, she wanted to curl up into a tiny ball, go to sleep, and wake up maybe in a year or so. Maybe never.
She didn't sleep, though. She thought about her encounter earlier that day, in the brilliant sharp autumn sunrise. The person who had said they only wanted to warn her - warn her of what? What could possibly hurt her now? Valerie knew better than to say that things had gotten as bad as they could get. Things had a way of always getting worse. But right now, it didn't feel as though there was anywhere to go but up.
This evening she was restless but tired, moody, unsatisfied. She flipped through her meager collection of music without seeing anything that caught her interest. She was bored, unsettled. She loved rainy days, usually, because they made her feel vital, as though she were maybe a part of the world after all. She was most at home in the water, for all that she made a big show of drowning. It was why she'd imagined herself a glorious bathtub in this place - it was a combination jacuzzi and surround shower, with six heads to beat their liquid soothingly into her body, and four jets in the tub for bubbles and relaxation. She liked water even in such a tame form, and had been known to splash in the tub just to see the way it moved.
But she didn't want a bath tonight, and all of her amusements and gadgets seemed pale and boring. She thought it was cruel of the world to inflict her with restlessness and exhaustion, especially when she was only daydreaming. (Valerie never worried about how real the daydreams were to her, anymore. It was too much a part of her reality by now.)
She twisted her arms around to try to rub her own shoulders, only making the pain more insistent and throbbing. I am so screwed, Valerie thought. I really don't know what is wrong with me. I can't seem to manage this living thing, at all. I thought I was joking when I said I'd kill myself if it weren't for my mom. Now I'm not so sure. The intensity of her emotion suprised her. If there was one phrase Valerie had become familiar with, it was "flatness of affect." Her mask was thorough mostly because she let herself be it. And to perfect the composure she had to present, Valerie was used to being hollow and detached. It wasn't just that she didn't have to feel things she didn't want to; she couldn't feel things even when she yearned for them. Not really. That was one theory, anyhow. She didn't know if she would even be able to tell the difference.
Her hair fell into her face like it was an enemy. It always seemed shaggier in here than outside, as though it knew she couldn't rule it as completely with trimmings and hair products. She'd never found a barber or stylist that she could remember while wandering the streets, but her hair didn't grow over time. It was always the same, a couple shades darker and redder than her plain brown hair in the real world, chin-length, with long unkempt bangs obscuring her vision whenever possible. She pushed it back from her forehead decisively and used the momentum of the movement to stand up.
"Fine," she said aloud to her empty apartment. "I'm going out." She pushed her finger into the slot that would open the door only for her, walked through, and waited for it to close behind her. She could never get over the technological wonders of this world that the real one couldn't help to compete with. I guess if you dream, you might as well dream big, she thought. She particularly appreciated the air chutes that replaced elevators – you stepped in, floated (okay, more like zoomed) down or up, and there you were. She could never get over that little jump of fear as she stepped over the edge, and she always wondered what would happen if the chute was malfunctioning. She kind of wished it would, sometime. Today.
She had forgotten to bring an umbrella and the rain was cold and shocking, waking her up with little slaps in the face. Out of habit she tilted her head back to taste; this rain was ice-cold and had a faint bitter aftertaste. It varied, especially between the country and the city. It seemed especially appropriate to drink in the smog-flavored water, she thought, because when the waves closed over her head for the last time she suspected they'd be especially acidic. She'd never noticed smog in the City.
Valerie set off in a random direction and just walked. She didn't want to meet anyone, or talk to anyone, or think about her life. She didn't want anyone to know her name, or what she was doing, or about her hospital admission. She wanted the water to wash into her body through her eyes and mouth and ears and fill up her body until there was no more room for thoughts or emotions or anything. She wanted not even to notice the scenery, she wanted oblivion. So she walked. Maybe a bus would run her over. Probably not. The probably had some kind of space-age braking system that didn't even need a driver's input. She saw what she assumed to be buses, occasionally, but she'd never been on one.
