Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The promised snowstorm kicks into high gear with an unpredicted wave of hail ten minutes after I’m kicked out of chemistry. One silver lining of getting sent home half an hour before the bell is I made it back to Kincaid before the real storm kicked in. Debris flies across campus as the wind rages against the old stone buildings. An announcement over the campus loudspeaker cancels classes for the day and urges students to get back to their dorms and stay there for the rest of the night.
I’m able to hold it together until the door to my room closes behind me. The second the lock clicks shut, I lunge for my desk chair and hurl it across the room. The sound of it clattering against the closet is enough to mask the scream of frustration I let out before I can stifle it in a pillow. I bury my face in Solina’s comforter, wishing I could hold on to the smell of her, and yell until my body is so exhausted I could fall asleep right there, leaning against the bed. There’s only so much I can do—Claudia and the rest of Kincaid will be back in the next few minutes—but it’s enough for now just to scream. Let out the anger I couldn’t show in chemistry. Anger at myself, at Mrs. Sutherland, at whoever the hell ratted me out.
This isn’t over , I tell myself as my screams die down to ragged breaths. They can’t expel me overnight for cheating on a test. Even if they did, they wouldn’t do it now. Not in the middle of a storm. If I’m lucky, I’ll get off with a couple of detentions and a tanked chem grade. If I’m not, I have a week. If that.
The clock is ticking faster and louder. Until I’m kicked out like every other scholarship kid. Until they realize I’m not who I say I am. Until whoever slipped that letter under the door makes good on their threat.
Within twenty minutes of the announcement, Hunter proposes a “class is canceled” celebration in his room, even going so far as to offer to pick me up and walk me over despite the hail. A modern-day gentleman. Thankfully, he doesn’t put up much of a fight when I turn him down. Surviving Hunter in the middle of the woods was enough—I don’t need to brave a storm with him too.
The shelter-in-place order is a small comfort. Whoever sent me that note probably won’t make good on their threat tonight. The howling wind and sleet would mask their steps, but they’d have more witnesses to avoid once they got here. Kincaid is alive for the first time since I arrived at Kingswood. Music and laughter and the smell of burnt popcorn. I keep my guard up—lock the door, stuff the switchblade into the gap between my mattress and the wall—but breathe a little easier. I’m not alone tonight.
An hour after the official announcement, Claudia still hasn’t made it back to our room. While I’m glad she didn’t have to see me at the height of my post-chem rage, I can’t shake the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Another hour ticks by, and the thought to go looking for her crosses my mind. It’s not my business where she is or what she’s up to in the middle of a storm. Knowing her, she’s stuck in the concert hall. Students aren’t allowed to practice instruments in their dorm rooms, and it’s not a secret that she puts music before most things. Definitely before sleep. Maybe even before safety.
When I start to drift off, I keep myself angled toward the door. Just in case she comes back soon.
Just in case she needs me.
I wake up screaming.
Outside, the storm rages full throttle, the sky pitch-black except for the occasional lightning bolt, the wind howling like a ghost’s song. Sweat clings to the collar of my T-shirt, my chest heaving like I just ran a marathon. Flashes of Solina cling to the darkest corners of the room. Her bloodstained teeth, her matted curls, her light-brown skin drained gray. Screams echo beneath the wind. It takes me a second to realize they’re mine.
A cold hand presses against the curve of my back. The screams cut short as my body jumps with a new kind of terror.
Whoever hurt Solina finally came for me.
My hands scramble through the sheets, looking for a weapon but finding nothing. Instead, I clench my fingers into a fist as I whip around to face my attacker.
Claudia lifts her hands into the air. “It’s just me!”
My body unclenches but doesn’t relax. She turns on the lamp on her nightstand, but the room’s still too dark for me to make out more than just the shape of her.
“Inhale with me,” she says calmly. I’m still too frazzled to come up with a reply, but she inhales deeply anyway. Does it once, twice, before stepping in closer to me. “C’mon. Inhale on three.”
