Frost - Marianna Baer

“How could you be so close to me, and think I would do

that?” he said.

“I didn’t. I don’t.” My brain was spinning. Had I ever really

thought that? I’d had my suspicions, but did I really believe he

was capable of that? “I just don’t understand how you can think

she’s not sick.”

“Because she’s not!” he said. “How could you be with

someone you think might be abusing his sister? God, Leena.”

“I don’t think that. Really. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t

know why I did.” I wrapped my arms around myself. I was

shaking. “David, I told the dean because I’m worried about

Celeste. I did it even though I knew it might mean I’d lose you.

Doesn’t that tell you anything? I love you, but your sister is sick.”

David had started walking down the hall, toward the

common room. He paused and turned his head slightly, so I was

looking at his profile. Turn , I willed him. Meet my eyes. Let me

know it will be okay . He didn’t.

“Who’s the sick one here, Leena?” he said.

He didn’t wait for an answer.

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Chapter 40

A STRANGE CALM SETTLED over the hallway once the side

door banged shut behind David. Okay. Okay. It had happened. My

limbs tingled on the edge of numbness. I touched my arms. I was

still there. I was alive. I touched my face. Dry. I did the same body

check I’d done the one time I’d been in a car accident, making

sure all of my parts were in their right places. Numb, but intact.

Okay. I was okay. I stumbled into the bedroom. Only, I

couldn’t feel the floor under my feet.

Once I was back in the closet, physical sensations started to

return. First, a sense of the mattress as it held my body, then of

the clothes that dangled above and brushed against me. I curled

into a fetal position, holding Cubby. As the feeling came back to

my skin, though, I realized the numbness had penetrated all the

way inside. Where I expected to feel the intensity of sadness,

there was nothing.

The worst had happened. I’d lost David, and in a way that

meant I’d never have him back. But it didn’t seem real. The

numbness seemed to be my body refusing to believe what had

taken place. I knew this feeling—or lack of it. The moment of

divine intervention before all hell breaks loose. “We’ve grown

apart, Leena,” my mother had said, the first time my world was

demolished. For days I’d been fine after she’d said that. Hadn’t

told any of my friends, had played the part of the understanding

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daughter. I’d been fine until the feelings came crashing down, the

day I’d emptied my parents’ medicine cabinet and lined the pills

up on my bed according to size and shape.

This time, I wasn’t going to wait until it was too late. I found

the plastic baggie of pills, reached inside, fondled the hard bits of

betterness. I placed a small oval one in my mouth. Then a round

one. The sadness was coming. But I could head it off. Because I

knew, I knew what I’d done was right. That was what mattered.

The sadness was unnecessary. A stupid, physical reaction. If David

had to leave me, well, what was there to do about it?

But why did I say those things to him? Maybe it would have

been okay, later.

No, it wouldn’t . The words were all around me. You’d already

lost him.

He might have forgiven me. Understood why I did it.

He never loved you. None of them did.

My family, Viv, Abby. Never loved me? Hearing those words

shriveled me inside, as if all my organs were dried and cracked.

“No,” I protested. “They did. They do.”

Another pill or two or three found their way into my mouth,

down my throat, leaving a bitter trail. Didn’t care what they were.

Anything would help.

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God, I was tired. The headache I’d had earlier grew and grew

so I took something for that, as well. Enough to get rid of this one

and the next one. Maybe I could wait it out. The feelings. Just stay

in here until it was too late to care anymore.

Shelter. Wait out the storm.

You can. Stay with me . I held Cubby close, almost too

exhausted to lift her hollow wood body. These words had nothing

to do with her anymore. They were from the walls, the ceiling, the

floor. Should this have surprised me? I wondered. Maybe I was

just too tired to be surprised.

“I don’t understand why this had to happen.”

You’re safe now, Leena. Admit what you’ve always known.

“What?” I said. “Admit what?”

Why it’s all happened. Why all your pain has happened.

A wave of marrow-deep fatigue swept through me. I needed

to sleep—for a week, a month, more—I couldn’t imagine I could

ever sleep enough.

I drifted off, who knows for how long, but woke when a

steady beep, beep, beep filled my ears. I forgot where I was,

thought it was my alarm clock. I tried to move, to turn it off, but

couldn’t. Then I remembered.

Nausea swelled in my stomach. The beeping grew louder.

Louder.

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The fire alarm?

Had David . . . ?

I reached for the doorknob. My hand could barely stretch

that high, my arm was so heavy. I was fighting against more than

gravity. I finally felt the knob, turned, and pushed. Nothing. The

door wouldn’t move. The bolt. Had I locked it? No, I hadn’t. The

sickness in my gut radiated out.

I lowered my arm.

