When my tears ran dry, I walked numbly into the shower and let too-hot water pound down on me.
I hadn’t freaked out like this in weeks. I was such a weakling. I wasn’t even the one with a punctured lung, like Dad. I hadn’t been locked up like Neven or Red or Rainbow; I hadn’t been dropped off clueless and alone, like Four; I wasn’t the one ripped from my world.
If anything, I should be thrilled. I could leave my radius. I had answers—the start of answers.
I was important.
I finished my shower. I walked out dripping, unlocked the door, and asked through the gap if someone would mind handing me my towel.
Red passed me a fresh one, blue and fluffy. Our eyes met through the door gap. I smiled and closed the door and dropped the smile, and I didn’t think she noticed a thing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Red and I took Lina’s bed.
Rainbow took the futon in the corner of the bedroom.
Four took the living room couch.
I rarely slept well. I always tossed and turned and stared at the ceiling. I’d replay whatever embarrassing things I’d said that day. I’d theorize about the rift. I’d wonder whether the way I liked Marybeth was a crush or admiration or one of those really intense girl friendships people talked about.
Except Marybeth and I weren’t that close. And I didn’t think you were supposed to stare at your friend’s lips and wonder the things I did. So maybe I was a lesbian after all, except, God, that word was so loaded and scary and the last thing I needed.
This time, lying in an unfamiliar bed for the first time in my life, I fell asleep instantly.
At four a.m., I woke with a gasp. For a while I lay awake, watching the unfamiliar room and the pale mirror image sleeping by my side, trying to shake off nightmare images of the crashed van in the ditch and of Dad in the water.
When I woke again at eight, Rainbow had already gone. Red was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hair was a mess, though she must’ve at least finger-combed it. She uncapped a plastic orange container and shook it over her hand—rattle rattle—until she had two pills in her palm.
“What’s that?” I said groggily.
“You don’t . . .?”
Just answer my question, I thought. Don’t look so unsure.
Apparently, sleep hadn’t made me any less mean.
“They’re painkillers.”
“For what?”
A nervous smile scrunched up her cheeks. “Wow. Our aunt lives in the same apartment with the same door code, but we’re so different that you don’t . . .? It’s for endometriosis.”
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “What?”
“It’s a condition. There’s, like, extra tissue growing in my body. It’s mostly under control, but it hurts. You’ve never had problems?” She hesitated. “Especially around your period?”
I shook my head.
“Guess we are different,” Red said, even though, without her makeup and dress, we looked more alike than ever.
I couldn’t stop staring at her and the others all throughout getting ready in the morning—using the bathroom one by one, raiding Lina’s fridge, and Red running out and failing to find a store open to buy toothbrushes and underwear.
The other Hazels seemed self-conscious, Red and Four especially. It was so obvious, it bothered me every time I spotted it.
And it bothered me that it bothered me.
“Did anyone see the news?” Red asked over breakfast.
“Is it bad?” Four bit her lip. I couldn’t help but think, Stop, you look like a child, and your teeth—
I shouldn’t have even noticed such things, yet it was all I could see this morning. (Did my front teeth look that big when I bit my lip? Did I bite my lip just as often? I didn’t, right? I couldn’t.)
I leaned into Red. “I’m guessing the world is still ending in catastrophic ways?”
The city remained a mess. Every time I looked out the window and felt dizzy at how high up we were, I saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and a dozen choppers in the sky.
Neven swore the rift wasn’t my problem, though. Maybe Red found something in the news that’d point us in the right direction.
“The rift is almost north of the city now.” Red opened a laptop that had to be Lina’s. “It keeps snapping shut and reopening somewhere else. Then, sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a few hours, snap, it’s gone again. It’s moving north, but not in a straight line and not steadily, so they can’t predict its next location. They’re moving the Liberty Bell out of the city as a precaution. The National Guard is evacuating high-risk neighborhoods and recommending people leave the city. There’s pressure on the mayor to order an evacuation of the whole Greater Philadelphia area, but that’s millions of people, and the roads are already clogged.”
“Yeah, that photo you showed earlier was ridiculous,” Rainbow said.
I’d missed that conversation. I hardly expected them to freeze up the moment I wasn’t looking, but it was still strange to realize that they weren’t just me, they were mes who lived their own lives while my back was turned.
“Are a lot of people hurt?” Four asked, beating me to it.
“Probably. The numbers vary.” Red bit her lip, but seemed to catch herself and stopped. “The rift also caused fires and electrocutions. Twice, it’s emitted a toxic gas.”
A chill ran down my spine. This thing wreaking havoc on the city had spent sixteen years in my backyard.
“There’s also talk about little gray monsters,” Red went on. “I might’ve seen those when I went out earlier, actually. I didn’t get a close look.”
Given what we’d seen in the barn last night, they probably weren’t the only otherworldly creatures running around town.
“For a minute last night, the rift apparently sucked in air. Like a vacuum. Aside from that, it only sent out . . . stuff. A manhole cover from the 1900s, hundreds of live lizards, several tons of basalt, and I could go on.