The world is still a blur of Solina and blood and snapped branches, but I do my best to follow her lead, my chest tightening when I inhale too quickly.
“Slower this time,” she whispers, laying one hand on my shoulder and the other on the bedspread, inches from my knee. When she starts again, I match her pace. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
We go through it in stages. First with her coaching me, counting out the seconds. Then again, together. It takes four rounds for my heart to stop racing. Two more for the thought of Solina’s body to fade. Another for me to relax. It’s easy to forget the world when all I have to do is look at Claudia. Match the movement of her lips, focus on the flecks of gold in her eyes.
“Thank you,” I whisper once I feel back in control again. “Was I … doing that long?”
“When I woke up, you were tossing around. Saying stuff,” she explains, backing away now that I’ve calmed down. “I was going to ignore it and try to go back to sleep, but … you started screaming.”
I swallow hard around the guilt and panic swirling in my stomach. “What was I saying?” If I said anything about Solina, I’m screwed. Leave it to my subconscious to try to fuck me over.
She shrugs, crossing her arms across her chest. “I don’t know. It was mostly mumbling. Nothing I could make out specifically.”
Safe for now, but I’ll have to find a way to knock myself out before bed. Something that’ll knock me out so hard I’ll be next to dead.
“Sorry. Must’ve been a stress dream, or something.”
A strand of hair falls in front of her face as she nods.
I fight the urge to tuck it back.
“We all have them.”
She crosses back to her side of the room, opening up one of her desk drawers that’s as cluttered as the desk itself. Crumpled sheet music and smashed granola bars. She pulls out a small pink pouch, decorated with butterflies and sunflowers.
“This helps.” She holds out a packet of herbal tea. An oddly familiar cartoon kitten curled up by a fire declares it “the purr-fect sleep remedy.” “I like it with honey and milk, if you can swipe some from the dining hall.” Another lightning bolt strikes when I look up to meet her eyes. In the pale white light, I can see her skin is still tinged a sickly, sallow gray. A light sheen of sweat across her forehead. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s better than nothing.”
“My mom used to drink this,” I say without thinking, the tea’s label bringing back a swell of memories so strong I can’t hold it back. “She just … can’t find it at our new grocery store,” I add quickly, remembering that everyone at Kingswood is under the impression that me and Solina are two well-adjusted teens with equally well-adjusted, very alive parents.
I watch her smile bloom as she looks down at the box, the faintest traces of pink coloring her cheeks. “My mom did too. Still does.”
Silence falls over us again as I turn the packet over in my hand. Not like I can go make some tea right now, with the storm, but I appreciate the gesture. A crack of thunder breaks the silence, so loud it strains my ears. My shoulders straighten when Claudia speaks up again, her voice still soft and calm.
“She taught me the breathing thing too.” Her smile falters but doesn’t fade. “Freshman year, I used to have a lot of those types of dreams. I’d wake up panicking in the middle of the night because I thought I slept through a test, or forgot to show up to a midterm, or something.”
A memory of Solina tumbling into the kitchen and struggling to pour herself a bowl of cereal during her first summer back from Kingswood comes flooding back. You could see the dark circles under her eyes from Mars.
“Dreamt I missed my English final,” Solina mumbled as she sat down across from me. Ten minutes later, she was asleep at the table.
In the present, I snort as I push the memory away. “Been there.”
But the memory doesn’t leave. It lingers, slowly taking over my senses the more I dwell on it. That night she couldn’t fall asleep, tossing and turning as she struggled to shake off the nagging feeling that she’d forgotten something, I’d wrapped my arms around her shoulders, pulling her close even though I was still half-asleep. An instinct we’ve had since birth.
Mami loved to tell stories about how cranky we’d get when they tried making us sleep in separate cribs. We needed to be side by side, otherwise we’d cry our heads off until they gave in and laid us down together. Something about a bond identical twins form in utero. We’d brushed it off as an old wives’ tale, but for every storm and bad dream, we’d find each other in the dark.
