She thought that if this was all that would happen for the rest of her life, she would be safe, but sad, wheelchair rooted to the spot, growing vines and shedding operating systems. She knows a lot about the habits of gratitude, though it was forced on her only slightly more lightly than Christ upon most of her ancestors, she was happier when she practiced it diligently. She wonders if she has been really happy since she got on the people-mover, which, at some point, stopped moving for her, and she doesn’t know what to do besides sit, and sometimes take out a notebook to jot snarky things about the young and pretty people who reach their destinations. It’s not enough, but nobody but Erika expected that she’d make it here, just like when she was the third-grader who read like the sixth grader, only it’s hard to skip ahead in the twenty-seventh grade.
Her friend, in another state and state of mind, looking back over a life to which she may not fully return, as if at a happy childhood or at heaven. What would that be like? To yearn so fiercely for what you already have? Maybe she wanted to stay in third grade that much, but there were no vows exchanged. Only really crazy people said that watching Erika in third grade gave them hope so that was a natural, unnatural motion. Like standing on the people-mover at O’Hare Airport, except with time to fight with her brother and get clothes and haircuts only slightly behind the style, like all knock-offs.
Who would be hurt if they both got what they needed? Maybe there’s no catching up, but some filling out? Maybe the wolf could leave her friend’s door, find some rabbit whose name she didn’t know.
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