“What’s that?”
“A man with a bad foot,” I said. “Who killed his dad.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
In this short expanse of silence, it occurred to me that the pain had lessened a little. Shallow breaths didn’t hurt anymore. I could keep my eyes open despite the shrieking light from the windows.
But there was still something wrong. Something big, waiting in the corners of the room. Looming half seen, like my swollen nose.
A memory flitted past, maybe of a dream: Sebastian sitting next to Grandmother in the visiting chairs, knitting either end of the same scarf. Listening as I snuffled in my sleep. Judging me.
They leave us with broken parts.
Suddenly, I didn’t want Bellamy to leave me here alone.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
“Quicksand,” she began. “Spontaneous combustion. Those toilets atthe airport that flush before you stand up. Pants walking around with no one in them. Being picked last. And slongers.”
“What are slongers?” I asked.
“The people in our basement. They cry at night, because they don’t like being dead.”
“They aren’t real,” I said.
She giggled a little. “But walking pants are?”
“Quicksand isn’t as bad as you think.”
At one of the Seths’ kabaddi tournaments, they’d dumped a thousand pounds of corn starch into a swimming pool for us kids to play in. The resulting fluid was weird, devious, and grasping if you moved too quickly. But no one had drowned.
Divya Seth had been disappointed.
“Maybe if they were robot pants,” Bellamy mused. “I’m not supposed to stand still this long.”
Her fingers gripped the handles of the walking frame, and she pushed herself into motion. Her legs were wobbly, her arms straining. Every movement put a grimace on her face. The frame squeaked with the rhythm of her steps.
As I watched, something strange began to happen—my body twinged in time with her slow, careful movements. As if a hundred tiny strings connected us. My muscles to hers, her nerves to mine.
Somehow it was hurting me, watching Bellamy walk.
Finally she came to a halt, close enough to sniff the flowers by my bed.
“These are nice. But the vases here are the color of lungs.”
She was right—hospital pink. “My grandpa sent them.”
“What areyouafraid of?” Bellamy asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
She shook her head. “No one’s that brave.”
I thought about the missing piece that waited for me. “If I told you, you’d be scared too.”
Bellamy grinned. “Sometimes I like being scared.”
Her invitation was an honest one, but the missing thing was too big to talk about.
