The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  My first instinct was to kick off the blankets and run. But since that wasn’t an option I pulled myself up by my arms, trying to sit like the living instead of just lying there, looking dead. I didn’t want Jimmy to see me like that. Not because I cared about his feelings but because I didn’t want his pity.

  He followed my dad inside, staring at me the entire time even though I could tell he was trying his hardest not to. Jimmy didn’t know how to be subtle. He could be awkward and obnoxious but not subtle.

  “Roman…”

  He stopped there and I could tell he was terrified of saying something stupid like, “How’s it hangin’?” or “Been up to the mountain lately?” or “I meant to come by the hospital…”

  He bit his lip, fighting his nature to say the most inappropriate thing possible. But the thing about Jimmy was that he didn’t do well with silence. So he took a breath and said it anyway. “I brought back your snowboard, man. It’s in my trunk.”

  He’d borrowed the thing almost eleven months ago. I remembered stalking him after work, coming by his house to pick it up. Fucking asshole never had it on him and now, after just waking up from a six-month coma to find that I’m paralyzed from the waist down indefinitely, he finally brings the goddamn thing back to me.

  I stared down at my legs, wanting to cry, but I laughed instead. I looked up and his face looked like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

  “You’re a jackass.”

  He choked on a laugh or maybe tears. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

  My dad headed to the office for a little while since I had company. Jimmy hung around, tiptoeing and acting like a stranger. He refilled my glass of orange juice twice and he even cleaned it up when I spilled it, on purpose. I even convinced him to whip me up some breakfast, which unfortunately only consisted of two stale pop-tarts and three slices of left over pizza.

  He let me win at the first round of Madden and that was when I threw the controller at him.

  “What the hell, dude?” It was the easiest any four words had rolled off my tongue since I’d woken up and it felt good.

  “What?” He was cowering, avoiding eye contact.

  “Look at me.” I waited until he was looking and then I said, “I’m fucking paralyzed. Not dying.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s...”

  “Weird?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Man, I don’t know how I’m supposed to act.”

  “Act like you. Actually, scratch that. Act like you only less of a dickhead.”

  He laughed. “You know that’s impossible.” But then the smile disappeared from his face. It was strange seeing it that way, all stubble and no teeth. It looked sad. “I’m sorry I didn’t go to the hospital.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No. I should have been there.”

  I thought about what he might have been doing instead—getting high on Carlisle’s couch, in his car, in his grandmother’s bathroom, standing on the toilet and trying to breathe the smoke out the window.

  “I was shitfaced most of the time,” he said. “Your accident and your mom, it was all just so fucked up, and I know that’s not an excuse.” He forced himself to stop rambling and then he looked at me. “I’m straight now. No more messing around with Carlisle either.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Moved in with Cassie.”

  Cassie.

  She’d been dating Carlisle for as long as I’d known him and the night before my mother killed herself I’d slept with her.

  “And you?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Back at Gingy’s.”

  Gingy was Jimmy’s grandmother. Carlisle used to give him shit for calling her that but I knew she was all he had.

  “She went to see you,” he said. “A few Sundays after church.”

  I stared at the television. Jimmy’s grandmother never would have come to see me at the hospital if she’d known all of the shit Carlisle and I had done to him. “Tell her I said thanks.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure she’d like to see you. Cried all afternoon after she found out you’d woken up. It was on the news. Did you see it?”

  “Um, no.” I quickly replaced my guilt with sarcasm. “I was kind of waking up from a coma.”

  I started a new game in hopes of changing the subject again. This was the most normal I’d felt in a long time, even before the coma, before my mother, and even though part of me was dying to know why Jimmy had really come, the other part of me was relieved that he was pretending the same way my dad was. Like those months leading up to the accident had never happened. Like I’d woken up as someone new.

  Not to mention I knew that as soon as my dad got home he’d be interrupting our game every five minutes, asking me a million questions. Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Are you hot? Are you cold? Can I bring you anything? I’d probably end up saying no to everything even though it was kind of chilly in here and I could have used my Green Bay Packer’s blanket that was somewhere upstairs and another glass of orange juice didn’t sound so bad. And Chinese. For some reason I was craving Chinese.

  I hope he gets back from the office soon.

  Jimmy gripped the controller. “I’m glad you’re better.”

  There was something strange in his voice and it made me feel strange. Jimmy was the kid I got high with because he always had enough to share and even though we knew things about each other, the kind of achingly private things that only get exposed when you’re totally shit faced or just too numb to care, I never felt like we were that close.

  But as we sat there, Jimmy didn’t just look relieved. He looked grieved. He looked sorry. And I realized that maybe I was the one who hadn’t been close. Not because Jimmy was just some punk who wasn’t worth getting to know but because I didn’t know how.

  12

  Bryn

  I opened my eyes even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d stood there, looking at my grandfather, but I didn’t have time to take another step or to say his name or to do anything at all. I’d blinked and then the nightmare was over, the same one that had plagued me every night for two months after his death.

