UnSouled

He snaps his eyes to her, wondering if Lev told her about the ostrich—but nothing in her expression gives away whether she said it intentionally or if it’s only a coincidence. He can’t say anything about it, though, because if he did, she’d probably insist that there are no coincidences.

“He feels safe here,” insists Una. “Protected. He needs that.”

“If you’re his protector,” Co

Una looks away, and Co

“Don’t flatter yourself,” says Una, still stinging from his jab. “Your legend might be larger than life, but you’re no bigger than the rest of us.” Then she storms off so quickly, Co

•   •   •

That night he lay in bed, his thoughts and associations spilling into one another, a product of his exhaustion. The small stone room feels more like a cell, in spite of how comfortable the bed is.

Perhaps it’s just because he’s an outsider, but to Co

It makes Co

So what will it take to make everyone turn and look?

Co

With the impossible weight of the world on their shoulders, how tempting it must be for Lev to imagine disappearing here. But not for Co

“You’re an excitable boy,” his father used to say when he was little. It was a parent’s euphemism for a kid out of control. A kid uncomfortable in his own skin. Eventually his parents weren’t comfortable keeping him in his skin either and signed the dread unwind order.

He wonders when they truly made the decision to unwind him. When did they stop loving him? Or was lack of love not the issue? Were they co

That’s what they call it. “Disunification disorder,” a term probably coined by Proactive Citizenry to describe a teen who feels like they want to be anywhere else but where they are and in anyone else’s shoes. But who doesn’t feel like that now and then? Granted, some kids feel it more than others. Co

Co

He can’t imagine what it would be like to have an entire body wired to wish damage on everyone and everything around it. Sure, Co

Sometimes, when he knows no one’s watching or listening, Co

“You’re a basket case, you know that?” he’ll say, when the hand won’t stop clenching. Occasionally he’ll give himself the finger and laugh. He knows the impetus for the gesture is his, but imagining that it’s Roland’s is both satisfying and troublesome at the same time, like an itch that gets worse with each scratch.

Once, at the Graveyard, Hayden had slipped Co

“Make me whole again, so I can beat the crap out of you,” it said, and, “Bust a few noses; it’ll make you feel better,” and “Spank the monkey with your own damn hand.”

But the one that keeps coming back is “Make it mean something, Akron.”

What exactly did the shark mean by “it”? Did it mean Roland’s unwinding? Roland’s life? Co

Roland’s fury at his parents had been far more directed than Co

Make it mean something . . . .

The fury that Co

Why did they do it?

How did they make the decision?

And most important: What would they say to him now if they knew he was alive . . . and what would he say back?

He’s rushing to Ohio to find Sonia, but in the back of his mind, Co

So he furiously tosses and turns in a luxurious bed, in a Spartan room, emotionally unwinding himself with his own ambivalence.

26 • Lev

Lev knows staying on the rez ticks off Co

“You can stay as long as you want to,” Elina had told him.

Pivane, on the other hand, was a little more practical. “You can stay as long as you need.” So the question is—how much of Lev’s desire to stay is need, and how much is want?