“My sister used to hug me whenever that happened,” I say, not bothering to hide my smile. “Always put me right back to sleep. Even when we were older.”
Maybe that’s why I screamed. I’d looked for my sister’s hand and found a nightmare instead. A reminder of our awful truth. That we’ll never find each other in the dark again.
“I used to do that too,” Claudia says, her voice more somber than nostalgic. Her smile’s long gone now. Without the box of tea to fidget with, she picks at the bandages on her fingers. Dried blood stains the edge of her index finger. “Whenever I had a nightmare, I’d crawl into my mom’s bed. I did it a lot whenever I was home freshman year.” She lets out a quiet chuckle, her attention still focused on her fingers. “Back when she was still going through treatment, this huge storm passed through. Flooding, shattered windows, the whole nine yards. It wasn’t so bad in our area, though. Some stuff was scattered around in the yard the next day, but not much else. But that night, she came to my room and asked if I wanted to stay with her. In case I was scared …”
A tremor makes her voice waver as she trails off, tucking her hands under her armpits.
“Guess we all get afraid sometimes,” she says, looking up at me with a smile so heartbreaking I want to pull her close like I did with Solina in my memories.
There are a thousand things I could say, but of course I pick the wrong one. “Your mom was in treatment?”
The lure of a shared pain, watching a parent fall apart, tripped me up. Clearly Claudia and Solina weren’t best friends, but even if they barely interacted, Solina would’ve known that Claudia’s mom was sick. My body goes rigid as I brace myself for questions I won’t know how to answer and accusations I might not have the strength to deny.
But there’s no blowup. No narrowed eyes or gasps as Claudia realizes I’m not who she thinks I am. All she does is shrug, keeping her eyes glued to the floor.
“Was. Stage three breast cancer.”
I stiffen, suddenly realizing that our stories may be more similar than I thought. Mothers taken too soon, before treatment could ever mean anything.
And Solina didn’t even know it.
“But she stopped chemo last year,” Claudia finishes, and I hold in a sigh of relief. Maybe our stories aren’t so similar. If Claudia’s mom is still alive, maybe she got the happy ending ours didn’t.
“Is she in remission?”
This time it’s Claudia’s turn to stiffen. She shakes her head, a curtain of hair hiding her expression. “This place isn’t cheap. Neither is treatment,” she says without looking at me.
The weight of her reply keeps me from prying for more answers. She’s right, and I know because I saw it for myself. Papi took on a second job to try to keep up with Mami’s hospital bills. Eighty-hour work weeks weren’t enough, and neither were the surgeries and chemicals they pumped her full of. Now all he has is an empty home and a debt he’ll never pay back.
And then there’s me. Giving up my possibilities so Solina’s could be endless. Three years’ worth of tips and paychecks right into the pocket of the same place that took her away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, even though I’m not sure what I’m sorry for. That her mom decided to put her first. That I did the same thing and lost my sister in the process. That she just opened up to someone who doesn’t really exist.
That both of us have a burden on our shoulders that could snap us in half if we dwell too long on what we have to lose.
“Me too,” she whispers, her gaze falling to the floor.
More apologies and attempts at comfort sit on the tip of my tongue, but she reaches out before I can say them, taking my bandaged hand in hers. The simple touch sends a chill through my veins, waking me up faster than coffee ever has.
“Are you feeling better?” she asks, and it doesn’t take a genius to know she’s desperate to change the subject.
“A little,” I reply, giving her what she wants. I resist the urge to ask her the same thing, but we both know the answer to that. The clammy skin and dark circles—I’m sure she feels even worse than she looks. Like she’s on the brink of collapsing from a fever or exhaustion or both.
When I flex my hand, the tips of my fingers brush against the underside of hers, and I can’t help but hope the touch sent sparks through her too.
“You have a tattoo,” she says, running the edge of a callused finger along the lines on my wrist.
“I got it with my sister.”
