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Authors: Nelou Keramati

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BOOK: The Fray Theory: Resonance
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“How old were you when you had
this dream?”

“I don’t know exactly. Five or six,
maybe?”

“And why were you so certain that
the dark figure by the pool was a woman?”

“Oh—well, at the time I had no
idea. It was just a dark figure. But
years
later, when I remembered the
dream again, I was pretty much convinced.”

“Why?” his gray eyes narrow, his question
pulling Neve inside herself. And she starts to relive the night when it all
came screaming back.

“A few years ago, I was at my best
friend’s party. A different best friend,” Neve clarifies. “It was before she moved
away to Paris. But anyway, her party had gotten way out of hand, so I snuck into
the backyard to get away from it all.”

The details of that night fill the
corners of Neve’s memory—the high-pitched chirping of crickets, and the biting
freshness of the night air… It was way past midnight, and the full moon was
brighter that she’d ever seen it.

“The water in the pool was black,”
she continues. “It was totally still. There wasn’t a single ripple or leaf
anywhere on the surface. And it was reflecting the moonlight like a mirror.”

She remembers wandering over to
the edge of the pool, struggling to see beyond the glossy threshold. And she
remembers wanting to crouch down and dip her hand into the black water—to break
through the reflective barrier and see into the depths.

But she didn’t dare.

Because no matter how hard she
tried to banish her doubts, she was convinced that something—that
someone
—was
lying just beneath the surface.

The memory of that night haunts her
to this day. Her breath is caught, her heart is pounding, and she is losing all
sensation in her hands.

Because that was the night it all
came full circle. The night Neve realized that the dark figure from her
childhood dream was in fact her older self.

With a sudden SNAP, the side legs
of the loveseat break under Neve’s weight. She slides sideways and crashes to
the floor, shattering the marble tile where her elbow lands.

“Are you alright?” Galen leaps out
of his chair and makes his way around the coffee table.

Neve remains frozen, absolutely
mortified. “I’m
so
sorry,” she rises to her feet with Galen’s
assistance, but her gaze remains fixed to the splintered tile. “I’ll pay for
it. And the couch—”

“It’s fine, just—are you okay?” he
gently rests his hand on Neve’s shoulder.

“Oh yes,” she looks up and meets
Galen’s gaze, his bright eyes filled with concern.

“Are you sure?” his creased brows
rise, deepening the lines in his forehead.

“Mmm hmm,” Neve nods a bit too
eagerly. “Really, it happens all the time. I’m so sorry.”

Galen takes a small step back and
stares at Neve with what she can only describe as…
heartbreak
? It makes
her feel uneasy. It’s the kind of look you give someone you love, not a
complete stranger who just broke your furniture.

“I should go,” Neve swoops down and
yanks her purse from under the collapsed loveseat.

“My next patient won’t be here for
another—”

“Thank you so much for squeezing
me in on such a short notice,” she smiles and heads for the door.

“Wait—hold on,” Galen strides over
and rests the palm of his hand on the door. The silver pen wedged between his fingers
clacks against the wood, making his interception feel all the more invasive.

Neve retracts her last step.

Registering her unease, Galen
swallows and takes his intensity down a notch. “Miss Knightly, you have opened
up to me about something very troubling. I can’t in all good conscience let you
leave without properly addressing it.”

Neve lingers, struggling to think
of a polite way to remove him from her path.

Galen takes advantage of the lull
and reaches into his vest’s pocket.

“Here—” he pulls out his business
card, clicks his pen, and starts to scribble something down. “This is my home
address. And this here… is my buzzer.” He hands the card to Neve. “I’m afraid
I’m booked solid for the next month or so, but you can come over to my home for
a private session. It’s on the house, of course. Say, tomorrow around noon?”

Sure
!
Do you want me to bring anything, or is your torture
dungeon fully stacked
? “That’s… very kind of you, but—”

“Miss Knightly. Neve—” he levels
with her, all his pretentions cast aside. “I know you think you have to live
with this, but you don’t.”

Neve’s focus sharpens as she tries
to read him.

“What exactly do you mean by
‘this’?”

“I’ll explain everything,” he
smiles. “Tomorrow.”

Chapter
11
Retrospect

Forty-odd
blocks south
of Galen’s office, Neve ventures onto Mountain View Cemetery. She walks a faded
stone walkway under a row of beautiful cherry blossoms, the shadows cast by their
branches gliding over her like black lace.

With a gust of
wind, tiny pink petals leap off the branches, chasing after the nonchalant
breeze like a pack of love-struck teenagers.

It is such a
spellbinding thing to behold, and yet Neve finds herself oddly disturbed by the
pink hue of the blossoms. It is as though the roots of the trees have quenched
their thirst with the blood of those lying six feet under.

How disrespectful
for spring to invite itself to a cemetery—where only distant memories are
capable of being revived. Memories of friends, foes, family, and strangers
alike. Of people we may have loved or loathed, but irrevocably lost. People
like Elli, whose grave beckons her from far in the distance, lonely and
inglorious.

