Once We Were (25 page)

“It’s okay, Eva,” Sabine said. She took my hand. The look in her eyes told me she understood everything. Understood
me
. “In a couple days, it’ll all be over, anyway.”

A swish of white cloth

A doctor’s coat, coarsely woven

In our six-year-old hands

No answer.

One of us wouldn’t

Grow up

Horror.

I woke to complete and utter horror. Horror that choked like fingers inside our throat.

It took me a second to realize Addie and I weren’t being attacked. Weren’t running for our lives. We were just sitting quietly in our room. But—

I cried.

She tried to say something. Started to say something.

Then she was gone. Leaving me in the echoes of her terror.

I scrambled off our bed.

Nothing.

Something had happened. Something must have happened.

Confusion and fear shoved me into the hallway. Made me shout, without thinking, “Emalia!”

Emalia and Sophie’s door was half-open; I heard her humming as she folded her laundry. Her head jerked up. “Addie? What’s wrong?”

“What was I doing?” I demanded. “Right before? A minute before? Where was I?”

Emalia abandoned her laundry and hurried toward me. “Eva? Are you all right? Calm down. You look—”

I backed away, too riled up to let anyone touch me. “Please—just tell me where I was a moment ago.”

“You were in your room,” Emalia said. “I thought Addie was sketching. I didn’t—”

The phone rang, shrill in my ears. Emalia didn’t look away from me, but she backed up a few steps and answered the cordless on her nightstand. “Hello?”

A pause. She lowered the phone. Her eyes weren’t searching my face now. They moved over my body, taking in the faded, yellow shirt I was wearing. The jean shorts. As if she hoped to find clues in my clothes. “It’s for Addie,” she said slowly. “It’s Dr. Lyanne.”

I reached out my hand, trying to look more relaxed. I shouldn’t have let Emalia see how freaked out I was. She was suspicious now, but still handed me the phone.

“Hello?” I said.

Dr. Lyanne wasted no time on pleasantries. “What the hell are you and Devon doing, Addie?”

I didn’t correct Dr. Lyanne. Since visiting Sabine the day before yesterday, I hadn’t left the building. I’d barely left the apartment. As far as I knew, Addie had stayed in, too.

I looked at Emalia. She’d gone back to fiddling with her laundry, making a poor attempt at pretending not to listen to my conversation.

Quietly, I slipped out into the hall. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Like hell you aren’t.” Dr. Lyanne spoke in a low hiss. “You know how much of a risk it is for that boy to come to my office? Then I turn around, and you’re both gone. If he needed to use a computer, he could have asked instead of going behind my back.”

Devon and Addie had gone to Dr. Lyanne’s office? If Devon needed the computer—well, it would make sense he would search out Dr. Lyanne. Her clinic would have a computer, and knowing Dr. Lyanne might allow Devon access to it.

But access for what reason?

“Addie,” Dr. Lyanne snapped. “Are you even listening?”

“I’m listening,” I whispered.

“No, you’re not. I asked you what Devon needed a computer for so badly.”

If only I knew. Dr. Lyanne sighed. I bit back my next sentence, waiting for her to speak again. Finally, she said, “I’m going to ask one last time. What are you and Devon up to?”

“We’re not up to anything,” I said.

I could almost see Dr. Lyanne on the other end of the line, standing with the phone to her ear, her sharp shoulders rigid, her eyes burning a hole in the wall. “Don’t do anything stupid, Addie. And don’t let Devon.”

My mind whirled with questions I couldn’t ask.

“Okay,” I said.

“No,” Dr. Lyanne said. “Not
okay
, Addie. Promise me.”

I hesitated. I was making so many promises, and this one wouldn’t even be in my own name.

“Addie,” Dr. Lyanne prompted.

“I promise,” I said. I reached my room and shut the door behind me. “I won’t. And I won’t let Devon.”

Dr. Lyanne was quiet a long time. “All right,” she said and hung up. She wasn’t one for drawn-out good-byes. I sat down on my bed, still clutching the phone.

Addie had gone to visit Dr. Lyanne with Devon, and I had known nothing about it.

I was still trying to process this information when Nina dashed into our room. “Eva! Emalia’s setting up the projector so we can watch my films.”

