The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  The meds Dad’s bringing are helping. Sometimes I feel like my head is floating off somewhere near the ceiling. I’m not sneezing as much as before, which is nice. Nothing left to worry about except the ferrets, so I made Drew promise he’d look after them.

  Everything taken care of.

  Writing makes me think too much. Back to the computer.

  No one will talk to me. Why won’t anyone talk to me? It’s like they’ve all gone off and left me here. That would be horrible. It has to be child abuse or something if you leave a teenager with no one to talk to except for her journal, doesn’t it?

  You’d think at least my friends would come over to see if I’m okay. Oh wait. Rachel can’t come, she’s dead. That was dumb. Well maybe Mackenzie will. She could be a good friend sometimes, when she wasn’t obsessing about how much cooler she is than everyone else on the island, I mean. Does she know I’m stuck here? I couldn’t tell her because of the stupid phones getting broken. She really should come and take me out to L.A. with her. I’ll meet all the movie stars. What do I need Mom and Dad and Drew for, anyway? Drew has all his plans and Dad does all his medical stuff. They think they’re so brilliant, but did either of them manage to get rid of the virus? Nope. I don’t need any of them. I should have hopped on the ferry when I could and

  Dad brought me lunch. Or maybe that was dinner. Mac and cheese! I told him he should stay and have lunch or dinner or whatever it was with me and he sat for a while, but he has that stupid plastic coat that squeaks whenever he moves and that stupid white thing on his face so I can’t even see his mouth moving when he’s talking, which is really creepy. I told him I wanted him to talk to me without it and he said then he’d have to leave the room, and I told him how stupid that was and then he got kind of upset and left. What the hell Dad? I wanted to go out and see what’s up with Meredith but he’s gone and locked me in here. My own dad! I yelled and yelled for someone to help me open it but no one’s listening and no one cares and the window is here but it’s too high up to jump. I wonder if there’s

  Hey! I saw someone in the backyard across from ours! I opened the window and tried to talk to her but she got a funny look on her face and went into her house, which is very rude don’t you think? I mean I just wanted to talk. It’s awful being alone in here. Why is everyone being so horrible to me? What did I do wrong?

  Funny when I first saw that woman I thought it was Tessa except she was too old and it wasn’t even the right hair color it was brown not red. I couldn’t really see well until I got the window open. Not that Tessa would come anyway. She never liked me really I know that she doesn’t like anyone. She just wanted someone to find the dead bodies in houses for her right we saw that hell yes. Would you still want to be her boyfriend if you knew that Leo? She lied to you about what was happening on the island and I would never have lied to you. I don’t see

  * * *

  Why did you go anyway? The one thing I really missed on this awful island was you and you had to go and leave me here with no one. I miss you. If you come back I absolutely promise I will forgive you for every

  It’s here I have to get away I have to

  I’m alive, Leo.

  I don’t really get it. I woke up, and I wanted to go right back to sleep because I’m sooo tired. But the space felt wrong, too wide to be my bedroom, and something weird was on my arm. I opened my eyes and saw that I was hooked up to an IV. Dad was sitting by the bed. The second I saw him he lunged for my hand and said, “Kaelyn?”

  I wanted to ask him who else I could possibly be. Then I remembered being sick. Being in my room, not letting anyone in. The rest is kind of fuzzy.

  This is the end, I thought. They gave me something to stop the hallucinations for a bit so I can say good-bye. I felt ready to die. I feel like I’ve been mauled by a shark from the inside out. Which I guess is almost true. It was a huge school of really tiny sharks.

  “How long?” I asked Dad. That other doctor, his friend Nell, she came in and smiled, and Dad said, “More than a week.” Which seemed like a lot of time.

  “I’ve got a whole week?” I said.

  Nell looked like she was going to cry suddenly, even though she hadn’t stopped smiling, and she said, softly, “She thinks she’s still sick.” That made Dad squeeze my hand so hard it hurt.

  “You’ve been in the hospital for a little more than a week,” he said. “But you’re all right now. You’re recovering.”

  I still don’t totally believe it. Maybe they’re saying I’m okay so I can be happy the last little while I’m around. But they did seem happy too. And even if I do feel like crap all over, I’m not coughing or sneezing anymore. My throat’s kind of sore. I wonder if I’ve done a lot of screaming? And I’m a bit itchy. Dad started talking about residual nerve damage needing longer to correct itself, but I was too foggy to follow everything he was saying.

  I can tell there are other people in the room because I can hear rustling and breathing, but they have me in a corner with the curtain closed. I guess I was given extra space because I’m getting better and they want to make sure I stay that way? Or because I’m Dad’s kid?

  As I was checking out the room, Dad handed me this journal. “I thought you’d want to have this as soon as you woke up,” he said. “You wouldn’t let go of it the whole way here when I brought you in.” And then he told me I should rest some more. Which is probably a good idea, because even though I was sleeping up until half an hour ago, my eyes are so heavy I might as well have just pulled an all-nighter.

  But it seemed important to write something down first. There was a pen on the clipboard at the end of the bed. Because of the IV, I had to grab it with my toes. That was fun.

