A World Without You(75)

Already, I can feel the timestream pulling me further and further away. Phoebe is slipping through my fingers, evaporating before my eyes.

“It’s all a lie!” I shout with all my might, flinging the words across time and space. “It’s a lie! I’m not sick! Don’t let them tell you that! You know the truth!”

Despite the fact that I’m shouting, my words are nearly whispers. Phoebe’s face blanches, and she grabs at me. Our hands slide away from each other, as if we were both made of water.

“I’m not sick!” I scream, but Phoebe can’t hear me anymore.





CHAPTER 51




My eyes open, but I can’t see anything. My vision is blurry, and my head feels fuzzy. I’m in my room at the Berk, the painted walls covered with scraps of art I drew or posters from home, my closet an odd mirror to the one I have at home—everything that wasn’t there is here. I shift in the bed. I’m not wearing my clothes; I’m wearing an odd sort of medical robe. There’s a bandage around my elbow and a Band-Aid on the top of my hand.

“Wake up, *.”

My attention focuses on the doorway. “Ryan,” I mutter.

“Man, you are really messed up.”

“Huh?” I strain against the fatigue, trying to focus on Ryan’s face.

But when I look again, he’s not there.

I struggle to sit up, but it’s like I’ve been buried under sand. There’s movement by the door again, but this time I see Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh. I thought they had gone. They cluck their tongues as they walk by, almost comically, their movements long and swinging. I rub my eyes, not sure if I really even saw them. I’m left, however, with a rising sense of dread filling my stomach. Real or not, I know I can’t trust those people.

Wait. What am I saying? It does matter if they’re real. It matters if I’m just . . .

Hallucinating.

Had I even been home at all? My shift to my parents’ world was sudden—maybe the timestream threw me back here violently, far more violently than it ever has before.

I try to call up the timestream. Maybe it has answers. But I cannot control my power—I can barely focus enough to stay awake.

And then I can’t even do that anymore.

? ? ?

I wake up to the sensation of someone sitting at the foot of my bed. I keep my eyes shut. I’m tired. But then I smell lemons and lavender, the same scent as Sofía’s shampoo, and I shoot up in bed.

She’s here.

“How . . . ?” I start, shocked.

Sofía smiles. “You came here in your sleep,” she says. And then she frowns. “If you’re randomly showing up places while you’re asleep . . . You’re losing control, aren’t you?”

I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know anymore.”

“You’re losing control,” she says firmly, “and you need to wake up.”

“Bo?”

I open my eyes. The fuzziness is gone, but the grogginess remains. The Doctor sits in a stiff-backed chair by my bed.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You were briefly treated at a local facility, and then your parents sent you back here.”

That doesn’t really answer my question at all.

“Bo,” Dr. Franklin says in a kind voice. “I want to be honest with you, and I want you to be honest with me.”

I nod as I peel the bandage off the back of my hand. There’s a puncture mark over my vein.

“Can you tell me why you’re at Berkshire Academy?”

Because I can control time. And you can heal. And we have powers, powers normal people wouldn’t understand.

“Because I’m not normal,” I say.

“You are normal,” Dr. Franklin says immediately. “But can you be more specific about your reason for being at Berkshire?”

I can tell him what he wants to hear. “I’m crazy.”

Dr. Franklin shakes his head. “You’re not. But you do have some needs that have to be addressed. We’ve changed your medication again. Are you feeling any negative side effects?”

“I don’t know,” I say. My eyes slide over to the window, to the sunlight slicing through the iron bars in front of the glass. “Where are Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh?”

“They’re gone,” Dr. Franklin says, sighing. He sounds frustrated, angry, but I’m not sure if it’s at me or at the situation. “Bo, we’re going to increase the frequency of your therapy sessions,” he continues after a moment. “Your lessons are on hold until we can get you the right balance of medication and therapy.”

He reaches over and puts his hand over mine. “I’m concerned about you, Bo. And I’m concerned that you’re not processing what happened to Sofía.”

Sofía was just here, I think. She was here, and I saw her. I felt her. She was real.

As real as he is.

Before I can think about it, I yank my hand away from the bed and rake my fingernails over the back of his, clawing him and scraping his skin away. I watch the red welts rise up on his wrist.

“That hurt, Bo,” Dr. Franklin says, jerking away and staring down at his hand. “Why would you do that?”

“To see if you can heal.”