or be killed. And it feels like tearing my own heart out of my chest the way I did Mr. Harker’s, but I say, “Nothing, I guess.”
She nods. My stomach clenches as I see a tear wind down her cheek before she swipes it away. “Right. That’s what I mean.”
The past few days I’ve seen her break open. Watching her now, I can see her closing back up. There the familiar remove, there the way she never quite looked me in the eye. All of it put back together as she says, “You can have the room. I’ll bunk in one of the empty dorms.”
She’s waiting for me to argue. And if she were Byatt, I’d know what to say. I’d know the gap in her armor. But Reese doesn’t have one.
“Okay.” I’m proud when my voice doesn’t break. But I can’t let her go without making sure she understands. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You have to know that.”
Her hair the only light, features strange and unknowable like the day I first met her. She’s gone. She’s here but she’s gone.
“Yeah, I know.” And the door shuts behind her as she walks out.
BYATT
CHAPTER 15
They open the curtains and they wheel him in
Gurney across from me both of us strapped in tight and I know who it is I do it’s just I’m not here anymore
A fog in my head I’m awash I’m at sea and I can’t feel anything except when they stick me and bleed me
Teddy that’s who I forgot
* * *
—
No boys allowed I told him I kissed him I did I did I ruined him and I wasn’t even trying to
When will you learn my mother says to me
She is by the window again she is watching me and she is wearing scrubs just like the doctors do as she winks in and out
There are more important things than what you want she says
* * *
—
How are you feeling
Me and Hetty on the roof she’s got a bandage covering her eye and we’re pretending like she doesn’t and I say how are you feeling and she says
Doesn’t hurt so much
And I’m glad and then she looks over at me and it’s taking a little to get used to her new face but she’s used to it so I have to be too and she says
You seem all right Byatt
All right like not just all right but something more except I don’t know what so I just shrug and
I guess
That’s what I say
* * *
—
Light my eyes tearing up they always do they’re too sensitive I could never get my pupils dilated when I went to the eye doctor and somebody bending down over me blinking and sharpen and
Paretta
Shake my head try to get away but she says something I can’t understand and then
Test they’re doing a test
My arm is moving
Try to put it back come back I didn’t but no good a hole a tube and bright yellow hands pushing
Open my mouth to scream and scream but nothing comes out just a whisper of air and what is that in my IV it’s clear it’s coming down it’s going in
I can’t stop it
* * *
—
Pull tighten stretch and Teddy where is Teddy there is something in me cool and sweet
He is not here
I am not either
* * *
—
A soft wash
Waves
The beach at Raxter at the Raxter before the Tox
I’m alone but the kind of alone where you aren’t where you can feel the other girls behind you running laughing chattering and it’s okay that you’re by yourself on the beach because all you have to do is turn around and there they’ll be
But I don’t turn around
In the water there’s a crab still and bright and I bend down so my knees break the surface no canvas and denim just the plaid skirt all soft like I never stopped wearing it
The crab looks at me
I look at the crab
It floats up floats out of the water and lands in my hands and it’s dry
I’m dreaming I’m not really there and I know it but I hold the crab up and I look in close at the gleam of the shell and there I am reflected in tiny pieces
a hundred little versions of me
and they say “welcome home” and then
The crab twitching and its claws turning black slowly
Slowly and then the whole shell until the body black the legs black my hands black my arms black
I try to let go but I can’t and around