Being Me(Inside Out 02)(59)
Brandy points to the front of the room. “We’re being summoned.”
I glance up to find Chris and Dylan waving us forward and a few minutes later I have caved to the impossible. I’ve agreed to watch Friday the th with Chris and Dylan while Brandy and Sam have agreed to go home and get some much-needed rest.
Three hours later, Chris and I have curled onto the hospital lounge chair by Dylan’s bed, with Chris’s painting of Freddy and Jason propped on a roller table, when our horror flick finally ends. Dylan hasn’t stopped laughing at my yelps and complaints, and his pleasure is music to my ears. He is such an amazing kid.
He deserves to live.
Chris picks up the remote to the DVD player, turns it off, and checks the clock. “It’s eleven o’clock. You better go to sleep, Dylan.”
I grimace. “Sleep for both us, Dylan. I sure won’t be getting any myself.”
Dylan laughs and snuggles down into the bed. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”
Chris and I share a look and I nod my agreement. “We’re right here, buddy,” Chris assures him and he lowers the lounge chair downward like a bed. I curl up with my back to his front and his arm wraps around me.
Dylan dims the lights with the button on his bed and I close my eyes. I’m exhausted. It’s been an insanely crazy day, full of jagged edges and twists and turns.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Chris whispers in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.
“Me, too,” Dylan whispers, clearly having overheard.
“Me, too,” I reply to them both. It’s been a day full of jagged edges, twist and turns, and bittersweet discovery.
Chapter Eighteen
He is everything I am, and everything I am not. I do not remember where I begin and he ends, or where he ends and I begin. He is my Master. I am his slave. I’m struggling to remember who I was before he was. It’s terrifying to think that I could give myself to him this completely when I know he has not done the same for me. What will I be when he is gone? Do I dare stay and find out the answer is nothing? And what will he do if I tell him I’m leaving?
I jerk awake with one of the final chilling entries in one of Rebecca’s journals spinning in my mind. Sunlight beams into the hospital room, which is empty but for me, and I realize Dylan and Chris are gone.
A piece of paper crinkles under my hand and I lift it to find Chris’s handwriting. Snuck Dylan out for secret meeting with kitchen and a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. We have to get to the hotel and shower by ten. The nurse left you an overnight kit in the bathroom.
I glance at the clock and it’s a.m. I can’t believe Chris and
I both knocked out this hard and long on a lounge chair. I stand up and stretch and head to the bathroom, taking my phone with me in case Chris calls. On the sink, under the small bag of toiletries, is a folded newspaper I’m clearly meant to see. I pick it up and blink at a photo of me with Chris and Dylan, and Chris has scribbled, Mark should be happy. I frown a moment until the light bulb goes off. Oh yes, Mark will be happy. Chris and I have on our Allure shirts and they are clearly visible. I snap a picture of the paper and text it to Mark. I’ve barely opened my new toothbrush before Mark replies. The shirt looks better on you than Chris. I stare at the message and let out a short laugh. Huh. This is one of those off-the-wall replies Mark gives me in e-mails, and apparently text messages, where he seems more man than Master. There’s more to him than his stiff “Ms. McMillan this, Ms. McMillan that,” and I wonder if he really is the man in the journals. Somehow, I can’t see the Master Rebecca has written about making jokes like this one or ending an e-mail quoting The Hunger Games with “may the odds be forever in your favor,” as he once did to me. I type a reply and delete it two times and then snatch my toothbrush.
Why am I fretting over a text to Mark?
A few minutes later I’ve combed my tangled mess of hair into order, and my equally brown eyes seem to make my pale skin two shades paler, which is pretty darn pale. But it doesn’t matter as it might have just twenty-four hours ago. Watching these kids and their families fight for their very lives has given me perspective on my own insecurities. It also makes me think about how important living in the now is, how easily life can be ripped away, as it was for my mother, and for Chris’s. No matter how terrifying the ultimate decision is, I have to resign from my teaching job on Monday.
I leave the bathroom and walk back into Dylan’s room, thinking I will share this decision with Chris, to find I’m still alone. The sound of voices draw my gaze to the half-opened door where I glimpse Brandy in deep conversation with a man in scrubs and a white coat, and she doesn’t look happy. The man I assume to be the doctor squeezes her shoulder and walks away.