Neve drifts off
the stony walkway and cuts across the open field littered with mismatched
tombstones.

She weaves
through them, skimming the names of people she will never know. It’s heartbreaking
how the weathered tombstones have
taken moss as their companion, and how the newer ones shine bright, oblivious
to how soon they too shall be forgotten.

And then there’s
Elli’s grave: a rectangular mound of earth, still too soft to crown with a
block of stone boasting an engraved cliché.

Though the cemetery is
barren, it is anything but peaceful as
Neve tries to shake the disturbing images in her head: of Elliot’s
cold body lying in a dark box. Of his pale, waxy face which will soon disintegrate
beyond recognition.

She wants to
scream. She wants to curse Elliot’s mom for burying him in a pretentious suit
he would have despised. For forcing Neve to stand idly by as they lowered Elliot’s
coffin into the ground against his dying wish. For having treated him as though
his body is no longer his.

σ

~Three Months Ago~

 

At
the front of the lecture hall stands Marcus Holt: one of the university’s most
revered professors, and the embodiment of Satan.

“Anyone?” Holt coaxes the
crowd. “
Anyone
want to venture a guess?”

When no one takes the
bait, Holt clasps his hands behind him and starts to pace the platform in his
elitist attire.

Neve can’t seem to stop
staring at his hair: thick, slick, and side-swept. He looks like he’s just
crawled out of a men’s magazine.

Douche
.

“Op—he’s doing his slo-mo runway
walk again,” Elliot whispers in her ear. “I bet you five bucks he’ll trip on
his scarf.” He bites down on his grin and glances in Holt’s direction.

“I’d gladly pay fifty to
see that happen,” she says.

“Show me the fifty.”

“Show me five.”

They both burst into an
inaudible chuckle. Or so they think. Because when Neve looks up, she is met
with Holt’s unblinking glare.

Her smile vanishes from
her lips.

“Miss Knightly?” Holt cocks
his head, luring her in with his raised brows. But Neve lowers her head and feigns
an apology with her silence.

Passive-aggressiveness may
not be her style, but it’s by far Holt’s least favorite form of dissent.

“The principle of déjà
vu—” Holt declares with a raised volume as he resumes his walk, “is actually
rather simple. Any time you experience something, the information is first
processed by the frontal lobe of your brain, and
then
stored as memory. But
there are times when the fatigued brain fails to process this information in
the correct order. As a result, you wind up remembering something
before
you
register that you’ve already seen it. So you experience seeing something
twice
.”

He stops center-stage and
faces his audience, but no gasps of utter bewilderment or standing ovations
ensue. Holt’s disappointment is evident even at this distance. All this picture
is missing is a tumbleweed rolling across the platform.

His chest deflates as he exhales.
“The lesson here? Perception is circumstantial,” he checks the time on his
watch. “This weekend’s assignment is out of body experiences—”

The entire class breaks
into a frenzy.

“Five pages, double-spaced,”
Holt raises his voice over the commotion, “no Wikipedia, I’ll know.”

He then looks directly at
Neve and holds her gaze for an uncomfortably long time, before proceeding to
pack up his belongings.

“Wh—” Neve’s jaw drops.

What the hell was that
?

“Don’t.” Elliot rises from
his seat.

“What?” she looks up at
him, having no clue what he’s talking about.

“Just let it go.”

“Did you not see that?”
she subtly points in Holt’s direction.

“See what?”

“He’s taunting me again.”


He is not
,” Elliot
grimaces. “You’re just looking for an excuse to start something with him.”

“You
do
know he’s a
horrible teacher, right?” her glare follows Holt out of the lecture hall’s
exit. “The university just keeps him around because of all his research, or
whatever.”

“The man
is
brilliant,” Elliot sighs longingly.

Neve looks up at him and
scoffs. “I cannot believe you’re taking his side.”

“Yeah… nice try,” Elliot
throws his backpack over his shoulder.

“What?”

“You’re not going to drag
me into this.”

“You’re already in it,”
she says. “We
all
are.”

“Let it go, Neve.”

“He gave me a
D
,
Elli.”

“You passed.”

She stares, baffled. “A
‘D’ is not even a valid grade in university. And he knows it! This is all just
a sick game to him!”

“You
passed
.
Seventy percent of the class didn’t.”

“Seventy-
three
percent.
And you’re only taking his side because he gave you a B+. You’re such a whore.”

“Okay,
one
: I don’t
think you actually understand how prostitution works. And
two
: you
expect me to just waltz into his office and start bitching about the highest grade
he’s ever dished out?”

“Could ya?” Neve grins.


HELL
no.”

“FINE!” she slides out of
her seat and begins to cram her belongings into her bag. “I’m not afraid of
him. And I don’t need you to fight my battles.”

“Hope you’ve updated your
will.”

