The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Dr. Banz shot Vogle a look. “Vogle…”

  “No,” I said. “I want to know.”

  Vogle cleared his throat, continued. “I think that it might be innate rather than symptomatic of some unknown disease.”

  “You think I was born this way,” I clarified, hoping I’d understood him correctly.

  “Yes, I think that’s a possibility.”

  “A possibility,” Dr. Banz repeated.

  “So would that mean that there’s no way to stop it? I can’t get better?”

  “Bryn.” Dr. Banz shook his head. “We really shouldn’t have worried you like this, especially not now. It’s very important that we get a clean read from this first night’s sleep.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll talk more tomorrow, I promise. Now just try to get some rest.”

  I swallowed, tried to nod. Dr. Banz and Vogle slipped back into the hall, the automatic lights shutting off as the door clicked closed behind them.

  In the dark I could see a few lights pricking through the shades, cars moving down on the street, planes making their way into the airport. But the minute I closed my eyes, it was a darkness like I’d never known before.

  The room felt colder and I scratched at the chill. I pulled the blanket under my chin and tried to roll onto my side. I knew the faster I got to sleep the faster it would all be over but it was too quiet, my thoughts fighting to fill the silence. I hadn’t been alone like this in…well I couldn’t remember how long. Just me. No mom or Dani or books or my laptop or my sculpture. Or Roman.

  Even when it made no sense for me to think of him I did. When we weren’t trying to catch up on sleep, my mom and I had spent some time touring the city and every time there was a break in the clouds, sunlight spilling across a doorway or when I heard music pouring from the windows of a shop, I couldn’t help but picture him there. Not because I really thought he was but because I could still feel him. Everywhere. Some places stronger than others. And as I lay there in complete silence I could feel it taking over again.

  I’d been trying to bury it, all of it—his chin against my cheek, pulse drumming, the rush of his words against my lips, his rough hands and chewed fingernails, his hair wet and sticking to his face, rain drops carving across his stubble, the twitch of his mouth before he laughed.

  Sleep.

  I tried to, to forget. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to. That he wasn’t supposed to either. Because the way we’d found each other wasn’t a coincidence and it wasn’t fate. It was something greater. It was that cosmic hand that sets fate in motion.

  We are not a coincidence.

  Except now that’s all we were. Because Roman couldn’t remember any of it. He couldn’t remember me.

  Please, Bryn. Sleep.

  I buried my face in the blanket until it was moist and sticking to my skin, breathing in deep as the cold air blowing from the vent above me was replaced by a warm breeze that tasted like home. I opened my eyes and I was sitting on the highest branch of that old tree at my grandparent’s farmhouse. I gripped the bark, catching my balance. Then I looked down and saw my grandfather.

  “You planning on sleeping up there?” My grandfather pulled off his hat and wiped his brow with his forearm.

  I couldn’t speak.

  He waved a hand. “Stubborn. Just like your grandmother.”

  He turned back for the house and I crawled towards the trunk of the tree, trying to find a way down. The branches seemed farther apart than I remembered them and when I tried lowering myself down, my toes barely scraped the bark.

  I gripped the trunk with my bare feet, finally maneuvering myself down onto the next branch, but then there was a crack. I looked down, shifting my weight as I caught sight of the fresh seam. I took a step, reaching for another branch, but before I could grab ahold of it the one beneath me snapped clean. I tumbled forward, falling. I clutched at twigs and leaves, clawing at the air, but then I saw the ground and all I could do was close my eyes.

  I didn’t feel the impact. I didn’t feel anything at all. I opened my eyes and I was sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of milk in front of me, the entire room still intact with no trace of a fire anywhere.

  My grandfather pushed through the front door, stopping when he saw me.

  “Grandpa?”

  He walked past me, squeezing my head as he made his way to the sink. He washed his hands and poured himself a glass of water, walking around the kitchen as if he still existed in that seventy-year-old body, as if nothing had changed. As if he wasn’t dead.

  “Grandpa.”

  He stopped, looked right at me. “What’s wrong, Bryn?”

  I stood, walked over to him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Bryn…” He cupped my cheek and then he just stared at me for a long time. Like he was straining against tears. Like he missed me. In that moment I knew he was real.

  “How?” It was all I could say, a tear already burning down my cheek.

  He didn’t let go of me. “Because I had to.” The lightness was gone from his voice.

  “For me?” I said, afraid.

  He led me to the porch steps and we both sat down, facing the beach. He nodded to the horizon line. “Can you see the cracks?”

  The word sent my nerves sputtering but I just shook my head, too afraid to look.

  “But you can feel them,” he said.

  Pieces of me split in two, those same cracks growing wide inside me as he spoke. I waited for what might slip through, braced myself for it.

  “Something bad is happening to me, isn’t it?” I raked my hands across my jeans, trying to rub off the tears. But they stuck to me like tar, thick and heavy, and they wouldn’t stop. I knew why he’d come because I knew where he’d come from. He was dead and soon I would be too. Just like Eve.

  He gripped me tight in the crook of his arm, his shirt smelling like motor oil and oranges.

