Her brain spun with conflicting thoughts, plans, and desires. She was burning up; she checked to make sure the heat was off and then rolled down her window a bit to let in some cold air, gulping it in like it was water in a desert.
When she arrived at home, she ran upstairs and flung herself on her bed, burying her head in the pillows. She spoke to herself: Calm down, Em. Okay. Relax. Take deep breaths.
She tried to think rationally: What was her next step? The dance. She had to get to the dance and talk to JD.
She looked out her bedroom window and saw that JD’s light was off. Shit. She grabbed for her phone. Dialed his cell; let it ring. No answer. She tried his land line.
“Hey, Mel?” she asked when JD’s little sister picked up. “It’s Em. Where’s JD? I know his car isn’t there”—she didn’t care if she sounded like a stalker to a twelve-year-old—“and I need to talk to him. Like, now.”
“Hiiiii, Emmy,” Melissa drawled. “JD went to that Spring Fling thing. Weird, huh? He’s so weird recently.”
“Thanks,” Em said hurriedly before she hung up. So he was going to the dance. She found herself wondering what he would wear: a crazy tuxedo like he did last year, or one of his top hats, like he did the year before? She spun a full circle around her room. She had to get ready quickly.
With every second that passed, Em felt increasingly sure that she was making the right choice. If the Furies wanted a fight, they were going to get one. She wouldn’t let them stop her from attending the dance; she needed to find JD and Gabby and let them know how important they were to her.
She looked in the mirror.
It was time.
Somehow she’d make the Furies vanish, like smoke after a fire, or snow in the spring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Skylar drifted in and out of consciousness, riding a wave of awareness that pulled her slowly into her surroundings, allowing her to tune in to the sterile hospital room, the faint and constant beeping and buzzing, and her physical pain for just a moment before quickly tugging her back into a sea of memories. She floated helplessly, willing her thoughts back to shore but unable to escape the riptide that swirled in her brain.
Two years ago. Skylar and Lucy are getting ready for a pageant together. Skylar knows, the way you know in dreams—especially bad dreams—what’s going to happen . . . that she’s going to fumble during her talent portion, the pathetic cherry on top after a disappointing performance, and she will not even place at all in the pageant. Another dose of humiliation. Skylar wonders just how much of that she can take. Meanwhile, Lucy will wow the judges with her pure singing voice, her graceful dancing, her pulled-together look, her radiant smile. But for now they are still backstage in a dressing room. Their mother is watching them, rather listlessly, from the corner. Offering the occasional “pointer.” Lucy has already pinched Skylar’s arm. Now she is helping do Skylar’s hair. She’s pulling too hard, probably on purpose, and it hurts. Skylar screams, it hurts so much. Lucy leans down close to Skylar’s ear and whispers, “It’s supposed to hurt. Don’t you understand that, Sky-sky? Life is pain.”
Pain. Skylar moaned out loud as the wave brought her back to full consciousness. She felt pulling at her scalp—as if Lucy was here with her, scraping a brush against her head. No. She was here in the hospital. The pain at her hairline was the stitching in her skin, holding together a gash in her scalp. The glass. The snow. The memories came crashing back, along with a searing sensation of pain.
But then the pain ebbed and she floated up into an eddy of warmth. Just as quickly she started to drift away, back toward the visions. . . .
When Lucy leaves the room, Skylar is furious. What does Lucy know about pain? The anger keeps cycling in Skylar’s chest—and on every pass, it gets worse. Skylar looks around and spots Lucy’s sparkly gold pumps—the ones she always wears for the talent portion of the pageant. The talent portion, in which Lucy would excel and Skylar would fail.
She grabs the shoes and snaps off both heels with a strength she didn’t know she had. She throws them across the room. For a second her rage dissipates. But it’s not enough. She wants more. Then, the idea: manically, speedily, she opens their “emergency kit” and digs out a bottle of glue usually reserved for last-minute rhinestone emergencies. She retrieves the shoes and glues the heels back on. They look almost normal, like nothing happened. Lucy won’t be able to tell. It’s perfect. They’ll barely last until she gets onstage, and then the uneven pressure of her dance moves will break them. Skylar smiles with satisfaction, finally able to take a full breath.