I told him how I’d gone to sleep and woken up with Shazam every day. For four years, give or take, we were each other’s whole world. We hunted and cooked and groomed and battled and ran wild. He was my rock, my teacher, my champion, my constant companion, and a day without my beloved grumpy, funny, brilliant, depressive friend was like walking around with a limb amputated.
Ryodan listened, leaning back in his chair, boots on the desk, arms folded behind his head, and while I talked he changed. And the more he changed, the more I talked.
Those remote silvery eyes warmed and came alive, developed complex crystalline depths. He smiled, laughed, became fully invested in my tales, asking endless questions. Hours spun by as I regaled him with our zany adventures, and a part of me that had been frozen solid pooled into a gentle summer lake.
“But it wasn’t all fun and games,” he said finally.
I shrugged, kicking a leg over the side of the chair. “Whose life is?”
“Why did you have to leave him?”
I closed my eyes and told him in a hushed voice about the last world I’d leapt into, following Shazam. Each one had its unknown perils but this planet had several that in conjunction were a perfect storm.
The portal on Planet X—that was what I called it because I hadn’t been there long enough to learn its name—was on a small island in the middle of a lake. The inhabitants were primitive tribesmen with bizarrely advanced technology or magic, half naked with elaborately feathered headdresses. They’d been doing some kind of ritual dance around the mirror when we came through, and obviously had experience with people or monsters invading their world via the portal, because there was a powerful force field set up that captured everything the moment it exited.
The planet was also one of those that shorted out my powers.
We’d leapt through, outracing a horde of monstrous night creatures on the last planet, with no option to return, caught between a rock and a hard place. Shazam was instantly trapped in a shimmering cage. Either I’d sped up at the last moment and dodged it or, for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t hold me.
I know it was meant to, because when the tribesmen realized I wasn’t contained, they attacked me.
I heard Shazam behind me, hissing and snarling, trying to break free to protect me, but the force field held, and he started crying out that I should leave and come back for him later.
I closed my eyes, rubbed them, and stopped talking.
I’d never told anyone about this day. I hated this day. I’d relived it so many times trying to isolate my errors, figure out what else I might have done.
I fisted my hands and opened my eyes. Ryodan was watching me with such fierce, quiet intensity, it made me feel like he’d been living everything I’d been telling him.
“You know how my mind works,” I said finally.
“At the fucking speed of light?” he said dryly.
I smiled bitterly. “I was wondering where the exit portal was and how long it would take me to find it, when I saw a shimmering reflection dancing across the tribesmen and sought the source. Across the water was an enormous, swirling array of endless mirrors rotating in a dizzying spin. Impossible to tell how many, because they whirled in an endless circle. Maybe a hundred thousand, maybe a million; it was as bad as the Hall of All Days. They never stopped moving, catching the sun, splashing it across us. And I thought, okay, I’m going to swim, do a mad dash into a mirror and, whatever world I come out on, I’ll get a bunch of weapons and go back and rescue Shazam, right?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You chose the mirror that brought you home.”
“Bingo,” I said wearily. “I told him I’d be back for him. ‘Wait for me,’ I said. ‘Don’t go anywhere. If you get free, don’t jump through another mirror or we’ll never find each other again. I swear I’ll be back. I won’t let you be lost, all alone.’ And he sat there looking at me with those big sad, violet eyes and tears were streaming down his face and he said plaintively, ‘I see you, Yi-yi.’ ”
“And you knew if you went back for him,” Ryodan said quietly, “you might never find your way home again. There was no way to choose the same mirror. And if he’d gotten free, there was no way he could choose the same mirror you’d taken.”
“Exactly. My only goal was to get back to Dublin. Goddamn it, I lived that purpose for five bloody years! What if I returned and he was dead and I never found my way home again? What if he escaped and left—and I went back for nothing? What if he didn’t even wait? What if he took another mirror?” What if he didn’t really love me? I didn’t say it but I’d thought it. “And what if he waits forever, believing I’ll come for him, losing hope, day after day? He cries so much and he feels so deeply. Ryodan, I’ve been back for months. Do you know what that means? If he’s still there, he’s been waiting decades for me! Decades!” My voice broke and the tears started to flow. I’d never told anyone any of this, and now that it was coming out, my heart felt like it was being ripped in half as badly as it had the day I plucked the crumpled Dani Daily from the trash and realized the terrible irony of where I was. I’d been so elated to come through to a world with civilization—translated, guns and badass weapons. But my elation had fizzled and I’d gone hard and cold as stone. I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t handle the pain.
I love Shazam unconditionally. There was no abuse or manipulation in our relationship. It was pure, full of joy, trust, and physical affection. I’d never had anything like it. I’d lost the only thing that mattered to me. Again. I was always losing things. Just like my mother, the erosions just kept happening. I’d felt so much pain and grief and I’d just wanted it to stop, and I’d finally understood why my mom drank and shot up. But I couldn’t permit myself to do that. So I’d numbed myself the way I knew how. And these past few weeks, I’d kept the Shazam part of me numb as I tried to let the other parts of me come back to life and do the things a superhero was supposed to do.