CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My parents are both surprised when I arrive home at midday, just in time for lunch. Neither of them looks angry at me for leaving without any notice apart from a note, and I suppose that’s just because they’re feeling guilty about what they told me last night.
I don’t say anything to them as I make myself a sandwich, and I eat at the table in silence while they continue to make their own meals.
If it’s even possible, our relationship has gotten even more strained since I discovered the truth. Now, instead of just my parent’s dislike of me tearing our family apart, there’s also my desire to stay away from them. The sooner I can accept the fact that they aren’t my parents, the better. Because, one way or another, eventually, I’m not going to be seeing much of them, whether I swap with Sarah and fall back into my real life, or I die.
Mum heads out after lunch to do the shopping and dad stares blank faced at a TV screen while I head upstairs and do my homework. After a while of being stuck on a section of my English work, I give up and fall on my bed, eyes on the ceiling.
Since I exhausted myself trying to use telekinesis this morning, it’s not long before my eyelids drift shut and I plunge into the welcoming sea of sleep.
-:-:-:-:-
The sun has just begun to set when I wake and golden shafts of light spill into my room, dancing across my walls and giving the appearance that my room is on fire.
I get up off the bed, feeling well-rested, and make my way downstairs to grab a snack. I walk past the empty dining room to the kitchen and take an apple out of the fridge. The sound of the TV flows through all the rooms, but it is the only sound in the eerily quiet house, and it doesn’t sound quite right.
I wonder briefly if my dad has fallen asleep and decide to check up on him. Strangely, when I arrive in the living room, it’s empty. Where is he?
Another thought hits me then: Shouldn’t my mother be back from the shopping by now?
Before I know it, I’m moving from room to room, checking for my parents, but finding them empty. It’s only once I’ve checked everywhere twice that I allow myself to panic, and even then, a calm voice speaks in my head.
Stay calm, Melissa, they probably just had something to do and didn’t want to wake you. Maybe they left a note.
I check the small table by the door and spot the folded white sheet of paper sitting on top. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I unfold it and read:
We’re at the doctors. I have an appointment. Mum xox
I toss the paper in the bin and head to the living room, collapsing onto the couch. It’s not long before the constant sound coming from the TV starts to annoy me and I switch it off.
When I sit back down, I frown. Why didn’t they turn the TV off when they left?
I have just enough time to pass it off as nothing before the air around me shifts, and all too soon, heat rushes into my chest and spreads throughout my body like lava flowing through my veins. Colour dances behind my closed eyelids as the pain that accompanies my heat attacks overwhelms me and I fight to hold in a scream. I clench my fists in a hopeless attempt to distract myself from the pain and my fingernails bite into my palm, drawing blood.
When my thirty seconds is up, I notice the pain in my hands and stare down at the scarlet crescents on palms, the blood looking startlingly red against my ghost pale skin. I let out a breath before washing my hands under the tap in the downstairs bathroom.
My blood turns the water in the basin pink, and for some reason, the sight of it makes me feel sick. Maybe I’ve just watched too many scenes in movies where the killers wash the blood off their hands. And in a way, my situation is very similar. If you count unintentionally freezing people to death as killing, then I am a killer, and now I have the blood to wash off my hands to prove it.
Two hours later, my parents still haven’t arrived home, and I start to get worried. My imagination takes over and I start thinking up all sorts of bizarre and unlikely situations.
What if the note was a fake and they’ve been captured by the people who are watching me? What if they had a car crash on the way to the doctors or on the way home? What if they’ve finally abandoned me and got on a plane to somewhere faraway?
What if?
At the end of the day, ‘what if?’ is about as close as I’m gonna get to an answer. I can speculate about what might have happened for hours, but it’s not gonna change what has happened – that is, if anything has happened. For all I know, they could just be stuck in traffic.
When the clock ticks over to eight pm, I pull out my phone and text my father. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.
is everything ok? how long will u b?
The reply comes half an hour later, just as I’ve begun to believe that something has happened.
everything’s fine. there was an accident and we’ve bin stuck in traffic. will b home soon.
I toss the phone onto the couch and for the second time, I breathe a sigh of relief, glad to know that they’re okay. Then I switch on the television and immerse myself in a random show.
Around ten pm, I start getting both tried and angry. What is taking them so long? I suppose it really doesn’t matter how long they take – they can get home at midnight for all I care. I know they’re fine, and it’s that knowledge that helps me to go through my usual night time routine before turning out all the lights and slipping into bed.
They’ll be here when I wake up, I tell myself as I get comfortable. I know they’re fine.
But of course, just as I’m about drift off, a voice says, Do you really know that? How can you be so sure when the only communication you’ve had is a single text message?
Yet by the time the voice has spoken, it’s already too late, and sleep takes me before I can fully digest the thought.
-:-:-:-:-
I’m brought in consciousness by a firm hand clamped down on my shoulder, gently shaking me. I try to wiggle free, wishing to sleep undisturbed, but they are persistent and eventually I open my eyes.
