Fake by Francine Pascal Page B

had to get home. She had to contact D. and make sure he was all right.“Uh . . . you know, I think I should probably head back to the boardinghouse.”
    His face fell. “But I thought you liked it here. I thought I was helping you get over all the stuff you’ve been through.”
    â€œYou have. Really,” she insisted, desperate to spare his feelings. “It’s just that . . . if I stay away two nights in a row, Suko will probably freak. She won’t buy the staying-at-a-girlfriend’s-house excuse two nights in a row. And if she panics too much, she might even call my dad.”
    The more she lied and exaggerated, the more a mucky, greasy sensation spread over her. She was grotesque, awful. She should jump in the bathtub again and soak away the layer of crap she’d just dumped on herself. Wash away her sins.
    Skyler didn’t deserve this, but there was no way she could tell him about D. without unraveling the whole insane snarl that was her life.
    â€œYou’re right,” he said with a resigned nod. “I’ve kept you long enough.”
    He seemed so disappointed, Gaia was tempted to call the whole thing off and stay over again. And if it wasn’t for the memory of D.’s innocent face haunting her every thought, she would have.
    I’ll make it up to you, Skyler, she thought as she slipped on her jacket. Somehow.

GAIA
    I have a term for this state I’m in: fearsickness.
    That has to be it. I’ve never been carsick or airsick or hardly even sick sick, but lately I just feel . . . fearsick. Like I’ve been poured over ice, splashed with a jigger of fear, and shaken until well blended. And my body and mind haven’t stopped spinning yet.
    I’m even afraid of being afraid. My fear is so ever present that I can’t remember what it was like to be fearless. I do recall that I was intensely unhappy. That’s what drove me to have the procedure done in the first place. But was it worse than this? I just don’t know.
    I guess I thought that by getting the fear gene, I’d be gaining something. But instead it feels more like I’ve lost something.
    What? you ask.
    Well, my sense of direction, apparently. Ever since the firstwave of panic and terror hit my nervous system, I’ve felt lost. I still know my way around the city, but I find the whole crushing, ominous sprawl of traffic and buildings overwhelming. Even sitting in a room with people is disorienting. I find myself questioning every move I make or phrase I utter, wondering how it will make me look.
    Also, I seem to have lost my voice. My inner voice. You know? That internal dialogue you have with yourself that goes something like, “Psychobabble, psychobabble, yadda, yadda, yadda”? In my case it was more like, “Screw the world. Who cares? Whatever. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”
    Only that voice is quiet now. It must have choked on fear and died. All I hear in its place is an uninterrupted whimpering. I just don’t know how to talk to myself and make myself buy it. It’s a really lonely feeling.
    So that’s me. Aimless, hopeless, and horrifically spineless.I’m just a quivery globule of fears. A booger beneath the bus seat of life.
    And now Skyler says he needs me.
    Weird.
    He says we need each other—that we were meant to be together. And while I can definitely see how I’ve been benefiting from our arrangement, I can’t see what he gets out of it. Maybe he really feels this is part of his destiny—that he was somehow meant to find me.
    The more I think about it, the more I realize that no one else in my life truly needs me. Not my AWOL dad. Not Ed anymore. Not Sam. Definitely not the FOHs. Jake only needs the drama and intrigue my life supplies. And Loki would say he needs me, but it’s only as part of some grand, malicious scheme.
    Maybe no one has ever needed me. I’ve been liked, perhaps even loved