Muted Trilogy: Mute Part 11

"This is logical. I don't know whether it is a lingering effect of the nightmare," she sent, choosing her words carefully, "but I'm having trouble accepting the logic. I'm upset that you weren't more open about it, but I was careful not to reveal who I was in conversation, too. Still, I need a day to think."

"Fair enough," he sent.

"Can you give me that?"

"Of course."

She breathed in and out, still trying to get her heart rate completely back to normal. She could feel he was still connected, waiting.

"How did you know I was dreaming?" she asked.

"I was already awake. Dad... Anyway, I could almost see what was happening. It's when I was sure it was you, seeing you in the library parking lot, with just your car there."

"You could see it?"

"Barely. It was like if you're looking out a window that's reflecting the TV across from it. If I focused, I could tell what was happening, but I couldn't see very clearly." He stopped. "And I could feel that you were afraid."

"Okay." She opened her eyes, scanning the empty bedroom. "We can try figuring that out later, okay? Give me today."

"Sure. What about closing tonight? Do you feel safe alone with what's been going on?"

"I'll make sure I'm not alone. I'll talk to you later, Jack." She pulled away from the conversation, waiting a moment to see whether he would try to reestablish the connection. When he didn't, she picked up her phone and checked the time.

Her Friday morning alarm would go off in five minutes.

She sighed and got out of bed, running the shower hotter than normal and trying to work through her unusually scattered thoughts. The hot water and white noise helped her to relax, to wash away the lingering sweat and tension from her nightmare and start sorting her mind enough to get through her work day.

She hadn't really expected Jack to come into the library, not after she'd asked for a day to think, but she'd still felt almost disappointed when he hadn't shown up.

Her mother hadn't hesitated to respond to Jemma's request that she meet her at closing time because she was unsettled, and she'd followed her mom to the family's home after an uneventful closing.

Now, she was at the table, watching her food and listening to the conversation.

"It was so worth buying a voice for each of us," Carolyn's chosen text-to-speech app was saying. "It makes it so much easier to talk at the dinner table. Even with a mouth full of food!" Dr. Laura Schlessinger's voice was actually very similar to Carolyn's normal voice, and Jemma found it much more soothing than she did the radio show.

"Yeah," said Jill, her phone using Alexis Bledel's voice. "Jemma, you should have seen more of the first dinners after the telepathy started. We kept talking over each other! I swear, I had too much of a headache to even finish my food."

"The telepathy is good for one-on-one," wrote her mom, "but it has its limits in group situations, even if everyone can Talk to each other."

Jemma nodded in agreement, noting her father's silence. Jill caught her glance in his direction and sent her sister a mental note. "Dad refuses to bring his phone to the dinner table still. It kinda works 'cause he'll use telepathy and we stick to our phone apps. No feedback."

Jemma nodded again, not wanting to risk responding when she saw her dad watching her. Sure enough, he spoke when she would have been responding.

"How was your day?" he sent, letting the others hear while making it clear he was directing the question at Jemma.

"It was fine," her phone app said, Billie Piper speaking.

Her mother looked around the table, frowning at the silence, then typed again.

"Did Jill tell you she's Talking to a boy?"

Jemma shook her head.

"She's much too young to have that kind of connection with some boy we haven't even met," sent her father, scowling. On her other side, Jill rolled her eyes.

"He's a nice boy," typed Carolyn. "I've met him. And you can't control who you fall in love with."

"Mom! We haven't talked about love or anything. We just got to know each other 'cause everyone else had paired off."

"I've seen you two kissing in the hallway, so don't even try to pretend you're just friends."

"I didn't say that, did I? Are you spying on us?"

Jemma found herself trying not to laugh. It wasn't that the conversation was funny, but that her mother was clearly invested in this conversation, and Jill was angry, and yet the voices went along, neutrally narrating the emotional exchange.

"I am not spying on you," typed Carolyn. "You aren't invisible in the hallway, you know."