  So it’s taken a while to get this down. I don’t even know what day it is. No one else has come. What does that mean? I wish I could remember more. The last entries I wrote in here are a jumble. I have no idea what I said when I got really sick. Maybe I pissed Drew off so much that he’s decided not to talk to me?

  Oh god. What if no one else has come because everyone except Dad is sick? For all I know, Drew’s on the other side of the curtain, or Meredith, or I

  Apparently I pushed myself a little too hard yesterday. Passed out in the middle of a sentence. Dad says the virus really took it out of me.

  They unhooked the IV this morning. It’s a lot easier to write without a tube in my arm.

  Dad made me take a couple more pills. I don’t know what for, but I got kind of foggy again. Not so much that I forgot all the questions I needed to ask, though, which maybe he would have liked.

  “We’ll talk later, when you’re further along,” he said, and then rambled about delicate balances and additional stress until I grabbed his wrist.

  “Dad,” I said, “I’m already as stressed as I can get, imagining the worst that could be happening. Talking will help. Okay? Get it over with.” But then I had to stop and swallow before I could ask, “Mom?”

  He lowered his gaze, which was all the answer I needed. “She didn’t make it,” he said, and caught my fingers as they slipped off his arm. He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand while I stared at the ceiling.

  I knew. I mean, if Mom had gotten better, she’d be here with me. I knew that. But hearing the words, I felt like someone had reached into my chest and torn my heart in half. I dragged in a breath, and another one, and still my lungs felt ready to burst. I didn’t even get to see her. I didn’t even get to see her one last time. I should have been there.

  For a while, I couldn’t speak. Finally I wiped at my eyes and took the tissue Dad handed me, and said, “Meredith?” Bracing myself.

  “She’s fine,” Dad said. “She’s staying with your friend Tessa right now. I was trying to decide what to do with no one else at the house, and Tessa came by to ask about you, and she offered. It seemed like the best solution.”

  My stomach flipped over. “No one at the house?” I said. “Where’s Drew?”

  Dad looked down at his hands again.
“I don’t know exactly,” he admitted. “When I came home after you were…settled in here, he was gone. He left a note saying he was heading to the mainland, that someone there had to have something that would help, and he was going to get it and bring it back. Some of my old scuba gear’s missing—he must have planned on using it to avoid the patrol boats.”

  Absurdly, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “He was supposed to look after the ferrets.”

  “I think he felt it was more important to do whatever he could to try to save you and your mother, Kae,” Dad said. “The last few days you were with us…he couldn’t sit still. He wouldn’t talk to me, but I could tell he was getting more and more frustrated not being able to help. If I wasn’t needed here, I might have done the same thing.”

  I would have expected Dad to be pissed off, but instead he just sounded worried. And maybe a little regretful, like he thought if he’d been able to do more, Drew would never have taken that risk. But even if Dad could have slipped away to the mainland to look for help, I doubt Drew would have been content to sit and wait.

  I hope he’s okay. Please let him be okay. Let him come home safe.

  “Have they found a working treatment on the mainland?” I asked. “Why didn’t they send us the vaccine, or new medication, if they have some?”

  “We’re not sure what’s happening outside the island,” Dad said. “The day after I brought you to the hospital, a nor’easter blew through, and you know what those are like. Cable went down, and the satellites were damaged. We haven’t been able to reach anyone who can fix them. Only the local phone service is still working.”

  “So we’re totally cut off,” I said. No way to call anyone on the mainland, no internet at all. Not even TV now.

  Dad nodded. “We tried to establish contact via the military,” he said. “One of the men who’s been helping here volunteered to go talk to them. But a couple of the soldiers stationed in the harbor have gotten sick, and the rest must have panicked.” He hesitated and then went on: “They shot him before he got within twenty feet of the docks.”

  “Like Uncle Emmett,” I said. The weight of all that information made me sink back down on the bed.

  “We still have a couple of the Public Health and WHO doctors working with us,” Dad said. “Most of them left before the weather started getting bad—I suppose they take the perspective that the island’s already contained, so it’s more important to focus their efforts on the mainland. They may have made more progress there. So a vaccine or a new treatment might be on the way. We just have no way of knowing when. One of the volunteers has been monitoring the best radio we can find, but so far we haven’t been able to make contact.”

  “What about supplies?” I asked. “Are the helicopters still coming?”

  “There’ve been some difficulties,” he said. “We’re working it out. We have enough food, but we’re low on several medications. Honestly, most of them weren’t having any effect, so I’m not sure it makes a great difference. And the same with the experimental plants Tessa was growing for us, unfortunately. We need the sedatives the most, to help people stay calm through the later stages.”

  “Until they die,” I said. I thought of Mom again, and my eyes prickled. I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself.

  “Not always,” he said, trying to sound cheerful but only managing pained. “You’re our fifth patient to make a full recovery. The woman who’s sharing this room with you looks as though she’ll be the sixth.”

