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But memories were playing way too large a role in Ed's life these days. He was getting stuck on memories. All kinds of them. Memories of good old Shred on his board, who couldn't have cared less about anything but a good jump and enough money for fries at the McDonald's on
Broadway, memories of his freshman year with Heather, when it had all been about the scruffiest skate rat at school going out with the most stunningly gorgeous princess. And then, of course, there was that other girl. The angriest, darkest, most screwed-up girl that he had ever had the pleasure of eating doughnuts with.

But that really felt like another life now. All of it did. It felt far away. It felt gone. And that feeling—the feeling of loss—was starting to kill Ed's usual life buzz far too often these days. So he was counting on the park to bring the buzz back. He was counting on the shafts of late day sun that cut through the trees. He was counting on the slight smell of green coming from the long branches hanging over his bench on the west side of the path.

But he hadn't counted on the glimpse of her tangled hair out of the corner of his eye. No, he hadn't counted on that. He hadn't counted on seeing her forceful strides as she walked into the MacDougal entrance of the park and moved closer and closer to his bench. What could be a quicker way to send him falling back into a world of buzz-killing memories than to see Gaia Moore herself?

After yesterday's little fiasco of a conversation, Ed had honestly hoped not to run into Gaia again for a while. A long while. He far preferred to hang on to the pleasant memories of their past and flush their new crappy-ass dynamic right down the toilet. He'd
learned his lesson while trying to pass on Heather's message yesterday. He had learned that distance and avoidance with Gaia were
unquestionably
the right way to go. The simplest bit of contact just brought back memories of their entire past, and it made their present feel like a goddamn trip to the dentist for a root canal minus the novocaine. Gaia's troubles were her own. They were none of Ed's business now. And his troubles were
his
own. None of
her
business. And that was going to be the basic scheme of things from here on in.

Ed really wished that Gaia would just walk right by him right now. He wished she would walk straight through to the center of the park and right through the arch and out of sight. He was sure that was what she was going to do. But as usual with Gaia Moore, Ed had it all wrong. Instead, she marched straight up to his bench. And she sat down right next to him.

This was not distance. This was not avoidance. This was just deeply and painfully uncomfortable. Ed could not even locate the words for a civil salutation. But Gaia Moore surprised him yet again. She surprised him with an inexplicably kind tone and an ease that she had not displayed around him in weeks and weeks. It was downright bizarre.

“I know,” she said. It was a strange first thing to say, but somehow, in Gaia's case, it fit. She stared out at West Fourth Street as they sat side by side in the sun. “I know it's all completely screwed up, Ed. Why am I sitting
here right now? What am I doing here after that ridiculously crappy encounter yesterday? I know.”

“I didn't say anything,” Ed replied. He focused on a group of little kids across the path, giggling at the tops of their lungs as they chased each other in tiny circles with bright orange water guns. He had to focus on something other than her face. Because, goddamn her, she still looked so freaking exquisite. He'd glimpsed it once already and that had been enough. The tiny beige freckles on the edges of her nose, the ten different shades of blond dancing over her face in the breeze, the crayon blue color of her eyes when she sat in the sun. . . it was all such a miserable pain in his ass.

“It's a mess, Ed,” she said. “Our whole thing—the whole thing; it's just a hideous, unwatchable car wreck.”

“Hey, don't candy-coat it for me,” Ed said.

“You're right,” she muttered. “That doesn't do it justice, does it?”

The kids upped the stakes by leaping on top of and under the benches, ducking for cover and jumping down into huge clumsy tumbles in the dirt. Ed was jealous. Jealous and painfully curious to know why Gaia had sat down next to him on this bench and begun something very closely resembling a conversation.

Cut to the chase, Fargo. Cut to the chase and move on. . . .

“Is this about Heather?” he asked. There was next to no inflection in his voice.

“No.” She sighed. “No, this—it's about me, Ed.” With that, she made an abrupt move to face him on the bench, shoving her knee up on the seat and hanging her arm over the back. Ed suddenly felt that he had no choice but to face her, too. To stay facing outward would have felt too childish, like some kind of sulking little kid instead of the man he was—a man who was
perfectly
capable of having a polite and functional conversation with his ex-everything.

Yeah. You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you can at least get
her
to buy it.

But the moment he turned to face her, he realized that something really was different this time. Something in her eyes, and therefore something in his, too. Their eyes locked and things just changed. Like that.

Not that the violins swelled. Not that a chorus of sopranos started warbling in the background or anyone began moving in slow motion. It wasn't that. It wasn't romantic. It was just. . . okay. For the first time in so long, Gaia and Ed were face-to-face and it was somehow okay. Why? Ed had no idea. There was no clear-cut reason really, no rational explanation. Ed only knew that he had no desire to screw it up or sabotage it, because it had sent an overwhelming sense of relief flooding through his chest. Like he had been immersed underwater for weeks and had finally gotten his first taste of oxygen. There were no smiles exchanged, no
unnecessary apologies. But there was air and there was quiet. Like someone had just smacked the radio and gotten rid of the excruciating static that had been poisoning every one of their previous exchanges.

“I'm not really—” Gaia cut herself off. She seemed displeased with her start, and so she began again. “Ed, I want to ask you something. And. . . it won't really make any sense. And I won't really be able to make it any clearer if you ask me to. But I still want to ask it.”

Ed raised a brow in confusion. “What's going on?”

“Don't worry, it's not—look, just skip over the weirdness, okay? The only way this conversation is going to work is if you just skip over the weirdness and listen.”

Ed had no response to that, clever or otherwise. He was sure he could find it in his heart to skip over the weirdness, except for the fact that each word out of her mouth only seemed to get weirder.