I can’t right now,
I almost said, but Nina looked so excited, I couldn’t manage it. Emalia obviously hadn’t told her about my strange behavior. I hated now to destroy any scrap of normality Nina and Kitty managed to salvage. So I just nodded and followed Nina out into the living room.

Emalia gave me a measured look, but didn’t ask any questions. I had a feeling that she wouldn’t—at least not while Nina was there. She wouldn’t call and ask Dr. Lyanne, either. The two had never been close, and Emalia wasn’t suspicious enough. Just like how Dr. Lyanne wasn’t suspicious enough to bring up Addie and Devon’s visit with Peter, as long as I promised to behave. No one would expect our plans to be as crazy as they were. A few months ago,
I
wouldn’t have expected it.

“I can’t find my old screen,” Emalia said as she carefully fed the film into the projector. “I think I gave it away after the camcorder broke. We’ll have to project it on the wall.”

The projector emitted a soft, feathery clicking as the film began to play. I sat beside Nina on the ground. Emalia hadn’t chosen the tapes in order, and the first video to appear on the apartment wall was of Hally. She laughed at the camera, posing like she was destined for the front page of a fashion magazine. The image jumped from time to time, blackness flickering through Hally’s smiling face, her bright eyes.

“There you are, in the background.” Nina pointed over Hally’s shoulder. And there, indeed, I was. It was the day Ryan and I had made pancakes in the kitchen. The day I’d told him about Sabine’s invitation and our plans to sneak out to meet her.

Mom and Dad had taken pictures of us growing up, but never video. It was strange to have my body projected onto the wall. A captured memory of myself that everyone could see.

The next segment was of Emalia. She grinned and waved at the camera, chattering about some movie she and Nina had watched. Halfway through, Nina turned the camera around and spoke into it herself, her small face made large by the lens’s proximity, her voice distorted in the microphone.

The next shot was of the streets below.

The next of the sky.

The next was Addie and me. We were sketching. We didn’t notice the camera until it was nearly upon us, and then we turned and laughed and said,
Kitty, stop snooping. Go away.

Except I had never said that. I had no memory of ever saying that, or ever hearing Addie say it.

I’m not snooping,
Kitty said.
And you messed up his jacket. It’s missing a button—see? Here?

She pointed at Addie’s drawing. There, still barely more than a sketch, was a picture I recognized. A picture of—

Well, she’s not done yet, is she?
Jackson said. The camera lens swung up to catch his grin, his blue eyes. He sat, portraitlike, on a chair. The same chair as in the sketch.

The sketch I’d seen, but didn’t remember drawing. Be-cause I hadn’t been there then. I hadn’t been awake. I’d been dreaming.

Which morning had this been? I had no idea at all.

Stop filming, Kitty. I’m serious,
Addie said.

Each film didn’t last long. We watched them one after another. There were more shots of Addie that I didn’t recognize: Addie tossing through our drawer for clothes, Addie putting up our hair. Addie laughing. Addie staring off into space. There were shots, too, of me when I knew Addie hadn’t been there.

If Addie had been watching this, would she feel the same way I was feeling? What was I feeling? I couldn’t fix it into words. Not
sad
.
Sad
was too simple. This was sadness, and confusion, and longing, and more.

Something stirred in the quiet beside my mind.

< . . . Addie?>
I whispered.

She grew a little stronger, a little more tangible, at the sound of her name. I felt her focus on the video, on the months of our lives projected onto Emalia’s wall.

I said.

Nina was still entranced by her videos, Emalia smiling next to her. Neither could have guessed the silent conversation between Addie and me.

I spoke as calmly as I could.

Addie’s will overpowered my own. I didn’t fight it, just let her take control. Our hands tightened into fists.

Addie paused. A hesitation? A hope I might encourage her onward?

I didn’t speak. I barely let myself think. Something terrible was coming—I heard the rumblings of it in Addie’s voice.

she said.

Her words washed over me, trying to knock me over, but I would not I would not
I would not
fall.

Addie said. There was a plea in my name. A plea and a reminder. A hand reaching out. A held breath, waiting for me to respond.