She pressed her lips together. My hope guttered out.
I let go of her hands and curled away from her. I stifled my cries but what difference did it make? I could scream from the rooftops, in my paintings, in word chains, and they wouldn’t hear me.
They can hear me. They just won’t listen.
A hand shook me awake as dawn’s light filtered through the window.
“Get up,” Rita said. “Get dressed, quick. I’ll help you pack.”
I sat up, blinking. “What…?”
“Hurry,” she said, grabbing the backpack I’d bought on our mall excursion. “Shit, I’m going to be so fired for this.”
I watched, slack-jawed, as Rita pulled the Hazarin pill bottle from her front pocket.
“I was tired,” she said. “Had a bad night. Instead of bringing you one dose, I grabbed the entire bottle without thinking and you swiped it. Okay? That’s our story. It might not be enough to save my job, but it’s worth a shot.”
Hope flared like an inferno, but I tamped it down. “No, Rita. I don’t want you to get fired.”
“I don’t either,” she said with a rueful laugh. “But I have a lifetime to remember the choices I made. And you only have right now.”
I flew off the bed and hugged her tight. “Oh my God. Are you sure?”
“I didn’t sleep at all last night, thinking of what you said. That part of my alibi is true.”
She gave me a motherly pat on the cheek, though she wasn’t quite old enough to be my mother.
She’s the sister I never had.
The thought felt ugly and unfair. Delia was doing her best. It’s all anyone could do.
Rita pressed the bottle in my hand. “It’s got thirty pills after you take today’s dose. One month and then you have to come back. I don’t know what will happen when you do…”
“I don’t either, but right now, I don’t care.”
I swallowed that morning’s pill dry and stuffed the bottle at the bottom of my backpack. While Rita dug through my clothes for the essentials, I got dressed and hit the bathroom, grabbing toiletries and makeup, plus the birth control pills they had me take to keep track of my periods because I hadn’t been able to do it myself.
Jimmy flitted into my thoughts at what else the pills meant, but I pushed him out.
“Take my number,” Rita said. “Let me know how you are. Do you want Jim’s?”
“I don’t know. Not yet. I need to get out of here first and then sort out how I feel about him.”
Rita nodded. “You’re going to New York?”
“Hell, yes. There’s a Greyhound bus ticket out there somewhere with my name on it.”
She quirked a funny smile, but it vanished quickly. “Ready? Okay. Shit. Here we go.”
“We?”
“We have to get past Jules at the front desk and then I’m going to smuggle you out in my car. Tell the outpost security I need to run home for my phone or something.”
“No way,” I said. “That, plus the missing meds? You’ll be busted for sure.”
“How do you plan to get past them?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. I gave her a peck on the cheek and a hug. “Love you. I can’t thank you enough.”
Rita hugged me tight. “Be careful. Please. If you start to feel fuzzy or disoriented in any way, you call me. Or get to an ER. Promise?”
“Promise.”
We crept down the silent hallway together, every creak of the floorboards like a siren. We stopped in the stairwell on the first floor.
“Jules will go on her first smoke break any minute now,” Rita whispered. “She usually goes out the side door that leads to the parking lot.”
I made a face. “I’m well aware.”
“That means you’ll have to walk out the front door.”
That’s exactly how I should leave here. Waltzing right out the front door.
I huffed a breath. “Okay, here goes.”
Rita gave me a final squeeze. “Good luck.”
Her footsteps faded away up the stairwell, then I was on my own.
I watched through the little window in the door between the hall and foyer, ready to dive into the broom closet if someone came along. Thankfully, Jules slipped out for a smoke break after only a few minutes. I waited twenty seconds then crossed the foyer, passing the pretty oil painting—a bunch of fruit. I opened the door on the brand-new Virginia morning.
Holy shit, I did it.
I kept to the side of the road that led down to the security checkpoint, glancing over my shoulder now and then to make sure Jules was still around