Page 7

I blinked, slow and controlled, zeroing in on the pressure, fighting the urge not to roll my eyes. No shit I didn’t want to revisit the day that she left—the day the Voices entered. “Please stop,” I whispered, only adding in the pleasantry for my therapist’s sake.

Dr. Fairmore reclined, obviously thinking this response was meant for her. I wanted to explain, but my mouth went dry. I made the best first impressions.

“Are you trying to cause a divide?” the second voice countered evenly with the clink of the doctor’s oval pink nails against the ceramic—a fidget so innocuous she didn’t even realize she was doing it, so she couldn’t know that it bored into my skull.

“Can’t you see?” the third voice snarled, pulling inflections from the screaming patient next door. “There already is a divide! Us against her. By all means, try it with the mental replay. I’m just done believing anything will come from it. She never actually lets herself feel.”

Oh, I felt it. All the way to my bones. I wore the guilt like a second skin.

A memory appeared in the forefront of my mind—for a fleeting moment, I thought it was an image of myself. I studied the woman it showed me a little closer: her butterfly sleeves flaring with the brisk curl of her arms as she collected shells on the beach. Beauty marks dotted an oval-shaped face, her skin glowing as if it caught the light of a permanent sunset. There was a soft bounce to her hair, and wispy bangs framed a stare bluer and more untold than the deepest part of the ocean.

I grazed my jaw, tracing a resemblance that didn’t exist beyond photos and dreams. The woman wasn’t me, but a person that would always be a part of me, locked in a moment I’d never escape from.

It’s funny how much life can change in the calm stillness between heartbeats—one flutter we were chasing dragonflies and splashing in the shallows, the next it was storming and we were caught in a rip current.

I could only imagine what Dr. Fairmore might be thinking as she watched me struggle to say the words, so lost in my head, her brows creased with sympathy. “This seems to be a painful topic for you. We can change direction, for now, if you want?—”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I choked out, unsure who I was talking to. The Voices. My therapist. “I didn’t want her to go.” I didn’t want her to swim out after me. Nearly ten years to the very day later, my head still shook, like I couldn’t believe it.

She’d swum around the wharf. She’d trained in an Olympian pool. She’d surfed next to all the local legends. It didn’t make sense that she’d drowned, it didn’t?—

The next words from my therapist came out so hushed I almost took it as ambient noise. “Who did you not want to go, River?”

I’d never say it. I struggled to even think it.

But after that memory…her face was all around me. “My mom.”

Mom. The word sounded foreign, off-limits, like I didn’t hold the privilege of speaking it.

I recoiled further into my chair, half expecting the memory to be swept away, just as she had. But it did something much more sinister—it changed.

My mom’s jubilant gaze dimmed. Her lips curled, her teeth bared, not into a smile, but into a cry of pain. The blood left her face, leaving her translucent, like she’d just seen a ghost. Or maybe that was what she was becoming.

A tidal wave of grief crashed upon me at the thought, breaking me into a million pieces. My butt molded the seat, but it felt like I was falling through it.

My ears rang, bitten by the shrill winds of a fake descent. I lightly tugged on a lobe, using the opportunity to look anywhere but in front of me, and feverishly blink away the icy cold of an invisible wind. Nothing was working. Fairmore was waiting. I was stuck. I gripped my stomach as it dropped, as if stuck in a free fall, despite being on solid ground.

A question, from what felt like a lifetime ago, reverberated across my mind.

BECAUSE THEN NO ONE CAN LEAVE YOU?

LEAVE YOU?

LEAVE YOU?

“Yes!” With the word, my body unclenched, and the air became still and tepid around me. I stole a glance at my therapist. She remained staring, unmoving.

Then she reached forward. Not for my hand, thank God—she must have known I’d be sensory’d out. But to offer me something. A tissue.

Tears dotted my skin like dew. When had I started crying?

I took the offering and gave one in return. “Yes. Being alone means I don’t have to feel the pain of anyone leaving.”

Chapter 3

Want to know the cure for a total mind warp? Costumes, corn dogs, and carnival rides.

Coming from a major low, I needed a major high. I pulled out my phone and feverishly pecked with my thumbs, letting Javi know I was out: Feed me some cotton candy take me to the top of the Giant Dipper and let my screams purge my thoughts from the last hour. Please.