Page 15 of What You Left Me

“Are you okay?” the young woman next to me asks after I finish chipping off what little remains of my nail polish.

“What?” I say, not sure if she means me.

She switches her tactic. “Do you know Marty?”

“Oh.” I contemplate being honest but decide excessive exposition would confuse her. “Yeah.” Not an untruth.

“I’m his sister, Katie. This is my husband, Rick.”

I give them both somber handshakes. “Petra.”

“That’s a cool name,” Katie says.

“I like it enough.” I can tell by her expression that I sound cold. I don’t mean to. Conversational walls tend to pop up when I’m uncomfortable. “It’s a family name.”

“It’s nice. Thanks for coming out to support Marty.”

Maybe it’s inappropriate of me, but I take the opportunity to get some more information. “Of course. How is he?”

Katie leans in. “I saw him this morning. His face—” She starts to tear up, and I know I’ve crossed some kind of line, because her eyes soften, disregarding my coldness and accepting me as an outsider in which she can confide. She must need an outlet. “It’s not our Marty.”

I nod like I know. I kind of do?

“I couldn’t take it. I’m better sitting out here. My mom and dad are camped out in his room until the next surgery. I’m sure you know my mom. Or Mama Dorothy, as she prefers,” Katie says with the ghost of a laugh.

I start to come clean, my mouth forming anum. I feel incapable of continuing my undeserved role as friend with privileged knowledge, but Katie’s face lights up, thinking I’m making a confirming gesture. “God, everyone knows my mom. She’s wearing Marty’s old football jersey. He played two JV games his freshman year before he quit, but Mom’s allIt shows what a fighter he is.”

“She’s right,” I note back. It’s what has to be said.

Staring at Katie, taking in her wide eyes and full mouth, spread from smiling over her mother’s apparent ridiculousness, I try to conjure up a picture of Mama Dorothy. Martin mentioned her at graduation, and both kids called her by that name. She must be the type of mom who goes overtime on the job, chaperoning all field trips, showing up to sporting events that don’t even involve her kids, shepherding the masses with her aggressive enthusiasm and charm. Short and hovering around her late forties, sensible haircut with some blond highlights to disguise impending gray, and the kind of smile that could turn up to ten or cut you down to size depending on her mood.

“They don’t know how many more surgeries he’ll need. Or when he’ll wake up. They keep saying, ‘He’s not out of the woods yet.’ If you’re gonna try to see him, go now,” Katie says, on the verge of tears. “You’d be braver than me.”

My guilty eyes don’t even have time to meet her gaze before her phone starts ringing.

“Hold on,” she says. She answers the call, and I divert my attention to my lap, listening in. It’s an aunt. Katie gives her the rundown, choking out details as her husband pats her back.

Turrey’s been eyeballing me this entire time, giving off a silent judgment that expects a “What?” or “Hi” or “You’re right—I should leave” from me.

I’ve trapped myself. The only way out is to see Martin.

Well, maybe not the only way, but it’s the way I choose.

What can I say? I’m pretty great at making questionable choices.

• • •

Wait. I get it now. It’s so obvious. Don’t know why it didn’t come to me sooner.This is all a dream.Graduation is tomorrow, and I’m doing a weird subconsciousInception-style life lesson thing.

Man, did I eat before bed? This is like when Turrey did wrestling, and he wasn’t eating so he could make weight. He started having hallucinations in the middle of health class. Mr. Hubert and I had to drag him to the nurse’s office.

I made up an actual hours-long graduation ceremony, then topped it off with some over-the-top car accident with Spits. Probably represents my fear of what the future will bring us or something. That’s what Katie will say when I tell her about this. She loves dream analysis. She’ll tell me I’m living inside Spitty’s perspective because I care about how he views the world or something. Then she’ll say I made up Petra because she represents everything I wish I could have, and the weird thing with her inside the gray tube has something to do with my fears of messing up good things that happen to me.

You know what? I don’t even need to ask Katie. I’ve got it all down myself.

• • •

I’m up and moving, headed out of the waiting room and around the corner, where the wordsIntensive Care Unitrun across the middle of two doors. A buzzer is on the left wall. If I press it, I am Alice, and this is the rabbit hole. I’ve hovered around the edge, definitely dangled a leg over, but I haven’t fallen in yet.