Page 81 of Flickerstate

He did expect me to. I can tell from the surprised hurt he’s covering up with a smile.

“I haven’t said anything yet,” I hear myself point out.

He raises his head. “No, you haven’t. Great! Don’t say anything. Just…think about it.”

Right now, I can’t think of a gentle way to reject him, and I’ve burned enough people today. “All right.”

A smile, genuine this time, steals over Griffin’s face. “Good. Uh, don’t take too long. I’m sure a dozen ladies will ask me after break, and I’d like to use you as a human shield.”

Any other day, it would irritate me that Griffin is interpreting my response as a delayedyes, not the delayednoit is. Today I feel nothing. I’m too far-off. (Am I in shock?) I try to muster a response that sounds like me. “Never call girls ‘ladies’ in my presence again.”

“I make no promises. Time for a smooth transition to a neutral topic. Um.” He nods to the rack of basketballs courtside. “Want a rematch?”

I’m numb, but if I touch a basketball, I’ll break down. “I’d rather sleep for a week.”

“In the middle of the court?”

“I’ll head back to the dorm.”

“Mind if I walk you?”

“Thanks, but like I said, I want to be alone for a bit. See you.”

I sense his eyes on me as I leave, but I feel no temptation to glance back. Is that shock or plain indifference? Does it matter?

***

When I wake up, the sunset glows orange across my dorm room’s white wall. I’m sprawled on my unmade bed. My left arm, trapped under my body, has gone numb. I roll onto my back and massage the dead arm, thinking nothing, letting flashes of reality hit me: saffron light, stuffy air, the blanket twisted under me, the sticky itch between my shoulder blades.

Once my arm buzzes with blood flow, I reach for my phone. Black screen. Right; I turned it off before the trial. I press the power button, and a white logo appears in the blackness. Then my wallpaper: our old family dog Snickerdoodle, a food-obsessed mutt who bit our toes to demand treats and got away with it because she was so cute. I loved that evil animal.

I look at her photo and I don’t feel anything.

The image rattles and shakes likeThe Exorcistgirl as notifications possess my phone: texts from Candace and Vik—and four voicemails from Jo.

My numbness vanishes. My hands start trembling. It takes me three tries before I successfully swipe on Jo’s last message to return her call. The phone rings and rings. Did she see my name pop up on her screen and decide to make me wait because I sent her to voicemail earlier? I hope so. If Jo’s being passive-aggressive, nothing’s gone sickeningly wrong with Dad. God please, God please—

The ringing chokes off. “Where have you been?” Jo spits.

“In class,” I say. “Where else. What—”

“It’s Dad.”

No, no, no, no. “What happened? Jo?”

“This morning, I walked into his room to ask whether he wanted coffee. Mom was changing the bandages on his bites. She yelled at me to get out, but I’d already seen—the wounds are worse. Deeper.”

I press the phone against my ear. “How deep?”

“I don’t know,deep.” She’s crying. “Mom said you weren’t even coming home for Thanksgiving. When are you getting the cure and getting back here?”

I stare at the orange light darkening across my wall. At some point during the last few weeks’ sleepless fugue, I texted Mom not to waste money on Thanksgiving plane tickets for me. Dr. Langmore had mentioned in clinic that the trial winners wouldn’t get Archive access till after break, and I didn’t want to come home till I could do it victorious, with the great Highwall’s secret cure in my hands.

I wanted to be my family’s savior.

That isn’t going to happen now. I lost, I’m dying, I give up.

You give up?