The Glimpse Trade (A Silas Sharp Metaphysical Mystery): Chapter 28

 Chapter 28 — Hello, Volatility, My Old Friend

Volatility doesn’t knock.

It arrives like a dropped plate in a crowded diner, sudden, loud, and impossible to pretend you didn’t hear. And probably accompanied by some asshole's sarcastic applause.

By the time I found Avery Bloom again, the city had started to remember how to be unpredictable. I noticed small fractures in the routine. A barista forgetting a name and not apologizing like it was a felony. A couple arguing in public without checking for witnesses. A man missing a train and deciding, with visible confusion, to simply wait for the next one. Tiny rebellions. Reality, stretching its legs. Avery’s rebellion was less subtle.

*

I watched the video the same way you watch a car you think might skid. Half expecting impact. Half hoping it doesn’t.

She sat in front of the camera without the usual lighting architecture. Gone were the halo effect and careful diffusion. Replaced by flat, honest daylight. Her hair wasn’t arranged so much as it had come to an agreement with gravity. The room behind her wasn’t curated. It was lived in. There was a mug on the table with a chip in it. No cutesy witticism on it. A plain white mug. I liked that mug immediately. She stared at the camera for a second too long before speaking.

“I didn’t rehearse this,” she said. Which, in her world, was the equivalent of announcing she’d decided to juggle knives in a crowded elevator.

Her followers weren’t used to that kind of honesty. Honesty has rough edges. It doesn’t photograph well.

“I’ve been… wrong,” she said. “I thought if I could see how things would go, I could avoid the bad parts. Optimize the outcomes. Curate my becoming.” A small, almost embarrassed smile. “That’s what I always say, right?”

No music swelled to underline the brand. No captions floated up to summarize the takeaway. Just Avery, sitting with her vulnerability.

“And I think what I actually did was stop living anything that didn’t feel guaranteed.”

She exhaled in a way that wasn’t dramatic or performative. It was human.

“I didn’t have a fight with Bene last week. I told you I did. I posted about what I learned from it.” She shook her head. “There was nothing to learn. Because it didn’t happen.”

She let confession sit there. Avery had set the truth down on the table like something breakable and let it speak for itself.

The comments came fast. They always do. At first, confusion.

Is this satire?
Wait, what?
This feels off-brand.

Then the edge sharpened.

So you’ve been lying?
Everything you post is fake.
Wow. Unfollowed.

A few tried to rescue her.

We all make mistakes ❤️
Growth is messy, queen.

But the algorithm has a taste for blood. It lingered where the reactions were strongest, and the strongest reactions weren’t kind. Her numbers dipped faster than a New Year’s resolution in mid-January. It was the kind of drop that used to send her into a private panic with a public smile.

I waited for some follow-up or the usual pivot back to polish. It didn’t come. Instead, she plowed ahead. Same lighting. Same chipped mug.

“This is me not fixing it,” she said.

*

By the time I got to Dr. Calico Verde’s office, the backlash had settled into a steady hum.  Avery sat on the couch without a phone in her hand. That alone felt like progress bordering on mythological. Dr. Verde sat across from her, one leg crossed over the other, expression calibrated somewhere between clinical and quietly impressed.

“How are you feeling?” Verde asked.

Avery thought about it. Actually thought. I saw no quick scan for the most presentable answer. She offered no influencer reflex to translate emotion into content.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Verde nodded. “Good.”

Avery blinked. “Good?”

“That’s an unscripted answer.”

Avery leaned back into the couch, as if testing whether it would hold her without her having to perform for it.

“They hate it,” she said.

“Some of them do.”

“I lost twelve thousand followers.”

“Did you lose yourself?”

Avery let out a short breath that might have been a laugh’s distant cousin.

“I think I might be finding her,” she said.

“Messy process,” Verde said.

“I can tell.”

Silence sat with them for a moment. Avery shifted, her hands fidgeting with the sleeve of her shirt.

“I keep waiting for the other shoe,” she said. “Like I said the wrong thing, I posted the wrong thing, and now something worse is coming.”

“It might,” Verde said.

Avery stared at her. “That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

Another pause. Then, slowly, Avery smiled a smile I hadn’t seen from her before. Usually, her smiles were camera-ready and knew the all the right angles. This one arrived late, like it had to travel without directions.

“I didn’t check my comments this morning,” she said.

“Talk about a step forward,” Calico said with a smile of her own.

“I made coffee instead.”

“Any good?”

“It was terrible,” Avery laughed. “My assistant usually makes the coffee.”

Verde raised an eyebrow.

Avery shrugged. “I drank it anyway.”

There it was again.

A small, meaningless thing that counted as a win.

“I don’t know what happens next,” Avery said.

“Neither do I,” Verde replied. “And I think that’s the point.”

Avery looked at her for a long second.

Then, a laugh slipped out of her like it had been waiting for permission.

*

Later, walking back through the city, I noticed something else. People were getting things wrong. Orders mixed up. Names misremembered. Timing slightly off. And no one was collapsing under it. Instead, they adjusted and improvised. Lived. Volatility hadn’t destroyed anything. It had reintroduced possibility. Which, as it turns out, is where most of the interesting parts of being alive keep themselves.

I passed a storefront window and caught my reflection. For a moment, I didn’t recognize it. Not because it had changed. I tipped my hat to the stranger anyway.

*******

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