“Why don't you just tell me what's on your mind,” he suggested. “Because you're kind of freaking me out right now.”

“I'm trying to tell you,” she said. “Just. . . just bear with me.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Ed, if. . . if I wanted to do something drastic. Something drastic that could really change my life—that could really make me. . . you know. . . happy. But it would mean that I'd be. . . different. I mean, different forever. Then do you think I'd be making the right choice?”

Ed cocked his head. “Gaia. . . are you speaking in code or something?”

“No,”
she snapped. “Jesus, Ed. No, I'm not speaking in code. I just can't be
specific,
that's all. Is that a
problem
for you?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Ed shot back. “Now you're yelling at me? What the hell is the matter with you? First you walk up out of nowhere, drop down next to me on this bench like we're suddenly good buddies again or something, and then you throw all these weird Martian disclaimers at me, and then you start speaking in code. And now you're
pissed
at me?”

“I
told
you that it wouldn't make sense, Ed. That was the first thing I said.”

“Since when are we even speaking, Gaia?”

“Since yesterday.”

“Yesterday? You call that speaking? That was not speaking; that was something else. That was, like, a failed UN peace conference or something. Everybody speaking different languages and no one even wanting to speak in the first place.”

“Fine, then we're speaking now, okay? Now we're speaking.”

“Why?
Why now? Why are you speaking to me right now? Why are you here?”

“Because I
trust
you, Ed! Because you are the only person I. . . Because you are the only person. . . who
knows me. . . really.” Gaia dropped both her legs back down on the ground and turned away from Ed.

If she'd been looking for a way to shut him up, then she'd found it. Ed could only sit there and stare at her cinematic profile, watching her take a series of short frustrated breaths. How exactly could he speak now? What exactly was he supposed to say to that? It was the nicest thing she'd said to him in weeks. Maybe months. Maybe it was the nicest thing she had ever said to him.

“I'm sorry,” he said, though he had no idea what he was sorry for. No, that wasn't true. Maybe he'd gotten a little hostile there for a second. But so had she. This whole thing was far too weird to analyze anyway.

But Ed was beginning to understand how important this conversation was to Gaia. Even if he had absolutely no understanding of what it was about. And whatever the hell they were—friends, enemies, exes, distant acquaintances—she was still Gaia, and he was still Ed. And maybe that was her point. Maybe that was why she had come to him in the first place to ask this superhypothetical completely unintelligible question that sounded to him like absolute gibberish. And so maybe he just needed to try and answer it. And leave it at that.

“Okay,” Ed said. “Okay, ask me again.”

She huffed out a few more frustrated breaths and then she finally turned back to him. Ed was starting to
see just how difficult it must have been for her to come to him like this, particularly given the disastrous state of their relationship up until this point. It suddenly made him far more determined to be kind.

“Okay,” Gaia said. She looked into Ed's eyes. “I want to do something. I want to do something that's going to change my life.”

“And you can't tell me what it is.”

“I can't tell you what it is.”

Ed let out a long sigh and tried to accept this fact. “Okay. . . ”

“And if I do it. . . it means that I'm going to change, Ed. Permanently.”

“Change how?”

Gaia scanned the park, as if she were taking it in for the last time or something. It made Ed deeply uncomfortable. “I don't know for sure,” she said. “I'm just going to change. Maybe I'll be a little less. . . brave.”

“Well, you've got plenty of that to spare.”

“I don't know, Ed. I don't know. I might be a little less. . . me. But my life would be. . . clearer. I mean, easier. Not jam-packed with one stupid tragedy after the other.”

Ed suddenly felt slightly ill. This was, after all, the only thing he had ever wanted. For Gaia, for him, for
them.
If he had ever once believed that she was capable of making those changes in her life, then he never would have—

But he wasn't going to say that. Now was not the time to say that. Maybe there would never be a time to say that. He took a good long look at Gaia and made sure she was clear on this one. “Gaia, if you mean what you say—if you really believe that this
thing
you're going to do could have that effect on your life—then you need to do it. I don't know if you're looking for my ‘blessing' or what. But if that is what you're looking for. . . then you have it.”

Gaia didn't exactly smile. But her face registered a certain kind of relief and gratitude. “I guess maybe that
was
what I was looking for,” she said. “Thank you, Ed. For. . . well, just thanks.” She held her gaze on Ed. And then she finally glanced down at her watch. “I should go.” She stood up off the bench.

“Can I just ask you one question?” Ed knew it wasn't a particularly appropriate question to ask, but at this point he couldn't help himself.

“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Well. . . shouldn't Jake be the one you talk to about this ‘whatever it is'? Why didn't you ask Jake?”

Gaia looked slightly uncomfortable. “Jake's a huge part of why I want to do this,” she said.

For some reason that hurt. It probably hurt more than it should have. “Right.” Ed nodded. “Of course he is.”

“And you,” she added. “And Sam. Because none of you deserves what I've put you through, Ed. No one does.”

Ed couldn't argue with that. He just wished she had figured it out a little sooner.

Gaia backed away slowly, keeping her eyes on Ed as she headed for the exit.

“Gaia,” he called to her. “Are you sure? About this ‘thing'? Have you looked at it from every possible angle? Are you sure it's the right thing to do?”

“I'm sure,” she called back. “Really, Ed.” With that she turned around and walked until she'd disappeared behind the bushes at the edge of the park.

Ed felt exhilarated and uneasy and strange. It was the longest, most important conversation he'd ever had without having any idea what he was talking about. But then again, that pretty much defined his entire friendship with Gaia Moore. Long, important, and impossible to understand.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Time:
4:48
P.M.

Re:
I suck

Jake,

I know. I suck. I'm not avoiding you, I swear. But it probably looks like I am and that's my fault.