Page 26 of The Final Storm
Lori’s mouth hangs open, and her eyes widen a bit. It’s a realization for both of us. I can’t go back. I can’t change my past.
“I’m proud you didn’t change the subject just then. That’s real progress, Row,” Lori mocks.
I smack her on the shoulder.
“No, I mean it,” she insists, serious this time. “I wound you up for the shot to hit and miss, but you just kept rambling. I’m into this new Rowan. She cries. She talks about her feelings. She reminisces.”
“She’s stronger than she was back then, even when she cries,” I say.
“Meaner, too.”
I jump on her and knock her to the ground, and she falls into a fit of giggles. It’s the first time we’ve laughed, really laughed, since we arrived. The feeling washes over me, and for a moment, I think thingswillbe alright.
Lori turns her head and taps me on the shoulder. I stop my giggles and look over at her. “I think you should find Sam, apologize, and work this out. Drop the thing with Caleb until Morgan and Luke are better. If you haven’t seen it in a vision, it’s probably nothing, anyway.”
I visualize the woman in white yelling in my face, telling me to leave. Her anger toward me, her loathing for me, it plays on repeat in my mind’s eye. I know she has something to do with Sam’s distance, but Lori’s right about concentrating on the bigger problems.
I stand up and walk over to the mirror in the cabin to wash a little. “Let’s meet up later in the medical bay,” I say, splashing water on my face. I dry off, tie my hair back, and step to the door to leave. “I’ll find Sam. I’ll figure this out. Get some more sleep. You seem like a new person with a few hours of rest.”
“Maybe you should take your own advice,” Lori chides, but she’s already yawning. “Oh, and maybe take a shower first.”
I grab a few things for the shower in agreement.
“Love you,” she calls out when my hand hits the door.
“You, too,” I reply and step into the hallway. The cold steel walls and the echo of the door slamming remind me of my vision, and I close my eyes, hoping something will come forward. There’s nothing, and I turn down the hall, disappointed.
The ship’s layout is like the Thalassa’s, and I know vaguely where Sam works, but the showers come into view, and I take it as a sign to stop there first.
Five stalls line one side, and all of them are empty. I embrace the isolation and strip off my clothes while the water warms. When I catch myself in the mirror, I don’t recognize the person in its reflection. I’m skeletal except for my stomach, which still has a pouch from where Morgan left over a month ago. My shoulders slump, and I roll them back, standing straighter. I pull my hair out of the ponytail and look back in the mirror. I have to take care of myself, or we’re all fucked. I’m not seeing, and that’s because my body doesn’t have the strength. The mirror fogs up, but I make a promise to the woman in the reflection to eat and sleep before she disappears.
I feel the grit on my skin when I cover my body with soap. Hitting the dispenser far too many times, I cover myself in it from head to toe, lathering until my eyes burn and my skin tightens.
Resting my head against the tile, the streams rinse the suds away, and my breathing slows. Closing my eyes for a moment won’t hurt, and they grow so heavy at the thought, then refuse to open.
“Spicy,” Beau says. I open my eyes at the sound of his voice, but I’m not in the shower anymore. We’re sitting on the floor of our neighbor’s kitchen.
“Spicy!” I mock. “I think you’re using the wrong word.”
I hear myself speaking, but I reach up to my mouth and find I’m not moving my lips.
Beau takes another sip from the green bottle and makes the same face I do when I drink cheap bourbon. “Spiceeeeeey,” he repeats.
“You’re crazy,” Lewis says. I turn my head in his direction and see… myself. I’m sitting next to me, laughing with the boys on someone’s kitchen floor.
Not just someone’s. This is the Mitchell’s kitchen. Their picture lays cracked in the corner by overturned dog bowls.
I remember this.
“It can burn a little, but it’s good, right?” I watch myself tell Beau.
This was when we were scavenging the neighbors’ houses. The third storm would come soon, and I had to gather supplies for the journey. The Mitchells were a few hours’ walk, and I remember being nervous about making it back in time. We spent the night and traveled back the next day because they had so much food left.
And Sprite.
“This is probably the last time you’ll ever get this,” I explain. “So if you don’t enjoy it, give it to me or Lewis.”
“It bubbles in my nose,” Beau says, scrunching it up and giggling. “But I like it.”
