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Time has gone missing and I’m desperate to find it. But I catch only glimpses of arrangements being made, two voices bickering, as I lie on the couch, my mind lost in a maze I can’t find my way out of.
“Come on, Nat. You can do this—tell me what you see.”
I’m climbing out of her car. We carpooled to school, but I’m still wearing the same dress I wore to the club.
She hands me a bag, tells me to dump all the contents into my locker, then go to my English class and sit at my desk.
Her final instruction:At precisely nine thirty-eight, I command you to wake.
“Nat, what happened—where are you?”
I swallow. My lips are so parched, my throat dry. “You set me up,” I tell her, but we already know that.
“Does that mean you stayed—a second time?”
“Told you she would,” the Spanish accent says.
“No you didn’t,” Elodie snaps.
I’m back in the club, Arcana, it’s called.
I pull the Wheel of Fortune card.
I laugh at my grave.
A beautiful boy in a mask offers me a Green Fairy.
“It was never about the drink,” I say.
“Even so, would you do it again? Knowing what you know—would you stay?”
I think of Mason, and immediately feel an ache deep in my belly. I miss his elaborate outfits, his sarcastic humor. I miss making fun of the snooty spin-class moms, and playing a round of Anywhere but Here.
I think of my mom, and a sob threatens to cave in my chest.
“Would you do it again—or would you leave?”
I watch the boy drain his glass.
“I would stay,” I tell her.
The moment I say it, the dream disappears, and I feel myself falling through space.
