Some Quiet Place

terrified, and she jumps off me, disappearing into the thick of the lights. The fireflies grow more frenzied, bright blurs of movement. I frown, sensing a disturbance. It isn’t until I feel a cool breath on my cheek and feel him pressed against my shoulder that I identify the reason for their anxiety. Oh. I should have known.
    I keep my eyes on Joshua. A boy that I’ve known all my life, a boy that has always watched over me from afar. He’s smiling at me, motioning to join him. He doesn’t see Fear, of course. I don’t move.
    “You almost look as if you feel something for him,” Fear whispers, folding his arms around my waist from behind. His chest is hard against my back, his skin like marble. He rests his chin on the top of my head. “But I know that can’t be right. After all, you don’t care about anything, right?”
    His hands are on me. The touch makes the wall of nothingness shudder, makes me think of those kisses and that brief minute in the hallway when I’d yearned to do it again. Despite this, I allow his touch. Maybe he’ll tell me about the party. “That’s correct.”
    He chuckles bitterly. “I never realized how stubborn you are. You hid it better when you were small.” When I don’t answer, Fear shifts so that Joshua is blocked from my view. I finally look up at him. “Well, at least I know that if you can’t feel anything for me, you can’t feel anything for him, either,” he says in a low voice, his eyes burning into mine. After a moment he turns away to watch the fireflies too, his brow furrowed. He tries to hide his feelings from me, but I sense the turmoil inside him, a swirling mass of dark and light that constantly war with each other. In the midst of all of it is me.
    Did … did part of me want him back, during that brief moment in the school hallway when the wall crumbled?
    No. That couldn’t be. “You’ve been avoiding me,” I say in an effort to direct my thoughts in a more practical direction. “At the party—”
    He sighs. “I won’t answer your questions about that night, Elizabeth. There are some things a human shouldn’t know. Even a human like you.”
    In the distance, an owl calls, a tenor that’s gentle and luring. A symphony. Fear smiles now. “May I have this dance?” He doesn’t try to hide his feelings as he gazes down at me. His hands are freezing on my arms. Our frozen hearts are so similar. Too similar.
    “Dance with me, Elizabeth?”
    Joshua has come back. Once again he holds his hand out for me to take. His warm, rough, real hand. Courage chooses this moment to appear, and without saying a word to me or looking at Fear, he grasps the back of Joshua’s neck.
    I look at Fear, then Joshua, then at those lights floating in swirling masses. I clench my fists. I hide, I protect, I pretend .
    I feel Joshua on my right, a balmy, solid presence, and Fear on my left, wintry and impossible. One human, what I should yearn for, and one from another world, part of the plane that has put me in this position. Just being near him makes my own world seem unreachable and surreal.
    Surreal is dangerous.
    I don’t look at Fear. My fingers are so light as they wrap around Joshua’s hand, and I try to say with my eyes what I can’t with my mouth. I choose you.
    Sophia has finally decided how to exact her revenge. I can tell by the way she keeps sneaking glances back at me, a catty smile curving her glossed lips. Her fingers caress the cast around her wrist, apparently from when I grabbed and sprained it. I keep my head down, debating on the best course of action to take: avoidance or endurance. Confrontation is probably not an option; I don’t want another repeat of what I did to her the night of her party.
    Joshua also looks back at me, but for another reason entirely. I’d guess he’s uncertain about how I’ll act today, in the aftermath of last night. Sleeping and dreams have strengthened my nothingness, yet there’s still something deep down inside of me that stirs. Something deep down inside of me that can’t stop thinking about Fear and the look in his eyes as I danced with Joshua. I’d done exactly what I’d set out to do: discourage him. Why, then, does the memory of his expression hound me?
    “ … read the chapters I’ve assigned you,” Mrs. Farmer is instructing the class. The bell rings as she speaks, and everyone gets to their feet, gathering their books and leaving the classroom as quickly as possible.
    Sophia darts out the