Jill glared at her mother and turned her phone face down on the table, defiantly, and started shoveling food into her mouth.

"I'm sorry, Jilly," Carolyn wrote after a tense minute. "I'm just excited that you've made that sort of connection with someone. Family is important, but I think everyone needs a special someone other than their parents." She looked at Jemma before typing further. "I wish you had someone to Talk to, Jemma."

With Jack not far from her mind, the comment startled Jemma, and the food she was trying to swallow got caught in her throat. She coughed then swallowed, using her gla.s.s of water to help wash the food down, and she looked up to see her family staring at her. She tried to decide whether she could play that off as coincidence, but she'd never been one for lying. Dishonesty typically served to complicate things more often than to simplify them, made social situations even more difficult.

She wasn't ready to be entirely open and upfront, but she wouldn't lie if asked directly.

"Are you Talking to someone, Jemma?" came her mother's electronic voice.

Jemma sighed, resigned, then nodded. Her mother started typing furiously, faster than the voice could keep up with.

"Who is it? Is it Cecily? Someone else? Is it a man? How long have you been able to Talk? Why didn't you tell us?" She stopped typing, turning toward Matthew and blinking in a way that made Jemma suspect her father had said something only her mother could hear.

"Go ahead," her dad sent, confirming her suspicions.

"A patron I see almost every day," Jemma typed. "He's the one who's been making sure I get to my car safely." She saw her father nod approvingly. "It's been two weeks, maybe three. Wasn't sure at first. It wasn't as if I were going around trying to talk to random patrons. And I hadn't heard his voice even though I recognized him."

She looked up at her beaming mother, her still-nodding father, and her sister, who had raised her eyebrows.

"There's nothing romantic between us, before you ask," Jemma continued. "He's a little bit of a flirt sometimes, maybe. I can't always tell. But he talks to me the same way he talks to Cecily."

"Does he Talk, capital T, to Cecily, too?" Her mom seemed torn as to whether she was scandalized or intrigued by this idea.

Jemma shook her head. "Just me and his dad."

"A family man, hmm?" sent her father. Jemma was struck forcibly by how much this conversation reminded her of the first time she'd come home and announced she had a date. Her sixteen-year-old self had been a bit overwhelmed. She'd had several years more practice dealing with her family at this point.

"He lives next door to his dad," she typed. "I think he pretty much moved in with him after The Event. His father is sick pretty often, and he likes to be available."

"He sounds wonderful, Jemma. What does he do that he can come into the library every day?" Her mother watched her, eyes sparkling.

"He is a computer programmer. It seems to be a pretty portable job, at least for him. I guess it depends on what you're programming and such."

"Is he hot?" sent Jill. At her parents' lack of reaction, she a.s.sumed it was for her alone. "I mean, that's not the most important thing, of course, but it's still something I need to know."

Jemma wasn't entirely sure how to answer. It wasn't that she found him unattractive, but she normally liked the looks of the people whose personalities she liked, too. She and her sister rarely agreed on who looked good. Instead of trying to describe him, she navigated to Facebook, then typed in his name, clicking on his mostly-private profile and turning the phone toward her sister, showing her the profile picture, one of Jack and an older man who looked very much like him, presumably his father.

"Nice job," sent Jill before taking the phone and pa.s.sing it to her mother, who pa.s.sed it to their father.

"As a reminder," sent Jemma since her phone had been appropriated, "there is nothing romantic between us. We're just friends. There's no need to get excited here."

"When's the last time you had a real friend, Jemma?" asked her mother, expression softening to take some of the sting from the words she'd typed.

Jemma shrugged, trying to remember. It hadn't been that long, had it? She wouldn't interact quite so easily with Jack if she weren't used to having friends.

"A couple years, I guess," she typed when her father handed her phone back. "Most of my friends moved away around the time I got my undergraduate degree, and I just never clicked with anyone in grad school."

