Page 43 of Love at Full Tilt

Starshatter Hotel, Fableland

Orlando, FL

Fableland, the place where dreams happen.

Fableland, bring your imagination to life.

Fableland, a bridge to your imagination.

Fableland, where dreams come true.

Fableland, fall into your imagination.

Fableland, bringing you closer to your imagination.

—Excerpt from Sam Casterman’s “Ideas” notebook

I was in eighth grade when my mother’s anxiety put her in the hospital.

It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the store was having Black Friday sales, so Dad was at work from open to close.

I found Mom on the couch when I woke up, but she was sometimes a morning napper, so I made myself breakfast without thinking much of it. Two hours later, though, she still hadn’t moved.

I knelt by the couch and touched her arm. “Mom?” I whispered.

Her face was a mess of dried tears and snot when she turned it from the pillow.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s too much,” she said.

“What is?”

“Everything.”

I tugged on her wrist. “I think you should get up, Mom.” My knees had started to wobble, but I forced myself to stand. To be steady.

“I just don’t want to be here right now, Lia.”

“Mom, where?” Fear was a thunderstorm in my stomach. “At home?”

“Here.” She kept saying those words. It was all she would respond with, no matter what I asked her. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. They circled in my head like an awfulsong.

I called my father, but he didn’t answer. And somewhere in me, I just…I knew. If I didn’t do something right now, I might lose my mother.

So I called 911.

The ambulance came and transported us both to the hospital.

The emergency room was quiet, and I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair by myself, doing my best not to listen as the triage nurse asked my mother scary questions with even scarier answers.

Soon Mom disappeared behind doors that screamed Authorized Personnel Only in red block letters.

The music playing in the waiting area was from some soft rock station—sad songs about love and loss that tugged like a rope at my chest. I tried to tune them out by playing games on my phone, but every time the battery line dropped I’d panic it would die before I heard from my father.

My muscles were coiled metal springs, so when the nurse called for me, I tripped and cracked my knees on the linoleum.

Following the nurse through those doors, I tiptoed like I was in a graveyard, though machines beeped and people yelled. Someone laughed.

The nurse gestured toward a bed in the middle of the ER, and there she was, my mom. She looked so small. They had her in green scrubs, the color of Christmas trees. No one else was wearing them. It was like some kind of scarlet letter. So everyone knew why she was there.

A woman sat beside Mom’s bed. There was a chart on a clipboard on the end. Someone was monitoring my mother’s behavior, scribbling notes every fifteen minutes. I wondered, ridiculously, if she was passing whatever test she was taking.

She cried when I hugged her, whispering she was sorry so many times the words lost meaning.

My father arrived a few minutes later. He had called Tess’s mother to come take me home. When I said goodbye to Mom, I was afraid I’d never see her again, and the four days she was gone felt like an eternity. I’d almost forgotten her smell, the feel of her in the house.

She was smiling when she came home. Dad said she was much better.

The hospital prescribed her medication and helped her find a therapist. She never had another day like that Black Friday.

But even so, every time I look at her, I see a shattered mirror. So full of cracks it might fall apart again at any second.

I count those fault lines now as I stand across from her.

She’s kneading her hands like they’re bread. Dark circles rim her eyes. I wonder when she last slept, and my stomach wrings itself out because this is my fault. I did this to her by leaving. That must be why they’re here. It was too much for her, even with Dad around.

My very existence is too much for her sometimes.

I fold my arms across my chest like I can be my own fortress.

She keeps saying my name, but the lobby is loud, and I let her voice get lost in the din. They’ve both been bombarding me with questions for the last ten minutes. I haven’t answered any of them.

Instead, I ask my own. “What are you doing here?”

I can’t do this right now. I just screamed at my friends. Mason and I are done. The scavenger hunt isn’t over. A moment ago, I wanted desperately to go home, but now that I’m gaping at my parents, I know I’m not ready for them. For this.

It’s too much.

“Let’s go to your room and we’ll talk. There’s a lot of noise here.” Dad grabs the handle of their suitcase. “Lead the way.”

They have a suitcase. They aren’t going anywhere. RIP Operation Freedom, or whatever this was.

It’s like I’m at the peak of Valyrad’s Flight, about to be dropped over the top. Except this time Mason’s not beside me, solid and secure. I have no one’s hand to hold. I’m alone, the darkness looming ahead, and I realize as the brakes let go that my safety harness isn’t locked.

Falling, falling, falling. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop falling today.

