Page 64 of Even Robots Die
My shorts are unscathed.
Aren’t you a drama queen? Painting your bedsheets blood red?My own mind supplies unhelpfully.
I shut it down—or, myself—and crawl back to my bed.
The next time I wake up, the pain is still there, but something near my ear sounds like it’s going to burst my brain.
It takes me a minute to realize that it’s just my holo ringing.
It wouldn’t normally ring from the start. It always starts by vibrating and rings only after four attempts from the same number.
But there’s only one number that would call me that many times in a row and dread grips me at what it could mean.
“Hey,” I answer groggily to whoever called from home.
“At last she answers,” Elodie says. There is a hint of bitterness to the tone that can only come from that one sister.
“Shush,” someone else says, but the voice that I recognize to be Amélie sounds further away. “What kept you from answering?”
I don’t hear any bitterness in her voice. Amélie is the only one who understands that I would do anything for our family and that something must have prevented me from answering earlier.
“I’m sick,” I answer, even if it’s not completely the truth. I don’t feel well, that's true, but that shit is no sickness.
My answer is greeted by a few seconds of silence.
“We can deal with it”, I hear Coralie say and her voice sounds as far as Amélie’s.
“She left us to fend for ourselves. The least she can do is help,” Elodie says, and I don’t think it was meant for me.
It’s definitely about me, but it’s not addressed to me.
It’s also absolutely not fair, but Elodie doesn’t give me enough time to reply to anything.
“Dad has disappeared again,” Elodie says. “We haven’t heard from him in two days.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask as the fuzziness of my brain disappears.
I’m still in pain, but I’m also fully awake now.
“It’s just a job. Come back home,” Elodie says, and weirdly it sounds almost like a command.
Sometimes I wonder where she finds the audacity to talk like this to people. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe she doesn’t talk the same way to the people that aren’t her siblings.
I can’t see her making a lot of friends if she does.
It’s also obvious that Amélie didn’t tell her what was going on right now. I don’t even know that she told anyone.
“It’s not that easy,” I sigh in answer.
“Make it easy,” Elodie says.
“We need the money,” Amélie tells Elodie like it explainseverything.
Sure, we need the money. It makes me think that Dad didn’t disappear with nothing and her slightly desperate tone hints that I need to refill the account at least a bit.
I should have expected that. I’m even surprised that what I put on the bank account lasted that long.
“How much?” I ask, and the sound of my words are garbled by the cramp that seizes me right at that moment.