Her expression shifts. Confusion and something else I can’t decipher. “I didn’t realize you two were that close.”
Of course she didn’t. Why would she? How could anyone have known what we meant to each other when Solina made me out to be a caricature of the perfect older sister? Because who I really am wasn’t good enough.
“She’s a pain in my ass,” I say through gritted teeth, pulling my hand away from Claudia’s as I ball both of them into fists.
I’ve felt a lot of anger since I got here. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the only emotion I’m able to feel anymore. It’s always been channeled at other people. Strangers. Cartagena and Hunter and Gabe and Poppy and the hospitals and schools and group homes—systems built to save us just to let us down. And now, Solina. An emotion so complex and unfamiliar I’ve been avoiding it since the first day I got here.
I did everything for her. All because I blamed myself for landing us in this mess in the first place—because I got us taken away from home. Our real home. And she erased all of it. Turned me into a background character in the perfect story of her life. As if ours isn’t miraculous all on its own.
“She’s pushy, and stubborn, and always gets what she wants, a-and …” I trail off, heaving for breath, my voice reaching a fever pitch as I let those thoughts I’ve been avoiding slowly bubble to the surface. “And … my best friend. And I miss her every day.”
I swipe at my eyes, avoiding looking at Claudia as I struggle to hold back tears. It’s the closest I’ve come to breaking since Charlisa’s office, and I know I won’t be able to turn it off once it starts this time. There’s no coming back from this—the rage and the sadness and the grief—it’ll consume me whole.
“I’m sorry,” Claudia whispers, running a hand across her damp forehead. She crosses her arms, looking unsteady like she did during chem. “Did you get to talk to her over break?”
“Not much.” I shrug, pausing for a moment before adding, “But she’s not going anywhere.”
Claudia’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t go to UCLA. I’m not sure why I told everyone that. Guess it seemed more impressive,” I reply before I can let myself regret it.
“Oh. Does she go to community college?”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t go to school anymore, but she’d be a senior. Like us.”
I know I should stop while I’m ahead, shut up before I ruin everything I’ve worked for here, but I can’t help the nagging pull to tell Claudia everything. Just so one person here can know the truth. I bite my tongue before I can continue, preparing myself for Claudia to ask questions I know I can’t answer, but she stays silent. Her eyes are milky, unfocused and distant as she gazes somewhere over my shoulder, chapped lips parting but no sound coming out.
“Are you—”
Claudia’s hands whip up to her mouth before I can finish my question, muffling a gag so intense it makes my own stomach lurch. Before I can offer to help her, she’s running out of the room. I wince at the harshness of the hallway lights trickling into our room, waiting until my eyes have adjusted to go after her. At the end of the hall, the door to the communal bathroom is locked. I give it a few light knocks, not wanting to draw any extra attention to us by waking up the entire floor. Claudia doesn’t respond, but I can make out the vague sound of retching.
“Do you need anything?” I ask as quietly as I can.
“No.” A pause as the retching starts again. “I haven’t been …” She trails off, but I can make out harsh inhales and exhales, more like gasps than breaths. “Just ate something weird. I’m fine,” she finishes, but we both know that isn’t true.
“Are you sure?”
A minute goes by, then two. The retching stops, no sound but the distant wind and the buzz of the overhead lights. Reluctantly, I head back to our room, perched on the edge of my bed. Hopefully it’s just a stomach bug she can sleep off. I wait as long as I can, my eyes dipping closed every few seconds until I’m almost tipping off the edge of my bed. I wait for a shadow to appear under the crack of the door. Footsteps or a whispered good night. But she doesn’t come back. At least not before I finally give in and crawl beneath my covers.
The memory of her hand in mine soothes the chill as I curl around my too-thin comforter, but guilt cuts through the warmth. I should’ve seen the signs earlier. The paleness, the glossy-eyed look, the fear. I’ve seen it once before, etched all over a face I thought I knew better than my own. All I can do now is hope she won’t make herself sick from the pressure.
That she won’t wind up like my sister.