Page 57 of A Mastery of Monsters

I peel open my eyes to darkness. There’s a rapid knocking on my door followed by hushed voices and a jiggling of the knob.

I’m getting my bearings when the door is eased open, and the light flicked on.

I put a hand over my face and groan. I’m still wearing my clothes from the first test, even though the outfit stinks of stale sweat.

I squint when Bailey crouches in front of me. She says, “We need to go, okay? Just get dressed. It’s all right.”

“If it’s all right, why do you look freaked out?” My voice is sleep-addled, and I must have been less than coherent, because Bailey acts like she hasn’t even heard me.

She returns to the door to speak to the campus security guy and a girl who I vaguely remember is my don. She’s supposed to be managing the dorm floor, though I’ve talked to her maybe twice. The two of them leave, and Bailey shuts the door.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“I’ll explain on the way. Let’s go.”

I press my lips into a line as Bailey gives me a pleading look.

“Fine,” I say. “But I have to change.”

She digs in my closet and grabs a pair of leggings and a sweater, which she tosses onto the bed.

“Sweatpants,” I grumble. “New bra.”

Bailey turns back to the closet and tosses over my Queen’s sweats and then riffles around in my drawers, thankfully throwing me a sports bra instead of a real one. I shrug out of my sweaty clothes and change into the other ones.

She finds some socks stuffed in a pair of sneakers, which she starts to bring over, then she wrinkles her nose and tosses the socks for a new pair.

I put them on and shove my feet into the shoes, wondering what I did to deserve getting woken up like this for the second time in the same day.

“What’s happening?” I ask again. “I’m dressed, we’re going, just tell me. ”

Bailey bites her lip. “Your dad’s had a heart attack.”

Now I’m wide awake.

I stare at the shiny hospital floors as me and Bailey sit next to each other in comfortable but cheap chairs.

The coffee in my hands cooled a long time ago, and my aunt slouches back with her head tipped toward the wall, her breathing long and slow.

We’ve been here for hours. Night has already turned to day, and the hospital has resumed its daily routine of shift changes and appointments.

Dad collapsed in his bedroom, and his roommate called 911 and then Bailey. She tried contacting me multiple times, but I was passed out, exhausted from the test. So she went directly to the dorms and used those magical words: “family emergency.”

He’s too young for a heart attack. Heart attacks are for people over sixty at least, and Dad is fifteen years too early. Though they stabilized him quickly, he isn’t up for visitors yet. Bailey tried to send me back to the dorms a few hours ago, but I refused.

I look at my phone lock screen. It’s black. I used to have a picture of me and Mom. I changed it because it got to be a lot to see every day.

I want to text someone. To tell them what happened. I want to text Jules. I want to text Corey. I want to text Virgil, who lost both his parents and probably would have something to say that wouldn’t sound like bullshit.

Instead, I grip the phone in my shaking hand and squeeze my eyes shut.

Everything is so fucked. It started going downhill the moment Mom disappeared and hasn’t stopped since.

I think of what Mia keeps bringing up. About if I want to be alone.

It takes a moment for me to clock the hand on my back.

I snap my gaze sideways to where Bailey has woken up.

She smiles, but the corners of her lips don’t tug up.

It comes out more like a grimace. The tears that have been gathering slip down my face.

She pulls me into her, and I let her. She smells like spices, and flour, and weed.

“It’ll be okay,” she says. “He’ll be okay. It’s okay.”

I haven’t done anything to deserve my aunt. But here she is.

I wind my arms around her back and cling to her. “I’m sorry,” I choke out.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

But I do. She’s tried time and time again to be there for me, and I wouldn’t let her. Now here I am, needing her, and here she is, being here. And it isn’t fair somehow. Like she should be gone too.

“Oh, hello again,” Bailey says.

I look up from the cocoon of her arms to find Virgil standing with a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t even notice his footsteps.

My aunt clears her throat. “I’m gonna go get some coffee.” As if she doesn’t already have a cooled cup of it at her feet.

Virgil takes her seat while I wipe my face. He hands me the flowers. “For your dad.”

“Thanks. How did you know?”

