It was late.

Jeffrey lay half-covered, awake, in bed, somehow both as cold and shivery as he was sweaty and hot.

He saw a single pinstripe out through the slats of his bedroom blinds. But it showed only blackness. There were no visible stars, lights, hints of branches…

He recognized the many signs of a sleepless night, which he knew would all basically amount to squinting at the clock on his device every now and then and adjusting figures (If I fall asleep now, I’ll get _____ hours…). One sign was the impossible temperature. Another, the fact that he’d been shifting in and upon his bed like a slo-mo thrashing shark for at least the last hour already. But the biggest, clearest sign was the way arguments formed in his mind, each amassing stories and thoughts like lawyers gathering witnesses for the sorts of high-profile cases that could go on and on for months and be broadcast every day in place of Jeffrey 2’s regularly scheduled programming.

He knew he could have a video up to watch within seconds.

Was it fair to himself to have suddenly changed his routine so severely, cutting out the sorts of things he’d long relied on to relax? How could he expect to muscle his way through this new life on grit alone with no means of release or sense of ease at all?

Ten minutes of something forgettable to take his mind off of everything, and he’d surely drift away into dreams without realizing, no?

But wouldn’t that be moving backwards? How could he even consider such folly after all he’d seen? What if any steps in a direction other than onward and upward with Gel broke the spell for good, and he lost his sacred ability (again)? Could any comfort be worth compromising the power he’d felt coursing through and defining him, turning him into someone he actually enjoyed being . . . someone he looked forward to making sense of and embodying more and more as his time with Gel went on?

But how might taking in a few videos just to calm his racing mind threaten his whole future? Could his special vision ability really be that fragile? Why would his truest identity be so prone to being completely unraveled at any moment?

A fresh trickle of sweat tickled down the center of his spine. He quivered, pulling the blankets off his feet, then pushing them to stay on most of his legs.

What about Gel?

In his mind, she loomed above, peering down in irritation as he writhed beneath the weight of her unflinching stare. Surely she saw every ugly weakness in him laid bare . . . every hint of wriggly, restless indecision crossed with sharp anxiety and sad, pathetic fear.

Why had she done this to him? What part could he possibly play in her epic clash of forces against the Mad Dr. Finnel?

Powers or no, he was still just Jeffrey . . . still the same lost, spacey loner stuck forever in in-between times. Friendless and parentless, though happier alone. Weird, but really simple. Distracted, yet sort of nice.

Why did she have to have shown up and thrown everything out of alignment with her promises of transcendent, important purpose?

But he liked Gel. He enjoyed the way her eyes and voice cut through all his nonsense, even now. He admired how she never wasted a single moment.

She’d proven herself an expert at arcing through and around his perspective as gracefully as Dom would pace the school, popping all of Jeffrey’s flighty balloons in turn . . . helping him (despite himself) to see an ever-bigger, ever-wider, ever-truer picture of what was.

He fondly recalled the coolly resolute dedication she’d shown in dismantling each of his attempts at fighting her insistence that their ability wasn’t for directly influencing any individuals involved in their visions.

What about Sarah?

He saw again the kind giraffe with its long neck stretched up higher than anyone else could reach to bring down what everyone else needed. He beheld once more the sweet look in those potential future eyes . . . eyes which twinkled with a delicate mix of intelligence and soft care even for those who’d love nothing more than to cage her as a spectacle and charge the world to laugh at her as a freak.

Was he really meant to ignore the calling pull driving him to encourage Sarah in her destiny?

Well, then why did he have to see it? Why did he have to feel the way he did?

It hurt too much to…

The fire in Gel’s eyes burned brighter as their focus came to narrow in Jeffrey’s inner vision.

But this wasn’t just a vision, was it?

Gel must actually be watching him, aware of each of his scattered thoughts and where they tied to broken continents of intention. It staggered him to realize how much she must know of all the damage deep beneath the fractured surface of his mind.

He knew then (again) that he had to let go . . . to give control of himself, and of his own life and thinking, over to this strange girl who’d first approached him only days before to suggest he might not really be the hopeless outcast dreamer and crazy-minded flake he’d believed he was for as long as he could remember.

He wondered why choosing to succumb to her now felt so surprisingly natural and easy.

He pictured himself finally set free sometime off in a hopeful future . . . free to look deeply into everything, but take nothing of it back for himself, and free to not use his special insight in order to be liked or respected, but only to see, say, and do exactly what was needed, the way Gel always did.

But who even was Gel?

All of a sudden, he couldn’t help but contrast her total awareness of him against his stark lack of knowledge concerning her.

Did she have a family? Had she always been at the school?

Did she have any actual feelings, needs, weaknesses...?

Or, was she nothing more than the dark, stoic, inhuman sage appointed to him by forces perhaps never to be fully understood?

What was she?

He felt a nervous tension begin to charge up like a coming surge. Yet the only thoughts that tumbled down with the mounting sense of anxious dread were of Gel and why she might be so hard to figure out.

In that moment, he felt completely cut off from the source of grounded power she’d helped bring/return him to hours earlier.

Jeffrey 1 and Jeffrey 2 were reconfirmed as mirror opposites, irreconcilable.

If only Gel could return and reshow him the way even now (and maybe again soon after . . . as many times as it would take), so he wouldn’t have to stay cut off from that amazing place of full function and confidence.

Did she know he was calling her to himself? Could she hear his inward pleas? Was she picking up on his silent, desperate appeals for re-restoration?

It felt like the more he willed her to appear outside his empty nothing sliver of window, the more she only continued to stare down from above in his mind . . . unmoving, haunting, waiting…

But waiting for what?

An idea occurred to Jeffrey then that seemed so promising and packed with hope he believed it might actually prove enough to loop him back to feeling single-focused and ok, at least for tonight: Gel was his teacher . . . his coach and leader. So, it probably wouldn’t be right for him to know her the same way she knew him. There had to be some sense of imbalance . . . some professional distance . . . at least for the span of his training, no?

Besides, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere, right? Hadn’t she already shown she’d stay with him through every unstable, silly leap in the dark . . . through every push toward wanting to use his power to be some sort of hero?

She’d certainly taught him a great deal in their short time together.

Sure, she fascinated him (he caught the outer edges of his lips curling up into a smile). But he respected her even more.

So, just as he’d already released himself, along with his need to make sense of everything, over to her control, he now brought and left at her proverbial feet the need to know her in that deeper, more human way as well.

This was still his time of learning and preparation. Maybe things could change later, once he was ready. Maybe then they might be more like equals.

Jeffrey would have found himself asleep within minutes if the process of drifting off was one that could be consciously tracked. But just before his shifting body and breathing slowed together, his last unfinished (and later unremembered) thought of the night might have had something to do with the dream that followed . . . the only snippet of which he could later recall being of himself as a puppet flung about too long in the air on unstable strings, wanting only for the touch of firm ground.