Black and Green

by C. L. Stone

  She’d confronted my father downstairs, and he was very quick to try to stop her from calling around about me.

  “It’ll cost more money to take her out of school,” he said.

  “She can’t go to school and faint,” Carol said. “Did you hear what Sean said about that horrible school? Also, we don’t know what’s wrong with her. We should get her to a doctor to find out.”

  “She’s probably got the flu.”

  “If she goes to school and faints, they’ll insist on a doctor,” she said.

  He quieted after that, considering his options.

  Carol’s arguments were technically on my side, fighting for what most people would. She was pushing him to treat me like normal humans are treated, not like a mistake to be hidden. Seeing a doctor. Resting. Saving me from a school with a bad reputation. She was technically in the right.

  As she continued to prod him, he finally shook his head. “She’s a troublemaker. Don’t let her fool you. Her mother said repeatedly how she’d lie and do crazy things to get what she wanted.”

  “Her mother is in the hospital,” Carol said. “I’m here, and if she’s that bad, you don’t want her in a school with bad people. Place her in my care. I’ll take care of the details.”

  “What about the private school?” he asked.

  Carol laughed shortly. “What? You just said she was a troublemaker. She doesn’t deserve to go. And her sister doesn’t have the grades. And outside of that, if we’re moving, we’d need to wait to send them to school in Georgia, not here.”

  My father groaned but then said to talk about it in the morning and to go to bed.

  Their conversation at least told me she didn’t know about my real mother. It didn’t help that my father spread lies about me. I wondered if Carol had fallen for it.

  How many more lies would be spread? Marie had stayed in her room the whole time. I wasn’t sure if she knew what was going on. If she thought this wasn’t going her way, she might try telling Carol the truth. How much worse would it get if Carol found out? What changes would she make to our lives then?

  I repeated everything I knew to Kota. I made the suggestion that I could talk to Marie tomorrow.

  When everything was sent to Kota, the phone went silent.

  Slowly, I got messages from some of them. I replied back.

  Silas: Are you okay?

  Sang: Sleepy. I’m okay, though. It’s just like before. Was too tired.

  Silas: I mean staying there tonight. With Jimmy in the room.

  Sang: I don’t have another option right now.

  Silas: We’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.

  Victor: Can I get anything to you for tonight? I could send Luke in. Extra pillow? Do you need water?

  Sang: I’m okay. I’ll just sleep. It’s been a crazy night.

  Victor: Be careful, princess. Please. I miss you.

  Sang: Miss you, too.

  Nathan: This sucks.

  Sang: Yeah.

  Nathan: I could still sneak into the attic. So I’m nearby.

  Sang: Don’t do that. Last thing we need is Carol catching someone in the house. Then she’d never trust me.

  Nathan: I don’t know what else to do.

  Sang: Me either.

  North: Let me send you something to help you sleep. Something the doc can give you. Tylenol PM. Sleep, okay?

  Sang: I’ll try to sleep. I don’t have much else to do now.

  I tried my best to be brave, to let them know I’d wait for the next plan.

  I pushed them to think of what to do next, they pushed me to sleep. I eventually turned the phone off when they stopped messaging.

  What else was there to do? Mr. Blackbourne had asked if I could wait for a month or more if necessary, but that was the old plan. Yet, how long would it take now?

  They had taken risks. They were spending all this time focused on me. Had North even been home? Had anyone focused on any of their own problems since we’d been back?

  I left the phone nearby, with a smidgen of hope that they’d figure something out and would alert me.

  As I waited, I opened the notebook.

  I started writing in my Korean lettering as my secret code. I thought I would at least write until I was too tired to continue. At first, I only wrote out their names, as if practicing writing in the language. I hadn’t done it much for a while, but it only took a few minutes for me to be able to remember to write out a sentence like I’d done before.

  I’d failed at keeping my health in check, like Mr. Blackbourne had asked.