σ

Neve’s
knock on Holt’s office door was so meek, she might as well have caressed the
damn thing.

“Yes?” Holt’s cold and
dispassionate voice oozes from the gaps in the doorway.

Neve takes a deep breath, forms
a small ‘o’ with her mouth, and shakily exhales the tension.
He’s just a
teacher
.
He has office hours for a reason
.

She grabs the knob, steels
herself, and enters.

Directly across from her, Holt
is sitting behind a shamelessly large wooden desk, grading the paper at hand
with palpable indifference.

Neve’s grip of her graded
assignment tightens as she approaches Holt with small steps. She waits at the
head of his desk, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Instead, he remains preoccupied
as though she’s not even there.

He reaches for a red
sharpie, uncaps it, and draws a thick ‘C-’ in the middle of the page.

As he casts the paper
aside onto his amassing pile of disappointments, Neve wonders how he sleeps at
night having spent the day stomping on his students’ aspirations.

He snaps the cap back onto
the sharpie and puts it down. He then intertwines his fingers, leans onto his
elbows, and looks up at Neve for the first time.

“What can I do for you?”

Suddenly, she’s aware of
how dry her mouth is.

“Hi. Um—” she swallows, “I
was hoping to discuss my grade on last week’s assignment.”

“Which was?”

The cup size I wish I
had
… “D.”

Holt nods as though
expecting her to continue. “I’m assuming you’re not satisfied with that?”

It’s not even a grade,
you bitch
. “Well, no,” she says
with a bit of hesitation. “It’s a well-written paper.”

Holt’s gaze jumps to the
corner of the room. “And, you’re qualified to make that assessment?” He blinks
a slow blink and drags his focus back onto her.

“Well—you asked us to
think outside the box. To propose a new—”

“Ah ah—” Holt holds up the
palm of his hand. “Let me stop you right there.”

Neve cranes her neck back,
utterly dumbfounded.

“Do you have any idea how
many of these I mark every term?” he points at the pile of graded papers.

Neve squares her
shoulders. “Hundreds?”


Thousands
.”

“It’s your job,” she says,
and then watches as the last remnants of civility drain from Holt’s face.

“Miss Knightly—” he leans
back in his chair, “I’ve been doing this a long time. Long enough to be able to
differentiate between a provocative assertion and asinine drivel. Often with just
one glance. And since grading is subjective, I’d appreciate you letting
me
be the judge of the quality of your work.”

“The quality of my work is
impeccable.”

“Impeccable!” he laughs. “Wow.
Now that is a
big
word. Here—” he reaches out, “hand me your paper and
I’ll add a little ‘plus’ to your D.”

Neve’s blood is boiling.
Even if her work
is
subpar in Holt’s eyes, there is no need for him to humiliate
her by calling it ‘drivel’.

Whatever the hell
that
means.

“With all due respect,
professor, you don’t need to be so—” she hesitates, treading with more caution.

“Yes?”

Don’t do it. DON’T DO
IT
. “Condescending.”
Fuck
.

Holt’s eyes narrow, a
faint smile creeping onto his lips. “Are you sure you’re in the right program? You
might want to consider switching majors to Creative Writing. Or Poetry.”

“I’m happy with the field
I’ve chosen,” Neve says, sounding far too rehearsed.

“Yes, well, Cognitive
Neuroscience is exactly that:
science
. You’re not here to romanticize a
bunch of groundless assumptions, dress them up in ten-dollar words, and get an ‘A’
for effort.”

“So you agree. It’s not
the
quality
of my work, it’s the perspective that I’ve—”

“Perspective has no place
in science.”

“I humbly disagree.”

“Miss Knightly, there’s
absolutely nothing humble about you. And in case I’m being too vague, that was
not a compliment.”

Don’t let him see you
sweat
.

“Science is falsified all
the time,” she says. “There was a time when the brightest minds in the world believed—”

“Science—” Holt interjects,
“is reality: quantified.”

“Reality is relative.”

“No. It isn’t. And that’s
the whole point. There is only
one
reality and
infinite
possibilities. And science concerns itself with what
is
, not what
could
be
.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Your grade is final,” he pulls
another assignment off his stack. “You may close the door behind you.”

σ

~Today~

 

At
the opposite end of the cemetery, Romer sits by himself in front of a weathered
tombstone. He reads ‘
Mason Bradley – Loving son and brother
’, and takes
a painful gulp from the beer bottle he snuck onto the premises.

It’s quiet today. Way too quiet.
It almost feels like there is no ‘rest of the world’. But then again, given
where he is, that’s probably appropriate.

“You know that line?” Romer
finds himself saying, his deep voice straining through the tightness in his
throat. “That fine line between,
it’ll never happen to me
and,
I can never
take it back
?” He reaches out and runs his fingertips over Mason’s engraved
name. “It’s been strangling me like a wire,” he wells up despite his best
efforts, “and I just don’t know what to do.”

 

BOOK: The Fray Theory: Resonance
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