BREAK ME

Tally Espen. 18. Ignis. Invulnerability. Resident of Elswood Academy: One Month

[oliverdubois]

The girl did a posture Oliver could only compare to ones he’s seen on comic book covers and body building magazines. “Ahah— No.” Lighter went back into his pocket, as if it never made an appearance in the first place. “I’m at the risk of getting in trouble daily. No need to pile up.” Between getting people angry at him all the time and skipping classes, Oliver decided he had enough on his plate and shouldn’t turn greedy. “But hey, if you’re ever in the mood for an unexpected bonfire–,” he winked, digging both thumbs in his chest, “–you look for me.”

“What’s your power? I gave away mine being fire.“

[tallyespen-blog]

Superpowers made everything so complicated. One little joke about some light-arson gets taken too far because, hey, apparently he’s actually some kind of crazy firebender. It just goes to show: she should be careful what she says, because she’ll never really know. She’ll take it under advisement. She’ll think about it. She’ll—probably still not watch her mouth. 

She uncrosses her arms, lets them drop to her sides. Challenge averted, smile given, at least he’s nice. “Got it. If I ever find a bag of marshmallows, you’re my dude.” (Wait, come to think of it, was that even a possibility?) “It’s, ah—” not showy, that’s for damn sure, no pyrotechnics. Less something she does and more something she is. “—invulnerability? I mean, I haven’t quite tested it that far but I guess I’m pretty much bulletproof.”

[trashebag-blog]

“Tell me about it.” Maybe if he focused hard enough, a new ability would just… magically present itself one day. Pyrokinesis and Invulerability? Fuck yeah. He could be…an extremely effective firefighter? Sure. Her excitement was didn’t go unnoticed and he almost wondered if he should wear a mouth guard too. “So…” he says, pausing only to put on his gloves. “Exactly how much do you know?” This was, of course, something he had failed to ask before. He didn’t know where her skill levels for anything were at all. “Are you just gonna like…swing your arms at me or do you kinda know what you’re doin?” Of course he has to demonstrate as he speaks, flailing his arms in some kind of swimming above water motion. The major plus side of all of this was that she didn’t have something like superhuman strength. If she was was terrible when it came to strength and managed to land a punch, he could take it. If he landed a punch, she would even feel it. It’s a win-win situation.

[tallyespen-blog]

If her mother had had her way, Tally would have been a princess, locked up in some tower. If her father had had his way, she’d be like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, hidden away in some belltower because she was too ugly—(internally, genetically, superpower-ly)—for polite society. 

Long story short, it’d been a solitary existence. An isolated one. Her childhood playmates? She’d driven those off herself long before her parents had decided to make a conscious effort to hide her. At that point, she’d almost made it easy for them. She was too different. So there’s little that she knows, at this point, that she hasn’t taught herself. That includes violence. But it’s easy to have bravado when you have a reduced notion of consequences: how bad can it be? How much can it hurt? (Not at all.)

“Not a lot,” she chirps, completely unconcerned. She’s been in classes for weeks now, and she’s gotten better every day. (One class—or two, because she’s taking self defense even though her self is the last self that needs any defending—that she knows she isn’t a failure in.) “But what I lack for in skill I make up in enthusiasm. You wanna give it a go?”

[byeonwoo-blog]

Min-woo felt his face fell, but he was quick to smile again. Or, well, let the tips of his mouth tilt upwards for a few seconds before his mouth fell open again. Invulnerability was something he had barely thought about when he first realized his powers, but his class had proven to be a real eye-opener. He had eagerly memorized each of the students in his ‘Better, Stronger, Faster’ class, and had been utterly disappointed to find that no one had super-strength or invulnerability. There were a few with super speed and super hearing (his personal favourite was one with accelerated metabolism: no weight gain, no injuries, no illnesses!), but none with his power and definitely none with a power to counteract his powers. Meeting Tally was fate, he was sure of it. 

“No, I’m not a mad pen-throwing student, but I do have super strength,” he said rapidly, excitement building up in his veins. It had been a while since he had felt this way— like he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. “This means that I can hit you really hard, and you’d be able to shrug it off, right?” Min-woo envisioned being able to shake hands with Tally without the chance of crushing her fingers, envisioned being able to do simply, mundane things without any fear of killing (yet another person). She was like a personalized power negator (which, on hindsight, would have been very much appreciated as well). 

