I stare at him. Wait.
“You can consider it your official welcome to Omega Point,” he says.
“But—”
“Tomorrow. Six a.m.”
I open my mouth to ask another question but he presses a finger to his lips, offers me a 2-finger salute, and walks backward toward the exit just as Sonya and Sara head over to my bed.
I watch as he nods good-bye to both of them, pivots on 1 foot, and strides out the door.
6:00 a.m.
ELEVEN
I catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall and realize it’s only 2:00 in the afternoon.
Which means 6:00 a.m. is 16 hours from now.
Which means I have a lot of hours to fill.
Which means I have to get dressed.
Because I need to get out of here.
And I really need to talk to Adam.
“Juliette?”
I jolt out of my own head and back to the present moment to find Sonya and Sara staring at me. “Can we get you anything?” they ask. “Are you feeling well enough to get out of bed?”
But I look from one set of eyes to another and back again, and instead of answering their questions, I feel a crippling sense of shame dig into my soul and I can’t help but revert back to another version of myself. A scared little girl who wants to keep folding herself in half until she can’t be found anymore.
I keep saying, “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry about everything, for all of this, for all the trouble, for all the damage, really, I’m so, so sorry—”
I hear myself go on and on and on and I can’t get myself to stop.
It’s like a button in my brain is broken, like I’ve developed a disease that forces me to apologize for everything, for existing, for wanting more than what I’ve been given, and I can’t stop.
It’s what I do.
I’m always apologizing. Forever apologizing. For who I am and what I never meant to be and for this body I was born into, this DNA I never asked for, this person I can’t unbecome. 17 years I’ve spent trying to be different. Every single day. Trying to be someone else for someone else.
And it never seems to matter.
But then I realize they’re talking to me.
“There’s nothing to apologize for—”
“Please, it’s all right—”
Both of them are trying to speak to me, but Sara is closer.
I dare to meet her eyes and I’m surprised to see how soft they are. Gentle and green and squinty from smiling. She sits down on the right side of my bed. Pats my bare arm with her latex glove, unafraid. Unflinching. Sonya stands just next to her, looking at me like she’s worried, like she’s sad for me, and I don’t have long to dwell on it because I’m distracted. I smell the scent of jasmine filling the room, just as it did the very first time I stepped in here. When we first arrived at Omega Point. When Adam was injured. Dying.
He was dying and they saved his life. These 2 girls in front of me. They saved his life and I’ve been living with them for 2 weeks and I realize, right then, exactly how selfish I’ve been.
So I decide to try a new set of words.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I feel myself begin to blush and I wonder at my inability to be so free with words and feelings. I wonder at my incapacity for easy banter, smooth conversation, empty words to fill awkward moments. I don’t have a closet filled with umms and ellipses ready to insert at the beginnings and ends of sentences. I don’t know how to be a verb, an adverb, any kind of modifier. I’m a noun through and through.
Stuffed so full of people places things and ideas that I don’t know how to break out of my own brain. How to start a conversation.
I want to trust but it scares the skin off my bones.
But then I remember my promise to Castle and my promise to Kenji and my worries over Adam and I think maybe I should take a risk. Maybe I should try to find a new friend or 2. And I think of how wonderful it would be to be friends with a girl. A girl, just like me.
I’ve never had one of those before.
So when Sonya and Sara smile and tell me they’re “happy to help” and they’re here “anytime” and that they’re always around if I “need someone to talk to,” I tell them I’d love that.
I tell them I’d really appreciate that.
I tell them I’d love to have a friend to talk to.
Maybe sometime.
TWELVE
“Let’s get you back into your suit,” Sara says to me.
The air down here is cool and cold and often damp, the winter winds relentless as they whip the world above our heads into submission. Even in my suit I feel the chill, especially early in the morning, especially right now. Sonya and Sara are helping me out of this hospital dress and back into my normal uniform and I’m shaking in my skin. Only once they’ve zipped me up does the material begin to react to my body temperature, but I’m still so weak from being in bed for so long that I’m struggling to stay upright.
“I really don’t need a wheelchair,” I tell Sara for the third time. “Thank you—really—I-I appreciate it,” I stammer, “but I need to get the blood flowing in my legs. I have to be strong on my feet.” I have to be strong, period.
Castle and Adam are waiting for me in my room.
Sonya told me that while I was talking to Kenji, she and Sara went to notify Castle that I was awake. So. Now they’re there. Waiting for me. In the room I share with Sonya and Sara. And I’m so afraid of what is about to happen that I’m worried I might conveniently forget how to get to my own room. Because I’m fairly certain that whatever I’m about to hear isn’t going to be good.
“You can’t walk back to the room by yourself,” Sara is saying. “You can hardly stand on your own—”
“I’m okay,” I insist. I try to smile. “Really, I should be able to manage as long as I can stay close to the wall. I’m sure I’ll be back to normal just as soon as I start moving.”
Sonya and Sara glance at each other before scrutinizing my face. “How’s your hand?” they ask at the same time.
“It’s okay,” I tell them, this time more earnestly. “It feels a lot better. Really. Thank you so much.”
The cuts are practically healed and I can actually move my fingers now. I inspect the brand-new, thinner bandage they’ve wrapped across my knuckles. The girls explained to me that most of the damage was internal; it seems I traumatized whatever invisible bone in my body is responsible for my curse “gift.”