She smiled. “Thanks. You, too. And I know I’m being dumb. I know you’re going to be fine. It’s not like you’re having strokes. That happened to my uncle, you know. He was bedridden in a hospital for months, and toward the end he kept going into seizures and convulsions. You’re just getting the ultimate vacation.”
I smirked. Ember couldn’t know all the reasons that I found that funny. “Sure. A vacation.”
Her face grew worried. “I’m not trying to downplay it or anything.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not. Ember, relax. It’s fine. It’s just a thing I have to go through. And you being here means the world to me.”
She gave my hand a squeeze. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.”
“Okay, Hallmark.”
She laughed again.
We talked about school. She told me about how Ivory and some of our other friends were doing. She told me about the treatments her parents were putting her through for her anorexia, which she thoroughly hated. I nodded politely and smiled at the right times, but the truth was my mind was a world away. A whole universe away, in fact. I would have killed for some way to get updates about Midrealm. I felt so powerless, so out of touch when I was on True Earth.
“By the way,” she said suddenly, her voice too nonchalant, “it looks like my parents might be splitting up.”
That snapped my attention back to the conversation. “What?” I asked, shocked.
She shrugged, but I saw pain in her eyes. “Yeah. They’ve been fighting a lot more than normal recently. And dad keeps making threats about walking out. They’re trying not to do it in front of me, but the walls in our house are paper. Whatever. It’s not like they’re happy together, anyways.”
“Oh my God, Ember. I’m so sorry. Do you want to…is there anything I can do?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know what. It’s not a big deal. Your parents have been split forever, and you turned out fine.”
I shook my head. “Come on. You can’t expect me to believe you don’t care at all.”
“You’ve got your own stuff going on,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”
Then why did you bring it up? I thought wryly. But the truth was, I couldn’t blame her. I remembered exactly what it was like when my parents had gotten a divorce, even though I’d only been ten. It had torn me apart, but I felt like I couldn’t say anything about it to anyone. But I remember secretly crying out for help, acting out in ways I’d never done before.
Later I realized that a part of me was just trying to get someone to ask me what was wrong so I could tell them about it. It was the only thing I felt like I could do. I couldn’t even bring it up to Sarah on my own, even though we were best friends at the time. It was a powerful statement to me that Ember could bring it up. I was shocked she felt comfortable enough to bring it up to me.
“Ember, I promise I won’t worry about it,” I said gently. “But I want you to talk to me about it. Just to get it off your chest. Like you said, I know what it’s like. And I know that stuff just builds up and you just want to tell someone about it, not so they’ll fix it but just so it’s not all in your own head. So whenever you want to spill, you spill. Promise?”
She rolled her eyes, but she nodded. “Okay, fine. Promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said. “I’m serious.”
“I am too!” she said with a laugh. “I swear.”
“Okay.” I sighed and leaned back against the pillows. It shocked me how tired I was, even on True Earth. It was mental exhaustion. My mind was always racing, no matter which universe I was in.
“Are you getting tired?” Ember said, shooting up from her seat. “I should probably go.”
“You can stay,” I said halfheartedly. The truth was, I kind of wanted to be alone. Or rather, I wanted to speak to my mom, because I knew she’d want to do that before I could be alone. She always wanted to talk, as though she really thought I was interested in the mundane day-to-day goings on of our family that I’d already heard a hundred times before. But only after making it through the onslaught of her updates could I be alone again, to drift back to sleep as soon as possible.
“No, I should go,” Ember said with a sigh. “They’re kicking our butts in chemistry, and I’ve got a ton of homework. Not that I care, but my parents are giving me a hard time about it. Whatever.”
“Okay,” I said. I reached out for another hug, and she sank into my arms. “Thanks so much for coming,” I whispered. “I’m serious. It means more than you can imagine.”
“Of course,” she whispered back. “I’ll come back tomorrow if I can. The day after, latest.”
“That would great,” I said earnestly. Anything to break up the endless monotony of waking up to my mom and dad every time.
Ember slipped out, and my mom replaced her at my bedside. Her smile was fresh and zesty. Inwardly, I groaned.
“So, I’ve got some big news,” she began.
“Lay it on me,” I said with a significant amount of dread.
“I’m getting you transferred to another hospital.”
I opened my mouth to respond to what I thought would be a family update. The unexpectedness of her statement made my words catch in my throat.
“What?” I finally asked.
“I’m moving you to St. Joseph’s,” she said, carefully keeping up her smile.
“St. Joseph’s?” I asked. “Why would…”
And then I realized why.
“No.”
Her eyes grew hard, the smile dropping away. “Ester, this is not up for debate. I’m your mother.”
“I’m eighteen!” I shouted. “I’m not even a minor any more! You can’t make me do anything!”
“Raven, he’s your grandfather.”