  “It’s not that black and white, Bryn.”

  “What’s happening to me?” I asked.

  “The same thing that happens to all of us.” He looked down at me. “You’re growing up.”

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked.

  “Only you know that, Bryn.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t.”

  “You do. You’ve already set things in motion. You already know how this ends.”

  “You mean…” My heart turned to glass, every pump of my pulse threatening to shatter it. “That I’m going to die?”

  “These are all choices, Bryn. That’s what makes you special, that you have a choice. I want you to always remember that. No matter what you think, know that you have a choice. Please…always remember that.”

  “But you didn’t…” I said.

  His eyes softened. “No.”

  “Why me?”

  His lips fought between a smile and a frown. “I don’t know. I’ve always known you were special, Bryn. Always. And it turns out I’m not the only one.”

  I immediately thought of Roman, hoping that my grandfather knew something that I didn’t. As if him being here meant he was somehow connected to the same fate that had driven Roman and I together.

  But then he said, “You can’t be afraid, Bryn.”

  “I am.”

  “No.” His calloused thumbs traced under my eyes. “Don’t be afraid of the darkness.” I found the reflection of my own eyes in his pupils, sunlight sparking like drops of water. “Without it there’s no light. No good. And Bryn…” He took my shoulders. “You are good. I want you to always remember that too.”

  He faced the forest and when I followed his gaze the darkness billowed through the trees like smoke. It curled around every trunk and tore through the leaves, climbing to the sky overhead.

  “What do the shadows want?” I asked.

  He sighed. “You.”

  “How do I fight back?”

  He smiled, tapped a finger to his temple. “The same way you’re able to see me no
w.” He fanned his hand out, pointing to the ocean and the sunflowers and the trees. “The same way you were able to make all of this.”

  “But this is all just a dream.”

  “No.” He shook his head, voice weakened in awe. “There is no such thing as just a dream, Bryn.”

  20

  Roman

  Fourteen weeks.

  Five toes had black dots on them, the Sharpie hovering over my right pinky. I’d been keeping track of which ones I’d been able to move, marking them somewhere I could see and being careful not to scrub it off when I took a bath.

  They were like tiny targets and when I was concentrating they were the only thing I could see, like I was tugging on a string threaded right into that spot, every exhale moving it around like a marionette doll.

  I bent forward, placing the final dot on my right pinky toe before counting them one more time. Number six.

  And today I would move number seven.

  Sixteen weeks.

  Jimmy and I were sitting on the couch playing Madden, a bowl of spilled popcorn and four empty Fudgsicle wrappers on the floor. I was gripping the controller cord with my toes, wriggling all ten of them until they were strained and tired.

  Jimmy pressed pause to refill our drinks.

  “Check this out,” I said.

  I grabbed my leg, lifting it, and then I moved my ankle, bending my entire foot up and down.

  Jimmy’s eyes were wide. “Shit, dude. When did that happen?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  “What’s it feel like?” he asked.

  I sat there, staring at the vein pulsing in my ankle. “It feels like my legs were stuck in this block of ice and now it’s starting to melt.” I shrugged. “It feels like waking up.”

  “Do you…do you know if you’ll ever—?” He stopped but I knew what he was about to say.

  “I…” I tossed him back his controller. “I don’t know.”

  I wanted to say, maybe. To say, I hope so. Yes. But what if I didn’t? What if Dr. King was right and it was only a matter of time before I plateaued? Those were the real questions I couldn’t answer. I kept replaying that day I’d overheard him and my dad in the hallway at the hospital. He’d said never and I’d said goodbye, to Bryn, and if I could go back and change anything it would be that.

  “And now all of a sudden you look like someone murdered your dog.” Jimmy waved a hand in front of my face. “Hello?”

  “What? Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, man. I know you must have a lot on your mind.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Sorry, I know I can probably be a fucking drag sometimes.” I shook my head. “Shit. Bad choice of words.”

  He laughed. “No, man. It’s cool.”

  “Really? You wouldn’t rather be on the mountain right now?” I’d heard on the news that Sandia Mountain had already gotten its first snow of the season even though it was only the middle of September. Winter was coming early this year but I’d felt the chill long before the first leaves had started to change.

  Jimmy shrugged. “Come on, you’re not that bad.” His voice was light and then it wasn’t. “Not anymore.”

  I thought about all of the times I’d been a dick to Jimmy just because Carlisle was, giving him shit about living with his grandmother and forcing him into the backseat because that’s where Carlisle kept all of the trash.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was a—”

  “Don’t.” His knuckles blanched around the controller. “I don’t need a fucking apology.”

  From the look on his face I knew he was telling the truth. But if he didn’t want an apology then why had he come to see me?

  “Why did you even hang out with us?” I asked.

  He stiffened, eyes narrowed at the screen.

  “I just mean, Carlisle was such a…I mean we were both dicks. Especially to you. Why did you put up with us?”

  “It was easier, I guess…”

  “Easier?” Nothing about being friends with Carlisle was easy. “Easier than what?”

  “Than being your enemy.”

  I sunk against the couch, wishing it would swallow me whole. Because Jimmy was right.

