Page 1 of Sing for Me
CHAPTER ONE
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Megara
The white walls of the Emergency Room are blinding. The beige and brown tile floors, the ones with the crisscross pattern, are somehow too bright and too full at once.
The chairs are too green.
Too slick.
The vinyl is too hard.
And the beds—they're all wrong. The sheets are that same shade of soft blue, impossibly muted from a thousand and one washes in scalding hot water.
But I can't look at them without seeing Rosie.
Her blue lips.
Her pale skin.
Those track marks on her arms.
I close my eyes, but that doesn't help. I still see her. Not the empty vessel of her no longer breathing body, but the lively high school senior modeling her fuchsia prom dress, and reminding me of her cover story in case Mom or Dad got off work early.
The proud UCLA graduate, tossing her royal blue cap into the air.
The knowing older sister who plopped on my bed to fill me in on her date and tease me about being all work and no play.
She was here last week.
Then she was in one of those beds.
Now, she's gone.
My stomach twists, but it doesn't hurt. My heart doesn't hurt. My muscles don't ache.
Every part of me is numb.
Dr. Nguyen shoots me a concerned look. "You ready to go, Meg?"
No. And she knows it. This is too soon. Back to working as a scribe a week after my sister...
I shouldn't be here.
But there's nowhere else I want to be.
There's nowhere I want to be, period.
I nod back at her. "I'm ready."
She doesn't believe me, but she doesn't call me on it.
***
It's a twenty minute walk home. After a quick shower, I boot up my laptop to stream the Los Angeles alternative rock station KROQ, and I collapse in bed.
There's nothing interesting on social media. Or on any of the news sites I frequent. Not that anything interests me right now.
