Stay(111)

Then I thought about Nate. Usually when I thought about him, all I imagined was shoving something sharp and pointy into his chest, but at that moment, I wondered how he became the way he was. Were people born evil? When did he decide he wanted to get into this?

“I don’t want you to go,” Lily said.

I snapped back to reality. “I don’t want to either. As fucked up as it is, I’d rather stay in this basement.”

She looked at me in the mirror and picked up the curling iron. She ran a comb through her red hair and took a small section to wrap around the hot metal. “Your skin looks nice,” she said suddenly.

“Uh, thanks?” I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know why it would. I’m as pale as a ghost. I haven’t seen the sun in weeks.” I sighed. “It’s depressing.”

“It’s chilly today,” she said as if it was a consolation. “And windy. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to curl my hair.”

“It looks pretty,” I complimented. I sat back, leaning on the wall. I could hear Jackson moving around upstairs as he cleaned the house. I knew it would take him all day.

“Thanks. I think I look older when I curl it. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I agreed and was reminded just how young Lily was. Legally, she couldn’t even drive.#p#分页标题#e#

My stomach flip-flopped, and I felt like I might throw up. I begrudgingly got off the cot to get a bottle of water. I drank the entire thing and felt almost instantly better. I picked up Jackson’s anatomy textbook and sat at the card table, flipping through the pages.

“Isn’t that boring?” Lily asked.

“Kinda. I just like the pictures.”

“Gross,” she said with a smile.

I shrugged and looked at a page full of colorful pictures of body slices. I flipped back to the beginning and started reading. When I was in school, I hated reading textbooks. I rarely did, actually. Lynn and I discovered that we didn’t have to actually read the whole thing, just skim through it and pay attention to anything in bold. Now I had nothing else to do other than obsessively worry and stress. I was pretty sure it had given me an ulcer, which was why I didn’t feel well.

“How does it look?” Lily asked when she was finished curling her hair.

I looked up from a chapter on cell growth. “It’s pretty.”

“Do I look eighteen?”

I internally cringed at the hidden implications of her question. “Seventeen and a half,” I answered. Lily made a face but smiled. She moved to the wall of clothes and put on a skintight hot pink dress and a silver jacket over top. She grabbed a pair of silver shoes and sat on her cot, waiting. All Zane had to do was open the basement door and she would get up and rush up the stairs. It reminded me of my dogs. The pantry door squeaked when it was opened. Knowing that their treats were stashed inside, both dogs would come running and sit patiently next to the pantry and wait for someone to give them a treat. And someone always gave them treats.

My head hurt again. It had been hurting off and on for the last few days. I went to the bathroom and then lay down on my cot, pulling the blue blanket over my legs. The eight rows of little scratches in the dry wall flashed before my eyes when I closed them. The tally marks were haunting, reminding me of how little time I had left. It was the longest I had gone without working, though, which was disturbing in its own way.

I rolled over and tried to fall asleep. The sun had only just set, but I was tired already. It wasn’t like I had a well-defined sleeping schedule anymore. I pictured the dining room again. This time it was Thanksgiving. My grandparents, Aunt Gina, Uncle Henry, and their two kids crowded in with us. Jackson took his spot next to me. Arianna was still on her phone. The turkey was over done, and the mashed potatoes were lumpy. It was perfect.

My eyes opened and I sharply inhaled as a thought occurred to me. This was the longest I had gone without working … and it was the longest I had gone without something else. Sweat immediately broke out on my forehead. I was wrong, I had to be. I sat up, thinking back. Time had become ambiguous, and I wasn’t sure just how long it had really been since I had it last, which meant it had probably been longer than I thought. I flew out of bed and darted to the vanity. I bent down, shuffling through a white plastic box that housed tampons.

“I know you’re in here,” I muttered. I had seen it before. It had to be in there, just buried at the bottom. “Yes,” I said and grabbed it, ripping open the box. I sat on the toilet and unfolded the little instruction paper that came with the pregnancy test. I positioned the stick between my legs, making sure the end got saturated with enough urine.