  “I’m—”

  “Shit, dude, I said I didn’t want an apology.”

  “Well, maybe you don’t but I do. I need to say it. Jesus, it makes me sick to think about it, Jimmy. The way I was…”

  “But it’s over.”

  “And what if it’s not?”

  He set the controller down on the coffee table and faced me. “Do you remember that day at the supermarket? You and Carlisle had stopped for something and I was so mortified because I was standing in line with my grandmother, the belt full of chocolate pudding and Depends.” He smiled but I knew he wasn’t laughing. “Carlisle walked by, giving me shit, and he hadn’t even noticed that we were sorting through our cart, trying to decide what to put back. But you did. Carlisle disappeared around the corner and then you handed my grandmother a twenty dollar bill and said, ‘Here, Mrs. Highland, you dropped this.’”

  I swallowed. I hardly remembered that day.

  “You were totally tweaked, I could tell,” he went on. “But still, you didn’t have to do that. You could have kept walking just like Carlisle.”

  “I don’t really remember doing that,” I said honestly.

  “It doesn’t matter. I remember. I remember you.”

  I heard someone lift the garage door and then my dad stepped into the kitchen, a wide smile on his face.

  “What’s with you?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you come out here and see?”

  He stepped back outside, not even bothering to grab my chair for me. Jimmy had to bring it over and I knew he wouldn’t expect me to come to him unless it was something big.

  I maneuvered into the kitchen and Jimmy pulled the door to the garage open. My dad was leaning against a heap of metal, corrosion and rust carving it into different shades of green and red. It looked like fucking Christmas.

  “What is this?” I made my way toward the car, pressing my hand to the hood.

  “It’s a Pontiac GTO. 1971. Just picked it up.”

  I couldn’t get the words out and he gripped my shoulders.

  “It’s for us,” he said.

  “Really?”

  I thought about all of those nights we used to spend in the garage, working and talking and sometimes just sitting in silence together. I’d missed that more than anything. But then I’d ruined everything. I’d taken the car, every inch of it restored, moonlight glinting against its fresh coat of paint as I tore through the night, and then…

  “Are you sure?” I said, not looking at him. He nodded and my throat clenched. “But—?”

  He stilled me and said, “I thought we could start again.”

  When I found myself in the farmhouse for the second time, I wasn’t afraid to say her name. I re-traced my steps through every one of Bryn’s memories, searching, calling for her. But after looking everywhere, my voice was still the only one on the breeze, no one dreaming but me. And I thought no nightmare could be worse.

  Back at the farmhouse I turned on the record player and then my fingers grazed the shelves, igniting scents and sensations that all reminded me of Bryn—of her laugh, of her eyes, of her lips.

  I was startled by how much I’d remembered, my mind re-constructing every detail of her memories even though I’d only been a part of them for a little while. Not as long as her paisley diary with the broken lock or her mom’s old records or her grandfather’s coin collection. Or the…I stopped.

  A pair of bulbous eyes peered out from between a jewelry box and a vintage dictionary. I pulled out the stuffed owl, the felt feathers covered in a small layer of dust but I knew it was a lie. It hadn’t been here before.

  No. This was…new.

  I chipped at the leather beak, trying to think. I squeezed its belly, feeling the foam peanuts inside, but nothing about it felt familiar. Then I flipped it over, checking
the tag. Made in Germany.

  Germany…

  Bryn was supposed to go to Germany for treatment.

  My eyes flicked to the window. Or maybe Bryn’s here.

  I raced outside, trying to call her name over the breeze. I searched for her everywhere, losing my way in the trees and growing dizzy before stumbling to my knees. I sat there, tired, and it felt so good. It felt so good to feel my muscles contracting and my pulse racing and my legs moving, the moist soil damp against my skin.

  But then I remembered that I was sleeping. That each step was meaningless. That I was still trapped. And yet I couldn’t help but hope.

  That first night I’d thought it was all a dream, or maybe even a nightmare courtesy of the thing inside me, the thing that had been after Bryn. But sitting there, still gripping that German stuffed owl, I wasn’t so sure. What if I’d found a way back? What if I’d found a way back to her?

  I thought back on all of those times I lay in bed just counting the toes with black dots on them, replaying the exhaustion after my body had finally done what it was told. Because in those moments I felt like I could do anything. I could move my big toe on my right foot or I could move a fucking mountain. It made me feel like I was in control, like I could change, and not just the parts of me I could see but the parts of me that no one could.

  Except for Bryn. She’d been the first person to ever see me and I couldn’t help but think that she wouldn’t be surprised by any of this. When we’d met and I’d forgotten who I was, in her eyes I already was better. Even now I still wanted to be. I wanted to forget the past again, and not just my mother but Carlisle and that night at the quarry, the shitty friend I’d been to Jimmy and the shitty son I’d been to my dad. I wished that I could wake up all over again, that I could tell Bryn the truth.

  But the thought of trying to set things right terrified me, which was why for the past four months I tried to focus only on the things I could control. Like my body. But the truth was it was only a distraction because I’d known for a long time that none of that progress would mean a thing unless Bryn saw it too.