Skylar couldn’t help but flash back to the time she broke her ankle in fifth grade during recess: how empty her hospital room had been (her mom outside flirting with the disinterested doctor, Lucy not bothering to visit at all), how bored she’d been as she healed at home. She didn’t get one bouquet, and Lucy had made a game of placing things she wanted—soda, chocolate—just out of her reach. “It’s physical therapy,” Lucy had said.
She couldn’t do this right now. She’d had too much of hospitals in her life. Her gut screamed that she should turn on her heel and hightail it away from room 125. She couldn’t handle seeing all those people—not to mention Gabby herself—until she had things more under control. She froze, ready to make a run for it. But then her stomach sank as she remembered: the evidence. The cream. She was so stupid not to have thought of it before. Someone was going to find out—if they hadn’t already—that Gabby’s La Mer skin cream was dosed with clam juice. If she kept using it, she would continue to have these reactions. And once that came out, it would be an all-out hunt to find out how it had happened. Who had done it. She had to destroy the evidence. But first, she had to make an appearance at Gabby’s bedside. Not to do so would only call attention to herself.
She pushed herself forward and hovered in the doorway of the hospital room until a nurse needed to get by. “Coming through,” the woman said. As the crowd parted to let the nurse by, Gabby spotted Skylar at the back of the room, and her face broke into a brave, warm smile. It lacerated Skylar’s resolve; she hoped her flushed cheeks would be interpreted as concern.
“Sky,” Gabby said softly, motioning Skylar closer to the bed. “I’m so happy you came.” Her parents were sitting on either side of her, looking haggard yet relieved. Their baby was safe.
Skylar thought that if guilt had a smell, it would be of cheap air fresheners or drugstore body oil—and she could swear that she was practically sweating the stuff.
“How are you doing, Gabs?” she asked as she approached the bed. “I’m so sorry that this happened. So sorry.”
“Hey, I’ll be fine,” Gabby said. “I’m just grateful that Em found me.”
Skylar nodded mutely. Then the nurse started shooing people out of the room: “That’s enough excitement for now.” Skylar was grateful for the excuse to leave. She didn’t even wait for the elevator at the end of the hall; instead, she took the stairs down, two at a time. There wasn’t much time to waste.
“Done so soon?” Aunt Nora looked up from her magazine as Skylar threw open the passenger-side door.
“Yeah,” Skylar said breathlessly. “Um, we need to go by Gabby’s house. She—she needs me to do something for her.”
“Right now?” Aunt Nora searched Skylar’s face, the wrinkles between her eyes furrowing with concern.
“Yeah . . . it’s—it’s something for school,” Skylar said, zipping and unzipping her fleece nervously as she talked. “For the dance! I need to get this list from her desk and send out some emails later.” Skylar tried to sound as chipper as she could. “It’ll only take a second.”
She knew no one would be home at the Doves’. She’d seen Gabby’s mom and dad had been at the hospital, and Skylar was almost certain that they would stay with their daughter until she was ready to be released. Skylar made Nora drive all the way up the winding driveway, and then she went in the back door and ran upstairs. The cream was sitting uncapped on Gabby’s dresser. It didn’t look like it had been touched since “the incident.” Jesus. It must have happened so fast. With a shudder, she replaced the lid and pocketed the small jar, feeling a small sense of relief as soon as it was in her possession. Maybe she hadn’t lost control after all. . . .
? ? ?
“I just . . . I feel really shitty,” Skylar told Meg on the phone later that evening. “Gabby’s never been anything but nice to me, and I’m the reason she’s in the hospital!” She was lying on her creaky bed, staring up at the wooden slats on the ceiling. The cream was safely tucked beneath her rattiest T-shirts in a drawer. She wondered how long it would take Gabby to notice it was missing. The clam juice was in her bag, to be thrown away at school tomorrow.
“Skylar, don’t beat yourself up,” Meg said. Her voice sounded far away. “You had no idea the reaction would be as bad as it was.”
“But I can’t believe I did it at all,” Skylar said. “This . . . this isn’t me.” Anymore. “What kind of person would do that?”
“Sky. Sweetie. You didn’t mean for it to go this far, right? It was an accident, right? Just a practical joke that went a little too far. If anyone ever finds out—which they won’t—your story is totally kosher.”