  Dr. Sabine had dissected every version, concluding that the helplessness I’d felt at not being able to save my grandfather from the burning farmhouse was the same helplessness I’d felt at not being able to stop his death. It was straightforward, a classic scenario among children experiencing grief. But I wasn’t a child anymore and no nightmare had ever found its way into my memories. This dream was different.

  “Bryn.”

  The smell hit me first—alcohol and that soap that sometimes smelled like wedding cookies, plastic and socks and blood. I knew exactly where I was.

  I almost asked my mom what happened but I already knew the answer. I shifted, skin ripping. I looked down at the IV in my wrist. “Why…?”

  “You were having trouble eating,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

  But I knew what we were both thinking of—that hour-long conversation in Dr. Sabine’s office, Dr. Banz trying not to crumble as he told us about Eve. How she’d deteriorated. The longer episodes, the aggression, the hallucinations that weren’t hallucinations at all. The official documentation had stated that she’d stopped eating. That’s what Dr. Banz had told my mom anyway, that she’d starved to death once her body started rejecting the nutrition she’d been receiving intravenously. But I knew the real reason Eve never woke up and I knew that it was the same reason I was in that hospital bed. The truth was I wasn’t sick. I never had been. The truth was I was dying.

  “Mom?” I choked, not wanting to cry.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  But I wasn’t. I wouldn’t be.

  “How long?” I said.

  The question was routine, the same thing I’d asked after every episode, and my mom would sigh and say three days or a week. But this time she hesitated.

  “It was long,
wasn’t it?”

  It hadn’t seemed long. They never did. But I could feel it even before I’d fallen asleep, that grief that was stronger than anything. I pictured myself back on that cold beach, sitting in the snow, and I was afraid of what she was about to say. Of how long I’d really been sitting there. How long I’d let myself sit there.

  “Eight weeks.”

  Nausea forced my eyes closed.

  “Bryn? It’s okay.”

  But she was already crying and then I was too.

  They kept me for observation for a few more days, making sure I was eating and drinking, that I could get around on my own. Apparently I’d only tried to walk a few times during the episode, to go to the bathroom or to try and find my room because for some reason I could tell that the bed wasn’t mine. But it wasn’t as frequent as before. This time I’d mostly just lain there. This time I hadn’t asked for food or water. This time I’d ripped out my IV every time they tried to put one in and when they were finally able to restrain me, my body was slow to absorb the medicine.

  In other words this time I could have died.

  When they finally sent me home the house was empty. My grandmother had been staying with my aunt and the quiet was grating. My mom clicked on the television, letting the buzz fill the house until it felt normal again.

  But the truth was too much had already changed, inside my body and out, the ripple so palpable that even standing in the doorway felt strange. I couldn’t even make it past the threshold. For six months, every time I’d gotten home I’d felt this itch to figure things out. I’d had a purpose. To find Roman. To finish my schoolwork so that I could actually graduate. To figure out what Dr. Banz was hiding. To find a cure.

  But I’d confronted Dr. Banz about Eve and everything else he’d been hiding about my disease and now my trip to Germany was being delayed until I regained my strength. I’d graduated from high school but going away somewhere would never be an option for me, especially after what had happened in New Mexico. I’d proven all of my mom’s worst fears, that plane ride to transfer my unconscious body to the hospital in Austin solidifying the fact that the distance was too dangerous and that I could never leave her again. Now even applying to the local community college would be pointless since I had no idea how long I’d be in Germany.

  And I’d found Roman. Even after he told me not to. Maybe I should have listened. Because the boy I’d fallen in love with, the boy who had fallen in love with me wasn’t in there. Not anymore.

  As for the shadows, they hadn’t come for me again. I hadn’t seen them hanging over me as I lay in bed, I hadn’t felt those eyes from the corner of the room; I hadn’t felt the cold. I wanted to believe that it was over, that Roman waking up had changed something for the better. Even if it wasn’t me. Even if it wasn’t us. I wanted to believe that I was safe. But my grandfather, he was supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be…

  I reached for the wall as every thought tried to send me to my knees but I caught my grandmother’s arm instead.

  “Oh, Bryn…” she stepped through the front door and reached for my face.

  She looked me up and down, her eyes softer than I’d ever seen them, and not for the first time it made me wonder if she knew something that I didn’t. Something terrible. All it took was that look on her face, the confirmation I needed that she was scared too and then gravity pulled me down until I was sitting on my knees. I pressed my face to my thighs, the tears sneaking up on me in a rush as my grandmother patted my back.

  “You’re still the good one, Bryn.” She brushed my hair back, trying to see my face. “You’ve always been the good one.” She leaned over me, squeezing me tighter even though her closeness only reminded me of everything and everyone I was in danger of losing.

  “It’s okay, Bryn.” My mom was the only one still willing to lie and I just let her, absorbing the words until I thought maybe I had the strength to keep lying too.

  I sat up, my grandmother taking my face between her hands. “You’re home.” She let the last word sink in before looking up at my mom. “And so am I.” Her eyes crinkled, almost smiling. “I don’t care if I have to chain myself to the couch, I’m never going back to your sister Lizzy’s.”