“I’m not going! What, you’re going to force me?” My voice was probably carrying all the way down the hospital hall, but I didn’t care. Let the nurses come. Maybe they’d see how upset I was and drag my mom out of the room. She deserved it.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “Some of the patients are sleeping.”
“I don’t care!” I said. “I’m not going to visit. Transfer me if you want to, but I’m not going to visit. I’ll stay in my room there. So unless you’re going to drag me into his room, you can just forget about it.”
“It’s really important to the family…” she pressed.
“I don’t care about what’s important to the family!” I screamed. “How many times do I have to tell you that before you’ll understand it? What about what’s important to me?”
She shook her head. “You’re being impossible.”
“Well, drop it and I won’t have to,” I snapped back. I folded my arms and looked away, achingly aware of how much I probably looked like a petulant child.
There was a long, crackling silence in the room before my mom sighed audibly. “Fine,” she said. “We can discuss that later. I actually need to talk to you about something else.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,” I said, hoping my voice was scathing.
“It’s not like that,” she said. “Your father and I want to talk to you about a medical facility.”
I turned to her, eyes narrowed. “What kind of medical facility?”
She leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. “There’s a new international health program called Medicorp. They just started advertising. They’re some sort of specialty program that deals with people with sleep disorders. They’re offering free clinical trials right now at facilities across the country. We think it might be a good idea to check them out.”
It was so out of the blue I didn’t know what to do with it. I certainly didn’t know how to refuse and still keep my cover story. I knew that I didn’t have a “sleeping disorder,” so to speak. But I’d been saying that I did for so long, how could I not take this chance now without looking suspicious?
“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. “What’s the catch?”
Red flag. “Living quarters?”
She nodded. “The staff are very professional. Their Rhode Island facility has been around forever. Almost two hundred years, in fact.”
“What’s it called?”
She hesitated a moment. “Butler Hospital. But they’re not just — ”
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“They have a whole medical wing, they’re not just a — ”
“You want to toss me in a looney bin?” I couldn’t remember ever being angrier in my life. Even when she’d thrown my dad out. Even in Midrealm when Elanor was being her worst.
“It’s not a looney bin,” she said reassuringly. “They’re owned by Medicorp. And about a decade ago, they started branching out into general medical practice and research. And right now they’ve got this program opening up, and — ”
“No.”
“Sweetie, it’s free,” she said.
“No.”
“Can I at least tell you about — ”
“No! You can’t tell me about anything!” I said. “It’s not happening! I’m not crazy, I’m just…sick. I guess. I don’t know.”
Her look was pitying. That was a thousand times worse than worry. “Ester, sweetie, I know it’s an upsetting thought, but I think that if you would only — ”
I’d had enough. I sat up and pushed myself out of the hospital bed. “My name is Raven. And that’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m out of here.”
Her eyes went wide in shock. “What? What are you talking about? You can’t go.”
“I actually totally can,” I said simply. “I can check myself out of this hospital right now, which is exactly what I’m going to do. And then I’m going to go stay at dad’s house for a while, because I know that he won’t try to convince me to go to an insane asylum.”
“Butler is not an insane asylum!” my mom said desperately. “It’s just a ward for — ”
“For crazies,” I finished. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m going to go stay with someone who isn’t trying to slap me in a straitjacket.”
“Your dad thinks you should go, too,” she said quickly.
That stopped me. I froze, my hand holding my clothes awkwardly in midair. “What?”
“We’ve been talking about it for days, Raven. You think I just decided this on a whim? Your dad thinks it’s the right thing, too.”
I scowled. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. You’re just saying that to turn me against him.”
She gasped. “Ester! How could you say such a terrible thing?”
“It’s Raven,” I repeated. I began pulling on my clothes furiously. “And don’t do that. It’s so fake it makes me want to barf. Ever since the divorce, you’ve always said things to make me think less of him. And it never works, even though I have to put up with it again and again. And it doesn’t work because he doesn’t ever say those things about you.”
I stalked out of the room to the hospital front desk, ignoring my mom as tears slid down her cheeks behind me.
My parents had had my car brought to the hospital while I’d been staying there. So a half hour after the fight, I pulled into my dad’s driveway a half hour later, snuck in his back door using the secret key, and sat in his living room. I’d intended to go to sleep, to get back to Midrealm where life was simple, if more dangerous. But I couldn’t sleep. I was still so upset at my mom that I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t summon weariness to claim me.
So that’s how he found me hours later when he came down at 5:30am for his morning coffee. That’s how my dad’s always been: up before dawn, to bed after sunset. He had a rigorous schedule, and he stuck to it. That’s why, even now, he supported my mom and me as well as himself, and we all lived very comfortably.
I heard him clump down the stairs at the end of the hallway and go to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard coffee percolating in the pot. Slowly, his soft slippered footsteps came down the hall in my direction.
