Anna shakes her head and picks something up from the floor. She places my sketchbook into my arms. “I found this in there.”
My head snaps to the desk next to my bed, where my sketchbook usually sits. Why was it in Anna’s room?
“Where have you been all this time, when you said you were with Sarah?”
I stare down at the book clutched in my hands, wishing it would suck me into its blank pages. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Try the truth,” she says, her voice trembling. She pullsa bottle of pills from her jacket—the half-empty container I tried to give Rose. “What are these?”
I shake my head. I don’t know what to say without lying. How do I tell her I took them to stop time traveling in my sleep?I can’t.How did I get myself into this mess? I never should’ve lied to Anna about my mother’s death.
Black, mascara-infused tears streak Anna’s cheeks. “Ella, if you can’t be honest with me, then are we really friends?”
I press my lips together. Even if I did tell her about time travel, I don’t have any proof. It would only sound like farfetched lies. I lower my gaze to the floor, as if I might find a piece of my heart on the thick sage rug. I can’t bring myself to tell Anna another lie, but I also can’t give her the truth. My bottom lip trembles. “I’m sorry—I can’t.”
Mouth tense, Anna tosses my pills onto the bed and strides to her own room, her thick wedges clunking on the floorboards. With one last disappointed glance, she slams her door closed, locking our friendship away with it.
The porch stairs creak as I climb to my front door, satchel in hand and the past twelve hours ringing through my head. Three lines of police tape cross the doorway, one obstructing the four locks my mother installed. Another sign of her paranoia—the beginning of her disease progression. My skin crawls and I whip around, scanning the few parked cars on the street. My fist closes around the charm on my necklace, right above my racing heart. This is more than the familiarity of watching myself in my sub-t. My paranoia’s real. And it’s worsening.I’m already following in her footsteps.
I flash back to my mother in that hospital, screaming. My mother who couldn’t differentiate fact from fiction. My mother who killed herself.
I can’t end up like her, locked up while my mind slips away. My stomach hardens. Silas was right. I can’t throw away my lifelong plan on a whim. I need to finish my studies and learn about my mother’s disease. Book back in with Dr Williams. I need to fight for the safe, normal life I’ve spent the last twelve months building.
The ache in my chest feels like a tangible thing. No Neurovida.No Parker.
When I break the tape and open my front door, I’m hit with the thick, bitter scent of smoke and burned plastic. I trudge across the living room and collapse on my faded brown sofa, the half-empty bottle of pills rattling inside my open bag. I miss Anna and her constant chit-chat. Her revolving door of guests and outfit changes.
I lie back and close my eyes, but they tug back open. If I go to sleep, I’ll dream of my mother and the trauma ahead of me. Of my future with Parker that will never be. The blood drains from my face, and my heart aches fiercely.I’ll never see him again.I reach into my bag and pluck out my medication. Tipping the bottle, I shake two pills into my open palm.
I don’t want to dream… I want to forget.
32Mariella
I fall into a dreamless sleep, waking the next morning groggy with a heavy fog blanketing my brain. I sit up and rub my aching neck, pausing to stare at my hand. The familiar electrical tingling is absent, replaced with a systemic numbness. I can’t smell the lingering smoke clinging to every surface of my house. I can’t smell anything.
I grab my phone and check the time.11 am.I’ve slept through my morning class.At least I can ask Anna for her notes.A painful jolt sears through my chest. I can’t ask Anna for anything. I’ve lost her. And Parker. And the future family he’d promised would await me at Neurovida.
I take two more pills, pull the moth-eaten blanket over my head, and shut my eyes.
I wake disoriented and starving. When did I last eat or take my meds? I drag my feet into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. Catching my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I flinch. A cool sweat breaks over my skin. I edge forward until my nose is an inch from the mirror. Wet strands of brown hair cling to my pale face, a haunting emptiness whirling behind my mismatched eyes. The spitting image ofmy mother in that hospital corridor. Alone and confused.Just like me.
I dry my face and make instant noodles on the stove, but they taste like bland cardboard.Get dressed. Go to class. You’re falling behind.
I lie back down on the sofa and close my eyes.
White light dances around me, easing as I step forward. Waves break on the shore, the scent of ocean and sunscreen filling my nostrils.
“Mari, come here,” my mother calls to my younger self through the waning light, unaware that the same girl will watch this memory far too many times to count, hanging off her every word with silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
The light continues to recede, but I draw it back toward me, ray by golden ray, until I’m submerged in blinding light, just as Parker told me I could. I don’t want to spend every night haunted by my mother’s end. By what I will one day become. I hold the barrier of shimmering light around me, like a memory-retardant blanket, and wait until I wake and can take my medication.
“Open the door,” a faraway voice calls.
“Go away,” I mumble.
I rouse to a heavy pounding on my front door, electricity surging through my body. Tears well in my eyes and I shake my hands, pushing the energy away.
“I’m not going away until you talk to me.” The voice is closer now. Clearer.
