Page 87 of All Your Tomorrows

My dad hurried into the waiting room, likely just locating my mother who’d taken off like a bat out of hell.

“What happened to her?” my mom asked Izzy.

“I don’t know,” Izzy said. “I found her outside the cafe where she works,” Izzy explained. “There was no blood or anything, but her pulse was almost nonexistent.”

My mother clasped her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God.”

“How do you know Nora?”

My parents exchanged a look that told me they didn’t know how to explain.

“She knows our son Kyler,” my father said.

Izzy’s eyes widened. “Kyler’s the one who helped me find her.”

“You can see him too?” my father asked.

She shook her head with tears glazing her eyes. “No. But he wrote on my foggy mirror.”

My mom exhaled a deep sigh through her tears.

“Is that how you knew to come here?” Izzy asked them.

“No. Ky’s here too,” my father explained. “His intracranial pressure readings were erratic this morning. The doctor’s relieving the pressure right now.”

“This morning?” Izzy asked.

They nodded.

“So, around the same time as whatever happened to Nora?”

“You think it’s related?” my mother asked.

Izzy shrugged. “I have no idea.”

I left the three of them and searched for my other self. I found me in the operating room, but once I passed through the door, I couldn’t get within five feet of the operating table. “Wake up,” I willed myself. “Nora needs you.”

The doctors spoke in low voices as they worked to drain the fluid from my brain. I spun away from them, but a bout of dizziness washed over me. I steadied myself before heading back into the hallway and searching for Nora’s room. Once I found it, two doctors—a male and female—stood over her, while two nurses stood nearby. The doctors’ voices were fading in and out as if I was in some kind of dream. I wondered if the pressure in my other brain was affecting this brain.

“…aortic aneurysm,” the male doctor said.

I placed my hand on Nora’s. “I’m here, Nora.”

“…CT scan,” the female doctor said.

I squeezed Nora’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“…internal bleeding,” the female doctor said.

I stared at the oxygen tubes attached to her nose. “I never got to tell you all the things I wanted to tell you. So, I think you just need to wake up so I can.”

“…blunt force trauma,” the male doctor noted.

“What happened, sweet girl?” Tears glazed my eyes. “You promised you’d be back in ten minutes.”

“She could die if it ruptures,” the female doctor said.

My head shot up. Die?

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