Chapter Forty-Three
Forty-Three
Sixteen years ago
Natalie burst back into her room, forgetting for a moment to be quiet. It didn’t matter; Gwen was already awake.
“Where were you?” asked Gwen, sitting up in her bed.
“I’m sorry,” said Natalie, afraid to tell her, afraid Gwen would be upset with her.
“What is it?” Gwen asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry,” Natalie repeated, shaking her head, working herself up.
“Natalie! It’s okay,” Gwen insisted. “Come here.”
Natalie did as instructed and plodded over to Gwen’s bed. Gwen moved to the wall to allow Natalie to crawl in.
“What happened?” Gwen asked once both girls were repositioned next to each other comfortably.
“I did it,” said Natalie, still hesitant to spell it out.
“Did what?”
“I put the poison in his water bottle. I know you said to be patient, but I don’t know, I just thought about it and I couldn’t sleep and—”
“Oh,” said Gwen, cutting her off without anything to say.
“Are you mad?” asked Natalie.
Gwen thought for a second. “No, I’m not mad.”
“You seem mad.”
“Well, I’m not,” insisted Gwen, but her harsh tone wasn’t helping.
Natalie climbed out of her bed, hoping Gwen would tell her to stay, but when she didn’t, Natalie sulked back to her side of the room. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Sorry doesn’t really help anything,” said Gwen.
“What do you want me to say, then?”
“I don’t want you to say anything. You should have listened to me.”
Natalie collapsed onto her bed, crossing her arms. “What do you think is going to happen to him?” she asked.
Gwen shrugged. “I don’t know. Hopefully it doesn’t kill him.”
“What?!” Natalie’s face whipped toward Gwen, her mouth agape.
“It was a bunch of poison, Natalie. I don’t know what it will do.”
“It was your idea!” Natalie shouted.
“Yeah, and it was my idea to wait and be smart about it. Not go dump all of the poison in his water bottle. It was supposed to be a little at a time.” Gwen sighed. “What if you were caught?”
“I wasn’t!”
“Not yet.”
“Well, your idea was stupid,” said Natalie.
“You know I can’t control myself. You wanted me to ignore Declan and I did for like two months.
Do you know how hard that was? What if I had lost it?
Every day I prayed he would leave me alone and that I wouldn’t do anything stupid to him and then you would say it was time.
But every day you said, Not yet. I don’t think you were ever going to do it.
I think you were just pretending you were going to help me! ”
“Pretending? Natalie, all I’ve ever done is try to help you!”
“Well, you aren’t helping me. You think you have all the answers, but I don’t need your help anymore. I did it myself.”
“Yeah, and we’ll see how great that turns out.” Gwen rolled over. She was done with the conversation. She wouldn’t be coddling Natalie tonight.
- - - - -
Natalie lay in her bed, unable to sleep. She shouldn’t have said those things to Gwen. She hadn’t meant it. She knew Gwen wanted to help her. She shouldn’t have used the poison, not without Gwen. Hopefully Declan didn’t drink it. Hopefully, if he did, he would be fine.
What would Gwen think if I really hurt him? Gwen said it could kill him. What would Gwen think if I killed him? Would she be afraid of me…It was too much.
Natalie felt her teeth clench and her cheeks warm. She rubbed her hands together to fight the tremors, but they came. Then she was standing in the middle of the room holding her pillow—silence—blinks of sanity amid unconscious rage. She had been holding in so much.
Then she was at Gwen’s bedside. Gwen looked as peaceful as that sleeping dragon Natalie had drawn, before Declan ruined it. Before Declan ruined everything. Natalie lowered the pillow over Gwen’s face.
Suddenly Natalie was on the floor, gasping for air.
She peered up at Gwen, who glared down at her. “You can’t do that,” Gwen said, almost too calm. “I told you the day I met you not to mess with me. What is wrong with you?”
Natalie coughed. “I can’t breathe,” she strained.
“You got the wind knocked out of you,” said Gwen. “You’ll be fine. Now go to bed and don’t come back over here or you really won’t be able to breathe.” Gwen didn’t turn away, but she made a scene of averting her eyes. Natalie knew it was because she was afraid to roll over; Gwen was afraid of her.
Natalie crawled back to her own bed as she started to find more oxygen.
She hadn’t meant to go over there; she definitely hadn’t meant to hurt her.
Natalie loved Gwen. Natalie didn’t sleep at all that night.
She didn’t think Gwen did either. She craved the sound of her little snores, but instead it was silence.
Natalie counted the blocks of the concrete wall over and over again, afraid of what she would do if she stopped.
- - - - -
In the morning Gwen was quiet. Natalie was afraid to apologize again. She knew how much Gwen hated that she was always saying she was sorry, so both girls headed to breakfast without acknowledging what had transpired in the night.
When Natalie saw Declan sitting across the room, she was reminded of what she had done before everything went so wrong with Gwen. She didn’t see his water bottle. He seemed fine.
Natalie looked to Gwen for guidance, but she was walking away, not noticing that Natalie wasn’t following—maybe she didn’t care. Natalie was paralyzed. Should she warn Declan? Should she run after Gwen and beg for forgiveness?
A loud screech pierced the room. Declan had pushed his chair back, scraping it against the floor as he stood.
It was almost slow motion, but when he keeled over and projectile vomited all over the floor, Natalie ran to him and helped him stay on his feet.
The vomit was so red, shooting out of him onto her shoes.
Once he found a moment of relief and noticed it was Natalie holding him, he pushed her away, and something inside her broke.
Other kids were yelling for help, some gagging, threatening to throw up themselves, but Natalie couldn’t hear them.
Her eyes clouded. She lunged at Declan. She pushed him down.
He tried to squirm away but he was pale and weak from the poison.
An older boy grabbed Natalie, but she bit him, and he hurled her away.
“What did you do to me?!” Declan screamed at her before more vomit exploded out of him.
The nearest attendant, a slight woman who’d been there less than a month, darted toward them.
Natalie grabbed the closest folding chair and swung it at Declan, whacking him from behind and sending him to the floor in a pool of his own barf.
Then she was on top of him again, taking his hair in her clenched fist and slamming his head down onto the tile, blood from his nose starting to mix with the red bile splashing around them.
“Stop!” the attendant yelled. “Get off him!”
Natalie reached for the chair again and whipped it at her, capping her in the knees.
The woman screamed, frightened and physically weaker than the hefty male staff members Natalie was used to.
The helpless sound of the woman’s scream pierced the girl’s dark fog, freezing her rage.
Natalie steadied on her feet only a second before collapsing.
She had messed up again. Only this time, she didn’t think Gwen would care.