The first thing I notice is that my room is still blanketed in darkness, which, of course, means it isn’t yet morning. The hand on my shoulder is still shaking me, and I swat at it. “Stop! I’m up, okay? I’m up.”
The hands stops and then retracts. I turn my head but I can’t see the person clearly enough to tell who they are.
“Who is it?” I ask, as if I’m answering a door.
They don’t answer. Instead, I listen to their footsteps as they move towards the door. I hear the flicking of a light switch before bright artificial light fills the room, turning me temporarily blind. I hold a hand to my eyes for a minute, and then slowly pull away.
When I see the person standing before me, I jump and hastily get up into a sitting position, hugging the sheets to my chest.
“What the hell, Caden! What are you doing in my room at–” I check the time on my alarm clock “–one in the morning?”
He eyes the window, which is shut with the curtains tightly drawn, before saying, “You’re parents, were in a car accident. They’re at the hospital now. Your father’s fine, but your mother was hit pretty bad. She’s probably in surgery as we speak, but everyone thinks she’ll make it.”
My stomach lurches. “Oh God…”
A few minutes later, after I’ve stuffed the pain of what’s happened into a tight little forgotten corner of my mind, I ask, “Why are you telling me this? And why didn’t you just knock? How did you get in anyway?”
“The car crash happened on the main road that runs past Rand’s place. We heard it and went to see, and… Anyway, when the ambulance arrived, I told them that I was a friend of their daughter and they told me to go tell and bring you to the hospital. You weren’t answering when I knocked, so I picked the lock and came up.”
Trust him to know how to pick a lock. “Where’s Rand?”
“He’s…busy.”
I crawl out from under the sheets, glad that I decided to where clothes and a bra to bed and not my embarrassing pyjamas. I rush over to my wardrobe and pull out a pair of navy cotton shorts and a long-sleeved black t-shirt.
“Do you mind?” I ask.
He frowns for a second, then it dawns on him. “Oh, right.” But he doesn’t move, he just awkwardly stands there.
“Well?”
Whatever kind of daze he was in, he snaps out of it. “I’ll, um, just be outside.” He takes a few steps backward then turns and heads for the door, shutting it closed behind him.
I get dressed quickly, comb my hair and pocket my phone and keys before putting on some socks and slipping my feet into a pair of black converse.
When I open the door, Caden moves quickly away from the wall he was leaning against and stands facing me. I switch off the light and pass him, walking down the stairs. He follows close behind me.
“When did it happen?” I ask.
“Sorry, what?” he replies, and his voice feels way too loud for the almost empty house.
“When did the car accident happen?”
“Oh, um… A little before 8:30.”
“And it took you–” I pause while I count the hours since then in my head “–four and half hours to tell me?”
“Rand took the car and I couldn’t remember the way to your place, so I got lost a few times and had to backtrack, and then once I found your street, I couldn’t remember which one it was and, yeah. It took time,” he explains.
“Okay, one: when have you ever been to my house before? And two: how are we meant to get to the hospital if we don’t have a car or anyone to drive us?”
He doesn’t answer my first question. “We’re catching the bus.”
“The bus?” I ask and turn to look at him, one eyebrow raised, just as I reach the front door. I know he can’t see my face, but I can’t help it.
“Yeah. Don’t tell me you’ve never caught the bus before?”
I look at the floor, before spinning around and opening the front door, stepping out into the bright night, the full moon just visible over the top of the house across the street. “No, I haven’t,” I mumble.
People don’t like to be near me. So catching a bus with a bunch of people who want nothing more than to keep their distance has never sounded like a good idea to me.
Caden laughs, then stops when I shoot him a light glare, fully visible in the street lights. “Hey, it’s just unusual, okay? I catch a bus to school every morning, and so do most people I know.”
“Yeah, well, most people you know don’t leave freezing temperatures in their wake.”
We walk down the street in silence, but my mind is far from quiet. The optimist in me is saying that everything will be fine, but the pessimist is screaming that something will go wrong in surgery. The rational part of my brain says the chances of my mother dying are low, but the irrational me is having a panic attack. And behind it all, the rest of my mind is thinking over the events that led up to this, as if trying to find out why this happened and why it had to happen to me – the girl whose life is already in ruins.
I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the tears and wish that this hadn’t happened – that I’d done more than just text them when I was worried something was wrong.
Then it hits me.
Oh my God…
“Are you absolutely certain that the car crash happened before 8:30? Are sure it wasn’t nine or sometime after 8:30?”
“Of course.”
Suddenly, I feel sick.
“What is it?” Caden places a hand on my shoulder and stops walking as he spins me to face him.
“I texted my father at eight, asking him if everything was okay.” I pause, and take in a deep breath. “At 8:30, he replied telling me they were stuck in traffic because there had been an accident. He replied, Caden.”
Caden gives me a look that says, So?
And then his eyes go wide.
“Oh my God.”