That night I slept in the same desk drawer as Evan. Emily had asked me to do so, so that someone could make sure he was okay during the night. She had given us each a knit cap of hers to sleep on. Evan didn’t talk at all to me, even when I tried to make conversation, but at least he no longer wanted to beat the crap out of me for something he still considered to be my fault. I didn’t blame him – I would have been hugely upset as well in his situation, with no idea how I could ever get my old life back. We both managed to get some sleep, at least. The next morning Emily came to collect us. She took me to the wash basin in the bathroom so that I could use it for a toilet, just like I’d always done at our old apartment. She did the same for Evan, who looked a lot calmer than he had the day before, though he still wasn’t speaking much.

When she took us to the kitchen to get breakfast, Sarah was already there. She looked as though she hadn’t slept at all last night, but she wasn’t crying anymore thankfully. She gasped when she saw Evan sitting next to me in Emily’s hand, as though she had just been reminded of the reality of yesterday’s events. Emily put us down on the kitchen counter and went over to Sarah, then gave her a hug.

“How are you doing?” Emily asked. “You look awful.”

“I’m…okay…I think,” Sarah answered. “I…I almost thought…maybe it was just a bad dream…”

“I’m afraid not. I’m so sorry, Sarah. I hope we can get Evan back to normal, I really do. But if we can’t…”

“Don’t say that!” Sarah yelled, backing away from Emily. “You’re going to fix this! You and your little…your little…”

She didn’t get any further before breaking down again. If Emily was upset as well, she didn’t show it. She hugged Sarah again, more firmly than before, as the girl continued to cry.

“Oh, Emily, I’m sorry!” Sarah blurted out between the tears. “I know this isn’t your fault, I’m just…angry! And scared…and I don’t know what to do! Oh God, I’m so pathetic! What would Evan think, if he saw me like this?”

“Why don’t you ask him? Or have you forgotten that he’s right here?”

This reminder just upset her even more. I marvelled at how patient and understanding Emily was with her. I would have been just as helpless in comforting her if I had been full-size as I was now.

“Hey, it’s all right…it’s all right,” Emily said. “You’re going to be okay, Sarah…you both are. But you need to pull yourself together now, okay? Evan needs you, and you can’t help him when you’re upset like this. Go, take a shower and get dressed, and try to relax. We’ll need your help today, understand? Evan will need your help. You need to look after him now. He’s still your boyfriend, after all, and he still loves you, I know it. Do you still care for him too?”

“Y-yes…yes…I want to help him. What can I do to help?”

“Like I said, go and take a nice, warm shower, or a bath. Then come back, have some breakfast – you’ve had nothing to eat since yesterday noon – and then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do today.”

Sarah listened to her and left the room. Emily started getting some ingredients for making pancakes, which she loved. Evan was walking around aimlessly on the counter, his head facing downwards, and I sat down and kept an eye on him.

“Do you think she’ll agree with our plan?” I asked, referring to the – admittedly very basic – plan Emily and I had thought of last night, while we were desperately trying to come up with ideas.

“I don’t know. I hope so. There’s really not much else we can do for him at this point.”

“What plan?” Evan suddenly called out. He walked over to where I was sitting, The look on his face was part curiosity, part dread. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, look who decided to join the conversation,” Emily said. “Good morning, Evan. How are you feeling today? Did you have a good night’s rest?”

“What do you think?” he said angrily.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking…”

“Shut up! Just…just shut up, okay? Shut the fuck up and tell me what this fucking plan is that you’ve got!”

I looked up uncomfortably at my giant girlfriend. She was obviously not happy with the way Evan spoke to her. She reached down and gripped him between her thumb and forefinger. He immediately began struggling and trying to hit her, to make her let him go, but she just picked him up and held him at eye-level, high above the ground.

“You wanna know what I think?” she said, ignoring his feeble escape attempts. “I think all of this is your fault! I told you not to touch Alex, didn’t I? Didn’t I? But you couldn’t help yourself, and now look at you! You’re just like him now…a tiny little freak! That was what you called him, wasn’t it? Well, big guy, I hope you get used to being nothing but a ‘little freak’ yourself real fast! I don’t think you’ll be back to normal size anytime soon, at least not if it was up to me. If it wasn’t for Sarah, I would have kept you like this for a long time, even if I did know how to fix you – which I don’t, by the way. But I really like Sarah, and she seems to like you a lot for some reason, so we’ll do what we can to make things right.”