Your body won’t let you leave . It knows what you need.

Another pill.

Maybe that would help. Something for energy. This house

always knew what I needed, from the beginning. Hadn’t it? I

slipped another in my mouth. My eyes shut. I lifted my arm again

and tried to reach up. Too tired. The alarm blared. He wouldn’t

really have done that, would he? Why would he do it now? I was

so confused.

Footsteps thudded nearby, shook the house.

“Leena?” A voice called from far, far away.

I tried to reach for the door. Gravity’s cold nails trapped my

arms on the floor. Tried again. Nothing. Now it wasn’t just trying

to move that was hard, it was trying to breathe. Bricks, walls

tumbled on top of me. Pressed me down. Down toward the earth.

Squeezing my chest.

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A surge ripped through me, vomited through my listless

body. The burn. The stink. I had to get out.

Out there are people who don’t want you , the walls

whispered. In here is where you belong .

Was that true? It felt true, inside my bones. My poor, tired

bones. Inside my poor, sick gut. But somehow . . .

“Leena?” The door trembled, the knob wiggled back and

forth. “Leena, are you in there?” The door wasn’t locked; still,

they couldn’t open it. I knew they wouldn’t be able to. Just like

David hadn’t been able to, that day so many weeks ago.

They don’t want you. None of them. Her voice filled the

space. Could they hear her, outside the door? Look what you’ve

let them do to you. There’s nowhere for you to go.

“That’s not how it is,” I said back. “Things happen. You can’t

stop things from happening.”

Yes, you can. In here.

My arm. Would. Not. Move.

I’ll protect you , she cooed. You can’t do it yourself. You’re too weak. That’s why you came in here. You knew it the first time you

saw the house. You knew you needed it.

“Someone’s out there. Looking for me.”

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You’ve never been strong enough , she said. If you were

strong, you wouldn’t have been with David. Admit it, Leena.

I’d tried not to be with him, but it hadn’t worked. That was

true. And now look.

Now you know he never loved you. And you’re too weak to

take the pain.

“He did love me.”

Weak, stupid Leena. I told you not to be with him. But you

couldn’t resist. You couldn’t stop yourself from needing.

“No. I chose . I wasn’t weak.” Shudders rippled through me.

Another surge of vomit.

It’s okay, Leena. I know. I know you aren’t strong enough. But

I love you anyway.

“Leena?” More thumping. “Are you okay? Leena, let us know

if you’re in there. Please. We don’t know if it’s a fire drill, or what,

but we have to get out. Why won’t you come out?”

Admit it , she hissed. You’ll never be okay. Not out there.

David was right. You’re the sick one.

“No,” I whispered.

This voice—Cubby, the closet, the walls—it wasn’t me.

Wasn’t from any place inside of me.

You ’re the sick one.

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Thumping. “Leena, please !”

Nothing emerged from my mouth because someone held my

tongue, pressed it back into my throat so I couldn’t speak,

couldn’t breathe. I began to gag. I tilted my gaze to the floor, to

my arms. Visualized raising them up. But I couldn’t. Only one

hand. One hand moved. Lifting it was like lifting the whole house.

I reached up with my last bit of energy, reached up with that one

hand and scratched at the door. My fingernails scraped against

the wood. Once, twice.

“Did you hear that?” someone outside said.

Scratched once more. All I had in me.

I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, except for the voice. Stay with

me , she cooed, over and over . I’m the only one who wants you .

After I reached the heaviest place, so heavy I thought my body

was being obliterated, I felt a release, a lightness. Like when

you’ve held your arms against a doorframe and then walk out and

they fly up. I flew up. Up and out and high and wide and all over

and circling and spreading. And no more containment. Just me,

energy, spreading into wood and plaster and brick and floating in

the air and filling the space. An angel after all. No more body

keeping me tied down. The body was still there, I just wasn’t in it.

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Chapter 41

SUN-STREAMS POURED IN from the arched window. Dust

particles shimmered in the pathway.

“Would it sound really weird,” I asked Viv, my eyes shifting

away from the light, “if I told you that part of me . . . part of me

didn’t come back?”

“Didn’t come back?” she said.

“You know, after the paramedics got to me.”

Viv reloaded the nail polish brush and stroked the pearly

white liquid over my left thumbnail. She’d come down to see me

at my dad’s condo. “Well, it kind of makes sense,” she said. “I

mean, we have this life-force energy, right? Who’s to say that

some of yours wasn’t released when your body thought it was the

end. Like a leak in an inflatable raft that’s then patched up. Right?

The air that escapes never comes back.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I just . . . I

feel like I left something behind. I never would have believed that,

before. I mean, it sounds so stupid. It’s the kind of kooky thinking