  I wiped my tears and tried to force a smile but couldn’t quite muster it. “It’s okay, grandma. It’s over.”

  She let go of me, looked away, and then that same fear sparked in her eyes again as she said, “But it’s not.”

  I stood in the backyard, toes barely grazing where the grass grew over the floor of the garage. My mom was back at work and my uncle was inside fixing the washer or the kitchen sink or something else that probably wasn’t really broken.

  He could never sit still doing nothing and after a week at home, I realized I couldn’t either. I took a few steps into the shade of the garage, examining my sculpture but not quite ready to touch it yet. After eight weeks of being frozen it looked strange and ugly and I hated it.

  The summer breeze ignited the dust revealing the rust underneath. I could tell it had rained, the humid air stripping the metal until it looked like it was rotting. I reached for a sunflower petal, wanting to move, to grip the metal, to twist it and bend it, giving my hands something to do besides cradle my prescribed medication or a glass of water or the television remote because my mom wouldn’t let me do anything more. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to finish it even though I knew it wouldn’t matter.

  My grandmother was right. Despite Roman waking up and despite not seeing the shadows since I’d found him in the real world something was still attacking me from the inside. I was still sick and weak and I was still in danger.

  It’s not over.

  It’s not.

  Her words played over and over in my head as I grabbed the hammer and started swinging. It clipped the edge of a flower, igniting a small spark. I kept swinging, knocking stems to the ground, petals hanging limp before finally shaking off. Pieces scattered at my feet, hitting the ground like bells, landing against my empty worktable, scraping down the walls.

  I dropped the hammer, trying to twist off the ladybugs and the fireflies, some of the metal already brittle and snapping off in my hand. I kept twisting, sharp ends biting into my palm.

  It burned but I couldn’t stop. I snapped off leaves and tore down vines, a thorn ripping through my thumbnail. I bit down on it, switching hands, scraping everything clean down to the base.

  “Bryn?” He said my name and that’s when I finally felt the sting. “Bryn. Bryn, stop. Bryn, breathe.”

  I stared down at my hands, my skin dark with blood, flakes of it already thick and drying beneath my fingernails. I looked up and saw my dad holding my arms back. He freed one hand, tearing off the hem of his shirt before wrapping both of my palms.

  The kitchen door opened into the garage, my uncle almost tripping down the steps when he saw us.

  “She’s hurt herself,” my dad said, never taking his eyes off my hands.

  My uncle disappeared back inside and I heard kitchen drawers opening and crashing closed on the other side of the door. Blood trickled down my wrists and onto my forearms and my dad gripped my fists, holding them tight. My cheek scraped the pocket of his denim jacket, traces of sawdust and cigarettes pinching my eyes closed. And I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to cry. I didn’t mean to collapse in his arms. But I did and he caught me. We stood there, my face buried in his chest, the smell of him igniting new tears, and he just held me.

  13

  Roman

  My nonna had already commandeered the kitchen. My dad spent the morning trying to clean up and hide the fact that we’d been living downstairs and hadn’t slept in an actual bed in almost a month. But the minute my grandparents walked through the front door they knew. It was like my nonna could smell the loneliness and the second she tied that apron around her waist I was so relieved.

  She was always the type who knew how to remedy things, not with words but with food, which was perfect for having a house full of men. My
nonno, he was the emotional one, the one who always needed to touch your face and not just see that you were okay but to feel it with his own hands.

  I usually didn’t like people touching me, even though in the hospital that was all they did, but sitting there with my nonno, his hand on my leg didn’t feel like such a burden. The awful truth was that it didn’t feel like anything at all. But I could see it there, gripping me, holding me, and that was enough.

  My nonna was hovering over me with the ladle in one hand and the pot of pasta in the other. I swallowed that last bite of food, shaking my head.

  “You need to eat, Davide.” My nonna had resolved since I was born to call me by my given name, especially since, according to her I looked more and more like my nonno every day. “I don’t even want to know what your father’s been feeding you for the past week.”

  “We’re fine,” my dad said. “I can cook. I do cook.”

  My dad had cooked approximately twice since we’d been home. Both times it was pancakes.

  “Putting something in the microwave doesn’t count,” she said. “Now, here, just a few more bites and then you go to bed.”

  She loaded up my plate again and I took a deep breath, twirling some pasta around my fork while she watched. She waited until I took a bite and then she moved on to my dad’s plate.

  “You’re looking thin,” she said, pinching his face. “I’m going to make your lunch tomorrow.”

  “Ma, we’re…” She gave him a look. “Thank you.”

  I knew what instinct was telling him to say—that we were fine. But it wasn’t just my nonna’s look that kept the words at bay. We’d been lying for so long, both of us, and I knew I couldn’t be the only one who was sick of the way it tasted.

  The lie I’d told Bryn was still there every time I swallowed. Like a shard of glass that I couldn’t quite get down and every time someone asked me how I was feeling or how I was doing and I was forced to give the answer that would spare their heartache, I could feel it throbbing there, getting bigger.