But I don’t do any of those things. I stay where I am, my cheek resting against the window frame as I unpack the crazy that’s crawling around in my head like a bunch of centipedes.
I start with the things I know.
The Drau pushed through into my world, my real world.
Everything the Committee said about how big of a threat they are is true.
Carly almost died.
Someone healed her, but Jackson doesn’t believe it was him. Which leaves the possibility that the respawn did the trick. Except, Carly isn’t part of the game. She doesn’t respawn. And even if she did, it wouldn’t explain the hint of Drau gray I saw flash in her eyes.
Which brings me to all the things I don’t know: Who healed Carly? Exactly how trustworthy is the Committee? If the green-eyed girl is a shell, why does she keep helping me? Because the Drau want to use me as an original donor?
I guess Jackson could be right about that, but if that’s what she wants, she could have fought my team the first time I met her, when I was lying on the ground, bleeding, dying. She could have fought them and killed them—maybe—and taken me then. But she chose to run away.
A quick tapping snares my attention, and only then do I realize I’m drumming my fingertips against the windowsill. I force myself to stop. Then I force myself to mentally catalogue what I know, starting from the beginning. I end up with questions and more questions, like an infinite circle spinning around.
But at least I have a few answers now, too. I know more about the game and about the Committee and their limitations. I know more about myself, my weaknesses, my strengths.
The chill from outside penetrates the glass. I shiver, but I don’t move away. It’s like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what.
Lie.
I do know.
I’m waiting for the prickle of awareness that will tell me Jackson’s there, on my street, watching my window. I’ve felt it before, more than once. Not in a creeper way. He had good reasons. I kind of wish he’d find a reason right now.
Once, he left me a gift—a copy of my favorite manga, wrapped in a plastic bag to protect it from the weather—on the flat roof of the overhang that covers the front porch.
Once, I looked out my window to find him sitting cross-legged on that same porch roof, his honey-gold hair gleaming in the moonlight, shades firmly in place, even at night.
That was the night he snuck in my bedroom window. The night he lifted his shirt and bared his abs—and his navel—to prove to me he wasn’t a shell.
The night he kissed me for the first time.
Not on my lips. That came later. The first kiss was something else entirely.
I remember it. I remember the way he grabbed my wrist and turned my hand over, then lowered his head and pressed his lips to my palm.
I remember the shock of electricity that danced through me.
Then he moved his lips to the crease of my wrist. I stood perfectly still, my blood hammering through my veins.
I remember the way he made me feel; I’d never felt like that before. I wanted him to do it again. Instead, he climbed out the window and took off into the night.
I close my eyes now and press the inside of my wrist against my mouth, wishing Jackson were here, wishing we hadn’t parted the way we did.
He just faced down what amounted to his sister’s ghost. I hate that I know he has to be suffering. And I hate that I know I added to his pain. I wasn’t there for him, didn’t offer much in the way of comfort. I’m not feeling very proud of that.
I grab a hoodie, climb out my window, and sit on the roof with my back pressed against the bricks, just like Mom and I used to do when I was little. We’d sit out here and stare at the stars. She’d try to name them. She didn’t always get them right, and it really didn’t matter.
Staring up at the stars now, I can’t help but wonder how many of them support worlds like Earth. Worlds like my ancestors came from. Or the Drau.
I wish Mom were here right now. I wish I could talk to her. I wouldn’t be able to tell her about the game, but I could tell her about the gray fog, the panic attacks, the way I try so hard to control everything in my life, as if that will keep me safe.
I could tell her about Jackson.
She could help me figure it all out.
But she isn’t here, and I haven’t felt this alone in a really long time. I haven’t let myself feel this alone.
I play with my phone, trying to decide if I should call him or not.
Not.
He said he needed some time on his own.
An hour? A day? A month?
There’s no one for me to ask.
I love Dad so much. But I can’t talk to him the same way I talked to Mom. It’s just different. They’re different.
I bend my knees up and hug them. “I miss you, Mommy,” I whisper. “I miss you so much.”
It isn’t until I’m shivering from the cold that I realize Dad’s been gone way longer than the twenty minutes it should have taken him to drop Carly, get milk, and make it back home.
Maybe he got caught up talking to Mrs. Conner when he dropped Carly off.
I pull out my phone and call him. Through my open window, I hear the faint sound of his ringtone inside the house. He forgot his phone. Again.
And the battery’s probably almost dead. Again. He has a habit of forgetting to charge it.
I duck back in through the window and head to his room. No phone on the dresser, but there’s a low oval dish that Mom used to keep potpourri in. I stare at it for a minute, really seeing it for the first time in ages. It’s full, but not with aromatic leaves. There are matchbooks in there.
I exhale a shocked breath. Dad wouldn’t smoke. He wouldn’t. He quit as soon as Mom was diagnosed. I don’t believe he’d start again.
I pick up a matchbook and open the flap. All the matchsticks are there. Same with the next one and the next. So he’s just collecting them; he’s not using them. I run my fingers over the glossy covers. Blue Mill Tavern. Dante’s Inferno. La Ronda Bar. Elk Bar. Dad must like that one; he has at least a dozen of their orange matchbooks.
My stomach clenches. I feel like I’m going to puke. All those nights Dad’s been out, he hasn’t been going to AA meetings. He’s been going to bars.
Is that where he is now? Is that why he’s so late?
I remember what Dad said to me back at the beginning of September, the words playing through my thoughts. I don’t have a problem. It’s all under control. I’m not one of those after-school specials, passed out on the couch, with three empty bottles of gin on the floor.
No, he’s not passed out on the couch. And the bottles aren’t gin. They’re vodka, like the one I found in his office when I was vacuuming.
He’s been lying to me. Lying to himself.
Am I supposed to forgive him for that? I need him. And he’s nowhere to be found. Not even when he’s sitting right across the dinner table from me.
I give up on finding his phone and stalk downstairs to the den. I pace to the front window, pull back the drapes, and stare at the empty street. Then I pace back to the couch.
I dial Carly’s number. She doesn’t answer.
I put my phone on the coffee table, line it up parallel to the converter, rearrange Dad’s fishing magazines so they’re perfectly straight. With a cry, I draw back my arm and swipe the surface, sending everything tumbling to the floor.
Then I pace back to the window and just stand there, waiting for the flare of headlights.
When the cruiser turns into my driveway, I’m not surprised. When the two police officers get out and walk to my front porch, settling their hats on their heads as they move, I’m not surprised.
And when I open the door and they start to speak, I’m not surprised.