“Wow,” he repeated, realizing it seemed as though his vocabulary only consisted of four words. “How did you first realized you had invulnerability?”

[tallyespen-blog]

He’s so excited! Really, definitely, the person she’s met who’s been most excited about her powers—and that includes herself. It’s hard to feel jazzed about it when she has no idea what it’s like to be without them: to worry about danger, to think “I can’t do that,” even to have a freakin’ papercut. Other people are the curiosities—(even though there are more of them then there are of her)—not her.

Granted, that hasn’t really held up over the course of her life. It had gotten her branded a weirdo very, very early on.

This place promises to teach her about herself, help her find where the limits of this seemingly limitless power of her lie. It’s nothing she hadn’t been doing on her own, when her tests were the tops of trees of the roof of her house, the red-hot coils of the stove, upstate New York in the frigid wintertime. She hadn’t found out then, she’d been cut too short, but maybe now she will. Maybe that’s one good thing about being here.

“I mean, yeah, probably. I might feel it a little bit, but nothing like what it apparently should be like,” she doesn’t know why she’s talking herself down in the face of his excitement, but it feels kinder. For the first time in a long time she feels a little cautious. Maybe this is what happens when she’s not the only super-person. Maybe this is what happens when she thinks she’s made a friend, and he doesn’t want to burst his bubble. “But here, okay, I don’t know—pinch me, or something.”

She holds out her arm obligingly, eyebrows raised. She’s curious, too. Wants to know what will happen, what it will feel like. “And I’m not really sure, it’s kind of always been there? I think my parents figured it out before I did, so probably sometime around the first time my dad called me a freak.” Happy thoughts, Tally. It doesn’t come out very sad, it hardly matters now that she’s in a building full of freaks. “Your turn. What about you?”

[lailavcrma-blog]

Talking in riddles seemed to be one of Laila’s accidental favourite pastimes. Blame it on the lack of discretion, or perhaps far too many evenings spent peering through novels made of both poetry and prose, or perhaps the extreme fascination she’d once had with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ( a fascination that never had QUITE faded away ) - but jumping from one topic to another was her most natural train of thought. There was almost no need to censor whatever she spoke about, in her opinion, because all of it was equally as strange and unreasonable. It was nice, however, to have someone listen without seeming to pass too much judgement on the matter. Otherwise, she would have grown subconscious.

As she usually did. It was all part of the reason, despite her innate desire for companionship and making friendships and perhaps somehow finding some happy ending, even in the middle of this school of isolation, that she sometimes couldn’t bring herself to be around people. She never could handle the harshness of people’s criticism when it bordered into maliciousness. And oh, how that border-crossing happened more often than not!

“Oh, thank you! I would say perhaps it is all the time I spend in the pool that helps it, but I think that chlorine dries out the hair and actually does the opposite. Perhaps it is because there is so much free time here that I am able to make it look somewhat passable.” Regardless, she hadn’t expected a compliment back – and so she, too, found herself somewhat preening, even if it wasn’t too obvious in how she deflected it. Nice things were nice, no matter who they came from. “Tally. What an interesting name. One I have never heard before. So far nothing has fallen, but that does not mean something cannot change - boom! - and then the next thing you know, the entire building is falling down around our heads.”

Her gaze travelled back to the workspace that the redhead had abandoned for the moment. Again, that lack of discretion. Well, it couldn’t get her into trouble here, could it? “Oh, are you reading? I always become interested in other’s books and novels and even assignments!”

[tallyespen-blog]

“Oh—it’s a nickname. It’s short for Tallulah, but I guess that’s not exactly a common name, either. My parents were, are—” (are, they’re not dead, even though they might as well be, for all that Tally can see them, for all that she might not see them again) “—kind of weird, I guess.”

An uncommon name for an uncommon little girl, how little they’d really known, when they’d given it to her. And for all she avoids Tallulah like the plague, correcting people on it the second it comes out of their mouths—(although some of her teachers seem not to have caught on, yet)—she likes the nickname, one that she’s had for so long that she can’t remember who exactly gave it to her. Less of a mouthful, more fitting. She’s less fussy than she images a true Tallulah would be.

“And yeah, you’re right, the day is young, there’s plenty of time left for a random act of God or whatever to take this whole place out.” She grins, a gripe wrapped up in something absurd. For all that the familiar school-schedule seems designed to soothe, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet, stopped being eerie. How can it? She still hasn’t gotten used to the whispers about impassable forest. 

