that we see, hear the beautiful soul sounds that we hear, we who have been with him for so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you? Do you have any idea how often we'd have to hear him play Claire De Lune?"
My guilt and sobbing slowly subsided as I looked into her dark eyes. But, even as the calm spread over me, I knew I couldn't trust my feelings with Jasper here.
It was so hard to know how I felt over the course of that long day. It was sort of fun staying inside all day. Alice called room service and ordered five cheeseburgers for me, with fries, and then Jasper made the bellhop feel like there were ants in his pants, and he freaked out and took them off and was wearing long johns underneath. The long johns reminded me of Charlie and when the bell hop left, the depression set in again. The windows stayed shut, the TV on, though no one watched it; nobody could stand to watch it. The silver phone resting on Alice's bag seemed to grow bigger and more silver as the hours passed.
My babysitters handled the suspense better than I did. As I fidgeted and paced, they simply grew more still, two statues whose eyes followed me imperceptibly, although I perceived it as I moved about the room. I occupied myself with memorizing the place; the striped pattern on the couches, tan, peach, cream, dull gold, puce, lemon, cherry, and tan again. Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding pictures in the random shapes, like I'd found pictures in clouds as a child. I traced a pale blue hand, a woman combing her spaghetti hair, a cat stretching its big old legs. But when the red circle became a staring eye, I looked for something else to do.
As the afternoon wore on, I went back to bed. I hoped that by myself in the dark, I could give in to the terrible fears that hovered on the edge of my subconsciousness, unable to break through Jasper's emotional powers.
But Alice followed me casually, as if by some coincidence she had grown tired of the front room at the same

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Chapter 20

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