I didn’t bring my keycard, so I have to knock on the door when we get to the room. Tess is already talking as she swings it open. “Listen, if we’re going to fight you have to at least give us a fair chance by—” Her words die on her lips. “Um, hi, Mr.and Mrs.B.”

“Tess, sweetie, how are you?” Mom pats my friend on the cheek as she slips past Tess and into the room. Her eyes dart around, taking it in, seeing how many ways it fails her checklist.

Dad trails in her wake, the suitcase’s wheels thump, thump, thump ing on the carpet.

Tess clutches my arm and squeezes as I shut the door behind me. “I know,” I mumble.

“Did you call them?” She, at least, has the sense to keep her voice low.

I shake my head. “They were just…here.”

“How many check-ins did you miss?”

“None today.”

I hug Tess. She doesn’t hesitate to hug me back. “I’m sorry—” I start to say.

“We’ll worry about it later.” She’s talking out of the corner of her mouth like a cartoon character. “We have bigger fish tofry.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. At this point, what else am I going to do? You can’t stop the apocalypse once it’s started. Thanos has snapped his fingers. Half the Avengers are gone. We’re screwed.

“Girls,” Mom says as she gives Issy a side hug, “Mr.Baker and I need to talk to Amelia. There’s a restaurant here, right?”

“And a movie theater and a bowling alley and an arcade,” Tess lists.

“And an ice cream shop,” Issy adds.

Dad pulls his wallet out of his pocket and fetches some twenties. He hands them to Tess. “Give us a little bit, okay? We’ll be out of your hair soon.”

Tess and Issy stop on either side of me. Issy offers an encouraging smile. Tess bear-hugs me. “We’ll see you later.”

They’re gone too fast, and I’m standing in the room alone with my parents.

My parents. How are they here? Why?

I stare at them from my place by the door. “I don’t understand. I checked in every time you wanted me to today. You’re”—I point at my mother—“the one who hasn’t answered any of my texts. Who didn’t pick up when I called.”

Dad sits on my friends’ bed, facing me. Mom pulls the chair out from the desk and slides it next to the footboard. She beckons me over.

My feet are traitors. They drag me to my own bed and drop me down on the coverlet even though all I want to do is cling to the doorknob. Whatever’s about to happen, I can’t handle it.

It’s all too much. Too much. Too much. Too much.

“You weren’t where you said you were yesterday,” Mom says once I’m seated.

My heart hiccups. “What are you talking about?”

“You told me you were with your friends, in the park. But that’s not where your phone was. You were out of the resort for most of the day.”

Of course. I shake my head. She was tracking me.

It’s been so long since there was any kind of break in our normal routine that I forgot she could do that.

Anger kindles hot and thick at my center.

“Why were you tracking my phone? You promised to trust me.” All this time, I thought I was getting some real distance.

I thought I was able to make some choices on my own.

But they’ve been watching. Checking in. Controlling me, even from a plane ride away.

“I had to know you were keeping your phone on like you promised.”

My head falls into my hands. I don’t have the energy for this. My anger licks out as quickly as it blazed.

“Where were you, Amelia?” my father asks.

There doesn’t seem to be much point in lying. “With a guy.”

“Doing what?” My mother’s voice is shrill. When I glance up at Dad, his expression is blank, like he’s trying not to judge.

“Meeting his dogs.”

Mom wrings her hands in her lap. Her right foot taps against the chair’s wheel erratically. Dad places a soothing hand on her knee. “Is that code for something?” he says gruffly.

It’s so ridiculous I laugh, inviting a flash of irritation into his eyes. I sigh. After all his warnings about “no boys,” I guess I shouldn’t expect him to find this amusing. “Yes. It’s code for meeting his dachshunds, Waffles and Toast.”

“Amelia.”

“Nothing happened, Dad.”

Mom reaches across the space between us to take my hand. “You promised us you wouldn’t leave Fableland.”

I meet her eyes. They’re blue like mine, but darker, more distinct.

Sapphires shining in the evening light. Freckles dust her nose.

My mother is delicate and beautiful. I wish I saw more of myself in her.

“It was only for a few hours. He wanted to show me a little of his life before I left.” Tears hot as coals press against the backs of my eyelids.

I don’t want to talk about Mason. It reopens wounds that haven’t closed yet.

“Amelia, your phone was out of the resort all night,” Mom reminds me.

“I forgot it in the truck when he dropped me off here.”

Her lips purse in doubt.