Event in Progress

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Fractals?" She seemed genuinely surprised.

"Yes, fractals. Have you ever looked at tree leaves?"

"I'm looking at them now."

"Yeah, but I mean, really looked at them. Look at the patterns the trees make. None of them are identical, but they all follow the tree-shape. They're chaotic but ordered."

Christine laughed. "I'm not sure I follow you."

"Okay, think of a mountain then. Look at the peak over there. Okay? Now look at how the edges are all jagged like that. Now come over here." Sean walked down to the playground area which was covered with crushed gravel. He picked up a handful, winced as the memory of machinegun pellets entered his mind, turned to Christine: "Look at one of these rocks."

"What about it?"

"The edge. Doesn't it look like the mountain peak edge?"

"Yeah, I guess it does."

"Look over here at the sidewalk then." He moved off toward it. "See the cracks here? Don't they look like river tributaries?"

"I suppose they do. Sean-"

"Pretend you're in an airplane looking down at the ground. You're thirty thousand feet above the earth, and you look down and see rivers. And they look like those cracks."

"Sean?"

"But there's more," he said, ignoring her. "Look at the tree branches again. Look at how they twist through the air. They move in that same pattern that the crack in the sidewalk does. Tree branches look like river tributaries at a different scale. And they all look like they could be part of a mountain ridge too. They all look the same. Everything's built off the same pattern."

He fell silent. Then: "I thought you might care about what interests me."

Christine grabbed his hand and smiled. "I do."

Sean looked at the mountains again, then up into the brilliant blue sky. "Christine, there's something I need to tell you."

"Okay."

He swallowed. "I don't know how to."

"It's okay. You can take your time. I won't pressure you."

He smiled at her. "I know. I wish that made it easier." He glanced away. Christine looked down at her shoes and began to trace a pattern in the gravel with her toes. The seconds slipped by into more and more discomfort.

"I..."

...

"It's okay."

"I just wish I could say..."

"No pressure, Sean. You're safe."

...

"When...when I was a boy, we had a cat named Rusty. He was a pound cat we rescued. A rust colored ginormous cat, you see..."

And eventually Sean told her even more than he had been able to tell Dr. Fielder. He told her almost everything, talking right through lunch. He didn't finish until it was nearly two in the afternoon.

"Now do you see, Christine? I like you a lot, I really do. I want to fall in love with you too, to be honest with you. But the fact is that I can't give you my heart. I'll never be able to give it to you. And it's not your fault. It has nothing to do with you. It's just that I can't give anyone my heart because I can't let it get hurt."

Sean looked at Christine, saw the tears on her face. Wished like hell he could do something about it. Wish all the harder he hadn't been responsible for telling the story that put them there.

But then she surprised him: "Thank you for sharing that with me."

"Thank you? Why..." He swallowed. But he couldn't finish his sentence, so after a moment he asked: "Would you like to see where it all happened?"

"Pardon?"

"The school. If you've got a car, I'll navigate. I'll show you where it all happened."

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"I'm not sure of anything," McKnight replied. "But I think...I think maybe I do need to look at it again. To go back there. And I know I can't do it alone."

Christine looked at him for a long moment. "Okay, then. If you think it's important, I'll go with you."

Sean nodded wordlessly. Inside, he felt a sudden grip of fear. What the hell are you doing?

But it was too late to go back on it now. And maybe that was for the best.