Free Broken by Stella Noir, Aria Frost Page A

long time de-focussing.
    “Sorry, I-.”
    “The zoning out, it’s ok”, she says. “I get that sometimes too.”
    “I don’t even know where I go”, I say. “I mean, I know physically I don’t go anywhere, but mentally, it’s kind of weird, I just, I don’t know, it feels like a hole. It’s not unpleasant. Quite the opposite actually.”
    “Maybe it’s what your brain needs to recover”, Jo says. “Sometimes I wish I could do that too, you know, totally detach myself from reality.”
    A moment of silence passes between us as we both contemplate this. A complete and total disconnection from reality.
    “Are you coming next week?” Jo asks, her arm folded back over her chest.
    “I’ll be there”, I say. “I can’t let Paul bore you again with his stories about his amateur dramatics club, it wouldn’t be fair.”
    “Professional amatuer dramatics club”, she says, “They’re going on tour in the new year. Plus he wants us to come and see his Christmas production. It’s twenty dollars a ticket.”
    “Huh”, I say, biting my lip a little. “Good for him. Maybe we should go.”
    “I think he’d really appreciate it”, Jo offers.
    That silence crisps the space between us again, and neither one of us really knows how to end the conversation. It’s Jo, finally, that takes the lead.
    “I better get to it”, she says. “I hate shopping with a passion, but I haven’t got anyone else to do it for me. See you in the group?”
    “Yeah”, I say, smiling at her again. “I’m looking forward to it.”
    “Me too. Don’t forget your twenty dollars”, she says as she disappears into the labyrinthine network of the supermarket.
    After Jo has gone, I realize that during my short conversation with her, I didn’t think about Alice, her brutal murder, or the people I’m searching for once. I disconnected without zoning out the whole time and I don’t even get that in the therapy sessions. I think about that for the rest of the day, pondering exactly what it might mean.

Chapter Twenty Two
Jo
    8 December 2015. Seventy two days after.
    I’m excited to see Ethan back with us. He’s sat in his chair, casually slouched into one corner of it, as much as anybody could be on a fold-up metal and plastic office chair, with his hands tucked away into the pockets of a runner’s hoodie. When I’ve taken my own seat, pulled it into the group to close the ring more tightly, I notice he has a black eye and a cut on his cheek, his glasses do little to conceal. In fact, his glasses themselves appear to have been broken and fixed with sealing tape.
    “Shit, Ethan, what happened?”
    “Fell off his bike”, Paul says, before Ethan gets a chance to respond to me. His hand goes up to indicate that what Paul has said is the truth.
    “You should see his hands”, Paul adds.
    “Come on, Paul, it isn’t that bad.”
    “Show us again, Ethan”, Emily encourages.
    Ethan shifts a little on his chair and then reluctantly takes his hands out of his pockets to show me. One is bandaged, the other covered in cuts and bruises where swelling hasn’t yet gone down.
    “Took a bad hit”, Paul says.
    “I was going too fast”, Ethan confirms.
    “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything.”
    “Are you ok?” I ask.
    “Yeah”, Ethan says, in his usual, languid way. “A bit sore, but I’m ok.”
    “What happened exactly?”
    “Oh man, it’s kind of embarrassing”, Ethan says, pushing those broken glasses up his nose a little and dropping his shoulders. He is so likeable, I suddenly realize. His body movements, his way of speaking, the way he kind of looks at you, but not directly, as though he’s timid, but polite with it, comfortable within himself, but aware of himself too. “I kind of zoned out on the bike.”
    Paul shakes his head. “I keep telling you those drugs they give you are no good.”
    “Yeah, well-”, Ethan says. “I guess it was partly the drugs”, he pauses to take his glasses off and clean them,