Within/Without

chapter forty-eight.

Val

After everyone's done fussing over him, or at least for now, Simon falls asleep. I'm relieved for a moment, sitting on the edge of his bed and watching his eyelids flutter gently and resisting the urge to run my finger over his slightly-parted lips. He's so placid here, his chest rising and falling in a perfect, slow rhythm, no evidence of the past twenty-four hours'—or, in reality, even longer that—distress in his expression. I am relieved until the thought that he might not wake up rolls itself up into a ball and sticks in my throat.

I turn the lamp off beside his bed and slip out into the hallway. Last time I saw Noah, he was whisking their little sister Abbie away, patting her on the back and whispering kind words to her. Their mother was not far behind. As for Simon's father and Larry, I'm not sure where they ran off to. The hall is empty and silent.

I wander through it for a few minutes, examining the family portraits on the wall, the baby photos and framed kiddish artworks signed with sloppy versions of the names Noah, Simon, and Abbie. There's a distinct difference between the photos out here and the ones in Simon's room; the ones blown up and put in fancy picture frames and hung up on the wall all display Simon's usual face, the freckled one, while the tinier pictures in standing frames sitting on Simon's bookshelf are of various faces. Out here, I realize, is the show. The ideal. A fabricated story of Simon's childhood with the shapeshifting part deliberately left out.

I sigh and run a finger along one of the frames. Is it bad that I don't like this version as much?

I want his story, and I want all of it, because that's the only way anything makes sense. That's the only way we make sense.

At the end of the hall is the catwalk, and then the stairs. I lean over the banister, eyeing the empty, wood-floored foyer, and I call Rita, my editor.

"Oh, dios mio, I thought you were dead! Val! Where the hell are you? Please tell me you're back. It's been three days, you know. We're all worried sick."

The sentence suddenly springs upon me a visual of Caz pacing back and forth across the office, theorizing as to where I could be. I shake the image violently from my head. "Rita, I can't come back. Not yet."

I must sound as distraught as I feel. Rita's voice softens. "Are you safe, at least?"

"Yes. Very."

She pauses. "Is it Simon?"

"Yes."

"Is he alright?"

"No," I say. "He's—he's really sick, Rita. He's really, really sick."

I hate saying it. I hate saying it because I know Simon hates that word, sick, how it's a label everyone has tried to thrust upon him since he was just a toddler and it doesn't describe him at all. I want to believe him, of course. I want to believe that whatever this is isn't an illnes's. But after seeing him cower away from me in an airport bathroom, after watching him convulse and throw up on the side of the road, I just don't know what else to call it.

"Oh," Rita says. Sympathy drips from every word, sweet and satiating. I haven't cried since we picked Simon up from the police station, but something about the way Rita sounds makes me want to cry now. "Oh, Val. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

Take his pain away. Keep Larry here. Find me a miracle. "No," I say. The back of my throat is stinging but I manage to keep the floodgates closed. "No, I don't think there is. Can you just tell Caz—and everyone—tell Caz and everyone that I'll be okay? I just need to be with Simon a little longer, and then—then I'll be back."