Laila eyes wander back to Tally’s abandoned homework. Oh, right, that. The pen, the whole reason she was over here in the first place. How easily it’d been forgotten in a rush of almost overwhelming—(in a good way)—friendliness. “It’s Wuthering Heights. It’s for class.” And, really, she can’t help but give away how much she’s dragging her feet on that assignment. They’re all just so—unlikable. 

[greciandamsel]

Rory laughed and nodded her head in agreement to her statement about World History. “Yeah, there’s sure a lot of history for us to cover.“ Tally wasn’t wrong whatsoever about that and Rory felt the same way – it’s a lot to cover, and sometimes the dates do get muddled up in her mind too. Usually the morning of a test which is always atrocious for her.

“Okay, so English and World History, I can fill you in with what books you need to–” She trailed off, hearing Tally’s comment she had to take a pause and flash her a sympathetic look. “What? No, no I don’t think you’re an idiot.” She smiled, brushing a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. “It really doesn’t matter, Tally. As long as you pass you’ll be fine!“ Maybe it could be a good idea if Tally spoke to Nina, she thought. But then again Rory still wanted to be helpful.

“Hey, I’ll tell you what – I’ll write you a list of the basics we’ve covered. It won’t take too long and you’re always welcome to look at my notes.”

[tallyespen-blog]

She’s, like, really nice. Like her pen cap had been some kind of compass, and had pointed her towards someone who seemed both brainy enough to help her catch up in these classes she’d been dumped in and nice enough to not make her feel like an idiot for it. Hello Tally, meet your new favorite person in Elswood. 

It’s taken just about the length of time she’s been here for her to realize how lonely it’d been, that life on the road, and the one before it, when all she’d really seen day after day was the acres of land that her family owned. Because now she’s here and it’s all new! and people! and she’s running around like a slobbering puppy, at once affectionate and tripping over her paws—and, above all, easily distracted.

“Really? Thank you! You’re a lifesaver, I swear. And if you ever need a partner in Self Defense, just say the word. Or—I don’t know. A favor. Something. I owe you one, basically.” 

[tallyespen-blog]

We were O N C E a happy family.                                                                          … once.

Michelle Fairley as Tabitha Catherine Espen Henry Czerny as Richard Louis Espen Sophie Turner as Tallulah Jane Espen

[sophieturnernews]

[thattaiguy-blog1]

To be quite honest, Tai was almost always in la-la land in places where he should actually be concentrating. Like now. So it wasn’t entirely the other’s fault for him being startled awake. Heck, it wasn’t her fault at all. But it felt somewhat satisfying to actually have a reason to blame someone for his terrible looking facials, a result of being snapped out of a sleepy trance.

“Some quote about protesting too much, yeah,” he repeated mindlessly, technically having absolutely no idea as to what she was talking about seeing as his mind was still in the process of waking up. “Pen cap?” That was easy enough for his recovering brain to understand, a tiny laugh breaking the momentary silence between them. “Oh crap. Of course. One moment…” he said as he leant down and retrieved the cap, holding it out for the other. “Next time, you can just grab it. No such thing as a no-zone for me,” he smiled. “I’m Tai, by the way. Hi.”

[tallyespen-blog]

Her fingers close around her pen cap as her eyebrows raise with a grin. “Is that so? That’s very—something of you. Liberated, maybe? I don’t even know. Would that we were all as generous with our personal space.” Because she’s pretty sure that she wouldn’t have wanted to be on either side of that equation: the person rooting around on the floor between someone’s legs for a pen cap, or the sleeping person who woke up to that sight. Maybe she’s just jumpy. Constant vigilance! (Or something like that.)

“But, uh—thanks. You know, for the cap. And I’m Tally, by the way. And sorry for interrupting that nap that you totally weren’t taking.”  

[lailavcrma-blog]

It was – well, it would not be accurate to describe this sensation as nice. After all, it was clear this happened because of an accident, and she would not wish this kind of awkwardness on any single person. But when it came down to it, Laila was a girl who liked to seize opportunities as they were presented to her, rather than waiting for the last possible second before jumping on the train ( although this, too, had happened - but never with the prospect of making friends! ) And to introduce herself to someone she had never been certain she’d seen before, that was one of her most favourite things to do. 

