Page 13 of Borrowed

I waited in the cafeteria for the screams, but a nurse came to me with a smile. My juice tasted sour, like Leo’s tooth, but not crunchy. It didn’t burn. I didn’t like burning.

“Hi, Tabitha. Are you ready to go on your family leave? How was your shower?”

I looked at Toby.

“Your Mother is here. She’s ready to pick you up. Would you like to go home for a few nights, sweetie? Maybe it can help you remember.”

Toby wasn’t talking. He was quiet. Toby didn’t like Mother.

“What about Toby? I don’t want to leave him in the white walls.”

The nurse smiled again, her face cracking at the corners. “I’m so happy to hear Toby would like to come. That’s a great idea, Tabitha. Let Toby come along.”

Now, I smiled.

* * *

The car hummed like a lullaby I didn’t ask for. I liked the way the vibration tickled beneath my thighs, but not enough to smile about it. The window was cold when I pressed my cheek to it, even though the sun was out and the trees looked like they were waving at me with their knuckly fingers.

Toby didn’t like the sun. It made him quiet. He still hadn’t talked since leaving the white walls.

Mother didn’t talk either. Her fingers clutched the wheel like it was going to escape. She smelled like hospital soap and old perfume…the kind she wore before everything turned to ash. I wanted to ask her why she brought it back out. For me? For show?

“I don’t think she missed you,” Toby whispered, finally skirting toward the sun.

He was curled up beside me, knees to chest, head on his armrest like he belonged there.

He looked small. “She just doesn’t want the neighbors to talk.

This is all for show. Probably to pay for her renovated house where she burned us. ”

“That’s not true,” I murmured, lips sticking to the glass. “She’s my mother.”

“Not anymore,” he corrected. His voice was like a cut-glass smile. “You borrowed her.”

I blinked slowly, the way they taught me when I got twitchy.

One, two, three.

But the world still spun strange, and Mother still didn’t look at me. Maybe Toby was right. Mother only loved Toby. She only wanted Toby.

Not me.

She hadn’t looked at me once since the ward’s doors clicked shut behind us.

Not a single glance.

Not even when the nurse said, “She’s doing better.”

Better than what?

Better than the fire?

Better than being dead?

I reached for her hand once. I think I did. My fingers twitched toward hers on the steering wheel, but something about her knuckles, white, tight, scared, made me stop.

“She’s afraid of you,” Toby said, his lips brushing my ear, even though he was still curled up on the seat. “She thinks you’ll ruin things again.”

I bit my nail. “I didn’t ruin anything.”

“You burned,” he said, “And took me with you.”

That wasn’t true. I remembered that day. I was the one screaming. I was the one clawing at the door. He was already gone.

Wasn’t he?

The house peeked around the corner like a shy child.

Same slanted porch.

Same broken wind chime.

Only now, it didn’t sing. It just clanked like bones. Mother and Father couldn’t afford a home like before. My stomach flipped, not a happy flip, a ‘sick, too-much-spin’ kind of flip.

“I don’t wanna go back,” I whispered.

Mother didn’t hear. Or maybe she did and just liked pretending she didn’t.

“You could run,” Toby offered sweetly. “Hide under the house and run into the woods. Into the lake. Into the fire again.”

“No,” I whispered. “No more burning.”

We stopped in the driveway. The engine clicked off, and the silence got louder.

Mother turned to me. Finally, her eyes were pale, duller than mine, duller than his. They looked at me but not into me.

“I need you to be good,” she said softly, like a prayer. “No more…episodes. Understand? Later, I’m taking you to church, Tob—Tabby.”

I nodded because I was supposed to.

With a sigh, she looked over at me again. Her face got angry. “I wish you’d give me my fucking son back. I just want Toby.”

She opened the door and walked up the porch without waiting for me.

Toby stayed beside me.

He leaned close, his breath warm and wrong on my neck. “She hates you, Sister. Not because you’re sick. Because you remind her of me…all she can see is me.”

My skin itched. My fingers crawled up my arms, scratching, scratching, like maybe I could peel him off.

“She should’ve burned instead,” he hissed. “She made me bleed and made you beg. And now she wants to tuck you in and pretend?”

“I don’t remember?—”

“But I do.”

I looked at him, really looked. His bandages were darker today. Thicker. Wet around the edges, singed like corn and red in places. I reached for him.

“Don’t,” he snapped, locking my wrists inches from his face. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” I frowned.

“Because if you look,” he said, voice thick like smoke as his hands burned my skin, “When you see me. You won’t ever be able to forget what’s underneath.”

I shivered.

Did I want to remember?