Page 107 of Dead Set on You
His throat bobs. “She—she wanted to see you.”
I cackle, feeling unhinged. Feeling torn between the need to march in there and tell her to leave and the need to run far, far from here. “Why would she want—” The rest of the question burns my throat. “No,” I breathe. I move forward on autopilot.
Rafael steps forward, blocking my path.
I stop short, startled. “What … what are you doing?”
“Gemma’s in there with Margot,” he says. “She can’t do anything.”
I gape up at Rafael. “She can doeverything,” I say, desperate to make him understand—to let me pass. “If Margot is here … if she made an actual effort to come here, it’s because she wants to stop the sedation. Feeding tube. Whatever medical intervention.” Air becomes scarce. “Haven’t you been listening toanythingI said?”
“She can’t do that,” Rafael says.
“She can,” I glance past him, to the door, to where Margot is at. “She’s my next of kin. She can do whatever she pleases on my behalf.”
Rafael pales, like he’s finally seeing what I’m seeing. Because if she’s here, the decision for what happens next falls to my mother. The same mother who doesn’t stay sober for anything other than putting in for another disability check or some sort of government aid to sustain her while she screws around. And now she’s sorting it out with Gemma—making decisions for me.
She’s on the other side of the door. Margot, her bleached-blond hair and her overdone makeup, arriving at the hospital and making it about herself. How it’sherdaughter on the bed. How much it hurtsherthat I’m suffering. How unfair life has been toherto have taken not one but two ofhergirls.
She’s here to bask in the attention, soak up the sympathy, and see if she can make a free buck out of the situation. Then she’ll have the doctors turn off the machines because of Jacob Moses, one of her loser boyfriends, who convinced her modern medicine is a conspiracy. It’s why we weren’t vaccinated and why we didn’t see doctors. It’s why Annie didn’t get the proper treatment, why she’s gone.
I want to scream until my throat’s raw, until the world shifts back into something that makes sense.
No matter how far I’ve run to get away from her, she’s the one who’s going to end it.
I rub my chest, begging my lungs to draw in air.
“When did you know?” I ask Rafael. It hurts everywhere, almost as bad as it hurts to look at him. An hour ago, I was readyto give him my Big Secret, and now … I don’t remember what I wanted to say. “How long have you known Gemma was looking for my mother?”
Rafael swallows, then shrugs. “She started looking a few days after the accident, but her searches yielded nothing.”
I stare at him. “So you’ve known fordays? And you didn’t think to mention that Gemma was out there looking for my mother?” I can’t control the sharp edge of accusation in my voice or the hurt slipping through. “Why didn’t you tell me Gemma wanted to find her? Why didn’t you stop her?”
“I didn’t know about your mom—your history—a few days ago,” Rafael says. “And once you showed up? I was distracted, okay? You were here, and we were going to figure out how to get you back. I didn’t check in with Gemma to see if she’d found your mom.”
I clutch my midsection, feeling ready to throw up. “So at no point between tango lessons and midnight swims did you thinkHey, maybe I should mention this very important thing to Evie, with whom I’ve been spending almost every minute of my day?Maybe she would care about something like her best friend seeking out a mother she barely even mentioned?’ ” My voice is a rasp. “How very Rafael Vela of you!”
His stance stiffens. “What does that even mean?”
I step toward him, emboldened by how anger numbs everything. “It means that you can’t be bothered to take a step back and think things through. You never have. I mean, why would you? Everything is rainbows and butterflies in your world! You smile and the world parts for you.” He flinches now. “The worst part is that I let myself be Vela’d, and I can’t blame anyone but myself. I’ve sat beside you for years—I’ve seen you in action. I should have known better than to drop my guard and focus on anything but figuring out how to fix myself.” I take a deep breath, feeling like I’m being picked apart molecule by molecule. “I was nothing but one of those girls who forgets how to use herbrain because of some guy with dimples and a tattoo.” Another molecule has been picked off, and another. “And now? Now I’m going to die because I didn’t plan when it counted most. How’s that for sticking to every checklist except the one that was literally a matter of life or death?”
The muscle in his cheek jerks. “Are you mad at me or yourself?”
I blink at him, furious. “I should have never thought we could work together again. I should have done this on my own, without all this”—I gesture toward his body, which has somehow moved closer to mine—“distracting me and making me feel like I can’t catch a breath.” His eyes. Lips. Hands. All the parts of him that have been making me forget about my plans. It’s a low blow, one that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but I can’t stop my hurt from pouring out. “I should have never trusted this to work. It was doomed from the start.”
Hurt flashes in his eyes. “If that’s how you feel,” he says.
I sniff, angry and devastated, and I hate that he’s just taking it. “What do you care about how I feel?” I laugh through tears, because I can feel this ghost-form becoming undone—molecules separating in bigger pieces now—and it makes me desperate enough to say things I shouldn’t.
“If you had cared, you wouldn’t have kept so many secrets from me. Quitting Media Lab. Gemma being your friend. The Art Betton thing. And I thought you were abadliar!”
“Evie.” His one word has me halting.
“Rafael,” I parry, not caring that he’s telling me it’s enough. A point of no return. But I’ve always liked a challenge—and it’s not like I have anything else to lose, because it’s all gone. Or—at best—dangling by a thread.
I draw in another shaky breath. “Do you know that Margot couldn’t be bothered to fill Annie’s scripts on time? Or that the night Annie died, my mother threatened us with foster care if we didn’t shut up about her feeling unwell?” I’m huffing throughtears. “This is the same mother who didn’t call or text, not once in fifteen years—the one who ishere.”
“Evie, I’m so—” His gaze softens, as if none of the hurtful things I’ve said matter.