  And how many didn’t recover? I remembered the crowd in the reception room the day I came in to find Dad, the patients lining the halls. But I didn’t think Dad would tell me if I asked. I didn’t want to see the expression his face would make. So instead I just said, “Why? How were we different?”

  “The best we can say is luck,” he said.

  I’ve been lying here for a while since Dad left, letting it all sink in. This is the part where I’m supposed to be celebrating that I survived. But all I want to do is burrow into the mattress until the devastation is finally over.

  What difference does it make that I’m still alive? It didn’t stop everything else from getting worse. Why me and not Mom, or Rachel, or Mrs. Campbell? What did I do to deserve to live, when they’re all dead, and gone, and

  I didn’t do anything at all.

  Gav came to see me this afternoon. Somehow that changed everything.

  “Hey,” he said as he nudged aside the curtain. He looked more worn out than before, and his hair was windblown and messy, but he had the same intensity in his eyes and, when he pulled down his face mask, that little almost-cocky smile.

  I was still feeling low and useless, but I made myself smile back. “Hey,” I said, and pushed myself up so I was propped against my pillow. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard you got better,” he said. “Took me a while to find your room, but everyone’s too busy to notice some random guy walking around.”

  “Well, you found me,” I said. “Come in.”

  He sat down on the stool Dad’s been using beside the bed, but he didn’t say anything else. He looked around the room, glancing back at me every few seconds as if he was afraid I might disappear if he wasn’t paying attention. It occurred to me that I probably looked sort of a mess—I got to shower in the morning, but I’d lain down with my hair wet, so it had to be sticking out funny. And the tears and the sniffling all morning wouldn’t have helped.

  Then I thought how ridiculous it was to agonize over how I looked when the alternative was being dead, and shoved those worries aside.

  “How’s the food drive going?” I asked.

  He frowned. “It’s, well, it’s gotten kind of screwed up,” he said. “You don’t want to hear about that.”

  “No, I do,” I said, even though I’d really wanted to hear it was going great. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking down. “Everything seemed to be working. But then…one of the guys got sick. Kurt. And then Vince. And the other guys weren’t so sure they wanted to keep doing the rounds. And then Quentin and a couple of them started talking, and I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention. This group of older guys has started going around town the last few weeks, breaking into houses and stores and grabbing stuff, and Quentin and his friends decided to buy their way in with them. By bringing them the warehouse key.”

  For a second I couldn’t speak. “They got everything?” I managed.

  “No,” he said. “We were lucky. Warren figured out what was going on, and we headed over there and caught them in the act. It was kind of crazy, because they have a couple of guns and it’s not like they’d hesitate to use them. But they must have decided they’d taken enough, so why waste bullets? They hot-wired the truck, so we lost that too, but we’ve still got about half the food that was left. Had to move it, of course. And now just me and Warren and Patrick are showing up to make the rounds by car. I feel like we should be doing more—we keep seeing sick people at the houses, and I think in a few there are only kids left with no one looking after them, but it’s just the three of us.”

  His voice petered out.

  “You should talk to someone here,” I said. “If you asked—”

  “No, I know how that conversation would go down,” he said. “I’d get bawled out for taking the food and trying to run the operation on my own, and they’d stick someone in charge who’ll ignore everything we’ve already sorted out. There’s no point.”

  He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t be putting this on you. I really just wanted to let you know how glad I am that you’re okay.”

  At the same time, a hopeful feeling was creeping over me. Maybe Gav thinks it couldn’t happen, but I know he’s wrong. Earlier today, I saw Mrs. Hansen, who worked in the school office, bringing a meal to the woman I’m sharing the room with, and Mr. Green, the mailman, passing by the door, and other volunteers who never worked in a hospital before.
But they are now, because they want to help just as much as Gav does. No one’s worrying about who’s in charge, as long as it’s someone who’s headed in the right direction.

  Gav needs people, and the people are here. We just have to bring them together.

  So when he was leaving, I said, “Would you come back tomorrow morning? It was good seeing you.” And he grinned and said he would.

  I can do this. I beat the virus—that’s who I am now, someone who survived. I have to prove I deserved to.

  I have to make it matter.

  I hoped having a plan of action would make the pain easier to get through. But I woke up in the middle of the night wanting Mom, her hand against my cheek, her steady voice. For a second I didn’t know. And then I did, and I remembered how Drew was gone and maybe dead too, and I never got to say good-bye to either of them. I started sobbing so loud I must have woken up the woman in the room with me, but I couldn’t stop. The tears just kept coming, until my chest ached. I was still choked up this morning when Dad came in.

  But I did what I’d planned. I told him what Gav has been up to—I could tell from the comments he made that he’d already known bits and pieces—and how he needed more people helping, for the food and the sick people and the kids. When I was done, he looked at me for a long moment, and then he said, “We’re talking about a lot of work, Kae.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But Gav can handle it, and his friend Warren’s really good at organizing everything. And I’ll help too.”

  He gave me a bit of a smile, and I started to think we were set.

  Gav showed up a half hour later. And I realized it might be harder than I’d expected. He stepped inside, saw Dad fiddling with something on his laptop, and stiffened.