Pretend She's Here(72)

That meant I had to go to Boston, to the best cardiac surgeon in New England.

Dr. Cho wasn’t just in Boston—he was at Lizzie’s old hospital.

Because it was an emergency, there was no time for good-byes to Carole and other friends. Casey had been in the OR waiting room with my family, waiting for news about my condition, when the decision was made to airlift me. They let him see me, but they made him wear scrubs, including a funny-looking cap and surgical mask.

“Dr. Donoghue,” I said through an oxygen mask as he approached my gurney.

“You’re not leaving,” he said.

“I know, I refuse,” I said.

“Well, it turns out you have to,” he said.

“Stop,” I said. “It hurts to cry.”

“I sent an audio file to your phone,” he said.

My real cell phone—the one I hadn’t had the last two and a half months.

“It’s a bunch of music I played, some I wrote,” he said, “for you to listen to while you get better.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“And I have an app for texting, so you’d better text me back.”

“I will.”

The pilot and medical staff who would take me on the air ambulance—that’s what they called the plane that would transport me to Boston—were ready, so they came to get me. Anne and Bea, and Iggy and Patrick, all with surgical masks on, started to lift my stretcher, to carry me into the ground ambulance. Casey helped, too. The five of them hoisted me.

“When are you coming back?” Casey asked.

“As soon as she gets better, she can make plans,” Anne said.

“The minute the surgery’s over,” Bea said. “The second she’s ready, she’ll be in touch with you.”

“When will that be?” Casey asked.

“Tomorrow,” I said, through the oxygen mask. A doctor had slapped sensors on my chest and hooked me up to a heart monitor. A blood pressure cuff was inflating and making my bicep sore. A nurse checked my IV. Casey kissed my forehead, then the staff hustled me away. The ambulance sped to the airport. I was loaded onto a private jet, we took off and banked over the Maine woods, and that was the last I remembered until I woke up in Boston.

The surgeries weren’t exactly a piece of cake, but they were a lot better because the OR staff let me wear headphones during all of them. Casey’s music took me completely away, to a place of peaceful feelings. Sometimes the anesthesia made me hallucinate. I’d see people, strangers and friends, and imaginary creatures, including an octopus with twenty legs and pink wings. I’d see Mrs. Porter’s green eyes, but not her face, and I’d scream, but no sound would come out. Once I dreamed of flying knives. They were aimed at my mother, but I had superpowers and was able to stop each silver blade before it hit her.

Chloe often appeared to me through the haze of surgical drugs. I’d see her in that place, Casco Bay. I hated that she was locked up. Sometimes I’d forget I was in Boston and wonder if I was back in Royston. I would feel Chloe standing beside me. We were ice cold, just like all those mornings at the bus stop in the snow fort, sheltered from the wind. We’d both be stamping our feet to stay warm, listening for the school bus to come down Passamaquoddy Road, waiting in comfortable silence, almost like sisters.

Almost.





I wasn’t the same.

Twenty-five days had passed since I escaped from the Porters, and I didn’t know who I was.

Is this really where I live, this house in Black Hall, where I grew up? I found myself thinking. I love my family so much, more than ever. But I am different than I used to be.

*

The experience of being kidnapped, of being held captive for two months, changed me. No one, no matter how they try, could understand. For the first time in my life, I felt separate from my family. I actually started to wonder if I belonged.

My first night home, I slept between my parents in their bed. Nearly every other since then, I slept in Bea’s bed. She was always careful, turning over gently, trying not to jostle me. My chest still hurt, as if the knife was still in there. It would have been easier to sleep alone, but I needed my sister’s closeness. Otherwise the nightmares were too bad. When I woke up, Bea would be right there, telling me everything was okay, no one would ever take me again, no one would ever kidnap her little sister, Emily, again. Ever.

Bea said my name a lot, as if she could erase the fact that for two months I was supposed to be Lizzie.

I always thanked her. What I didn’t say was that I didn’t feel like Emily anymore.

*

The only thing that soothed me was thinking about Casey. His long silky hair, his gaze, the feeling of his lips on mine, his sea-glass-colored eyes. I tried to remember every word we ever said to each other. The feeling of his arms around me when we flew down the toboggan hill, when he held me after Mrs. Porter stabbed me, until the paramedics came.

Maybe I should have known that when I saw him at Royston Hospital, before they put me on the helicopter to Boston, it would be the last time—or it felt like the last time. He didn’t drive, and never would. I didn’t have my license yet. There were hundreds of miles between us.

So I lived for our texts. Some of his were audio files he sent me. My favorites were the ones where he played music.

Last night I dreamed of the mountain