call button, but before I reach it, I hear someone say my name.
“Eva?”
I look over my shoulder to see Nate staring at me in shock. I don’t know why he’s here at Mercy Regional Hospital or saying my name.
I stare at him as he steps farther into the room.
He drops onto the sofa across from me, careful to keep his distance from my extended leg, but near enough to talk without needing to be loud. “Hey.”
The urge to reach up and smooth down my hair makes me shake my head. My face is a maze of cuts and stitches, and I’m wearing my pajamas and one of the world’s least attractive blankets. My hair is the least of my issues.
“Hi,” I say and immediately realize that my conversation skills are about as bad as my fashion sense right now. Nate is talking to me after all this time. I’m not sure I’d know what to say to him even if we were somewhere normal. I certainly don’t know what to say here. I’m a little comforted that he doesn’t seem to know what to say either; he just nods and looks at me.
After an awkward moment during which I consider pushing the call button repeatedly so I can escape, he asks, “Did you just get here?”
“Here?”
“Mercy.” He stretches, tilting his head left and right as if he’s been sleeping in an uncomfortable position. “I’ve been in the lounge the past few evenings, and I haven’t seen you. Plus, those”—he points at my face—“look fresh.”
I’m more than a little confused that he’s not being a jerk like he has been for the past few years. I just don’t know if I should ignore him.
Cautiously, I say, “I’ve been in for a couple days. Someone hit me with a car.”
“That sucks.”
I start laughing. It’s not funny, not really, but it’s such an understatement after everything I’ve been feeling that it seems hilarious to me. He stares at me like maybe I’m a little unbalanced, which only makes me laugh more. It takes a minute to get my laughter under control. By then, tears fill my eyes.
I sniff and wipe the tears with the back of my hand, but in doing so, I bump one of the cuts on my cheek and gasp with pain.
“Shit,” Nate mutters, and he’s at my side holding out the box of tissues from the coffee table. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“It still happens when I laugh—just like when we were kids.” My voice is shaky, more from pain than tears. I’m not completely lying: I do cry when I laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his hand coming down on mine—and I’m … gone. I’m unable to speak. I feel the world around me vanish before I can ask whether he means that he’s sorry for the past three years or sorry that I’m in pain.
I pull over, my tires crunching on the gravel. I wasn’t drinking at all, but my vision is off. Something is wrong with me, and I’m afraid I won’t make it to the house. I guess it’s the flu or something, but I’ve never had the flu hit so suddenly.
My mother will be irritated when I wake her, but she’d be worse if I wrecked the truck.
I shiver as I get out of the truck.
With the help of the dashboard lights, I search the cab of my truck again, hoping that my phone fell out of my pocket and under the seat. The truck is clean enough that I know it’s not there, but I don’t see how it could be anywhere else. I had it earlier at the restaurant. I called Nora to talk to her and Aaron, but my brother was asleep, so I had Nora tell him I couldn’t make it until morning.
I feel out of it, tired enough that I worry that I’m coming down with something. I need to shake it off. I can’t carry germs to him. That’s the last thing he needs.
I wonder if I have any more of those germ masks at the house. I’m fairly certain I have gloves. Even if I feel better tomorrow, I’ll wear gloves and masks. Cystic fibrosis is hard enough for him to handle without adding colds or a flu.
“Eva?”
For a moment, I remember again that I’m not Nate. I’m Eva. Then the voice saying my name is swept away by a sharp pain in my stomach. Nate’s stomach. I think about how I’m Nate and not-Nate. My stomach—Eva’s stomach—shouldn’t hurt, but I’m swept further into Nate, and it’s all I can do to try to remember I’m not really him.
The stomach cramps become bad enough that I stumble and clutch the door frame of my truck. The pain is unexpected.
I pat my jeans pockets as if I would’ve missed my phone if it were there. It’s not there. I can’t call for help if my phone is gone.
My mouth feels like it’s filled with something hot and sour. I’m not throwing up. Yet. My heart feels too fast.
Someone pulls up in front of me, their headlights shining in my face so I can’t see who’s in the car. I’m not sure if it’s a helpful stranger or someone I know. There aren’t a lot of people who drive along Old Salem Road. Aside from a few houses and the reservoir, there’s nothing out this far. Mom always says that’s the only reason she’s willing to live at “the godforsaken end of the devil’s elbow.”
The lights make the person getting out of the car look like a silhouette. He’s not a huge man. I can tell that. He could be a bigger woman … I open my mouth to speak, but instead puke all over the seat of my truck. Something’s wrong. Something more than the flu.
“Sick,” I force out of lips that feel oddly numb.
The person from the car is beside me, but he—or she—isn’t speaking. I can see jeans and tennis shoes, but when I look up, I can’t see a face. It’s there; it has to be, but I can’t tell anything about it.
“You should’ve stayed away.” The voice sounds almost familiar, but the person is whispering.
I’m shivering so hard that my face hurts from clenching my jaw.
My legs are shaking too, and I hit the ground. I’m sitting in a puddle of vomit. The person opens a bottle of what looks like Mad Dog 20/20, grabs my chin with a gloved hand, and tilts my head back. The alcohol pours into my mouth faster than I can swallow, and it spills down my shirt.
He takes my hand and wraps it around the bottle, and my muscles are too weak to put up much of a fight. I try, but it’s about as effective as a toddler resisting a parent. My phone hits the asphalt beside me hard enough that the screen cracks. The stranger had my missing phone.
I try to turn my head so I can throw up on the ground instead of on myself, and the person helps me this time, turning my head so I can try to get whatever I ate out of my body. As soon as I’m done though, he puts the bottle back in my mouth. He gives me a break when I start gagging, but as soon as I’ve caught my breath, the bottle is back.
I need to get away. I need to get home. Then it hits me: I’m not going to be able to walk anywhere. I blink blearily at the silhouette crouched in front of me.
Then he helps me to the ground and puts the bottle to my lips.
“Your blood alcohol should be high enough that they won’t ask a lot of questions,” he or she says.
I feel like the world is spinning. I try to turn my head as the bottle comes back, but the person holds my chin again. This time when the Mad Dog gags me and the vomit comes at the same time, there is no break. Tears fill my already blurry eyes as I try to shake my head to get away, but it doesn’t work.
I’m still shaking my head,