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For as long as I remember, it's been just me and Wolfgang against the world. The two of us, taking on all comers—until one day he started talking about India Plan. I didn't have any idea how he'd started talking to a girl from India. Online, must have been, I thought then, even though I didn't think Wolfgang was the type to spend much time online. Not talking to girls online, anyway. Girls liked him plenty in person.
But he sounded pretty willing to drop his whole life and pick up with this girl in India, so I wasn't sure what to think. Yeah, things were grim, but they'd been grim a lot. We always had each other's backs, without running halfway around the world.
Anyway, a lot of bullshit happened, and at the end of it all, we were still alive, and suddenly Wolfgang was surrounded by people. Friends, friends so close they're family, people even closer, somehow, than that, people linked to Wolfgang in some mysterious telepathic way I didn't understand.
And look, I want to be happy for my friend when good things happen to him. I do. But I couldn't help feeling that with all these people around who were suddenly special to Wolfgang — was what we had, just the two of us, as it had been for so many years, really all that special anymore?
India Plan — her name was Kala — looked at me so warmly. I didn't know what to make of her. Capheus hugged me just as boisterously as Wolfgang did after we first met back up, but I didn't know Capheus.
Lito, who's some kind of famous actor, told me I had his undying gratitude, for what I'd done for Wolfie. What business of it was his? But Sun, this quiet, intense Korean chick, doubled down and repeated what Lito said. And then worst of all, the American cop wanted to shake my hand. I don't shake hands with cops. I would have said the same of Wolfgang, except Wolfgang was treating the guy like family, too, like there were no secrets between them.
Maybe the cop was dirty, and that was why he didn't seem to care about our pasts? But I've met dirty cops before. They didn't act like this.
They didn't look at me with that same warm look that was on all their faces, like I was…someone they loved, somehow.
I didn't get it, and I said so, finally, when Amanita came over to introduce herself. At least she did it like a normal person who'd never met me before.
"But they do know you, you know," she said, puzzled and laughing at me a little, gently. "That way they're looking at you — that's from seeing you through Wolfgang's eyes."
Oh.
I hadn't really thought of it like that.
Wolfgang tended to hide his feelings, even from me. He had so much love in him but we grew up where love was always a weakness to be hidden. So I hardly ever got to see him looking at me with that warm, unguarded look.
Not until there were all these people around us, suddenly caring. Showing me the care Wolfgang wouldn't let himself be open with.
I guess we've got it pretty good, after all.