Chapter 21 CLEO
CLEO
MY HEAD FEELS LIKE a watermelon somebody stomped on. Every time my heart beats, it’s like another blow sends a shock-wave of ouch through my body.
‘We need painkillers,’ my mother says, and when I blink to focus, I find her sitting beside me.
People used to mistake her for my big sister, but over the last couple of years, age has piled onto her.
I inherited my brilliantly red hair from Mom, but hers is dull now, yanked back into a messy bun to keep it out of the way.
Her pale skin is shadowed underneath her eyes and there are harsh lines at the edges of her mouth.
‘These are the last ones,’ I say, turning the silvery foil packet over in my hands. ‘The chem isn’t going to give us any more on credit. Do you think he can last a little longer?’
She lets out a slow breath, burying her face in her hands.
She’s close to breaking now, I know that.
With a strange kind of sense that lives somewhere in the back of my mind, I can tell she’s starting to distance herself from me.
I couldn’t point to anything she’s done – no telling pause when she speaks, no refusal to meet my eyes.
But some tiny thing that was there before – now it’s gone.
Mom’s going to break soon, and she’s going to leave.
It’s too much for her, watching Dad fade out of existence. It’s too much, holding these little silver packets in our hands and knowing we’ll spend the rest of our lives finding a way to pay for them.
‘I can do without them,’ Dad said when we first got the scrips from the autodoc. When I started to argue, he reached out and took my hand in his big, warm one, giving it an easy squeeze. I looked down at the oil and grease on his knuckles, worked into the creases. Such a familiar sight.
‘They’re what you need,’ I protested.
‘I know the odds, my girl. They’re low. We’re not taking on that kind of debt, not for—’
‘So what, we should just sit here and wait for you to—’ I choked on the word die, and he wrapped me up in his arms the way he had when I was small.
Now, don’t get me wrong. As I look at her beside me, despairing over these last pills, I’m angry at my mother for what she’s going to do.
I’m furious. Somewhere deep inside, something’s boiling, threatening to burst out of me if I let it.
A special kind of rage, that she’s meant to be here, she’s meant to handle this, she’s meant to be my mom, and she isn’t.
But she can’t help it – I know that too.
You know who could help it?
I turn the meds over in my fingers again, smoothing out the crinkled foil of the little packet. Tracing the shooting stars of the red-and-yellow GravesUP logo.
They could change this anytime they liked. They could make these affordable any day they wanted to. It would take one word, one decision. But they don’t.
They don’t even look at us. Their gaze is fixed on the stars.
‘I think he needs them now,’ Mom whispers. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in saving them.’ There’s a break in her voice. She cares for him, I know that. She cares for me, so much. The Mom who’ll break and run soon isn’t the person I’ve grown up with.
She’s who GravesUP has made her.
I don’t reply, but just tear the foil in one quick motion, shaking out the little pair of pills. It’s like I’m tearing something inside myself when I do it.
The rip goes straight through the slick logo. Now, why does it feel like I’m supposed to remember something when I look at it?
Stomp, stomp, stomp.
My head is killing me.
‘Cleo, open your eyes. Please open your eyes.’
Who is that? I know that voice. It’s low, husky with worry, murmuring my name like a prayer.
Hunter.
‘Cleo, you have to wake up. Our ride’s nearly here, you can’t stop now.’ Someone pulls off my gloves, curling a hand around mine. The warmth of their skin feels like the sun on my eyelids when I turn my face toward it. ‘Please open your eyes.’
Honestly, opening my eyes sounds like a terrible idea, but he sounds incredibly worried and going on a ride sounds like it could be fun. So with a huge effort, I hoist one eyelid up and take a peek, my vision swimming, the light sending tears spilling down my temples.
Then Hunter’s face comes into view, gazing down at me with a ragged kind of fear that makes me reach up to cup his cheek with my hand.
He is beautiful. Smooth brown skin, his full lower lip caught by his teeth, tousled hair falling into his eyes.
He’s big, broad-shouldered, but so gentle in his strength.
He grabs for my wrist and squeezes it, and makes a sound like a sob, and that’s what brings the memories back.
Suddenly I hear my own sobs inside my helmet, and I remember my chest burning, and I … my suit. My suit. I twist my body, wrenching up my arm to see the gash in the fabric. It feels like a nightmare – like it happened to someone else, someone I know.
‘How …’ My voice is a rasp, and the word hurts my head.
‘I don’t know,’ he manages, running his fingers from my temple down my jawline, as though he has to touch me to be sure I’m real.
‘I just … I got you here, somehow. I thought you were going to die. I thought maybe you’d already decompressed.
But I couldn’t leave you there.’ His voice firms. ‘I wasn’t going to leave you there. ’
Tears spill down my temples again, my breath releasing in a shaky exhalation.
I couldn’t leave you there.
Everybody leaves me. They die, or they run, and then I’m on my own again, fending for myself.
Everybody leaves me. But Hunter …
Hunter stayed.
I reach up, curving one hand around the smooth skin at the back of his neck, and without a moment’s hesitation, I pull his mouth down to mine. He lets out a soft breath of surprise, but he doesn’t protest – in fact, it’s like the bonds that have been holding him back have suddenly snapped.
He buries his hand in my hair, his lips soft on mine, his skin so warm, so alive. His thumb brushes gently against my cheek, grounding me in the here and now, his heartbeat like an anchor.
I make a faint sound, and he offers something wordless in return, my pulse quickening as I let myself take shelter in his arms. He holds me like he wants to shield me.
I lose myself in the taste of him, in this moment that’s just ours, and let everything else fade away as he sets my skin on fire.
Just for a moment, the weight I carry – the weight of my past – falls away, and I let myself fly.