"Can we meet him?" Her mother's mental voice was quiet, hesitant, leaving almost no echo.

"Not right now, Mom, okay?" Jemma sent back. "I promise, though, that if we start doing anything that resembles dating, you'll meet him."

Carolyn bit her lip and nodded. Matthew smiled.

"Okay," he sent to the family, "who wants dessert?"

Jemma rolled over in her bed again, sighing. She'd gotten so used to talking to her stranger - to Jack - every night before sleep that the silence was almost deafening. She wished she had a wall clock or a TV in her room, something to make a little bit of noise. She could always turn Netflix on via her cell phone, but she never could get the volume quite right to fall asleep to. She was in between books and didn't want to start reading a new one when she was exhausted and had been trying to fall asleep for an hour already.

Talking to her parents that night had helped. As she'd explained to them, Jack seemed like a good person, and he'd sounded genuinely remorseful at having upset her. They would need to talk through what had happened, as well as their connection itself, to figure out whether she could trust him, whether he really hadn't meant to deceive her, and how they could move forward. Jemma still found herself trusting him, and she didn't want to feel like a fool for doing so. That meant figuring things out, which would be easier to do if she brought him into the conversation to help them work through details and possibilities.

But not tonight. For now...

"Good night, Jack" she sent, the connection opening immediately even though he took a moment to respond.

"Good night, Jemma," he sent back, and with his voice still echoing in her mind, she finally fell asleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:.

Talk When he came in at his normal time, Jack looked unsure, watching Jemma for her reaction. She smiled at him, and he visibly relaxed, making his way to the circulation desk.

"Hi," he sent when he reached it.

"Hi," Jemma sent back.

"I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to come in today. I mean, I thought I was, and you'd seemed..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Anyway, is this okay?"

She nodded, then looked around the room.

"Talking this way might not be, though," she sent. "It looks like we're just staring at each other."

"Ah." Jack set down his laptop and reached for the tablet.

Do we want to talk about things now? After work? If after work, do we need to keep quiet during the day? Or just act like normal?

She shrugged. I guess we act normal? she typed. I mean, I haven't really had this happen before.

He nodded, still looking hesitant.

"It's okay," she sent, and he flicked his eyes up to hers. "We'll figure it out. In the meantime, it doesn't help either of us for you to be upset or worried about how I'm going to react. I already reacted. My head is on straight again, and it's just a matter of figuring things out." She paused, waiting for a response or a reaction. "You're staring again."

He blinked and a slow grin worked its way across his face. "You're something, you know that?"

A librarian. One who should probably get back to work, she typed, and he looked back up at her, worried again until he saw the amus.e.m.e.nt still on her face.

He gave her a mock salute, retrieved his laptop, and made his way upstairs to his normal spot.

When her phone buzzed just minutes later, Jemma frowned and pulled it out of her pocket. She saw a text from her mom.

Just thinking about you today. I hope your day is going well.

Jemma released a breath before replying.

It is. I hope yours is, too.

She held the phone a minute longer to make sure it wasn't going to vibrate again before putting it away.

A patron approached for help, and then another, and Jemma's day picked up speed.

Fifteen minutes before closing time, which was earlier on Sat.u.r.days than the rest of the week, Jemma felt Jack hovering in her mind.

"You can come down. I think everyone's left," Jemma sent.

"Okay. There's n.o.body up here. I'll check downstairs for you," he sent back.

"I could get used to a telepathic a.s.sistant," she sent, letting humor show through her tone.

"That could definitely have its perks," he sent, coming down the stairs. He grinned at her before turning to walk through the aisles of books.

By the time he finished and reached the circulation desk, Jemma had printed the last report, and she moved to the main door to check foot traffic. As she approached the door, a dark sedan sped out of the parking lot. She frowned but turned her attention back to the traffic counter, then returned to the desk and entered the total in the log book and the spreadsheet.