I WAS IN seventh grade when I lost all my friends. I know what it costs when the experiment runs to completion.
But I also know, now, what the alternative looks like. It looks like a small object in someone’s room. A light that shifts when a friend is near. A knob that, when you’re ready, closes the distance.
I don’t know exactly what I expected to feel the first time it worked. But when Atharva opened his device across town and the light on my wall began to pulse, I just stood there. I felt it in my chest before I understood it.
The same ache as longing, but running the other direction.