“WHAT THE HELL do you mean they still don’t know where she is?”
My voice is scratchy, my throat as dry and crackly as a brown paper bag. My arms and legs look like they were used as targets for archery practice, crisscrossed with slashes and gashes. Most of them are superficial, some of them have been hidden away by a few layers of gauze. The rest of me feels intact.
Except for my heart, which might be collapsing in on itself.
“Sonya, please,” my mother says from the corner of the room. “Watch your language.”
“Really, Mom?” It’s hard to sound like a teenager when my voice rasps like I’ve been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for decades, but I give it a go anyway. “I almost died and you’re still more concerned about my cursing? Can you even call that cursing?”
Mom’s mouth pinches into a tight, frightened line, with tiny wrinkles appearing to slash through her lips. When she makes that face, it looks as if her mouth has been sewn shut. Though I would never wish that was true, I could sometimes do without my mother’s opinion.
But I suppress those feelings today. My ongoing struggle to get along with my mom is not what I should be focusing on right now. I sat here for two, maybe three, hours with my parents watching and waiting in silence for my voice to level out at least to the point where I could speak. (Thank god they left my little sister, Sophia, at home—she would have made cackling remarks about my “robot voice” the whole time.) I ditched the oxygen mask about twenty minutes ago, and even though my chest is still tight and my throat is still sore, I can breathe just fine on my own. Sure, it hurts, but it hurts the way popping a particularly stubborn zit hurts—it’s a painful relief. Because that ache in my lungs is proof that I survived yesterday, even though yesterday tried to squash me like a spider in the bathroom sink.
Then they told me about my friends. Gabe, and Charlie, who needs some kind of surgery. And Kim. Oh god, Kim …
My dad is standing on the opposite side of the room from my mom. His white lab coat is draped over his arm again, and he’s wearing the same shirt and tie from yesterday, only now the tie is loosened and the top button of the shirt is undone. It’s almost like we’re still in my bedroom, setting up my computer. That would be far preferable to this disaster.
“Sweetheart,” he says to me. “I know this is scary—”
“Scary? Dad, she’s…” So many words come to mind, fighting to get out. Some of them are true. Some of them I only wish were true. I settle for the only thing that makes sense right now: “She’s my best friend.”
Dad sighs, takes off his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose, the only way he ever expresses frustration. Now I can see the strain pulling at the corners of my father’s features, creasing his skin right before my eyes. He looks older now than he did yesterday morning. And somehow that’s almost as frightening as the fact that Kimberly is missing.
Mom goes over to him, her shoes clicking on the tacky linoleum, and she hooks an arm around his elbow, finds his hand, laces her fingers in his. She puts her head down on his shoulder, and together they both seem to relax. I watch the tension drain from their bodies a little at a time. It makes me ache.
At home, stuck to the corkboard in my bedroom, is a strip of pictures that Kim and I took together in a photo booth at the county fair a couple of years ago. One of those stills is of us in almost the exact same pose that my parents are in now. Shoulders together, my head tilted onto Kim’s shoulder, her head resting on top of mine. We’re smiling, but we’re also content. At least, I was. And she looks it in the picture. That was the night that I realized how I felt about her, and her heart wasn’t just talking to mine then. It was singing.
“Listen, little one,” Dad finally says. “I know you’re afraid for Kim. We all are. But there’s not a lot we can do right now. You have to worry about your own health first. You’re no good to anyone if you go into cardiac arrest while you’re out looking for her.”
“But, Dad, we have to do something.” I’m pleading now, which I haven’t done in years. Not since I was in grade school, I think. I know he can see the pain in my eyes. If it looks anywhere near as bad as what I feel in my heart, then he’ll know that I won’t just let this go. I can’t.
Dad shifts on his feet for a second, seeming to examine the water-stained ceiling.
Then he says, “Okay. Let me see what I can find out. The army people haven’t exactly been forthcoming with information. Especially the one in charge, Colonel Higgins. But Jack and Valerie Albright are with Gabe a few doors down—”
“Wait,” I cut him off, my heart pumping blood in my ears. “Colonel who?”
Dad slowly rests his glasses back on his nose, watching me carefully through the lenses. “Higgins,” he says. “Colonel Audrey Higgins.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can manage. I swallow hard, listening to Dad’s voice replay in my head, the conversation he had yesterday morning in his office, the one he didn’t know I was listening to. “Okay,” I finally squeak. “That’s what I thought you said.”
“Uh-huh.” He tilts his head back, squinting at me. Mom is watching us both, confused. “Anyway,” Dad goes on, “I think we should wait it out a little longer, see what they want to do with you guys next. And if I get a chance, I’ll talk to the chief and see if he knows anything more than we do. We aren’t exactly friends, but he’ll be just as anxious for answers as we are.”
“Gabe will be, too,” I say, thinking that only part of my dad’s statement was true. The Albrights will definitely be itching to get some info, especially if the chief has been kept in the dark even a little bit. But there’s no way Chief Albright knows more about the crash than Dad does. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only other person in this building who knows as much as Colonel Higgins does is Dr. Alvaro Gutierrez.