Very rarely did someone get excited about something so minute as this, but she was not to be stopped once she started. An avalanche, a rockslide, a somewhat overbearing presence; what ever label might be assigned, she would bear it proudly. Well, unless it was just rude, and it could not be used in her favour. If only she could write it differently!

“Me either!” Already there was something in common: the lack of understanding when it came to the human race. Were those gifted with abilities such as theirs considered human anymore? So many concepts remained to be seen. “Oh, do not worry about it. I make such strange things all the time, and I end up laughing at them, and so long as someone is laughing, even if you are laughing at yourself, that is what ultimately matters. I have had such instances of clumsiness. To the point where half of a bookshelf ended falling on top of my head. The books - not the shelf itself. Oh.” There came the characteristic end, the word which acted like a period, a full stop at the end of a telegram. “Well - something always has a good outcome somehow. I think. I am certain someone said this. Anyway, my name is Laila, and you have lovely hair. If I can even say that.”

[tallyespen-blog]

Tally likes people who talk a lot. She herself seems to talk a medium-average amount, but that’s no matter. She understands herself pretty well. It’s other people that have always been the problem. And Tally doesn’t have the patience for guessing games, especially ones where she always seems to guess wrong. Some people are too busy stoically staring out of windows or whatever to just say what’s on their mind, it’s all riddles and shrugs and half-sentences. Tally doesn’t really get along with those people. 

But this girl—Laila! she gets there at the end—seems to just lay it all on the table, jumping from topic-to-topic so quickly that Tally can’t quite keep up: first they’ve in caves, then they’ve got books falling on their heads and then—oh, isn’t that nice?—they’re at Tally’s hair. 

There’s a lot of it. It’s a concession to vanity: wildly impractical, Tally’s admitted clumsiness—(more like total lack of spatial awareness)—means that she tends to shut it in doors a lot, or unintentionally hit people in the face with it. It gets tangled a lot, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not like it hurts her to brush it out. So, when complimented on the one facet of her appearance that she really takes time on, she can’t help but preen—okay, she kind of pets it like a cat.

“Of course you can, who doesn’t like compliments? I like yours too. It’s shiny.” Compliment for a compliment, she’s totally got the hang of social interaction. “I’m Tally, and you’re nice. I hope more books-not-bookshelves don’t fall on your head.”

[trashebag-blog]

Five minutes of shadow boxing and he felt somewhat ready for this when he watched Tally walkthrough the doors of the training area. “Ey!” He flashes her a smile before turning to pick up one off the many pairs of gloves the school had on tap. They haven’t actually sparred together yet, but a few minutes of your standard, run-of-the mill, getting to know you ability talk revealed Tallys. Saying Ashe was excited about this was a HUGE understatement. She was PROBABLY going to maul him. This was fucking awesome.

Despite the cup and high fashion headgear he’s sporting, he still feels the need to remind her of the terms and conditions he has when going up against people who can’t get hurt. “Please go easy on me. My face is my second best feature and I’m not superwoman like you.”

[tallyespen-blog]

It hadn’t taken long at all for her to get a reputation. She can’t say she doesn’t like it: Tally, Stone-Cold Killer. 

It’s no different than anything she’d known before: her childhood roughhousing had always been a little bit too rough, she didn’t understand when stop meant stop. She’d been known as strange, to put it kindly, or a budding psychopath, to put it unkindly long before she’d ever really understood what it was that made her so different. 

But the ability to take a beating isn’t skill. In truth, she doesn’t really have much skill at all yet, unless “being a human bulldozer” counts as a skill. Besides, as far as she can tell from the classes she’s attended, people learn the right way to punch and such to avoid injuring themselves more than the person they’re punching. She doesn’t have to worry about that.

She picks up a pair of gloves: the padding is for Ashe’s face more than it’s for her hands. She grins back, pretty transparently excited. She lives in the physical, in the attempt to push herself to the point where all the part of her actually feel connected. It helps that he is, apparently, a masochist, and she isn’t stuck last in some nightmare schoolyard pick. “Oh yeah? That must suck for you.”

[oliverdubois]

“If only.” The reality of Elswood was a bit more severe than laying around and eating bugs all days. 