He was completely scared stiff by now, and even I felt that Emily was being too harsh to him. He had been a bit of a prick, but he didn’t deserve this. Emily put him down on the breakfast table, away from me, and carried on making breakfast for us. When it was ready, she laid out two plates for Sarah and herself and a small saucer for Evan and me, on which she put several tiny pieces of pancake that she prepared for us. She also put down two plastic bottle screw caps filled with orange juice for us to drink from. Evan was still visibly upset and shaking, but he was also very hungry and thirsty, so he began helping himself at once to the food. Sarah soon joined us, looking a lot better now that she’d had a shower and put on fresh clothes. She was famished as well, and as we had breakfast Emily explained what she thought would be the best thing to do.

First we had to return Evan’s car to his own apartment complex. Sarah knew the way and said she felt up to driving his car back there. Emily would follow behind in her own car, and then drive back here with Sarah once his car had been delivered. If anyone at his place asked what had happened, the girls would say that Evan had to leave town by train suddenly, to visit a (made-up) family member in the countryside who was having a crisis of some sort. (Emily said she’d figure out the details of her cover story on the way there, since she hadn’t quite done so yet.) Evan’s clothes, wallet, cellphone, and everything else he’d brought along with him would be stashed somewhere in Sarah’s room until he was back to normal again. Sarah didn’t argue with any of this and neither did Evan.

“But what do we do then?” Sarah asked. “I mean, not to sound all negative…but last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I went online and tried to find out about anything like this…if anything like this had ever happened, I mean. But I couldn’t find anything! It’s almost like Alex is the only person who’s ever been shrunk like this!”

“Yeah, until now,” I thought, but didn’t say anything.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s really the case,” Emily said. “In fact, to be completely honest, I doubt we’ll be able to find anyone, anywhere, who could help Evan. We’ll keep looking, of course, but for now, I suggest we wait and see.”

“Wait? For what? Do you think he’ll grow back to normal by himself?”

“Maybe…I don’t know. It could be only a temporary side-effect from touching Alex. Maybe he’ll be back to normal later today, or tomorrow. If he’s still shrunk a week from now, then we can take him to a hospital or something. Do you think you can manage that?”

I expected Sarah to burst into tears again at the thought of having to look after her now-tiny boyfriend for a whole week, but she remained surprisingly calm. She stared down at the two miniscule guys on the table, but she didn’t speak to either of us. After finishing breakfast she fetched Evan’s car keys, which were still in his jacket pocket, and headed out to his car. Emily took Evan and me to her bedroom and put us down on her bed.

“It’ll be better leaving you here while we’re gone,” she told us. “I think Sarah needs some time to come to terms with the situation. Maybe I’ll talk to her on the way back and try and to put her mind at ease. Now, you two behave yourselves while we’re gone, okay? Don’t do anything dumb or risky. I’m talking to you especially, Evan.”

As soon as she had left, Evan got up and began walking around. I followed him, not really talking to him since I didn’t know what to talk about. I realized I knew next to nothing about him, but I didn’t think it was the best time to be making small talk or asking him what his hobbies were. He still needed time to get over the shrinking incident, I thought. He just wandered around aimlessly for a long while, kicking any folds in the blanket he stumbled across, before suddenly heading for the side of the bed. He got down on all fours and began lowering himself over the edge and I ran up to him.

“What’re you doing?” I called out. “You’re going to fall!”

He looked up, with only his head and arms still visible.

“I’m climbing down,” he said. “There’s nothing to do up here and I’m bored, so what the hell…might as well do something that’s slightly more interesting than sitting on my ass.”

“Emily told us to stay here,” I argued. “What if you fall down to the floor, or if something happens to you down there?”

“What’s going to happen, huh? It’s not like my life can be ruined any more than it already is…”

“That’s not true! Sarah still cares about you…”

“Shut up man! You don’t know shit about us! You think any girl will care about me now, when I’m nothing but a bug compared to them? I don’t want to be a nothing but a pathetic little girl’s pet, like you. Now leave me alone, okay? Stay where you are, like your precious Emily told you to.”

