by Kyle Andrews
Amanda opened her eyes a little bit wider and blinked a few times, trying to focus her vision enough to take in her surroundings. Then she looked Libby in the eyes and said, “You cut your hair.”
Libby smiled and wanted to cry at the same time. She said, “It's a long story.”
“I like it,” Amanda told her. “I was looking for you. I couldn't find you, but I looked.”
“I couldn't go home. There was a fire.”
“An explosion,” Amanda corrected.
Libby nodded. She had so much to say, but she didn't want to dump all of that information in Amanda's lap at once. She wanted to take some time, and allow Amanda to fully wake up before she started trying to explain everything that had happened and how much she had changed.
Before any of that could happen, two unfamiliar nurses, and a female doctor that Libby didn't know, rushed into the room. Libby stepped back as they began shining lights into Amanda's eyes, asking her questions and telling her to take deep breaths. Libby had no idea what they were doing. She just stood back and watched, trying to figure out how she could possibly explain this situation to a woman who had never shown any sign of sympathy toward Freedom.
Justin was standing by the door, waiting for the doctors and nurses to be finished with what they had to do before he came back in. Libby walked to the doorway and stood facing her mother as Justin faced the hallway.
“I told them not to mention where she was,” he told Libby.
“Probably a good idea.”
“She might surprise you.”
“It's not likely.”
“It's happened before. In your family even.”
“She hasn't seen what I've seen.”
Justin was quiet for a second or two before he said, “She's seen things.”
Libby looked over at Justin. His eyes were fixed on a closed door across the hall. She waited for him to explain what he was talking about, but he didn't continue. Libby thought about asking him where he'd found her and what it was like, but did she really want to know? On the off chance that the reality was even worse than what she was capable of imagining, she decided not to push the issue.
“Do you think I should just walk in there and blurt it out?” she asked. She had no idea what the proper procedure was in a situation like this. “She's sick. What if it kills her?”
“She's not going to get better.”
“You don't know that,” Libby said, but she knew that she was fooling herself if she believed there was any chance of Amanda recovering.
She thought about it for another moment before saying, “Maybe she never has to know. Maybe she could just die believing that the system did their job and kept their promise.”
Justin was silent, but his silence spoke volumes. It told Libby that lying was wrong. That her mother deserved to know the truth—that everyone did. It told her that fooling her mother into believing in that corrupt system would put a black mark on her soul. Because Justin believed in souls and Libby... Libby didn't know what she believed anymore. She was getting annoyed by that fact. She was getting annoyed with Justin pretending to be so much more informed than she was. She was tired of his acting as her moral compass.
“Like you never lie,” she said, reeling in her emotion once she remembered that Justin hadn't actually said a word. Whatever shame he projected onto her was a figment of her own imagination.
“Sometimes it seems like I lie more often than I tell the truth,” he replied.
“Does it ever feel right?”
He shook his head, “No.”
She and Justin stood by the door, waiting for the doctor and nurses to finish their examination of Amanda. They were quiet as they stood there. Libby looked down at the floor, trying to figure out how to tell Amanda that she was being cared for by the same group of people that the two of them had wished death upon so many times in the past.
Every once in a while, Justin would look over at Libby. She wasn't sure whether he wanted to say something to her or if he was just checking to make sure that she was still alive.
She didn't know how much time had passed, but the exam seemed to be coming to an end. Nurses were tying Amanda's gown closed and the doctor was writing in her chart.
Before they walked out of the room, Libby said to Justin, “Don't lie to me anymore.”
Without hesitation he agreed, “I won't.”
She walked back to the bed where Amanda was now sitting up, with the help of several pillows. Amanda was looking a little bit more aware than she had before, but she still struggled with each breath.
The doctor finished writing her notes and turned to Libby, giving her a quick smile and a nod before walking out of the room. The nurses followed. None of them said anything to Libby. For some reason, she had expected a long discussion about what they thought, and what the future held. Instead, Libby was left alone with her mother.
“Who did I hear you talking to?” Amanda asked her. “Was that Sim?”
“Justin,” Libby corrected.
“Oh.”
The look in Amanda's eyes told Libby that she was wondering why Justin was there. She knew that Uly was a member of Freedom, so she had to be wondering about Justin. She looked uneasy about his being there.
Libby looked toward the door. Justin wasn't standing where he had been anymore, but Libby could still see his boot by the door. He was sitting in the hallway. Close enough to be there, but knowing that he probably wouldn't be welcomed with open arms by Amanda. The thought annoyed Libby.
“He found you,” Libby told her mother. “In that home. He was helping me find you and he brought you here.”
Amanda looked confused for a moment. Her eyes went up to the TV, where the news was on, but muted. She then looked back to Libby and said, “Uly...”
“I know.”
“How could he be a member of Hate? How could we...” Amanda stopped talking and put a hand to her chest. She started coughing, which lasted for at least twenty seconds. She then leaned back in her bed and took several deep breaths before asking, “How could we not notice?”
“Because he was Uly.”