Uniform or not her hair looked great. “I promise you this color isn’t flattering on brunettes, or blondes either.” Still, most people managed to pull it off with the power of their personality. Or something like that. Alleviating? Well, Oliver had caught her in the middle of doing homework, so obviously she wasn’t as dumb, as she was pretty, but he didn’t expect her to use words he could only guess the meaning of. “Sure, but I’m gonna jump the gun and expect some trouble after that.” There was no rule about burning your uniform, but it could be assumed it was not a recommended activity. “I’d still light it up if you really want me to,” he assured her and shook the little lighter in his hand (one of three he currently carried). “Gonna make it a show worth your while, too.”

[tallyespen-blog]

There she goes: Tallulah and her big mouth, always getting herself into trouble. (And, yeah, she’s Tallulah when she messes up, Tallulah Jane if it’s really bad.) Backing herself into corners. Writing checks that the rest of her can’t cash. Because while this blazer is a kind of heinous color, she doesn’t actually much want it burnt. She doesn’t want to have to explain where here Elswood-issue blazer fucked off to, because she’s pretty sure “whoops, I lost it” wouldn’t suffice. 

Really, she’d been banking on the fact that he’d laugh it off. Ha-ha, Tally, you’re so funny, and they’d move on. But he isn’t, and she never wants to be the spoil-sport, never wants to be the one that wimps out. What’s she got to be afraid of? (That’s just it: she hasn’t been here long enough to know.) So she just tilts her chin upwards, crosses her arms over her chest. When she speaks, it’s definitely a dare. “If you let me blame it on you if I get in trouble, then you can put on whatever show you want.”

[these-kinds-of-wounds]

[greciandamsel]

“Alright, it’s nice to meet you, Tally.” Rory bent the edge of her notebook’s page down, to remember what spot she was at, although it was more due to habit since she had only jotted down the title and some brief notes.

She noticed the questionable tone within Tally’s reply, which was perfectly understandable when asked such a question about the school. It was small talk, but it was always polite to ask, even if it was a mildly pointless question. Weird to be in class? That was a new one, but maybe Tally was homeschooled? Rory really hadn’t heard much about the girl.

“Ouch, what ones? If it’s any we share, then I’m more than happy to help you out.” She replied brightly, it’s not like there was much else for her to do during her free time. Rory has already taken as much extra curriculums as she thinks possible.

[tallyespen-blog]

“Well, English, for one.” (And, yeah, she’s not really making much progress on that front, because she’d abandoned her book to chase down her pen cap, and then abandoned her book and her reclaimed pen cap in favor of talking to Rory.) “And, really, World History, too. There’s just so much of it, you know—history. In the world.” 

Okay, yeah, real good showing. Rory seems smart, or at least poised: Tally is pretty sure she isn’t either of those things. She likes to keep moving, likes trying to find new things, new feelings. Otherwise it’s easy for her to forget that she exists at all, has a body at all. It’s all just so—complicated. And none of it has been helped by realizing that she just might be one of the only people that feel the disconnect that seems so intrinsic to her. “I promise I’m not a total idiot, I’m just really not good at sitting still, which sorta seems to be the number one skill you need in school....”

[byeonwoo-blog]

“Wow.”

It was at that point that Min-woo had to physically tear his eyes from her face, lest she calls the supervisors (were they call the Elementals? The Elements?) over for excessive staring, that was boderline . With a slight cough, he looked at his own hands— the hands capable of enough destruction, and there she was— completely unable to be destructed. She was intriguing, in the best way possible. 

“So you have invulnerability? Or, do you have super strength?” There was a hint of hopefulness in his voice as he uttered the last two words, a tone that the translator failed to carry over in its monotonous transcription. Having someone impervious to his powers would be amazing, but having someone that would have undergone similar experiences would be even greater. As he awaited for her response, he failed to realize that his expression mirrored that of a tiny puppy, with enough hopefulness and naivety wrapped tightly in his face. 

[tallyespen-blog]

Wow. To be honest, she isn’t really used to “wow” yet. To be even more honest, she still isn’t entirely used to talking about this at all, even though she goes to special-classes at her special-school for her special-specialness. In fact, she can’t even really remember anyone saying the word invulnerability before she arrived here. Her father had referred to Tally and people like her—people like him—in euphemism, meaning conveyed with a certain curl of his lip or a tone dripping in disdain: “those people.” Her mother had absorbed it, lowered voice and shifting eyes as she alluded to what made Tally different with a meaning-laden “you know.”

Here it’s all so plain: super-strength of invulnerability? It’s honest, it’s open, but it’s clinical. But he says “wow” and she likes him, because the openly delighted expression on his face is easy enough to read, as is his tone while he’s speaking a language she doesn’t understand. The robotic voice of the translation app can’t take that away. 

