In the silence that follows, I push my fingers deeper into my knee. The breathing doesn’t ground me, but the pain centers me. It brings me back to my body. It reminds me I’m still here and this pain, at least, I can control.
As the pain clears my mind and overwhelms me in a more familiar way, I can see Liva stare at us, her cloak pulled tight around herself until it makes her look smaller. At Finn and Ever, crouched over me, and Carter with his back turned toward her. She narrows her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. It’s still just a story, and you don’t have to get upset about it.” She sounds almost petulant. “And also, I am her friend.”
Ever sighs. They rock to their feet and walk toward Liva, while I push myself up to a chair, leaning on my bad leg on purpose.
We’re all such liars. Liva was my friend once. One of my closest. She and I and Zac spent endless afternoons together. They’d come to my games, and I’d been a foil for Liva’s parents.
But something happened after the accident to push us apart. Maybe she decided to follow her father’s footsteps. He doesn’t have friends, believes that emotions are weakness. Or maybe we were never that close to begin with.
Maybe I happened. Maybe I’ve been pushing her away.
The others showed up, though. Finn and I grew closer after the accident. He came by the hospital. He went to PT with me. He let me ask him anything I wanted to know about pain and how to deal with it, although the answers weren’t always what I wanted to hear. None of my doctors told me about how pain wears you down until you sometimes don’t know where physical pain stops and mental pain begins. They didn’t tell me about the anger and the fear and the helplessness. Finn told me and then, when I finally let him, held me while I let it all sink in.
I never asked him about painkillers, though. I swung by his medicine cabinet a few times, but I didn’t want to take the stuff he needed. I only ever asked Carter to buy me new ones when my prescriptions ran out.
Because Carter was the only one who was allowed to take my hand and hold it without asking. Because I knew his body language better than my own. Because he was the other half of me, BTA and ATA. We were close and drifted apart. We foolishly tried to date once before we realized what a terrible idea that was. But no matter how much he and I changed individually, we didn’t. He was like a brother to me, before I knew any of the others, and I knew he could keep secrets well.
Besides, he didn’t seem to mind spending the money. He had enough of it.
Carter kneels in front of my chair now, right next to Finn, and brushes my fingers with his. “Do you need a moment, Mad?”
I lean toward him, twisting my knee on purpose. Finn never told me how reassuring physical pain can be. It sends a thrill through me. A restless trembling that leaves me breathless—a hunger. “I’m okay. I just…” I wave a hand. “What Finn said. Too many things happening all at once.”
Carter’s shoulders drop as he breathes out. Relief. Soft humor. “Good. I would hate to have to carry you down this mountain.”
I softly punch his shoulder. “No chance.”
“With all the strength you’ve amassed photocopying papers and running around with coffee orders?” Finn puts in.
Carter mock gasps. “Not all of us can hack their way into college, dude.”
“It’s called development.”
“Fine. What I do is called an administrative apprenticeship.”
“Fine.”
Finn’s words snap, but there’s a smile in his eyes when he looks at me.
I turn my hand so my fingers curl around Carter’s. “I’m going to…throw some water on my face and maybe change into something a little more comfortable.” It’s far enough into the night that I could do with a hoodie instead of the opera cape. It’s a decent excuse, though I don’t need one after that trick my brain pulled.
Carter helps me to my feet, and when I stand, my leg seems to be on fire. Perhaps that’s why my brain freaked out too. I had something for the pain around dinner, but that feels like hours ago. On days when I don’t know where physical pain stops and mental pain begins, I need a solution to both.
The hallway is filled with shadows—when did it get so dark, anyway? I hold my fingers to the wall for a sense of security. No matter how clear I made it to Liva that I didn’t want to hear her ghost stories, she always told me just enough before I could cut her off.
Some said murderers never leave Lonely Peak, that there’s always one.
Some said the shadows are alive and like to play games.
Some said, in the darkness, you can feel the victims reach out for help.
* * *
Once in my room, I dive to my bag and riffle around in the locked compartment until I find my bottle of pills. I reach in and grab a few, maybe three or four. When my doctor prescribed them to me, she told me I shouldn’t take more than three on a daily basis, but that was a long time ago.
As I swallow them down, the panic that’s still at the edges of my mind crawls a bit closer again. Whispering at me that tonight, the pills won’t help. Tonight, the pills won’t be enough.
But as I chase it with water and breathe, the edges begin to dull and my head grows lighter. I