When the buildings started to seem repetitive, she turned a corner. She let minutes turn into hours and refused to feel the tiredness in her limbs. She didn't listen to the constant critisicms that were her companions in her head. Although the voices always seemed more subtle her in her world of daydreams, which was just another thing to be grateful for. Gratefulness wasn't her strong suit.
A shadow flickered in the corner of her eye, intrusive and suspicious. She turned around and saw only a shop front, some sort of deli. She ducked into the doorway on a whim.
The place was full of people, the buzz of conversation quiet and steady. Everyone seemed to have their place, to be sure of what they were doing (and eating) and where they were going. Valerie scanned her eyes across the whole room, which wasn't big. She didn't know what she expected to find or notice. The food dispensers along one wall smelled stale and overworked; it was a busy place. Most of the businesses in the City had these dispensers; people talked about "buying" things, but most products for sale were so cheap that the dispensers only needed a fingerprint, and goods were dispensed automatically. There were, of course, people who prefer to make things by hand, to cook their own recipes imperfectly, with varying degrees of success. Most people she'd met had something they liked to do with their hands. Her hobby was special – a sleek Fender p-bass she'd named Odile rested on its stand back in her living room. She could never afford a bass outside her head, but she worked hard at it here, and derived satisfaction from the way she halted through the notes, her fingers growing calloused and rough, her progress tangible. Stores that sold people's handmade items, or restaurants with cooking from scratch, usually operated on a sort of barter system. Mostly shopowners wanted Valerie to put on a VR set, not a full one, just the headset, and concentrate on some scene they'd made. She assumed they were collecting memories for a sort of scrapbook; she never thought too much about the idea. She was used to taking things in without questions, suppressing and concealing any curiousity that arose. Even in a place as populated as the City, building contents were usually just backdrops for Valerie. She preferred to spend her time outdoors, or in her apartment.
She punched in an order for a coffee (caffeine seemed to be the City's drug of choice) and took it to a table in the corner, tiny but empty. She wished she knew if the person who'd flickered out of view was even in here, and if they were, who it was. She felt nervous, out of place, conspicuous. A little ridiculous even. Which was bad. If she didn't belong in the City, there was nowhere for her. The City was her refuge, her space. The City was why it was okay that she was so out of place in the real world. Why it didn't matter if she couldn't make friends, if she had no niche in the college or the world. She'd always drifted through, apart, and even before people knew her, they knew to give her space. People had a kind of sixth sense about who was an outcast. College wasn't very different from high school. There were more people, so it was less known that she had no social life; there were no rumors and whispers the way there had been in high school. But there was no one who paid her the slightest bit of attention, not really. Her roommate talked to her occasionally, but that was more a reflex; she was someone who couldn't help talking to whoever is at hand. She never ate with Valerie or offered to go study in the coffeeshop together.
Valerie didn't have much of a social life in her daydreams, but she did have something as precious, which was a sense of belonging. There were no whispers, no roomfuls of people instinctively giving her space. When she went for a walk, she didn't feel stupid or ugly or afraid. She felt quiet, and alone rather than lonely. If she met someone, going for a walk, say, or at a coffeeshop like this, they'd usually talk to her. There were no forced interactions, which made the world quieter and safer. But today that security seemed to have fled, along with her composure, along with her success at scraping by in the real world. Out there, she was locked up in a psych ward, and it felt like people knew. Like they were looking at her. She was so egotistical it was funny. Here she is sitting in a roomful of people she'd never met, and Valerie was imagining that they knew all her shameful secrets, that they were looking at her.
Disgusted with herself, Valerie jumped up, nearly tipping her chair over, and hurried outside, leaving her coffee on the table behind her. Outside the rain had slackened, and the drizzle was not satisfying the way the cold shocking rain had been. It was half-assed, indecisive. Being there, but not putting much effort into anything. Like Valerie.