Page 37 of Poster Girl

Cara sighs.

“Hard, sometimes,” she says, and she brings her mug up to her lips again. “He’s angry. Hates us, sometimes. Hates us less, other times.”

She smiles down into her empty mug. “But it’s like... I had something wrapped around my chest that whole time, keeping me from breathing.” Her lip wobbles, just a little. “I can breathe now.”

The boy is smaller in the window now, just a red smudge on the glass. Sonya drains the mug of tea.

When Sonya sets out for the train station, Sam is outside, kicking rocks ahead of him in the road. She keeps her head down as she passes him. His jeans are too short, his white socks showing above his ankles. He has his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“What did you want with my mom?” he says, and she stops.

His eyes go straight to the Insight, and then skip to the rest of her face, her clothes, her shoes.

“I needed some help with something,” she says. “Something your mom knows about.”

“Oh.” He taps his right temple. He has a scar there, darker, almost purple. Newer than most. “You haven’t gotten it taken out yet?”

“No,” she says.

“Why not?”

“I’m not allowed to.”

He frowns. “I thought they were bad.”

“I think that’s the point.”

“So... you’re being punished?” he says, and she nods. “For what?”

Sonya doesn’t answer.

“She told me to stay out of the house while you were there,” Sam says. “I figured it was because she wanted to talk about me. Sometimes I wonder if she wants to get rid of me.”

“She doesn’t,” Sonya says, frowning. “Why would you think that?”

He shrugs. “We fight a lot.”

“You’re getting to know each other.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“She doesn’t want to get rid of you,” Sonya says again. “She loves you.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“You don’t need to know someone to love them,” Sonya says.

He narrows his eyes at her.

“It’s true,” she says, and she keeps walking toward the train station.

Later Sonya stands at the Aperture gate with a newspaper tucked under one arm. She found it left behind on the HiTrain and grabbed it, though she doesn’t remember much else about the journey. She can’t stop picturing Sam in the road, kicking rocks.Sometimes I wonder if she wants to get rid of me.What a thing for a child to think about his mother, she thinks, and she realizes she’s been waiting for a few minutes now without having scanned her badge.

Behind her, a group of men at the corner store drink from darkbottles. They haven’t noticed her yet. She takes her security pass from her pocket and holds it up to the scanner.

The pupil of the gate dilates large enough for her to walk through. She hurries through it, and she’s just past the guard station when she hears her name.

“Ms. Kantor!”

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