“Don’t freak out,” I said as he came into the living room.
My dad jumped with a yelp. The coffee in his cup splashed all over his arm and on to the white carpet at his feet.
“I said don’t freak out,” I said with a smirk. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a roll of paper towels. When I came back to the living room, I laughed to see him kneeling and trying to soak up the coffee with the hem of his robe.
“Here, move,” I said gently. “I’ve got something a little better for that.” I ripped off a big wad of paper towels and pressed them into the carpet, watching the wet brown spots soak up through the whiteness.
“Thank you,” he said. “Ester, what on earth are you doing here?”
More like what am I doing here on Earth? I thought. I’d been here for nine and a half hours now. The others were probably ticked, wondering what the heck had happened to me.
“I left the hospital,” I said. “Mom and I got into a fight.”
He shook his head. “Always, you two. Why can’t you ever give her a break?”
“Because she’s being impossible.”
“She’s your mother,” he said sternly. “Treat her with respect.”
I sighed and stood back up, walking to the kitchen to toss the dirty paper towels. “Can we not talk about her right this second?”
“Fine,” he said. He went to the coffee pot and poured himself a new cup. “Do you want to tell me what the fight was about?”
His voice was cautious. He already knew. “She said you wanted me to go to Butler Hospital,” I said.
He stirred some half-and-half into the cup and stirred it slowly. “I told her that I thought it was the right thing, but you should make the decision.”
“Well, I decide no.”
He shrugged and held up a single finger, looking at me patiently. “I thought that might be your answer. But may I suggest an alternative?”
I looked at him warily. “I guess.”
“Why not at least look at the place?” he said. “Strike a deal with us. We’ll take you there. You can even set stages if you want. Stage One: the parking lot. Stage Two: the lobby. Stage Three: the facility where you’d be staying. If you reach a new Stage and feel even the least bit uncomfortable, you call the whole thing off. I’ll agree to leave immediately.”
I gave a frustrated snort. “That’s kind of what she suggested, although she didn’t put it the same way. And I don’t really believe that she’d leave as soon as I asked to.”
“You’re probably — ” He stopped. He looked carefully at his feet, like there was something he didn’t want to say. “Ah, well then. I guess it’s out of the question.”
“You could take me yourself. I’d be okay with that.”
He looked up, his eyes meeting mine and holding firm. “No. We are both your parents. I won’t take part in something that makes her uncomfortable by favoring me.”
“What if she said okay?” I asked. “I’ll talk to her about it. If she’ll agree to what you just described, but with just you instead of both of you, I’ll do that. I just don’t want to end up…stuck.”
He stared at me hard. “Only if she says yes willingly,” he finally conceded. “I don’t want you to work her on this.”
“Oh, trust me, I won’t,” I said immediately. “I’m going to propose it once so she gets off my back. And if she doesn’t accept my terms, the whole thing is off. That’s the end of it.”
He sighed and shrugged. “I suppose that will have to do.” His eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. “My goodness, I have to be getting ready. I’m going to be gone in twenty minutes. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No,” I said. “But do you mind if I just crash on your couch?”
“Of course,” he said, waving me off. “Help yourself.”
He looked at me, and his eyes twinkled a bit. “You don’t want to wake up back in the hospital?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I won’t take you back in there unless you’re ready. Nasty places, anyway. Always better to heal at home, I say.”
I stepped over to give him a hug. “Thanks, dad. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
I left him bustling in the kitchen and went back to the living room. I lay down on the couch, my mind more calm and peaceful than it had been since I arrived at his house.
Within minutes I had passed out on the couch, on my way back to war.
TESS
I STOOD ON THE WALL, hair hiding one eye, and tried hard not to think about the fact that Nestor had died right next to where my feet were planted.
Calvin swayed back and forth beside me, and Sarah did the same on the other side. Most of the others were doing that these days.
“It’s harder for us than normal, you know,” Calvin had said the day before, his eyes fixed on my face and yet far away. “See, when most soldiers defend a city, they can just sit on the wall and fall asleep. And if the enemy attacked while they were dozing, their comrades would wake them up. Us, not so much. We fall asleep, and we probably won’t be able to knock ourselves out for at least another hour back on Earth. So we just have to stay…to stay…”
His eyelids had drooped. I’d prodded him on the shoulder and he’d started awake.
And that’s how it had gone for the last two days. It made me feel terrible that I wasn’t putting in the same hours as the others, but at the same time I couldn’t put my parents through the hell their parents were going through. My parents would take me to the hospital out of worry, and it would break my family. We couldn’t afford the stay. The emergency room probably wouldn’t hold me for very long, so my parents would spring for a regular room. We wouldn’t be able to afford it, and if the hospital came after us for the bill they might find out that we were illegals. Then we’d all be deported, and it would be all my fault.
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