I ignored his comments and looked down at the spot where he’d climbed down. The blanket on Emily’s bed hung down and almost reached the floor there and it wasn’t too difficult for an athletic guy like Evan to lower himself down. He held on to every fold in the fabric until he reached the bottom, where he immediately began to walk away from the bed. Cursing to myself, I decided to follow him. It wasn’t as easy for me as it had been for him and I nearly fell a couple of times. It took all of my strength to hold on to the blanket, but eventually I managed to make it safely down as well. I ran after Evan until I caught up with him. He just gave me a contemptuous look, but apart from that he ignored me.

Ahead of us were a pair of cream-coloured high-heeled shoes. Emily had had these for longer than she had known me: I remembered her wearing them on one occasion at her old apartment, while I was still living in hiding in the kitchen cupboard, afraid of being discovered by her. Their heels were twice as high as Evan and me, but their toe section was easy to climb onto. While Evan was busy staring in amazement at the giant shoes, I climbed into one of them and went all the way to the back. I then sat down and slid down the inside of the shoe as if it were a playground slide.

“What…the fuck…are you doing?” Evan asked as I climbed back up.

“Uh…just having some fun,” I said. “I’m not gonna let you just walk off on your own, and just walking is pretty boring, so…yeah. You wanna try it?”

He looked at me as if I was crazy, then left. I slid down the thirty-foot shoe one last time and set off after him again. This time I tried to get a conversation started, but didn’t have much success. It was also pretty cold down here on the floor (we were both barefoot), so I tried to take my mind off of it. Evan just kept on walking around without any definite intent. Eventually we reached a monumental pair of leather boots, one of several that Emily owned. They were building-sized compared to us, much too high to climb into. Evan stared up at the imposing boots, and when I stood next to him I was shocked to see that there were tears in his eyes. I would never have thought he was the kind of person who would cry, not in any situation.

“I…I had a life,” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I had so much I wanted to do…and now…now I’ve got nothing…”

“You still have Sarah,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

“Do I? She hasn’t said one word to me since…since…you know. She doesn’t give a shit about me now! She’ll probably get a new boyfriend in a week or so, and I…I’m gonna be stuck like this, like a fucking freak! And it’s all your fault!”

“No it isn’t! You’re the one who didn’t listen when Emily told you to leave me alone. You could have been nice to me, you could’ve tried to understand, but no, you had to go and be an asshole!”

He turned towards me and I fully expected him to start beating me up again, but instead he just stood there and glared at me.

“We’re all trying to help you! Can’t you see that?” I said. “Sarah still cares about you, she just needs some time to get used to the new you…”

“The ‘new me’? What’s that supposed to mean? You seriously think I’m gonna be stuck like this forever?”

“I don’t know…just…just take it easy, okay? None of us want to see you trapped like this for the rest of your life, but getting you back to normal isn’t just as easy as that.”

“How do you know? You’re the one who made me this small, why can’t you make me big again? You haven’t even tried!”

I reached out and grabbed his arm. As I expected, nothing happened. I was also convinced by now that touching me was what caused him to shrink, but why it only happened to him and not anyone else I still didn’t know. Did it really work only on other men? Was it some kind of magic…disease, that I could pass on to other men? Or was it just Evan, this one guy, who could be affected in the whole world? He shook free from my grasp and turned around.

“I’ve had enough of this crap,” he said. “I’m gonna go to the living room and wait for the girls there. You coming?”

“You…you don’t mind?” I asked nervously. “I was trying to help you just now…”

“Yeah, I know, but it didn’t work, so you didn’t really help at all. Well, I might as well just make the most of it, I guess. Maybe I can make a living as a circus freak or something, get people to pay to see me…”

“If I hear the word ‘freak’ one more time, I…I…”

He just looked back with a derisive smile on his face. I followed him , of course, as he headed out of Emily’s bedroom. I could only hope that Sarah would be a bit more friendly with him when she got back. Perhaps, if he saw how much she still loved him, Evan might find his current predicament more bearable. I prayed that he wouldn’t try and put an end to his own life. I almost did so once or twice, while I was still getting used to being this tiny, before I met Emily. The last couple of months, when I was with her and always close to her, have been the most wonderful period of my life so far, regardless of the fact that I was as small as an insect. If Sarah could find it within herself to remain true to Evan, and if Evan could find a new purpose for himself, perhaps both of their lives could turn out all right as well.