Chapter 4 #2
Newsflash, Seamus, I am scared.
The voices outside grew louder—I picked out Eli and Dad.
I pressed myself up against the back wall of the bathroom.
It was surprisingly big for a hospital ensuite, and there was even a window in it.
Unusual, one of the nurses had told me yesterday, while trying unsuccessfully to make small talk with me.
I’d smiled politely while she tutted around the room and let out a breath after she left.
Now I was glad for this window; I turned, desperately, toward it, wishing I could climb out and run away.
But we were up on the fourth floor. It looked out over the parking lot, and to the trees beyond; a plain view as far as views in Quince Valley went.
If I could open my window and stick my head outside, I’d be able to see the river, to my left.
Maybe. Or maybe just the backs of the rest of the buildings on this strip of downtown.
But I couldn’t open the window—I tried. It was sealed tight.
I couldn’t escape here. I couldn’t even walk out the door of this hospital room on my own, either.
I was stuck.
I turned, taking a bracing breath. I just needed to go back outside to face the world. But just as I did, there was a scrabbling sound behind me.
A little brown bird had landed on the ledge on the other side of the glass.
My heart, as small and fluttery as the little creature outside, jumped into my throat.
I kneeled next to the sill. It was late afternoon and through the pane I heard the thrum of traffic on Arbutus Street, the main street downtown, where the hospital was situated.
If you followed Arbutus, it would take you across the Quince River bridge to the other side of the river, where the Rolling Hills resort was situated.
Behind that were the staff apartments, where Cass, Eli, and I lived. It was all so close and yet so far.
A car horn sounded, then a new rush of cars. People were getting off work, thinking about supper for their kids and their hard days at the office. Just going home to their normal lives.
The little bird—what was it, a sparrow? A wren? Just stood there on its tiny legs, not caring that it wasn’t something more flashy or beautiful. Not caring that it was perched on something so small and mundane as the brick wall of a hospital.
“You’re a sign, aren’t you?” I asked, touching my finger to the cool windowpane.
Mom used to tell me when I was little that when something was troubling me and I didn’t want to talk about it, I could look for a sign—a little hint that the world existed outside my problem. Proof that things might just be okay.
In the room, I heard Eli’s voice now. Dad’s strained one. I heard my name. They were asking about me. Cass said my other brother Griffin was already at my apartment, cleaning the place up for me.
“I want to fly away like you,” I said.
The bird cocked its head as if listening to me.
“I want the peace that you know.”
The bird stretched its wings out. Fly away, then, it seemed to say. It lifted off, fluttering out of view.
For the first time today, my heart lifted.
And I knew what to do. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, tapping Mia’s text, and then her name. I wasn’t going to get Mia to take me away to the kinds of distractions we used to do together, but I could get her to take me away from here.
She answered on the second ring. “Oh my god, Chelsea!” In the background, a dog barked, loud like it was trying to get someone’s attention.
“Hey Mia,” I said. “Sorry I haven’t called…”
“It’s fine, god, I’ve just been so worried! Are you… I heard you were…”
“I have some injuries, but I’m mobile.” I cut straight to the chase. “Do you think you could come and get me?”
I should have felt guilty. Instead, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Not all the weight. Not even half of it. But enough that I could breathe again.
I’d instructed Mia to meet me in the back parking lot in ten minutes.
While I waited for the voices outside to trail off down the hall, I straightened my wild hair as best I could in the mirror.
There wasn’t much I could do about the bruises, though they had already started to fade to a brownish yellow, but for once, I didn’t care.
I slipped out of the bathroom, only to come face-to-face with my sister, her brows slanted with concern.
My stomach flipped. I shouldn’t have assumed I’d get out that easy.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asked, coming toward me. She’d been packing a cloth bag with get-well-soon cards and boxes of chocolates.
“Yeah.” I looked around, but she was the only one here.
“They brought the first load down,” Cass explained.
At least it would be easier with only her. Still, my insides twisted with nerves as I looked at my sister. “Cass, I called Mia. She’s going to come and pick me up.”
“What?” Cass nearly dropped the stack of cards in her hand. She grabbed them messily against her chest, her eyes wide. “Chelsea, are you nuts? You need to go home!”
“Blake’s coming soon, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ve barely been home since I woke up. You guys need your time alone.”
“Chelsea, we can stand a few days apart. You’re my sister."
“Cass, please.” Something in my voice must have struck her this time. Maybe it was the honesty, the words coming from my core.
Which was unlike me.
“I just need a little space.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly a little wounded. The cards slipped in her hands, and I reached out and took the pile from her, straightening them into a stack on the table.
“Cass, it’s not personal. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I just need time to think.”
“You’re supposed to rest.”
“You know what I mean.”
I looked into my sister’s eyes—my sister who loved me, who wanted the best for me. “Cass, I don’t know who I am, okay? I need to figure that out. And I’m not going to find that out at a nightclub or in bed with some random guy.”
Finally, though I could tell it killed her, she nodded. “Okay. Space.”
I really did love her, and a sadness slipped over me that I hadn’t taken advantage of our last year together. I could have turned to her instead of away from everyone.
But she’d moved out when I was twelve, and we’d lived so far away from each other, and led such different lives in the time since, that it almost felt like we were starting from scratch.
“Listen, why don’t we hang out soon?” I asked. “Just you and me.”
She nodded, tears welling in her eyes.
“For now, can you just tell everyone I’m… going for a drive? I’ll be home later.”
“Of course, Chels. Whatever you need.”
I grabbed the coat she’d brought for me and carefully hung on the back of the door. Then I went back and hugged my big sister.
I may not always be able to share everything with her, but I did love her. So much. She squeezed me carefully, as if worried I might break.
Then, before I could change my mind, I slipped out the door.