“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t want to be the clown anymore. I want to be the hero. I want the crowds to cheer me, not laugh at me. I just want… ” He groped for the words. “Respect.”
“How does it feel?”
“That’s what I can’t handle. Every time I go out there in those goddamned purple tights, I feel like I’ve betrayed myself.”
“You want to be a hero.” Her eyes shone at him. “You are a hero. I saw what you did in there. I saw the way you faced those monsters. I’ve never seen anything more heroic than that. How can you say you’re not a hero?”
But it’s not real! How crazy…?
It’s as real as you let it be.
He closed his eyes, and let her words sink in. He was a hero. Underneath all of the flab, beneath the memories of jeering crowds.. “So I don’t have to be all muscle?”
“Silly.” She slapped his hand lightly, held it to her cheek.
Then she dropped it. Their eyes locked. The contact became entirely too intense. Max saw something, someone else behind those eyes. “Who are you?” he whispered.
She broke the gaze and turned away. “Eviane.”
“Who is Michelle?”
“Michelle?” Her expression became vague again, questioning. “Michelle is… someone who needs me. Someone I let down.”
Max touched her cheek. It was warm, and firm. The tip of his finger painted a little heart there with melted snow.
It was just the two of them in the little overhang. Max saw some of the others (was that Trianna?) running and playing, absorbed in their break time, running out sore muscles, sharing their fantasies.
And here he was, with this fragile, powerful girl. She burned with such energy and seemed so terribly weary. She pushed her cheek against his hand, and made a sound in her throat very like a muffled sob. He took her chin in his other hand, and tilted it up, until their faces were only a bare inch apart, just a fraction, just a breath of frosty air separating them. They were sharing the same breath of air now, and then her eyelashes, moist with melted snow and eyes shiny with repressed tears, closed slowly. She tilted her face forward.
Kissing her was like kissing an artless child.
Their eyes met, and then hers lowered. “I’m sorry. I’m really please forgive me.”
“For what? There’s nothing to forgive.” He could feel her contracting into herself like a hermit crab. It disturbed him.
“I’m so ashamed. If you knew me. If you really knew me.” She looked up at him, trembling. She kept trying to be strong. To be Eviane. Untouchable, unflappable. A woman who could stare down monsters and fight demons from Thunderbird-back.
He tried to smooth her hair. “We’re all here to heal,” he said, as softly as he could.
“It’s so hard. I feel so guilty.”
“I heard something once that helped me through a lot of bad times. It was written by a man named Neal Birt. He said, ‘The only way we can be perfect is to be perfectly willing.’ You’re willing, Eviane, or you wouldn’t be here. If you let Michelle down, or if Michelle let you down, you have to be willing to forgive each other, and get on with life. Things don’t always turn out the way you want them to.”
“Just like that?” Her voice was wondering. “You can forgive yourself just that easily?”
“Hahaha! No. Sorry. But I sure love it when someone holds me and reminds me that it can be that easy.”
“And how often is that?”
“Not often enough,” he admitted.
Not nearly often enough.
She looked up at him. “Max,” she said shyly. “Could we… try that kiss again?”
“Hey, it was fine the first time-”
“Oh, well, then.”
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”
She must have missed the lessons on banter. She only kissed him. But this time there was both child and woman in her kiss, and her arms tightened around him…
Outside in Dream Park’s winter wonderland, the light was fading, but here, in their ice cave, amid small, tremulous gaspings and the rustle of unneeded, unwelcome clothing, a special kind of light was coming up.
And it was just exactly as warm as they needed it to be.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Outside the snow might have been howling, but inside the ice cave it was comfortably warm, warmed even more by the unexpected circumstance of a warm-water spring. The cave was half the size of a football field, with vaulted ceilings that sparkled with meter-long icicles.
Yarnall was doing laps in the spring. Charlene had never really noticed, but his lean dark body was actually quite nice, probably the best among the Adventurers. At Falling Angel only first-comers carried muscle like that. If Yarnall hadn’t been so intense and serious, she might have been interested.
A flash of pain shattered her train of thought.
“Did that hurt?” Oliver let a little air pressure out of the pneumatic bandage on her knee.
“I’ll be all right.” She gritted her teeth. Her knees ached, but there was no swelling, and no grinding, and she was damned if she was going to let a little pain get between her and what she hoped was going to be a memorable evening.
Trianna Stith-Wood and Johnny Welsh dove in tandem. Water splashed high and far. They bobbled up laughing and spitting warm water, playful as seal pups. “Race you!” Trianna yelled, splashing a palmful of water into Johnny’s face.
“What’s the wager?” he said mischievously.
“What do you want?” she asked. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then he pushed off and thrashed across the pool.
“ I am a follower of Cthulhu And I lead a mad horde Searching everywhere for our vanished Overlord… But though we need him more than want him, Still we’ll have him for all time When his city of Rl’yeh Ascends from the sliiimmme!”
Snow Goose-Gwen-was leading the other Gamers in a series of rousing, bawdy songs. Orson Sands’s voice was surprisingly high and sweet, though it broke occasionally. She sighed. Orson might have been interesting, but the Hippogryph wasn’t letting anyone close.
He was her personal bloodhound, and a dear boy. She wished he would be less protective, or else make a move on her himself. There was something about this Dream Park that got her hormones running.
The environments within Falling Angel were designed for survival and for work. One could lose oneself in the thousand little necessities of life, software and momentum and radiation shielding and recycling of toilet paper, and forget that human beings need more than air, water, and food to be whole.
Then again, Charlene Dula was Ambassador Arbenz’s niece. She was damned rich, and that kept a lot of the men at bay. And there was her height…
What it boiled down to was a set of teen-aged nerves in a twenty-five-year-old body.
“There. I think that’s all we need.” Ollie slapped the side of her knee gently.
“And aside from the knee, how am I doing?”
“Everything is fine, hon.” Ollie cocked his head at her. “My professional opinion is that with plenty of sleep, and the help of your calcium supplements, we’d have your muscular and skeletal system up to Earth normal in about two months. But you’re handling the stress just fine. Now-go and have fun.”
“Doctor’s orders?” Married, he was. Just testing “Doctor’s orders.”
She pushed herself up and tested the knee carefully, walked over to the campfire by the side of the spring.
There had been plenty of driftwood available for a fire, much to nobody’s surprise. In Dream Park, the Gods provided. The Adventurers circled the bonfire, clapping, drinking fruit juice, and finishing their dinners. Two paid special attention to her approach: Hippogryph/Marty, and Snow Goose/Gwen.
Gwen’s face lit up. She asked, “Is Ollie all finished with you?”
“So he says.”
“Good. Kevin?”
Kevin had been keeping an eye on the spring, watching Trianna and Johnny cavorting. Those two climbed out of the water now. They dried each other primly, but shared the same towel. Johnny wound it into a rope and snapped the tip at Trianna’s bottom. She squealed and ran jiggling to the firelight.