One of Us Is Next(77)
He does, and I hold it to my ear. “Hello, help, I don’t know what to do next,” I say shakily. “I got her on her side and she threw up so she’s not choking anymore, but she’s also not moving. She’s hardly breathing and I can’t, I don’t know—”
“All right, honey. You did good. Now listen so I can help you.” The voice on the other end is no-nonsense but soothing. “An ambulance is on the way. I’m gonna ask you a few questions, and then we’ll know what to do until they get there. We’re in this together, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. Tears start slipping down my cheeks, and I take a deep breath to steady myself. I try to focus on the woman’s voice, instead of fixating on the two questions that keep rattling around in my brain.
Mine: How could you do this?
And Owen’s: Who poisoned her?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Maeve
Friday, March 27
My sister is crushing me, but in the nicest possible way.
It’s Friday afternoon, and I’ve only been home from school for half an hour. Bronwyn, who just took a Lyft from the airport, has her arms wrapped around my shoulders while I press my phone to my ear in my bedroom, trying to make sense of what Phoebe is telling me. “Well, that’s good, right?” I ask.
“I think so.” Phoebe sounds exhausted. When she didn’t show up at school today, I was worried something else might have happened with Intense Guy. Knox and I sent her a bunch of increasingly urgent check-in texts, and she finally answered one during lunch to let us know she was at the hospital with Emma. She’d been there most of last night, she said, until her mom insisted she go home and try to sleep. She went back first thing this morning.
“They’re still giving her fluids, but they stopped the oxygen therapy,” Phoebe says now. “They say there shouldn’t be any long-term effects. But they’re talking about addiction treatment when she leaves the hospital. Like rehab or something. I don’t even know.”
“Did Emma say why she’s been drinking?” I ask.
“No. She hasn’t been awake much, though.” Phoebe sighs through the phone, long and weary. “It’s just one thing after another in this family.”
My throat tightens. Before I heard about Emma, I’d been itching to tell Phoebe everything we’d learned about Intense Guy last night, and press her to think harder about whether she might have come across him before. But I can’t put that on her now. One crisis at a time. “Can I do anything to help?” I ask.
“Thanks, but I can’t think of anything. I should go. I need to make my mom eat something. I just wanted to let you know Emma will survive.” She says it lightly, like it was never in question, but I’ve been anxious ever since her text came through earlier today. All I could think was Phoebe can’t lose anybody else.
“Text if you need me,” I say, but Phoebe’s already disconnected. I drop my phone so I can hug my sister back. Her familiar apple-green shampoo smell engulfs me, and I relax for the first time in days. “Welcome home,” I say, my words muffled against her shoulder. “Sorry Bayview is a horrible mess again. I missed you.”
When she finally lets go, we settle onto my window seat. Our usual spot, just like she never left. Both our parents are still at work, so the rest of the house is quiet. “I don’t even know where to start with everything that’s been happening around here,” Bronwyn says, folding one leg beneath her. She’s wearing black leggings and a fitted V-neck Yale T-shirt. Points to her for a cute, yet comfortable, airplane outfit. “Emma is all right, though?”
“Yeah. Phoebe says she will be.”
“God.” Bronwyn shakes her head, eyes wide. “This town is falling apart. And you…” She grabs one of my hands and gives it a shake. “I’m mad at you. I’ve been fighting with you in my head all week. How could you not tell me what you were going through?” Her face is an equal mix of affection and reproach. “I thought we told each other everything. But I didn’t have a clue any of this was happening until it was already over.”
“It turned out to be nothing,” I say, but she only tugs harder on my hand.
“Spending weeks thinking you’re deathly ill again isn’t nothing. And what if you’d lost valuable treatment time? You can’t do that, Maeve. It’s not fair to anyone.”
“You’re right. I was…” I hesitate, looking at our intertwined hands as I try to come up with the right words. “The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever really believed I’d make it out of high school. So I tried not to get too attached to people, or let them get too attached to me. It’s just easier for everyone that way. But I could never do that with you. You wouldn’t let me. You’ve always been right here, getting in my face and making me feel things.” Bronwyn makes a tearful, strangled sound and squeezes my hand harder. “I guess, while you were gone, I forgot how that’s actually better.”
Bronwyn is crying for real now, and I am, too. We cling to each other for a few minutes and let the tears flow, and it feels like washing away months of regret for all the things I should have said and done differently. You can’t change the past, Luis said the night he made me ajiaco in the Café Contigo kitchen. All you can do is try harder next time.