what I ask. Mom continues to flicker and the blood drains from my face.
“If you won’t tell your father…” Mom holds her head like she did when she was in pain with her tumor. Back then, it was fate’s fault she hurt, and now her pain is on me. “Will you tell Sawyer that your tumor is growing?”
I shake my head and Sawyer’s eyes narrow in my direction as he must have caught the movement. “You okay?”
“I raised you better than this, V,” Mom says. “I raised you better than to play with people’s hearts. Leo knew the truth and he made his choice.”
“He knows,” I whisper, and my palms grow cold and clammy as Sawyer had to have heard me, regardless of how low I talked.
“He knows you have a small tumor that causes migraines,” Mom pushes. There’s anger in her tone. Anger I don’t understand. “You’re not being honest with him, V. Tell him the truth or walk away from him now.”
Sawyer’s eyes dart between me and Mom, but he doesn’t see her. He only sees me staring at her and I can’t force myself to look away.
“Veronica.” Sawyer starts down the stairs slowly. One step at a time, as if he’s terrified of scaring me off. “Are you okay?”
I grow hot all over, heat flashes in my blood and sweat rolls down my back. I’m roasting alive and my knees become weak as I start to feel dizzy.
“Tell him, V!” Mom yells, and the entire world narrows as my vision becomes dim.
“He’ll leave me if I do,” I mumble, but the words feel wrong coming out of my mouth. As if my tongue is too thick, as if my lips have gotten too big. Sawyer reaches Mom and smoke still rises into the air.
I throw out my hand and scream, “Mom!”
The smoke hits her and she flickers, her hand reaching out to me. I stumble up the stairs, try to grasp her, to pull her away, but as my hand is about to make contact with hers, she disappears and a sob tears through my body. “No! Mom!”
A quickening, sinking sensation. The world beneath my feet bottoms out and I’m sucked into a blackness. My arms flail, searching for something to hold on to, and I smack something solid.
“Veronica!” Sawyer shouts, and I grab on to him, not just his body, but his voice. I’m drowning. But somehow, like back in the river, if I cling to him I’ll be able to float. “Veronica, talk to me.”
“Mom,” I whisper, and I’m somehow moving through the air. “We hurt Mom.”
“I got you,” he says. “It’s okay, I have you.”
I suck in a clean breath as if I’m breaking through to the surface of the water and when I open my eyes I can see again. I’m drenched in sweat, and I’m on cold sheets of a mattress close to the floor. It’s Sawyer’s bed. His room.
He hovers over me, smoothing my hair back as if I’m a broken doll. His face is so white that I’m concerned he no longer has any blood.
“Veronica?” he says again, and the fear in his voice breaks my heart.
I have to clear my throat twice before I can talk, and even when I do, it’s barely a whisper. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay. You zoned out on me, said all sorts of weird crap—words that didn’t even go together—and then collapsed to the ground. None of that is okay.”
Blinding pain crashes through my skull. What is this? What’s happening? My migraines, even the worst ones, are never like this. My lower lip trembles as tears burn my eyes. Oh my God. Oh my God. Nausea causes my stomach to roil, and I roll away from Sawyer as I’m terrified I’m going to vomit on him.
“Veronica, what is it?” Fear oozes from Sawyer’s voice. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Another sharp pain rips through my brain and I double over on the bed. I can’t talk, I can’t think, I can only hold my stomach as I dry heave. My head throbs so intensely, so loudly that it’s as if my heart is beating in my ears.
“Veronica!” he shouts.
“C-call … N-N-Nazareth.” The air rushes out of me with another punch of agony. “M-m-m-migraine.” My cell. He needs my cell. I reach for my pocket, attempt to take it out and it disappears from my hand. “Please, c-c-call.”
“I will,” Sawyer says, close to me. “I’m calling now.”