Unlike

Rukia is a magnet, a crude chunk of iron ore, a misshapen lump stuck all over with the needles of her memories. She wonders if others can tell, if strangers can see her bristling with silver spikes, if her former friends—now so far away—secretly understood the implacable push of their matched poles as they drifted away.

It took her so long to understand the truth

It does not matter. She lets the cruel laughter of her companions wash over her, the same way she barely registers her boyfriends' kisses and idle pawing. They are not her kind, these new comrades, nor even her opposites. They feel, and have, no affect. But better to surround herself with aluminum and lead than with nothing at all.

I don't want to be alone ever again, she said, and the people laughed and gave less than they took

It confuses Rukia when people speak of magnetic personalities as belonging to the popular, to the well-liked or at least the ones that they wanted to like them. She knows that magnets repulse as much as they attract. There might as well be a universe between herself and her own kind. But people forget simple truths for simpler aphorisms, Rukia knows. Her grandmother said that, often.

One good turn deserves another

Sometimes she has to shake paperclips from her fingers, yank her hands away from her fridge. If she concentrates, Rukia can raise the nails out of the floorboards, if only a little bit. More often, she finds herself coughing up bits of iron, aggregated from her food and concentrated in the back of her throat. She never bleeds anymore; instead, her blood hovers inside her wounds, too attached to her to leave.

We are like you, they said. We are people. We are your people. How we love to visit your world! So pretty. So full of life. So full—

Her grandmother warned her never to go into the woods when she was upset. “We cross too easily,” she said. “Our family has always been able to step across the space between into the lands beyond. We call them, and oh, how they love to answer. To pour sweet words into our wounds, and ask kind questions. To give us magic to make everything better. But the world doesn't work that way, my little Rukia. Their sweetness is that of barb-laced honey, their kindness a mask. And their magic is the magic of lies, of deceit, of ugly twists and nasty giggles. They can no more give real help than fire can quench your thirst.” And she promised to stay away, and meant it.

But oh! How the loneliness yawned within her that night. She ran out of the house and pretended not to notice when the cement gave way to a dense bed of pine needles, when the familiar trees grew strange. Emptiness is so hard to bear; how could she remember promises when the night welcomed her? They stroked her hair and sang lullabies—and if they cut her skin as they stroked, and if their melodies scratched at her nerves, well at least she felt something

Rukia sinks her fingernails in the current boyfriend's back and ignores him as he cries out in his sleep, holding him close. Her curse is her only shield—she feels them come nearer each time she is alone, creeping towards her with each silence, leaping over each empty space. Soon, she will not have to run into the woods to bring them to her. They will clamber over the border and latch onto her, claiming repayment for their favor, nibbling away at her until nothing is left. Though little enough of her promise remains unbroken, Rukia can try to keep that much intact. She must.

No man is truly an island, it is said. She wished she could believe it