Well, hard work was what Elle did. She’d done it for free before, and being paid for it felt like a bonus.
Darryl hadn’t always been a model citizen, and once he understood she had no real ID, he got to work with his contacts in the underground and soon she had legitimate ID as Elle Connelly, California resident.
She enrolled as a part time student in City College and aced all the courses, not realizing how incredibly starved she’d been of intellectual stimulation. By the time she got her master’s in biology she had three offers of a full scholarship to Stanford. Darryl always said that he was glad his momma lived long enough to see her graduate. Cora had been there, beaming, in her wheelchair at the graduation ceremony.
In college she could no longer ignore her Dreams, and by the time she got to Stanford she had a professional interest in them. There seemed to be an unofficial group interested in the neurological underpinnings of paranormal abilities, and to her astonishment, a huge multinational pharmaceutical corporation swooped in and funded an official research group. A functional MRI scan showed that the research subjects shared certain commonalities
Like Sophie, Elle signed up as guinea pig and researcher, and found that many of the researchers had a hotspot in their heads, and abilities they’d learned to keep secret. But they were all very keen on the project and worked long hours, like Elle herself.
This was the fourth time she’d actually put herself into a controlled Dream state during the day, and each time it was utterly exhausting. Clearly, when she Dreamed at night, her body had time during sleep to recoup its energies. Blood tests showed a depletion in red blood cells after each Dream.
Sophie came back in, handing her another glass of ice water, casually touching her arm. Sophie didn’t touch people much. Elle had noticed that. And like herself, Sophie didn’t date much. Sophie’s hand on her arm was warm, unusually so, and she held on as Elle downed the tall glass of water.
By some trick, the warm hand and the cold water seemed to revive her. A little. Enough to smile at Sophie and pretend she was much better.
“Thanks.” She smiled, and the worry lines in Sophie’s face smoothed out. She lifted her hand and Elle immediately felt the cold.
She suspected Sophie was a healer, but understood completely if she wanted to keep it secret for now. But Sophie had the same hot spot in her brain that everyone else in the program had.
“You okay to get home?” Sophie frowned at her, her hand hovering, clearly wondering if she should surreptitiously touch Elle again. “Do you want me to drive you? I could pick you up tomorrow morning and drive you back in.”
“Didn’t you say you had some work at home to finish up tomorrow morning?”
“Well…yes. But nothing I can’t put off.”
Elle stacked her spine. She felt weak and groggy but she was not going to make Sophie drive in tomorrow morning just for her. “No, I’m fine. See you tomorrow afternoon in the lab, okay?”
Another searching gaze and Sophie relaxed. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
After she left, Elle sat for another ten minutes, then realized she had to get herself home now or sleep over in the lab. It wouldn’t be the first time. But right now, she fiercely wanted her little apartment, its familiarity and its comforts.
Elle made it home before collapsing. Just. She walked straight through the door, made a beeline for the couch, dropped purse and briefcase on the floor, and fell onto it, rather than sitting down. She tilted her head back, trying to let the past 24 hours wash over her.
She had to take a shower and she had to eat, but right now, she was too exhausted to do anything but sit there, staring at the ceiling.
It reminded her of her first year in San Francisco, waitressing by day, attending night courses. She’d been younger, though, and stronger. And excited at the thought of getting her degree. Back in San Francisco, she was still fueled by the energy of exploring the world after so many years in a state of stasis looking after her father. She’d imagined she would finally start…life. Study, find a job she loved and a man she could love. Start a family, just like everyone else.
The study and the job had worked out. The family, not so much.
Actually, she hadn’t had much of a love life. To be brutally honest, she hadn’t had any kind of love life.
When she looked in the mirror, she saw an attractive woman. Judging by the way men reacted to her, she knew she was attractive to men. In the beginning she went on tons of dates, with every guy who asked her out. She was anxious to start dating because what Nick had shown her was so enticing, she knew she wanted more of it.
Except it seemed that the sex she’d had with Nick was exclusive to him. To her horror, nobody came even close to making her feel the way he did. Elle had actually felt repulsion with a lot of guys, not even wanting to be touched.
She wasn’t gay, so that was out. She was a heterosexual lock and the one key that opened her was gone, forever. So she came home every night to her pretty, tiny apartment and tried not to wish that she were not so relentlessly alone.
She was so tired she fell asleep, right as she was, on the couch, with her coat on. And dreamed.
It was that day again. She’d relived it endlessly over the past ten years.
After months of cold gray weather, it was finally sunny again. The sun shone off the snow and lit her bedroom with a brilliant light that glowed even behind closed lids.
She smiled, yawned, stretched. Dramatically threw the covers back.
Smiled some more. Her body felt sore, used, great. Warm from Nick’s touch still. Warm. She was warm down to her bones. Warm and—and light. A great heavy burden had been lifted and she could move with ease.
She opened her eyes and looked at the rumpled bed, the folds of the sheets and covers making dramatic lights and shadows in the brilliant morning light. Things gleamed in her bedroom, the bright sun catching glints in a silver vase, the mirror over the vanity, the brass lamp.