Page 86 of The Same Backward as Forward
“I’ll have you know my ass isbrilliant.”
Jackson stares at me for the longest time. I am ready for him to say something else—about my mood, about her.
He doesn’t. He just eats my beans and walks out the door. He’s been fishing more and more, leaving me on my own. He knows I can survive alone now. The trick is keeping myself busy. Call itself-directed physical therapy. My body might never be what it once was, but the more I do in Hannah’s absence, the fewer times she will see me fall.
The burns don’t hurt much anymore. It’s the pathways between my brain and my body that need work. It’s muscles that have atrophied and the level of painstaking coordination needed to move with anything resembling grace. The sheer number of component parts in any fluid movement is mind-boggling—andhellish.
I’m contrary enough to start with the hard stuff.
I step up onto my mattress. Stepping up isn’t the hard part. It’s dealing with the way the mattress beneath me compresses under my weight. Every shift changes the landscape. One step in, and I can barely breathe. The damn mattress might as well be quicksand or ice, but I don’t give up easily.
It’s only after I’ve tried and failed to make it across thirty or forty times that I have a single success, and then I repeat the process.
Again. And again. And again.
As the day wears on, I switch to drawing lines and loops in my mind, projecting them onto the floor, and walking those mental paths like beams. When I am sick to death of the effort thatbalancerequires of me, I make my way toward the bathroom door, lift my hands overhead, and latch my fingers around the metal doorframe.
My arms are better at doing what they’re told than my legs are. The first pull-up is the worst, a reminder that there are musclesin my chest that had to knit themselves back together practically from scratch. But in this, at least, my body knows what to do.
Again. And again. And again.
When I feel like I truly can’t take anymore, I start back at the beginning, stepping up onto the mattress and waiting for night to fall.
Chapter 21
Hannah is late, Jackson still hasn’t returned, and I have pushed myself too hard. I wonder sometimes if that is my native language—too hard, too fast, too much, too long.
Eventually, I have no choice but to lie down, and once I do, I’m a goner.
The stone room. I’m on my hands and knees. Sweat drips from my forehead and pools on the floor beneath me, my ears ringing with every audible drop. My body shaking, I curl my fingers into the floor, tracing the nearly invisible lines that someone has drawn there—the maze.
I cannot do this.
I have to do this.
I need out—and the only way out is through.
I wake up to find myself still alone. From the darkest corners of my brain, there is a whisper that says:Maybe she’s not coming back.Before I can spiral any further, I hear footsteps outside. Even, steady footsteps.
Hannah, through and through.I open the door. “You’re late.”
“You’re still up.” Her voice is low, the words obviously hard-won, like her throat didn’t want to let them go.
Even in the dark, I know immediately that something is wrong.
“I’m always up,” I reply. That’s a blatant lie, but then, we’ve always been liars, Hannah and I. “Sleep is for mortals,” I say, expecting her to rise to the bait and try to knock me down a peg, but she doesn’t. I give it a moment, and then I try a different tactic. “You’ve been crying.”
To me, that much is obvious. She’s lit only by the moon above, but I know every line of Hannah’s face. I have drawn it, stroke by stroke. I have dreamed it. I have held it in my mind.
“You’re delusional,” she retorts. “And the answer isuncopyrightable.”
I am not surprised that Hannah has won our game, but I am surprised that anything could shake her like this—because sheisshaken. She ishurting.
And I would burn the world down for her, hurt whoever hurt her.
“Where’s Jackson?” she asks me. Her voice is still all wrong.
“Beardy leaves me alone more now, when he thinks I’m sleeping.”And when he knows I’m not, I add silently.
