Beach Day

56: Brave Faces

"I think so, too. It's super unlikely that you dropped them in the In-Between, so I'd wager it was that." She pauses, chuckles, "Though it would be funny, because then I would have to figure out how to linger there. I probably could—"

"Can we focus, please?"

"Well," she decides, like a segue back to the topic at hand. "What's our solution?"

"Are you— are you serious?"

She stops pacing for a second to face him with her feet turned out and her hands (well, hand) on her hips. "Deadly."

"You can't just—"

"I don't know how to hotwire an actual car. Before you ask. But I do know that Drew has his car keys in his pocket and I have a little guy who would just love to run free in the woods for a while and look for them. I'll drive your truck back. Let me break the window so we can get to your suitcase-sized witch hunter first aid kit."

"Shit." The look on his face says he knows she's right.

"Shit's right!" She holds out her right hand. "Shotgun, please."

The window breaks easily enough. She's never been one for it, but if there's one thing she learned by watching her mother rage out and also being a total klutz, it's how to break glass. It shatters in a rain-stained cascade, all over the inside of the backseat. It's a good thing nobody is going to be riding back there, she supposes. Not if Matt can't find his keys, anyway.

She lays her jacket over the upward, jagged shards on the back passenger's side window, reaches in to grab the first aid kit, and hands it over. After tending briefly to Drew and doing what he can with what he has (which, admittedly, makes the wound look a lot better and brings some of the color back to his cheeks), he turns his attention to her and demands her arm.

She doesn't want to give it, but she knows it isn't worth arguing about. She sits on the edge of the truck's bed with him, legs over the tailgate, and lets him do his work.

Leaning over her arm, Matt looks up at her. He shakes his head. "You can't go. We have to get you to a hospital."

"I can go to the hospital once we're done." She's not going to the fucking hospital. She's pretty sure they both know that. "I told you, I have to make good on my promise to Priscilla. I have to. What's the point of any of this if I don't?"

"The point is that you survive. The point is that your body continues to maintain its integrity."

"Please," she scoffs. "You think I care about that?"

"You should."

"I don't."

"Tiff." More dead serious than he has been all day, Matt stops working for a second to look at her properly, dead serious. "You're the only you we've got."

"That's a good thing. I vowed long ago to kill my doppelganger if I ever saw it— fuck, her. The world couldn't handle two of me. It can barely handle one."

"That doesn't mean it wants to lose it."

"Maybe it should, Matt."

He shakes his head and gets back to work. "It won't."

She leaves it be. There's no point in arguing. He thinks he's right. He doesn't see the hands of the narrative or the strings between him and the rest of the world.

They aren't real, she knows. Things don't work like that. There's nothing decreeing that she stay alive other than dumb luck. It's easier to blame everything on those unseen forces, though.