Amanda let out a small huff, as though she were going to smile or laugh, but she didn't. She just looked at the wall to her right and shook her head.
“He was Uly,” Libby repeated, more forcefully. “Whatever else he was, he was still the same boy we always knew.”
“Did you hear what he did? He tried to kill people. Children. How is that the same boy?”
Amanda sounded weak. She may have wanted to yell those words, but they sounded just as weak as every other word she spoke.
Libby turned away from Amanda, trying to figure out some way to delay telling her the truth. She didn't want to do it. Everything in her body was screaming against doing it, especially since telling her mother the truth wouldn't be a conversation about Uly. It would be a conversation about Libby. She honestly didn't know how well Amanda could take that news. They'd never been close, but they were family. Did that mean anything? Would Amanda trust Libby at all?
“Uly didn't try to kill anyone,” Libby said, sounding almost as weak as Amanda.
Libby looked toward the door one more time. Justin was still out there. He could undoubtedly hear what they were saying. Libby found that fact more comforting than expected. It was nice to know that she wasn't alone, even if he couldn't add anything to the conversation, or help Libby explain the way the world worked.
“What are you talking about?” Amanda asked.
Libby faced her mother and said, “He didn't. He was there to help you. To see if he could be a donor for whatever treatment you needed.”
There was no treatment which would require a donor. Libby knew that now. It was all a lie. A way to get Uly and Libby into their system. Maybe a way to force them to give blood or bone marrow to someone else who could use it. She didn't know the exact depth of that lie, but she knew that her mother couldn't be treated with anything that Libby—or Uly—had to offer.
&nbs
p; “I saw the news. I know what he did. They explained it all,” Amanda argued.
“They were lying,” Libby blurted, catching herself off guard nearly as much as she had Amanda.
“Why would they lie?”
“Because it's all a lie. All of it. Everything they told us about Hate. Everything they told us about the supplements and the food being contaminated. Everything they told you about your treatment.”
“You're telling me that I'm not sick?”
“You're sick. They just never planned on treating you for it.”
A smile flashed across Amanda's face, but was quickly gone. She was trying to understand exactly what Libby was trying to tell her, and maybe Libby could have helped her along with that realization, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to say the words that would set off the bomb that was sitting between her and her mother. The bomb that was counting down the seconds while Libby watched and waited.
Amanda looked around the room again, as though for the first time. She looked from wall to wall, and asked, “Where are the windows?”
“There are no windows.”
“Where am I?”
“You're in a place called the Garden.”
“A hospital?”
“Yes,” Libby replied, before adding, “And... more.”
“What does that mean?”
Libby looked Amanda in the eyes and said, “You know what it means, Mom.”
“Where am I?” Amanda asked again, rejecting the answer.
“You're with Freedom now. We both are.”
“Freedom?” Amanda asked, before putting the pieces of the puzzle together and saying, “Hate?”
She looked disgusted. Libby didn't know whether Amanda was going to pull all of the wires and tubes off of her and run out the door, or just scream. What Libby did know was that Amanda wasn't about to accept this news easily.
“I have to get out of here,” Amanda said, more to herself than to Libby. “I need help. I need to find help.”
“There is no help for you out there,” Libby told her. “Out there, you would have been dead by now. You were left to rot in a group home because you couldn't work anymore. You were barely alive when Justin found you. Your shoes were stolen. Your blanket was stolen. Nobody cared about you out there. The system didn't care about you. The hospital wasn't going to treat you.”
“They said—”
“They lied!” Libby yelled, moving toward Amanda and looking her squarely in the eyes.
She was mad now, because she couldn't believe how stupid her mother was. How blind. How pathetic. She couldn't believe how stupid, blind and pathetic she had been herself, not too long ago.
“Do you think they care whether you live or die, Amanda? You can't work anymore. You're worthless to them. They didn't even give you a place to live. Do you really think they're going to spend time and effort easing your pain, when there's nothing they stand to gain from it?”
“I could go back to work.”
“You're not going back to work. You weren't worth the investment to them. They sent you to that place to die. Alone. Cold. Suffering. You're looking at me like you're disgusted by where we are, but these are the people who are helping you as much as they can. These are the people who gave you a warm bed to sleep in. These are the people who saved my life when HAND was trying to blow my head off, the same way they killed Uly.”
Amanda looked a bit surprised by that fact, though she tried to hide it.
“I wasn't a member of Freedom that night. I was just like you. I hated these people. I wanted them to die, just like you want them to die. But HAND wanted me dead, because they knew that there was something inside of me that could change the world. It didn't matter who I followed or what I believed. All that mattered was that they needed me dead.”
Libby paused, to get a feel for Amanda's reaction to this news. Amanda said nothing. She just looked toward the wall, where she probably thought there should be a window.
“The man they sent was named Bey. He told me that he was going to keep me safe, so I could talk to HAND. But he pulled a knife on me. He tried to kill me, and he nearly succeeded. He stabbed me, and there was nothing I could do to fight him off. I was weak. I was helpless. I was alone, because that's the way they raise us.