  I’d failed at convincing Carol to allow me to go to private school, and to allow me space outside of the house.

  There was one thing I didn’t wish to fail at: letting them know how I felt, and asking how they felt in return.

  I considered how to structure it, and I opted to write separate letters to each of them. I wrote in pen, since that was what I had, and many times I ended up scratching out lines. Everything sounded silly at first.

  I only finished one before my eyes were too tired to continue.

  The one for Dr. Green.

  Two Sides

  DR. GREEN

  Sean and Owen stood in the woods behind Sang’s house for a few minutes after they left.

  It was hard to leave her. Sean was so angry, shaking his head, shivering, but not from the cold.

  He was trying to calm himself so he wouldn’t bite Owen’s head off for wanting to get back to the security trailer.

  They walked back slowly. Sean kept his head down, following Owen’s flashlight.

  But all he could think was this was the wrong decision. Leaving her there. Alone. Even if they hovered just outside the window, or snuck around the house...

  And then that look she had given him. It felt like they were abandoning her.

  They returned to the edge of the parking lot. A few cars lingered in front of the diner. Deep, threatening voices carried to them as they got closer to the trailer.

  What now?

  Sean raced up the steps ahead of Owen, throwing open the door to get inside.

  “Like hell we’ll leave her there now,” North was saying. He stood face-to-face with Kota.

  Kota met him dead on, shoulders back, features tight. Nathan and Silas stood behind him, glaring. Victor stood behind them, arms crossed, leaning against a table.

  North had Gabriel and Luke behind him. The trailer wasn’t wide, so the entire group took up a lot of the floor space that wasn’t already taken up by chairs, a couple of desks and some cots leaning up against the wall.

  One of them shouted something that was quickly overwhelmed when Silas boomed out a groan. Arguing erupted, with everyone shouting loud enough that no one could hear anyone else.

  At least no one was swinging fists yet.

  Owen walked in, saying nothing. Sean stood beside him, watching them.

  No one acknowledged them, and they might not have really noticed them entering. They continued to argue.

  “We’re not busting in,” Kota said in sharp tones.

  “We’re taking her,” Gabriel said. “Fuck all this shit.”

  “She hates all this,” Luke bellowed. “You haven’t seen her—”

  “I saw her earlier,” Kota said. “You’re not listening to what she wants. She’s there now, asking for the next plan.”

  “We need to ask her,” Victor said. “See what she wants. She may want to wait it out.”

  “She’s never going to tell you to take her out,” North said. “We tell her to stay strong. To stick with it.”

  “It’s fucked up,” Gabriel said. “She’d never tell us to get her out because we tell her this is the best way.”

  “Taking her may mean losing her,” Silas boomed at them. “An Academy council won’t approve if Carol calls around about a kidnapping.”

  They continued, shouting in circles. It was impossible to hear anyone.

  Sean gazed at Owen, but he only stared at the group quietly. When they continued to
argue, he took out his phone and hit a few buttons quickly.

  Within seconds, each of the boys shut up as they got a small electric zap. They all jerked at once, taking their phones out to look at the screens automatically.

  “Enough,” Owen barked at them in the silence.

  Faces twisted to look at him, some scathing, others confused. Emergency buttons weren’t meant for that.

  Owen dismissed the looks and continued. “The plan failed. Fine. What’s our new strategy?”

  “Walk in and take her,” North said. This was followed by a couple of the others agreeing with the idea.

  “Wait it out,” Kota said. “See if Carol calms down.”

  “Wait for her to find out the truth?” Gabriel asked. “And let her keep Sang under her thumb? And how long before Marie snaps and tells her about us?”

  Owen snapped his fingers. “Stop it. This isn’t a strategy. This is speculation and it isn’t acceptable.”

  “We don’t know what to do,” Kota said. “We can’t know in two seconds.”

