She stares at me for a bit, silent. “You don’t think that circumstance was a part of it? This can’t have all been the venom’s doing.”

“Why not? That’s the power of the venom. It’s my Mr. Hyde. It’s clinical and evil.”

“But it’s also a part of you. Maybe you let the venom come to the surface and get ‘equal footing’ with you because it needed to come out in the open.”

“Everyone thinks that,” I say. “Randall, my mom, Renée-they think I enjoy hurting other people. This isn’t within my power. It’s something darker than me. It’s manipulative.”

“You’d be surprised how many people assign personalities to parts of themselves that they can’t accept-”

“I can accept it,” I bark, “I just don’t like it. I want to be rid of it, once and for all.”

“Then you’ve got to work,” she says. “No one can come in and cure you, Locke. There’s no deus ex machina here. If you want help with your feelings, you need to show those around you that this help will lead to something. So far, it seems like you’ve gone behind their backs, lied about what you’re actually experiencing. It must confuse your friends quite a bit.”

I snort. She has a serious point here, but it’s still shrink talk. “Well, at least someone’s giving me advice.”

“Not advice. Just my opinion. Right now, someone else telling you what to do is the last thing you need.”

Class crawls by at a snail’s pace on Tuesday, considering the insanity of my nonacademic life. The idea of paying attention to my history professor is absolutely meaningless. With the introspective nightmare I just went through, the views on Napoléon coming out of the graying little man in front of me just don’t hold that much true significance. Randall jots notes down halfheartedly, but I can tell he’s thinking the same thing. Part of me wants to get up and just scream that this has nothing to do with real life, that we didn’t care and really shouldn’t have to. For the first time that I can remember, I think about the universal teenager-versus-school question: Why should this matter to me? Will a serious knowledge of the cotton gin help with my unstable relationship with the woman of my dreams? Will learning that Napoléon and Hitler made the same stupid mistake change the fact that this weekend, I pulped the face of one of my best friends? This is all very interesting, but it has no bearing in my world. Who gives a fuck?

The minute class is over, I go to my usual smoking spot on the steps outside. Randall’s waiting for me. His eyes sag with exhaustion. Sleep has not been a part of his life lately. When I sit down, he mumbles, “And how’s the venom today?”

Hearing him mention it is odd. It’d always been my taboo subject, and now it’s a point of order. “It’s on and off. One minute I hear it commenting on my life, and the next I’m trying desperately to speak to it and getting no response.” There’s a silence, so I jump on it. “Randall, I’m so sorry. A million times, I’m sorry. I owe you so much more than this.”

He waves me aside and lights his cigarette. “Well, Saturday was certainly the worst I’ve ever seen you,” he says. “Maybe the venom just ran its course, like a disease.”

“That’s what I figured, that there was one last gasp and then it was dead, or at least retired. The other day, though, talking to my mom…I don’t know, maybe I’m doing this wrong. I’m the venom’s host, so it has to be within my control. But I’m not feeling angry or upset lately, just hopeless. I just want a sign that it wasn’t all a bunch of bullshit, that there’s actually something more to me than a…toxic concept. I want to feel something true.”

“Okay!” chirps Randall, and puts his smoke out on my neck.

My insides whirl. There’s a blur of coat and hair and collision, and the next thing I know I’m crouching on top of Randall, teeth gritted, one fist raised and the other behind his head clutching a handful of hair. Randall’s got a smug look on his face, and his breathing is ragged but calm. I make a little cry out of my throat when I try to talk. There’s none of the sweeping vengeance, none of the seeing red. This isn’t a war. I’m crouched on top of my best friend, ready to punch him in the face. And I’m fucking TERRIFIED and really don’t want to hit him.

This is pathetic. I feel sick.

“If you’re gonna hit me,” he coughs, “then fucking hit me.”

“STOP IT,” I cry, more sob than bellow. “You ENJOYED that.”

He smirks. “Yeah, I took a little pleasure from it, considering the shit you pulled this weekend. What of it, Stockenbarrel?”

I sit back on my haunches, frozen, unable to move or scream. I keep waiting for the pounding heat, the raw power, but there’s nothing, only embarrassment. Christ, my neck hurts.

Randall sighs and climbs to his feet. “Welcome to human emotions, Stockenbarrel. They’re not fun, they’re not cool, and you have a lot of fucking catching up to do.”

He sits down next to me, and I’m grateful for it.

When Casey answers the phone, he seems genuinely surprised that I want to see him. We make arrangements, and I walk over to his house.

He answers the door, and I can’t help but wince. He looks bad, just as bad as me, if not worse. His lips are crazy swollen, and there are bruises lining his cheekbones. There’s a scab on his chin surrounded by a thick purple bruise, probably evidence of my boot. Every step and movement is deliberate and careful. It’s like we’re two old men, hobbling around the room, nursing our war wounds. Sooner or later, one of us is going to start reminiscing about a nurse.

His apartment is much nicer than I would have guessed-stone countertops, white walls, simple-yet-elegant carpeting, a distinct change from my lived-in crunchy home life. His bedroom has a bit more character. The walls are a deep navy blue, and the furniture has sort of an art-deco feel to it. The only light is one that hangs from the ceiling, the type that you always see in cop dramas, hanging over the interrogation table. Casey takes a seat at his desk in one of those basic swivel chairs.

We both look at our feet for a few minutes, and then I look up and try to smile.

“How are you?” It sounds plastic and forced, I’m sure, but it’s the only thing I can think of.

“Sore,” he says, and then looks at me. “I’m sorry about your eye.”

“I’m sorry about your mouth.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t knock any teeth out, though one of them’s loose.”

“I know. I talked to Randall.”

“My folks aren’t going to press charges,” he says. “What about yours?”

“My mom figures this is my fault, and I should fix it myself. Besides, neither of us is in the hospital, it doesn’t seem that necessary.”

“Right.”

There’s a pregnant pause. Both of us want to speak, but neither of us know how to put it.

“Look,” he finally says, “I’m sorry about how everything went down. Just…with my whole cover blown, it was like the black was the only thing that made sense, and I bet you know what that feels like. But you’re not getting out of this, Locke. I will not let you out of this. You fucked up badly, and being sorry for something like this doesn’t make it any better.”

“Of course, but, Case-”

“No. Shut up. Let me finish. You’ve gotta understand, I’ve known Randall for…forever. And it took me a long time before I realized how I felt about him. It was hopeless from the beginning, so, whatever, I convinced myself that it wasn’t anything big, that I was just lonely and horny. It wasn’t that, though, not hormones and confusion but LOVE, bottom of the heart. So I couldn’t tell him. Occasional attraction is one thing, but love…Tell him that, it would change everything. And no matter what you say now, there’s going to be that change in our friendship, the change that you started. Randall and I will NEVER be the same friends we were. I overreacted, yeah, and things will get better, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be perfect, or AS GOOD. That’s the last thing I wanted, was for Randall to have something else to, I don’t know, write a song about, right?”