“I felt his knife against my neck. I felt how cold it was and I wondered if he'd sliced me open yet. I couldn't tell. All I could do was sit there as he moved that knife to my arm and he pushed it into me. I knew that time, and I tried to scream, but I couldn't even do that much.”
As Libby spoke, she waited for some sign of emotion from Amanda. She wanted some hint that what she was saying was getting through, but there was nothing. Amanda's face was completely blank.
“Justin risked his own life to save me. He nearly died trying to save me. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to care about me. Just like he didn't have to care about you when he carried you out of that place,” Libby said to Amanda. She wanted to be forceful and mad, but she just kept sounding weaker by the moment. “You can tell yourself that Freedom is the enemy, Amanda. But you have to ask yourself... Who saved your life? Who saved mine? And who was willing to let you die a slow, agonizing death?”
Libby fell silent. She didn't know what else to say. She didn't know any other way to explain to Amanda what had happened to her. All she could do was wait.
Amanda put a hand over her mouth and her eyes began to tear up. She shook her head, having some conversation with herself in her own head which Libby could only wish she was privy to.
Finally, Amanda's eyes met Libby's, just as a tear fell from them. She moved the hand from her mouth and patted the bed beside her, telling Libby to come closer and sit down.
It felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of Libby's shoulders. That one gesture, telling her to come closer rather than screaming at her to get out, said so much to Libby.
She moved to Amanda's side and sat down on the bed. Amanda pushed the hair away from Libby's eyes, tucking it behind her ears, and she said, “I really do like your new haircut.”
Libby smiled, though crying. It was a small validation, but validation nonetheless.
“But you're wrong,” Amanda told her. “You're naïve, to be fooled by these people. You're blind to their lies. Their hatred. And you're falling into the same trap that Uly did.”
Each word spoken was like a hand gripping Libby's heart and squeezing it tighter and tighter. She could barely breathe.
“You're a child,” Amanda told her, placing a hand on Libby's cheek. “You want to believe these people because they offer you the easy way out. They tell you what you want to hear. They pretend that their way is so much better than ours, but it's all a trick. The world is what it is, and that will never change.
“Despite all of this, I love you, Libby. I really do. And I hope that someday, you'll open your eyes and realize just how foolish you've become.”
Libby tried to pull away, but Amanda grabbed her shoulders. She pulled Libby closer and whispered, “Tell Justin that he should have left me where I was. I don't want help from these people.”
41
Libby stood up from Amanda's bed and turned toward the TV. The news was reporting more on the documents that were making their way around town. Fights were breaking out. HAND officers were throwing people into large vans and driving them away. It was chaos, and why was it happening? Because the government was worried about people thinking for themselves or questioning the system.
Fortunately for them, they had people like Amanda, who would follow them blindly into the grave. She was the fool, and Libby was trying to find the words to tell her that she was a fool, but no words would come to her. For the first time, it seemed as though Libby was incapable of yelling at someone she cared about.
“I want to get out of here. I want to go home,” Amanda told her.
“You don't have a home,” Libby said under her breath. “They blew the place up. How can you go home when they keep blowin
g up our homes? How can you go home when they keep hunting us down, trying to kill us every chance they get?”
She was mumbling to herself, not talking to Amanda. Maybe she should have said all of this louder, so that Amanda would be forced to ask those questions and answer them for herself, but she didn't. She just started pacing back and forth in front of Amanda's bed, trying to figure out what she was doing. Why did she keep getting into these situations? People kept dying, and it meant nothing. Uly's death was pointless. Leo gave is life for a fraction of a few documents, when there was an entire library inside of her that they couldn't access. Collin Powers could have been saved instead of her. And now, something else was dying. It was that small part of Libby that still felt connected to who she had once been; the girl who had spent so much time and effort trying to save her mother. That life couldn't mix with what she had become. Amanda wouldn't allow it.
“Tell them that I want to be released,” Amanda insisted.
Libby turned to her mother and said, “When you demand your right to be released, we'll talk. Until then, just shut the fuck up.”
She couldn't deal with Amanda anymore. It was a waste of time, and it was just getting worse by the moment. So, she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Once she was in the hallway, Libby stopped and looked down at Justin, who was sitting beside the door. His mouth was hanging open in shock, but there was a definite grin buried in there as well.
Seeing the expression on his face made Libby burst into laughter. She couldn't explain it. The situation certainly wasn't funny, but what else was she going to do?
Not wanting to look insane while surrounded by doctors and nurses, Libby slapped a hand over her mouth and muffled her laugh.
Justin stood up, still smiling, and said, “You just told Amanda to...”
“It's not like I don't curse.”
Libby thought about it for a moment. She really didn't curse very often. Not out loud, anyway. In the school where she was raised, talking back was not allowed. You didn't question. You didn't demand. You certainly didn't curse at those in charge, and Libby didn't socialize with enough people to start doing it around friends. All of those curse words had been in her head—the only place she had a right to use them.