  “Then take five,” Owen said sharply. He turned on him, his shoulders pulling back. “Take ten. I don’t care. But yelling about what might happen isn’t solving the problem.”

  “Then you make a suggestion,” Sean said in a grumble. “You wanted to wait.”

  Owen turned on his heel to stare him down. The black of his clothes made those eyes of his stand out and appear wider. “You barged in without asking anyone, telling them you were her friend. That was never approved. Now you’re going to blame me for this?”

  “I did what I thought I had to do.” Sean pointed to his own chest. “I looked for a way in. I took action when it seemed reasonable. You wanted to play into this game. I was playing.”

  “I said wait. I said learn. I didn’t say invite yourself over. You knew she was controlling.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I told you, if you made Sang seem willing to play along, Carol would make her a puppet. She does it to every weak person around her. Mr. Sorenson is being used by her to get what she wants. Now she thinks Sang will do whatever she says, too. And we were the ones pushing her to do it, even if she wanted out.”

  Owen frowned, but his shoulders dropped. “We weren’t on the same page here.”

  “We never were,” Sean said with a glare. He pointed a finger over them to the general direction of the Sorenson house. “Sang is physically weak. Her cortisol levels are through the roof. Her mind is clouded. She’s got a list a mile long of all the stressors in her life.”

  “She needs to rest,” Owen said quietly. “She can do it without risking more at the moment.”

  “She’ll never rest if she lives in the place where the stress is coming from,” Sean said, his voice dropping and the emotion coming in. His voice cracked as he continued. “She’ll never get better there. Her blood pressure will continue to wreak havoc on her system. She won’t feel like eating. An afternoon out here and there won’t cure that sort of stress.” He shook his head and held his hands out toward him. “We’re not helping her by trying to play this slow game. We’re killing her.”

  Owen stiffened. The others relaxed their fists and stopped glaring.

  Since they weren’t willing to speak, he would. “It isn’t about Carol, damn it. It isn’t about her father and that whole mess being discovered. Don’t you all see? Even before we were here, she was stressed out, living in the shadows, abused and neglected. We gave her what we could, but there’s never been a moment in her life she wasn’t stressed out. We had her temporarily, only to fight with Volto and the Academy to keep her with us...but always, always there was a shadow at her back called her parents discovering her. She was stressed, and we sent her to camp, where we stressed her out more, and now she’s here, facing down a few months, at best, of more stress and disappointment.” He shoved a palm to his chest, over his heart. “It’s killing us, too. This isn’t us. None of this was right.”

  “We were doing it the right way,” Owen said quietly. “Finding the information we needed to break her free as quietly as possible.”

  “Rushing won’t help,” Kota said. “All of Carol’s actions will be seen as normal by any authorities. Getting her out of the attic space. Putting her on bedrest. Hearing the school is dangerous and deciding to homeschool her...”

  “Sang doesn’t need normal,” Sean said quietly. “We’re lying to ourselves to think we can just follow the rules with her, not when everyone else isn’t playing the same game. Do you think she wants to spend the next several months locked away in that house? Well, no, she’s not staying, is she? They’re moving to Georgia. We play their game, and wait, when they get to rush around and do whatever they feel like on a whim. Move to Savannah. Homeschool her. Whatever Carol wants.”

  “We can fix it,” Owen said. “I need time.”

  Sean shook his head, turned and went for the door, his shoulders tight, his stomach in knots.

  No. They couldn’t wait.

  “Where are you going?” Owen asked. “We need to talk about this.”

  Sean faced the evening air, the chill he let into his lungs slowly before he spoke. “I’ll talk when you’re willing to listen.” He closed the door, jumped down the steps and headed to his car.

  Owen was right, they did need to talk about it.

  However, Sean needed to stop himself from telling them all off. He was talking himself into getting Sang and just dragging her out.

