“What do you want me to do?” Maddy has walked closer too, and she’s closed the first aid kit again. With her free hand, she wipes at her cape, a repetitive motion that I’m not entirely sure she’s aware of. The same flightiness is still in her eyes, and she keeps looking back at the pills. She looks small here. She’s looked small since the accident, like she’s lost, both in herself and the world.
I hesitate. “How are you feeling?”
She stares at me.
“How’s the pain? How’s your knee?”
I didn’t know if she expected that to be the question, but after considering it, she nods. “It hurts, but I can still stand, even if I don’t want to.”
“Could you hold the door from the other side?” I hold up my wrapped hand. “I’m not sure if I’m strong enough with one arm. I don’t think I am.”
Ever makes a choked sound, and Maddy’s eyes flick toward them. “I think so. It’s the best solution, right?” She licks her lips. “Do you want me to take your other crutch out? Are you okay to get out without it?”
Unless we try to open the door far enough to push chairs between it and then find an unsteady way to climb over—which doesn’t sound like the best plan either—I don’t see another option. We only need to get out. That’s it. Three people through one door. It might be the classic RPG scenario, but it can’t be that impossible, can it?
“I’ll hold on to it for as long as I can, but yeah. You can catch me if I fall.” I meant to say it in jest, to lighten the mood, because both Maddy and Ever look deeply worried. But I realize: I believe it. I haven’t for a long time, but I trust that both Maddy and Ever will catch me when I stumble. “We’ll do it together. It’s the only way this is going to work.”
“Okay,” Maddy says. And then again, “Okay.”
She and Ever share a look, and there’s a story there that I don’t know and can’t read. But they both nod.
“Okay.”
At that, we all take our places. Maddy and I, right next to the door. Ever, directly opposite. Once we start pushing, we can’t stop, because the Styrofoam sword will tumble out of the deadlock it’s in now. Fortunately, the door swings open onto the porch, instead of into the living room, which would’ve made this infinitely harder. Now, all we have to do is keep the pressure on. Brace ourselves against the strength of the automated locking system—and run the first chance we get.
“Ready?” Ever asks.
I nod. “Are you?”
They set their jaw.
Maddy tenses. “What happens when we’re outside, though?”
“We’ll figure that out once we get there,” I say. “One step at a time.” I lean the crutch against her hand, so she can grab it when she sees an opportunity. Her fingers briefly touch mine as we both find the hand grip, and I make sure the crutch isn’t held back by my elbow or my coat. It won’t be easy to keep the door open from the outside, but at least from that point on, there’ll be two of us trying. It won’t just be Ever.
“Counting down,” Ever says. “Three, two, one. Let’s go.”
Twenty
Ever
One step at a time? One trap at a time, more likely. There has to be something on the other side of this door too, because it’s clear it isn’t over yet. I’m not sure it’ll ever be over. Even if we get out of here, we’ve lost parts of us.
Still. I take the crutch and place it against the door—and steel myself. But there’s no electric shock, just the constant back-and-forth slamming of the door under my hold. I have to brace myself so I don’t lose my balance.
I use the rubber tip of the crutch to find what seems to be the point with the most leverage—near the door handle—and push with all my might. I manage to make it three steps forward. The Styrofoam sword drops to the floor, mangled beyond recognition. But I can’t move farther. It feels like the door is resisting the pressure, like one of those electric doors that jams when you try to push it.
“Do we need to help?” Finn asks.
No. I suck in air through my teeth. “You need to be ready to run.”
With that, I yell and push.
I push because I need to get out. Maddy needs to get out. And Finn needs to get out. I wouldn’t know what to do if any more of my friends got stuck here, and I certainly wouldn’t know what to do if he did. So I push, because I hate that Finn can’t trust us anymore and I want to prove to him—to all of us—that we’re still good.
Because he has the world at his feet, and he deserves every bit of it. He deserves to be happy, because when he is, his smile lights up the universe. When he gets excited about something, he gets excited with his whole entire being. He bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet. He uses ridiculously wild gestures. He doesn’t let anything stop him, and I want him to be happy like that again, I need him to be happy like that again, because it constantly feels like there’s a fragment of my heart that’s out of place when he isn’t.
And I push because somewhere in the distance, Elle is waiting for me. I promised I’d be back for her two nights from now, to hear all about her weekend, all those wondrously bizarre treatises she read and the new girl on the block she wanted to hang out with. I promised to sit with her at night and tell her stories about our Gonfalon adventures until long after she falls asleep, because she sleeps easier that way.
I push because I owe it to all of them.
And when I do, the door groans open farther.
