He shakes my hand in his, until I look at him. “It’s strange and I suppose sweet of you to want to take credit for my lousy heart, but I’m sorry to tell you it was lousy before I ever met you.”
“Yes, but on the Fourth and—”
“It doesn’t exactly make me feel all that confident to tell you this, but that’s not the first time I’ve blacked out. This isn’t the first day I’ve spent in bed.”
I press my lips together and swat away an escaping tear.
“Come here,” he says, tilting his head and shifting over on the bed. I lay next to him, on top of his blanket, fully aware of his heat penetrating through it. He wraps one arm around me and I burrow into his side.
My silent tears wet his blanket and I pray he doesn’t notice. Finn’s heart beats into my side and I count the palpitations until my eyes drift and the rhythm lulls me to sleep.
I circle until I’m dizzy—orange. Orange on the walls, my hands, my shorts, even my bare legs. My eyes burn and my chest pounds. My arms and legs ache as though I’ve been weightlifting. I am alone. So alone. There is no one with me and a small fear inside of me tells me there never will be again. I will be alone—forever. I slide down a wall of a room that I don’t recognize—an orange wall—and pull my knees to my chest. I burry my head in my hands, my heart pounding and aching inside of me. If I don’t let out my sobs I may explode, and yet if I cry any more, I’ll surely drown.
I gasp in a breath, sit up, and attempt to make sense of my surroundings. My hands tremble as I push the foreign blanket off of my quivering legs to stand from this unfamiliar bed. There are tears in my eyes. I blink them away and wipe at the wetness on my cheeks. I cried in my dream—and in real life, it seems.
A TV in the corner lights up with an old show I don’t recognize, but the style and hair say ‘80s. It’s muted and when my mind wraps around the fact, I blow out a sigh.
Finn’s room.
I’m still in Finn’s room.
I’ve never had a dream take me in quite like that one. I’ve also never woken up in Finn’s room.
“Finn?” I whisper his name as if he may be hiding in the closet. Jetting for the door, I open it to the bright hall light. I squint, my retina’s burning from the sudden brightness. Finn’s room is disturbingly dark, and in that moment of my fear and confusion, I am determined to change it.
I jostle down the stairs on my not yet awake legs, still trying to shake off the dream that I know I’ll either have to find and live or face every night when I close my eyes. The thought brings on tears again, but I sniff them back and put on a very fake—all is well face.
The entire Matthews family sits at the kitchen table on the second floor. Finn has pants on—I immediately flush with the thought. “Hey,” I say, a little breathless. I’m pretty sure my tan cheeks have gone cherry red.
“Hey.” Finn stands from the table and walks toward me.
“Esther, what day of the week were you born?” Marley’s nose is in a book, she pushes her round glasses up with the back of her hand.
“Ahh, I don’t know.”
She waves a hand. “No matter. I’ll figure it out.” She’s all but back to normal.
I slip my phone out of my back pocket. “Ten? Crap.”
Finn’s lip curls in a remorseful grimace. “Yeah.”
“Why’d you let me sleep so long?” I bite the end of my thumb nail, feeling totally awkward. “Umm, sorry.” I point to the staircase, looking past Finn at his parents, praying they realize nothing happened.
Marley sets her book down, her long hair falling over her shoulders. “You’ve been up there alone the past two hours, Esther. If you’re tired—”
“I’m fine. I just—I need to get home. My uncle and—well, see you guys.”
Finn follows my flight to the stairs. He groans when his long oxygen tubing doesn’t reach to the third stair down. “Esther,” he says, ripping the cord from his face.
I stop, not wanting him to come any farther without his oxygen. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are you embarrassed? Or upset?” His face contorts with concern and confusion and it’s so ridiculously cute on him.
I sigh and drop my tense shoulders. “A little embarrassed—not upset. It’s just later than I realized. I don’t want to worry my uncle.”
“But you seem a little—”
Totally distraught by a dream I don’t understand, I think. Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about that. “Horrified?” I say instead. “I’m still traumatized by waking up in basically a black cave. Tomorrow we talk paint colors.”
“You’ll never talk Marley into moving everything out of my room just so you can—”
“You have free reign,” Marley yells from the upper floor. “Do whatever you want, Essie!”
I bounce my brows once before heading out into the cool night air.
26
Tears run down Cytha’s face. It’s been so long since I’ve told her what’s been happening here—with me, with Finn, with Rodrick’s family.
“Dang. I wish I had a car. If I had a car, I would be there tomorrow.”
“I’m okay.”
“You cried.”
“I cry,” I say, but we both know that I don’t—at least, it’s not a common occurrence.
“You kissed him.”
I bite my lip—that one I can’t deny, I don’t even want to.
“You love him,” she swoons.
“I never said that. You’re taking what I’ve said and—”
“Oh, shut up.” She wipes the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “You do—even if you’re too stupid to realize it just yet.” She blows her nose and a shuddering breath escapes her. “You’ve been praying.”
I wring my fingers together, out of the sight of my phone’s camera. Finn is still in his bed, after almost a week—yes, I’m praying, every silent minute I’m talking to the God who thought it would be okay to make me an orphan. “I have to,” I say, but the words are so quiet, I’m not even sure she heard them.
“So, how are we going to find this orange place?” Cytha’s eyes roam her ceiling in thought.
I scratch my head and rub at a spot behind my ear mindlessly. “I don’t know.” But the truth is, I don’t want to find the orange room. The pain that consumed me in that room is something I can’t adequately describe to Cytha. I don’t know how to make her understand the level of grief that room held. I have no desire to go there. I’ve seen that room and felt its pain for the past six nights.
“So, you just go hang out in Finn’s bedroom every night?”
“Pretty much.”
“That won’t work. You’ll eventually have to go somewhere else if you’re going to—.”
“Cyth,” I say, standing from my crossed legs on my bedroom floor, “I’m not going to go search for this room. If it wants me, it can find me. Okay?”
“Okay, geez. Just trying to help.”