  He wasn’t sure that was entirely wrong. The more he pictured it, the more it made sense to do it. On paper, it was the wrong move. Carol might call it kidnapping. Mr. Sorenson...he’d freak out. Who knew what he’d do to spare himself? Run off and leave Carol to handle it? That seemed to be his style.

  But for Sang, leaving now seemed the only way to prevent her from losing herself in that place.

  If no one on the team managed to come up with a reasonable answer that accounted for Sang’s health and mental stability, instead of just her discovery, he’d take her himself. He’d take the favor hit with the Academy. He’d give up all his favors for her.

  He knew he was right. They were killing her. They were killing each other spending all this time running in circles.

  Kintsugi

  Sean stopped by the hospital, sleeping in his office for a couple of hours while waiting for Sang’s bloodwork. He’d had it prioritized, offering a favor to the lab people.

  He didn’t need to, but he wanted to do something for her.

  When the results finally got to him, he took them to his car, intending to take them home, but before he turned over the engine, he had the paperwork out and checked her file.

  High triglycerides. Anemic. Her cortisol levels were through the roof. He’d guessed right.

  Too much sugar, not enough good food—her stress levels were too high. They knew all this. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Everything she was going through was completely stress-related.

  She was sleeping now, and he hoped she’d continue to do so. Still, even as he calmed down from the argument and considered if Owen might at all be right, and maybe being hasty wasn’t going to work in this case, he couldn’t agree with it. Sang might be telling people she was fine, but she wasn’t. If she continued like this, she’d get something worse. Something life-threatening and unfixable.

  He returned home just as the sun was coming up. Bleary-eyed. Unshaven. A complete mess.

  Sean dropped everything he’d been carrying onto the floor just inside the door.

  There had been no word from the others, except the cross texts to everyone saying the thing to do now was to let her sleep. Don’t wake her. Don’t text her. Let her sleep.

  Beyond that...they didn’t know. Come up with another plan. Perhaps Kota could talk to Jimmy and get Carol to relax.

  No one was happy with any of it. No one was really talking to him, but Sean sensed no one was talking at all. Like him, they needed to calm down.

  This whole situation was going to pull them apart, and
not how he’d thought it was going to happen. Trying to decide what was best for Sang was driving them crazier than trying to figure out their relationships.

  His head felt heavy, full of sand. He needed sleep, too, but he doubted he could get any right now.

  If he’d never introduced himself to Carol, he would have never been invited. Sang could still get out on occasion at least.

  This was his mistake. Owen might have been wrong about keeping her in that house, but he was wrong for pushing his way into the house and causing trouble.

  No one had to tell him. He’d pushed and made them all follow his plan because he was frustrated. He couldn’t wait, like Owen had wanted to do.

  Now they were forced to wait it out. Perhaps longer this time. Instead of making it easier, they’d made it more complicated.

  Sean leaned against the wall in the hallway.

  Breaking down on the floor in a heap seemed like a fair option at the moment.

  Her sweet face swept into his memory. Her pulse under his fingertips had been fast.

  Fast for him, or so he liked to think.

  That smile. Her kiss. It made him say stupid things.

  Now she was trapped.

  He sucked in a heavy breath through his nose and tried to hold it, trying to gain control. Focus, or more mistakes might happen.

  What could be done?

  His shoes and other items he’d tossed onto the floor when he left had been picked up. Owen hadn’t returned. He was still down in the security trailer.

  His mother had to have gotten up. It was still a little too early to be awake, even for her.

  There was a very tiny sound of glass scraping glass coming from the kitchen.

  A heavy, alcoholic scent carried to him. Or was it lacquer?

  Sean shuffled across the house quietly, listening.

  The kitchen door was wide open. The island was clean with the laptop they’d left closed on top of it. A dull yellow glow illuminated the space.

  Sean stepped into the doorway.

  His mother sat at the kitchen table. The window blinds had been readjusted to let the natural rising sunlight to come through. Sean’s desk lamp he used for making paper art was sitting on the corner, next to his mother’s arm.