Frost - Marianna Baer

just too tired to be surprised.

“I don’t understand why this had to happen.”

You’re safe now, Leena. Admit what you’ve always known.

“What?” I said. “Admit what?”

Why it’s all happened. Why all your pain has happened.

A wave of marrow-deep fatigue swept through me. I needed

to sleep—for a week, a month, more—I couldn’t imagine I could

ever sleep enough.

I drifted off, who knows for how long, but woke when a

steady beep, beep, beep filled my ears. I forgot where I was,

thought it was my alarm clock. I tried to move, to turn it off, but

couldn’t. Then I remembered.

Nausea swelled in my stomach. The beeping grew louder.

Louder.

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The fire alarm?

Had David . . . ?

I reached for the doorknob. My hand could barely stretch

that high, my arm was so heavy. I was fighting against more than

gravity. I finally felt the knob, turned, and pushed. Nothing. The

door wouldn’t move. The bolt. Had I locked it? No, I hadn’t. The

sickness in my gut radiated out.

I lowered my arm.

Your body won’t let you leave . It knows what you need.

Another pill.

Maybe that would help. Something for energy. This house

always knew what I needed, from the beginning. Hadn’t it? I

slipped another in my mouth. My eyes shut. I lifted my arm again

and tried to reach up. Too tired. The alarm blared. He wouldn’t

really have done that, would he? Why would he do it now? I was

so confused.

Footsteps thudded nearby, shook the house.

“Leena?” A voice called from far, far away.

I tried to reach for the door. Gravity’s cold nails trapped my

arms on the floor. Tried again. Nothing. Now it wasn’t just trying

to move that was hard, it was trying to breathe. Bricks, walls

tumbled on top of me. Pressed me down. Down toward the earth.

Squeezing my chest.

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A surge ripped through me, vomited through my listless

body. The burn. The stink. I had to get out.

Out there are people who don’t want you , the walls

whispered. In here is where you belong .

Was that true? It felt true, inside my bones. My poor, tired

bones. Inside my poor, sick gut. But somehow . . .

“Leena?” The door trembled, the knob wiggled back and

forth. “Leena, are you in there?” The door wasn’t locked; still,

they couldn’t open it. I knew they wouldn’t be able to. Just like

David hadn’t been able to, that day so many weeks ago.

They don’t want you. None of them. Her voice filled the

space. Could they hear her, outside the door? Look what you’ve

let them do to you. There’s nowhere for you to go.

“That’s not how it is,” I said back. “Things happen. You can’t

stop things from happening.”

Yes, you can. In here.

My arm. Would. Not. Move.

I’ll protect you , she cooed. You can’t do it yourself. You’re too weak. That’s why you came in here. You knew it the first time you

saw the house. You knew you needed it.

“Someone’s out there. Looking for me.”

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You’ve never been strong enough , she said. If you were

strong, you wouldn’t have been with David. Admit it, Leena.

I’d tried not to be with him, but it hadn’t worked. That was

true. And now look.

Now you know he never loved you. And you’re too weak to

take the pain.

“He did love me.”

Weak, stupid Leena. I told you not to be with him. But you

couldn’t resist. You couldn’t stop yourself from needing.

“No. I chose . I wasn’t weak.” Shudders rippled through me.

Another surge of vomit.

It’s okay, Leena. I know. I know you aren’t strong enough. But

I love you anyway.

“Leena?” More thumping. “Are you okay? Leena, let us know

if you’re in there. Please. We don’t know if it’s a fire drill, or what,

but we have to get out. Why won’t you come out?”

Admit it , she hissed. You’ll never be okay. Not out there.

David was right. You’re the sick one.

“No,” I whispered.

This voice—Cubby, the closet, the walls—it wasn’t me.

Wasn’t from any place inside of me.

You ’re the sick one.

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Thumping. “Leena, please !”

Nothing emerged from my mouth because someone held my

tongue, pressed it back into my throat so I couldn’t speak,

couldn’t breathe. I began to gag. I tilted my gaze to the floor, to

my arms. Visualized raising them up. But I couldn’t. Only one

hand. One hand moved. Lifting it was like lifting the whole house.

I reached up with my last bit of energy, reached up with that one

hand and scratched at the door. My fingernails scraped against

the wood. Once, twice.

“Did you hear that?” someone outside said.

Scratched once more. All I had in me.

I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, except for the voice. Stay with

me , she cooed, over and over . I’m the only one who wants you .

After I reached the heaviest place, so heavy I thought my body

was being obliterated, I felt a release, a lightness. Like when

you’ve held your arms against a doorframe and then walk out and

they fly up. I flew up. Up and out and high and wide and all over

and circling and spreading. And no more containment. Just me,

energy, spreading into wood and plaster and brick and floating in

the air and filling the space. An angel after all. No more body

keeping me tied down. The body was still there, I just wasn’t in it.

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Chapter 41

SUN-STREAMS POURED IN from the arched window. Dust

particles shimmered in the pathway.

“Would it sound really weird,” I asked Viv, my eyes shifting

away from the light, “if I told you that part of me . . . part of me

didn’t come back?”

“Didn’t come back?” she said.

“You know, after the paramedics got to me.”

Viv reloaded the nail polish brush and stroked the pearly

white liquid over my left thumbnail. She’d come down to see me

at my dad’s condo. “Well, it kind of makes sense,” she said. “I

mean, we have this life-force energy, right? Who’s to say that

some of yours wasn’t released when your body thought it was the

end. Like a leak in an inflatable raft that’s then patched up. Right?

The air that escapes never comes back.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I just . . . I

feel like I left something behind. I never would have believed that,

before. I mean, it sounds so stupid. It’s the kind of kooky thinking

I’d have made fun of.”

The springs of the sofa bed creaked as Viv shifted her weight.

“I suppose,” she said, “a lot was different before.”

Before.

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Before, I knew so many things. About David and Celeste.

About myself. About real and unreal. I built a fort out of all of

these things I knew.

That day in Frost House, the fort collapsed.

Afterward, I searched back through the semester, trying to

find new facts to build with. But just as I was ready to nail one

down, it would disintegrate in my hands.

Information came to me slowly.

All I grasped at first was that I’d nearly died from a

combination of the pills I’d taken and carbon monoxide poisoning.