When All is Null and Void

Chapter Fifteen

Stitches used to heal over weeks, but now they sewed and held the skin together in a matter of hours. The insatiable itch, though, did last weeks as those now dissolved stitches secreted a healing salve to remove the scarring. Despite the discomfort, Titus knew he would probably have the thin, puckered line tracing kidneys to shoulder blades for life. Some scars could not be healed.

Dinner that first night had been an excruciating ordeal where every moment set Titus on edge. His breaths were shallow, but his mom eventually dismissed him, none the wiser of Titus' ravaged body. Rhea James had fully purchased her son's lies about an easy Void leak closure and simple return home. She had even accepted his weakness as due to that closure. Titus' ring protected him from many diseases, but it was still possible to get sick—especially when Titus rooted an arm in the Void to close it.

Titus spent the better part of three weeks avoiding Rhea, scratching at his back, and attempting not to lose his mind. Having rid his room of a Holo screen and placed stringent blockades on his wrist Holo to ward off a desire for more...adult content, Titus had little more to do than homework and festering in a sour attitude.

One day after breakfast when the itch had subsided and his dismal appetite had returned, Titus ventured into the library on the first floor. Athilda, his private math tutor, was already waiting for him at one of the tables. While Titus may never have need of such algorithms, he at least tried to make sense of the complicated equations of trigonometry. Of course, Titus supposed if he were put up against someone with even an inkling of understanding about sin and cosin he would never hold up.

Reading and writing, the skills at which Titus had always excelled, didn't seem quite as exciting. Eneough people existed in the world who could read and write. Unfortunately, the classes he most enjoyed required more than passable trigonometry. Whether it was chemistry or studying planets and their makeups, Titus needed impeccable algebraic integrity.

Which was the reason his miserable grades in math annoyed him to no end. How could you love something and suck at one of its aspects? Titus sat today with his fists clenched on the library table, staring at the sin graph on the tablet before him—or, well, it should have been a sin graph. Titus drew it, using the data from an equation he'd solved.

Athilda appraised it with a raised eyebrow. "Well, it's a little closer than Monday." Her eastern European, though she hadn't lived there in years, seemed to mock him.

Titus groaned. Athilda was too nice for her own good. He needed someone who would say it: "You suck, Titus." No one ever would.

She explained what he'd done wrong, but it flew so far over his head he wasn't even sure his tutor had even spoken in English. "Couldn't we just...find a way to make math useless?"

"Oh, it is," Athilda said, nodding her head at the graph. "Sometimes math is perfectly useless. That doesn't make it any less important."

"Well, I know that." Titus shook his head. "If everyone forgot about math, then," he pointed at the graphing tablet, "Thisstupid thing wouldn't work anymore."

"Exactly." Athilda smiled. "Now, let's try this again."

And they did, remaining in the library until lunch time. Athilda left him alone, and he pulled up his wrist Holo. A tiny notification awaited him, displayed over his forearm. Titus had been mentioned in another gossip column. The website was blocked, but the title made him snort: Titus James and His Secret Struggles

What could he possibly be struggling with? The author was anonymous, but Titus wondered if it was the same person who often wrote about him. The worst had claimed Titus was somehow involved in drunken orgies during full moons. He'd been sixteen. The columns were all lies, but they still stung. Titus wouldn't even have the opportunity to partake in sex at all, let alone an orgy.

Titus stared at his forearm and the notification before flicking it away. His stomach growled, imitating the very same noise of derision which had come from his throat. When Titus stood, the graphing tablet clattered to the floor. He scooped it up and hoped it wouldn't be shattered. The screen was fine. He left it, and his attitude, behind.

Rhea was seated at the head of the table when Titus walked into the dining room. "Hi, mom," he said brightly. Titus hugged her for the first time in a week, and this time he wasn't afraid she'd find out the truth."I thought you were at the Museum?"

"We got done early," Rhea said, matching the lightness of his tone. "Lunch should be out soon. Athilda left me a message that you improved your scores in Trig today. Good job!" The way she said it all, like a badly memorized script, Titus knew she was distracted. That, coupled with her fingers frenetic tapping on her forearm.

"Thanks," Titus said, leaning back on his left leg. "I don't think I did better, though." He shrugged, sitting across from her.

"I doubt Athilda would lie to me." Rhea James of the Museum said this, not Titus' mother.

She'd lie to keep her job, Titus wanted to say, but instead he nodded. "You're probably right." During the momentary silence, two staff members came out carrying plates of food. Titus wanted to ask how his mom had known he would be here, but then he realized she had probably been about to summon him anyways.

"So," they said at the same time. Titus yielded by taking a bite of the braised beef in front of him. Why did it have to remind him of his own flayed flesh? His stomach tossed as it had the last few times he'd eaten meat since his accident.

His mom took a sip of water before continuing. "I'd like you to go check on Caleb," she said. A beat. "There have been Void leaks recently, but they haven't been much of an issue. I've dealt with them."

When Titus looked up, he cricked his neck. "There've been Void leaks, and you didn't tell me?" He understood the danger of the Void—he had a permanent scar to prove it. But...lying to him? She couldn't choose now to be the responsible one; Titus was in too deep.

"You got sick the last time you closed a leak," she said, wiping her lips with a napkin, though they weren't at all marred by food. "That's not happened before. We need to be a little more aware."

"So you want me to—what—babysit?" Titus asked. He'd once again lost his appetite, and shoved his plate away. Bits of food landed on the table. Titus stood and slammed a window shut just to have something to do.

"You're going to see how Caleb is learning."His mom had never liked repeating herself, and her voice was flat in the authoritative way that always shut Titus up.

"But..." he wasn't sure why he was against the idea of checking in on Caleb. Titus wasn't sure if it was more the fact his mom had kept him in the dark for no reason other than a so-called "sickness" or the fact Titus was inherently predisposed to loathing Caleb Carlisle. He had to be against Caleb—a principle in his bones made this clear. If he didn't hate him then Titus would like him and... Caleb didn't need to be more liked. That was it.

Rhea raised an eyebrow. "As a Timewalker, you have to obey." A muscle twitched in her jaw as she smiled. "And I have even more authority as your mother."

"Low blow," he muttered, settling back in his chair. "Do I have to go now? Or can I go later?"

She pursed her lips. "I'm giving them three weeks before we start evaluating. It doesn't really matter when you Hop." She took another bite of her lunch before taking another sip of water.

Titus frowned. "I guess I can do that," he said. "I'll go later tonight."

"That's fine."

Silence fell between them, and Titus forced himself to eat a little more so his mom wouldn't get upset that he was wasting perfectly good food. Though they were and needn't worry about wasting, Rhea didn't want Titus to treat money like entitlement. Titus wasn't sure he even cared.

"I'm gonna go work with Fischer," Titus said a few minutes later.

"Have fun!" she said, folding her napkin and laying it on the table. "I'm going to send you a few observation questions for you to answer, and then we'll debrief when I see you again." She came close and hugged Titus. "I love you," she said with a slight squeeze.

"Love you too," he said.