June 2006
The move was organized chaos. Boxes stacked to the ceiling, furniture wrapped in bubble wrap, my stepfather Mark sweating as he tried to get the sofa through the front door. From the sidewalk, I pretended to help, carrying a box labeled "KITCHEN" that weighed twice what it should.
But my attention wasn't on the move.
It was on the house three doors down. A colonial-style house, with a wide porch and a yard that showed someone's effort to keep it nice despite the small feet constantly trampling it. A swing hung from a leafy tree. A pink bike with training wheels lay abandoned on the grass.
The Dunphy house.
"Leo, can you bring the lamp from the car?" Susan called from the entrance, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"Coming," I replied, but my feet didn't move.
A door opened three houses away. A blonde woman, wearing an apron and a look of permanent stress, came out onto the porch with a phone pressed to her ear. Claire Dunphy. I saw her gesture with exasperation, probably arguing with a client or with Phil. Then she disappeared inside.
Silence.
The June sun warmed the sidewalk. It smelled of freshly cut grass.
And then, I saw her.
Alexandra Dunphy came out the back door, a book under her arm, her huge glasses settling on her nose. She walked to the yard, sat on the wooden swing, and opened the book. She was nine years old. Her brown hair fell straight over her shoulders. Her expression was one of absolute concentration.
My chest tightened.
She wasn't an image on a screen. She was real. Breathing, moving, existing in three dimensions. I could see the way sunlight filtered through her glasses, the way her finger followed the lines of text, the slight movement of her lips as she read silently.
The system showed a faint notification, almost a whisper.
Canonical subject identified: Alexandra Dunphy.
Current age: 9 years.
Distance: 45 meters.
Permitted interaction: Year 2007 (12 months remaining).
Current debt: 0/1,000 CP. Ability "Basic Emotional Intervention" available.
Current subject status: Reading. Detectable loneliness level: 63%.
Zero points. I no longer owed anything, but that didn't mean I could approach. The rules were still there: contact permitted only in 2007. One more year.
"Leo," Susan called from the door, a note of impatience in her voice. "The lamp?"
"Coming now," I said, stepping away from the window.
But before going inside, I threw one last glance. Alex was still on the swing, absorbed in her book. The wind moved the pages occasionally, and she held them down with a small, firm hand.
I smiled. It was the same expression she would have years later. The same one I had seen in thousands of frames. But now I saw her in the flesh, under the June sun, and it was completely different.
September 2006
Jefferson Middle School was a maze of beige hallways and metal lockers. My first day in seventh grade was a succession of empty introductions and evaluating looks from other eleven-year-olds. With my twenty-seven-year-old memories on top, I felt like a spy in foreign territory.
But I adapted. I'd had four years to practice.
The hardest part was not looking toward the elementary section.
I knew Alex was there, in fifth grade, probably correcting her science teacher or explaining to a classmate why their calculations were wrong. The temptation to seek her out was constant, but the system had been clear: contact in 2007. Twelve for me, ten for her.
So I waited.
The system, now silent, only registered my observations without adding points. It was strange, after years of accumulating CP, to be at zero. But it was also liberating. I was no longer playing to pay off a debt. I was just waiting.
January 2007
Winter in Los Angeles was a joke compared to anywhere with real snow, but the damp cold seeped into your bones. The bus stop was empty that morning. I arrived early, as always, with a physics book that served more as an excuse than actual reading.
Alex's boots echoed on the pavement before I saw her. She walked fast, with determination, her red backpack bouncing on her back. She wore a navy blue coat that was too big for her, probably Haley's, and her glasses were fogged from the contrast between the outside cold and the warmth of her house.
She stopped about a meter away. She didn't look at me. She took a book from her backpack and started reading.
I didn't say anything, and neither did she.
The bus arrived; we got on in silence. I sat in the back, she sat in the front.
That's how it went all week.
February 2007
The second week, something changed.
I was carrying The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, a book I'd found in a used bookstore and, to my surprise, was completely absorbed by. I was so hooked that I didn't hear her approach.
"Isn't that book in the school library?"
I looked up. Alex was beside me, her head tilted slightly, her eyes analyzing the title.
"No. I bought it at a secondhand bookstore," I replied, closing the book to show her the cover. "Do you know it?"
"I saw it on a recommended reading list from Caltech. It's on my to-read list," she said, her voice flat, as if it were normal for a ten-year-old to have a reading list suggested by Caltech.
"It's dense," I said, without adding "for your age," because I knew that would offend her.
"I already read A Brief History of Time," she responded with a hint of challenge.
"That's popular science; this is hard science fiction. More equations."
"I like equations."
I smiled. "Then you'll like it."
There was a pause. The bus arrived, we got on, and for the first time, Alex sat in the middle row, not at the front. I sat beside her, leaving one seat of distance between us.
Neither of us said anything during the ride, but she didn't take out her own book. She looked out the window, and every now and then, her eyes would drift toward my cover.