He rubs the back of his head. “Henry. He’s good at keeping tabs on people under his care.”

Fuck, that man is well informed. I don’t think I could spit without him knowing. It’s unsettling, honestly. “Does this mean you’re not mad anymore?”

“No, I am. But I’m come-see-if-you’re-okay mad, not stay-away mad.” He nudges my foot with the toe of his. Shiny leather shoes most people would wear with suits, but Virgil pairs with gray wool pants and a cashmere sweater. “Corey wanted to come too, but she has class.”

I nod, picking pieces of fuzz off my sweats.

Virgil jerks his head at the door across from us. “He’s in that room?”

“Yeah.”

He closes his eyes, and I study him as he tilts his head. “Good steady heartbeat.”

My mouth drops open. “You can hear it?”

“Yes. The closer I get to turning, the better my senses. Strength, too.” He opens his eyes.

“How will you know when it’s about to happen?”

“I’m not sure. Everyone says you just know. There’s enough lead-up time to it either way.” He nudges my foot again. I scowl, and he smiles. “I am still mad, but if things like this happen or you need help, text me anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll still come.”

“Why?” I ask again.

Virgil stares at me. Our chairs are close together. I didn’t notice when Bailey was sitting here, but I notice now. When he shifts toward me, our thighs and knees brush against each other. “If I needed you, and I texted, even if you were pissed, wouldn’t you still come?”

My mouth becomes parched and dry. “Yes.” And I’m surprised that it’s the truth.

I don’t know if I ever could have done it.

If I could have found Jules and walked away from Virgil.

I didn’t know him, and I didn’t owe him anything.

But those facts have been changing. I know that Virgil loves sad boy lit fic and classics and will always go for the salami on a charcuterie board first. That he’s not his parents, and that despite what the world has thrown at him, he’s done everything he can to keep close the people in his life who bring him joy.

He became a brother to a girl who lost her family, a cherished student to a man who lost his son, a ward to a man who lost his friends, and a partner to a girl who wanted to save the one person she had left.

How could I have ever abandoned the boy who saves everyone else, the one time he asked to be saved in return?

The door to Dad’s room opens, and a nurse comes out. The man asks, “Here for Michael Black?” I nod. “He’s awake now, so if you’d like to go in…”

“I’ll wait here and let Bailey know when she comes back,” Virgil says.

I thank him and follow the nurse into the room.

The bed is pushed upright so Dad can sit, though he’s sunk into the pillows.

His dark skin looks ashen and washed out, and his salt-and-pepper beard, which is always so neat, is straggly and unkempt.

I know he has a bald spot he likes to hide with his hats, but apparently at some point he gave up entirely and shaved the whole thing.

I missed that transition.

He doesn’t look like my dad. He looks like a copied version of himself. One done on a busted printer that can only manage grayscale. Smudged at the edges.

I stand next to his bed and set the flowers on a side table. I glance at his hand but don’t hold it.

“Hey, Summer,” he says with a strained smile. Dad always jokes that they named me August because there were too many Summers running around that year. Even though I was born in a completely different season. So, he made it a nickname. I haven’t heard it in a long time.

“You overdid it.” The words come out snapped and hard. “You always overdo it.”

Dad’s smile fades. “I do. I’m sorry.”

I try to remember the last time I talked to him. Like, in person or on the phone. I suspect that I haven’t since he dropped me off at Bailey’s place in June. It’s almost the end of October. Now Jules is… gone, but not missing. Though Dad doesn’t know that.

No wife. No son. And no daughter.

“Bailey told me you’re doing well in school,” Dad says, his smile returning.

“I’m proud of you. I did mean to stop by, but I got caught up in work.

I was surprised that you decided to go after all, to be honest. But I appreciate you giving it a try.

All I ever wanted you two to do is try.” His eyes dart to the door for a moment, and I read it in his face.

Jules isn’t here. He should be. But he isn’t.

“No, you didn’t. It was never enough to try. We had to do . And we had to do better than anyone else.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down. “I guess I did make you both feel that way.” He licks his lips and looks back at me. “You’re going because you want to now, right?” he asks. “Not because of me or Mom?”

I say nothing, just stare at him.