but I’m so tired. So very tired .
I gasp, and my father jerks his hand away.
“Eva!”
“Cold,” I say, trying to minimize my shivering. “Sorry.” I smile, a nothing-to-worry-about smile. This hallucination thing has happened frequently enough that I feel like I should tell someone, but . . . not today. My parents are here to take me home. They’ve pulled some sort of strings to get me at-home examinations, and I’m afraid that if I tell anyone, I’ll be staying right where I am instead.
“Did I hurt you?” my father asks, and I stare at him, reminding myself that he is not dying, but here at my bedside. My heart still hurts. We aren’t as close as I want, but he’s still my daddy. He’s the one who taught me to ride a bike—and the one who helped me hide my very bloody knees when I thought I was more capable than I really was.
Tears are once more racing down my face. I really need to get a handle on this crying problem, too. I force myself to keep from chattering my teeth. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone without sounding like I’m crazy, sick, or having weird side effects. None of those things would get me home and back to a normal life—or at least as normal as possible now that I look like a failed science experiment.
“I was going to hug you and made the mistake of moving my arm wrong,” I lie. This is what we do now: we take turns lying to avoid hurting each other. I add a sort of truth to ease my guilt: “My ribs are still sore.”
I slowly reach out to touch his arm.
“I’m glad you’re home,” I tell him, and this isn’t a lie at all.
“We should’ve been here sooner. Your mother was ready to charter a boat, but that wouldn’t have been any faster. I think the people at the airport were starting to draw straws to see who had to talk to us; we were there constantly.”
“I told you I was fine. The Yeungs were here, and I’m in a hospital with great nurses. Honestly, I have some headaches and crutches.” I shake my head, and then I lie horribly. “This is not a big deal.”
My father nods, and I think that he means that he hears me, not that he agrees with me. Instead of pointing out my lie, he says, “I should check and see if your mother needs help. She’s not always great with paperwork.”
I nod, and I wonder if he realizes that I mean the same thing when I nod: I hear you, not I agree with you. I have a sudden almost crippling need to keep him here a little longer. “Dad? Wait, please.”
“Do you need a nurse or—”
“No,” I interrupt him, something I would never do typically, but this isn’t an average day. “Thanks for keeping some of the news theories from Mom. I know you did, and I’m glad. I didn’t want to upset her.”
He nods. “She’ll hear the rest soon enough now that we’re back. She’ll hear about the Adams girl, and . . .” His words fade, and I know we’re both thinking about the rest of that sentence, about the possibility that my accident wasn’t an accident.
I mock-sigh to try to make things lighter and tell him, “Luckily, she still buys into that ‘watching the news isn’t ladylike’ story that Grandfather Cooper fed her.”
He smiles a little, and I feel a wash of relief that the hurt in his eyes is gone. “Are you okay while I go check on her?”
“Go ahead.”
I think about my hallucinations, briefly considering the idea that they’re real. I’m not sure if it would be a gift or a curse.
It’s certainly not something I want to tell people about, but I also—for the first time—want to convince people to touch me, to test it, to see how it works. There seems to be a pattern to it. If there is a pattern, maybe I can control it.
I also wonder why I can’t recognize any faces in the visions. I don’t understand why all the faces are blurry to me—or why I feel like I’m actually inside another body.
Maybe the episodes are a combination of drug side effects and my own fears. After all, there
I gasp, and my father jerks his hand away.
“Eva!”
“Cold,” I say, trying to minimize my shivering. “Sorry.” I smile, a nothing-to-worry-about smile. This hallucination thing has happened frequently enough that I feel like I should tell someone, but . . . not today. My parents are here to take me home. They’ve pulled some sort of strings to get me at-home examinations, and I’m afraid that if I tell anyone, I’ll be staying right where I am instead.
“Did I hurt you?” my father asks, and I stare at him, reminding myself that he is not dying, but here at my bedside. My heart still hurts. We aren’t as close as I want, but he’s still my daddy. He’s the one who taught me to ride a bike—and the one who helped me hide my very bloody knees when I thought I was more capable than I really was.
Tears are once more racing down my face. I really need to get a handle on this crying problem, too. I force myself to keep from chattering my teeth. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone without sounding like I’m crazy, sick, or having weird side effects. None of those things would get me home and back to a normal life—or at least as normal as possible now that I look like a failed science experiment.
“I was going to hug you and made the mistake of moving my arm wrong,” I lie. This is what we do now: we take turns lying to avoid hurting each other. I add a sort of truth to ease my guilt: “My ribs are still sore.”
I slowly reach out to touch his arm.
“I’m glad you’re home,” I tell him, and this isn’t a lie at all.
“We should’ve been here sooner. Your mother was ready to charter a boat, but that wouldn’t have been any faster. I think the people at the airport were starting to draw straws to see who had to talk to us; we were there constantly.”
“I told you I was fine. The Yeungs were here, and I’m in a hospital with great nurses. Honestly, I have some headaches and crutches.” I shake my head, and then I lie horribly. “This is not a big deal.”
My father nods, and I think that he means that he hears me, not that he agrees with me. Instead of pointing out my lie, he says, “I should check and see if your mother needs help. She’s not always great with paperwork.”
I nod, and I wonder if he realizes that I mean the same thing when I nod: I hear you, not I agree with you. I have a sudden almost crippling need to keep him here a little longer. “Dad? Wait, please.”
“Do you need a nurse or—”
“No,” I interrupt him, something I would never do typically, but this isn’t an average day. “Thanks for keeping some of the news theories from Mom. I know you did, and I’m glad. I didn’t want to upset her.”
He nods. “She’ll hear the rest soon enough now that we’re back. She’ll hear about the Adams girl, and . . .” His words fade, and I know we’re both thinking about the rest of that sentence, about the possibility that my accident wasn’t an accident.
I mock-sigh to try to make things lighter and tell him, “Luckily, she still buys into that ‘watching the news isn’t ladylike’ story that Grandfather Cooper fed her.”
He smiles a little, and I feel a wash of relief that the hurt in his eyes is gone. “Are you okay while I go check on her?”
“Go ahead.”
I think about my hallucinations, briefly considering the idea that they’re real. I’m not sure if it would be a gift or a curse.
It’s certainly not something I want to tell people about, but I also—for the first time—want to convince people to touch me, to test it, to see how it works. There seems to be a pattern to it. If there is a pattern, maybe I can control it.
I also wonder why I can’t recognize any faces in the visions. I don’t understand why all the faces are blurry to me—or why I feel like I’m actually inside another body.
Maybe the episodes are a combination of drug side effects and my own fears. After all, there
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