“It’s invulnerability for me. I’m guessing you’ve got super-strength? Or, like, mad pen-throwing skills, because I could tell that was a little bit too much velocity for a casual toss.”

[oliverdubois]

“Ah. Not one of my classes, otherwise I would offer my help.” Not that he would be of any help, even if he did offer. Unless it was a physical activity, Oliver was an academical disaster. “Don’t worry about it too much. Plenty of time to be here and catch up on everything. Twice.” 

At the introduction, Oliver smiled and held up his hand. “Oliver. Same division,” he said, pointing at her blazer.The same horrible vomit color that he was wearing himself. “And I was up to nothing, actually. Bored as can be. I’d love to change it though.”

[tallyespen-blog]

“I like that attitude,” she says, considering it. On the one hand: it’s depressing as fuck. (Plenty of time, because she might not ever get out of here.) On the other hand, it’s not so bad, because it means she doesn’t have to try so hard. It’s not like she’d ever been the most attentive pupil in school before her father had pulled her out and shoved some textbooks in her bedroom: his version of homeschooling. “How ‘hakuna matata’ of you.”

“God, yeah, sorry to see that. Pretty sure my mother told me that this is definitely not a good color for redheads.” And she....cares. Even if before she’d always ruined the nice clothes her mother put her in by playing in the dirt. “Would ‘burning this blazer’ count as alleviating your boredom?”

[thattaiguy-blog1]

Tai is too busy with his head in the clouds to notice the constant tapping of one’s pen, humming the theme song of some annoying children’s show– something about a sponge living under the sea. Exhausted from excessive studying and the inability to sleep, he allowed himself to dose off for just a couple of seconds - to the count of a hundred - before he would open his eyes and attempt to pay attention. 

When he heard someone’s voice too close to him, he jumped in his seat, eyes wide and alert. “I was definitely not sleeping– nope– definitely wide awake–” Tai rubbed his eyes and smiled a guilty smile. “Um– sorry. What did you say?” he asked, eyeing the girl curiously. 

[tallyespen-blog]

She didn’t realize the guy was sleeping. Her bad. When he springs into wakefulness, she almost feels guilty for waking him: naps are pretty precious things. She’s had enough trouble sleeping since coming here, and she blames one recurring nightmare: she wakes up in her too-comfortable double dorm room, and the door isn’t open. It isn’t a school, it’s a prison. It’s predictable, maybe; clichéd, definitely, but it messes with her sleep schedule all the same.

“I’m pretty sure there’s some quote about protesting too much,” she says. She can’t think of it, though, which probably has something to do with her sub-par English performance. “It’s, uh, my pen cap.” Well that sounds stupid now, interrupting this guy’s nap over a pen. “I dropped it. Well, catapulted it, more like. I wanted it back, and it’s kind of between your legs, which seemed like a no-zone to me.”

[greciandamsel]

She continued to smile, even though the girl seemed more reluctant ( was that the word? ) with hers. By the orange uniform, Rory could tell that this was an Ignis and well, sometimes that just came with the territory. But that was right - she was in her self defense class too. She knew World History had to be right, but sometimes you could get so invested in your own routine with your assigned partner in Self Defense you hardly noticed many others in the group as a whole. “Yeah, I think so. I’m Rory by the way. I don’t think we’ve actually met.” Rory didn’t feel like bringing up the constant tap tap tap of her pen earlier, the girl seemed nice and she was new, Rory was trying to improve herself and not judge too quickly.

“How are you finding it? Do you need any help catching up with anything?”

[tallyespen-blog]

Rory! To be honest, it doesn’t really ring any bells, but she does her best to commit it to memory now—Rory Rory Rory—so she won’t have to make herself look like an ass later by forgetting. “I guess we haven’t—I’m Tally.”

She doesn’t think she’s ever introduced herself so much in her life: the past few years seemed like a haze of late-night drives, hotel rooms, not meeting people’s eyes. They had other names, then, shoddily constructed half-identities. Funny, it all seems so useless now, like it had always been doomed to fail. But while it had been happening, she’d let herself believe in it. How is she finding Elswood? It’s the answer that everyone wants to know, which makes her even more cautious with it. “It’s, uh, fine?” And it definitely comes out like a question. “I mean, it’s weird to be in class. I think I’m already behind in some of them — “