“Visiting hours are over,” a nurse says.
“She’s not a visitor,” he says. She comes and inserts a needle into his IV, and his eyes close. He doesn’t open them when he says, “She’s going to marry me one day. She just doesn’t know it yet.” His head falls to the side and he starts to softly snore. His hand goes slack around mine.
I pull back, my heart skipping like mad.
“They say some of the most ridiculous things when they’re medicated.” The nurse shakes her head. “He probably won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”
Pete comes into the room. “Everything okay?” he asks. He looks from Sam to me and back.
“Just gave him some pain meds,” the nurse says.
I’m going to go, I sign to him. I turn back when I get to the door. Will you call if anything goes…wrong?
He nods. “I’m going to go get some coffee while he’s asleep.”
I go to the public bathroom and sink back against the wall. He was medicated. He didn’t mean any of that. Did he? He couldn’t have. I stand there until my heart stops feeling like it’s going to jump out of my chest. I need to go and tell him that I do have feelings for him. What if something goes wrong during the night and I can’t tell him tomorrow? I need for him to know.
I go back to his room and stop in the doorway. Sitting beside his bed is a girl. She’s holding his hand and talking to him. He smiles at her and says, “I’m serious. I’m going to marry you.”
My heart jolts. He may as well have stabbed me with a knife.
I turn and leave. I don’t run into Pete, and my sisters are waiting for me.
“What happened?” Lark asks when we get in the cab.
I wipe a tear from my cheek as it snakes a warm path down my face. “N-nothing.”
“Did you talk to him?”
I nod.
“And?” Wren chirps.
“A-and the ch-cheerleader is in with him now.”
“Oh,” Wren says.
“Yeah,” I say.
I’m an idiot.
Peck
When I was twelve, I went for months thinking I was dead. Everyone in my household ignored me. That was per my mother. “If she won’t speak, don’t speak to her,” she’d said. What she didn’t understand was that I wanted to speak. I wanted to speak with a desperation unlike any other. I wanted to unburden my mind. I wanted to talk.
I just couldn’t.
So I moved around the house, prepared my own meals, got myself on the bus and off, took care of my own laundry, and I spent most of my time in my room, since no one was going to talk to me anyway.
I thought I was dead. Because why else would they not speak to me? Why would they punish me like they did for something I couldn’t control? I must have died and someone forgot to tell me. I was a ghostly specter of myself.
My mother and her boyfriend spent more time away from home than in the small apartment my mom and I shared. He kept a place across town, and it became easier for her to stay there rather than come home. I didn’t mind. I was a ghost walking around alone anyway, right? I spent my nights alone and was grateful for the silence. Because it would still be silent even if she were here.
But then there was a problem one day at school, and I ended up in the emergency room and then had my appendix out. It took them four days to find my mother, and suddenly someone cared if I lived or died.
Her name was Mrs. Derricks, and she was the school counselor. She brought me into her office and changed my life that day, and every day since.
The door slamming behind me jerks me from my thoughts of Mrs. Derricks.
Why aren’t you dressed? I ask Lark in sign language as she drops her things on the couch and flops down.
“Dressed for what?” she asks, blowing out a breath.
For the funeral.
Her brow furrows. “What funeral?”
My hands fly wildly. Mrs. Derricks’ funeral!
“Oh, crap,” she says. She jumps up. “Totally forgot. Give me five minutes to change.”
I text Wren and Star to see where they are, but just as I hit send, they come through the door. They couldn’t be more opposite. They’re sisters, born one year apart. And while they look alike, they couldn’t be more different.
“You need to tie your shoe,” Star says to Wren.
Wren looks down. “Why?”
“Because you’ll trip over it.”
“Who cares,” Wren tosses back.
Star has her shirt tucked into a pair of nice pants, her creases all perfect and sharp. Wren, on the other hand, is wearing jeans and a T-shirt I think she stole from Emilio when we stayed over with him and Marta at their house for Christmas. It’s four sizes too big for her and hangs down almost to her knees.