The Wall

I put my hands to my hair and moaned. My head felt like it was splitting open.

Apella stood protectively between Addy and me and told everyone to leave in a sliced-back tone I didn’t recognize. I needed to rest. The last thing I saw was a needle being pushed into my IV and Joseph’s sad, sad face sliding together with my son’s smiling one.

I sat in the hospital bed for three days, going crazy. People were around me all the time and I hated it. I hated the look in their eyes, the way they recoiled when they saw my bruises, the way they rushed to my side every time I swayed. I hated it. But more than anything else, I hated what it had done to Joseph. He just didn’t know what to do with himself. He would reach out to touch me, and then his hands would wither away before they got to me like a leaf under a blowtorch. He blamed himself. He wanted to fix it but he couldn’t. You couldn’t fix something like this.

Careen was the only one who didn’t treat me like I was made of glass. She told me plainly that my face looked horrible, that my hair would grow back, and that if I wanted, she would step on my attacker’s neck and crush his windpipe. But I wouldn’t tell her who did it. We kept it quiet. The revelations that Cal was dying complicated our feelings and no one felt the need for outright retribution.

And all the while, that thought never went away. I want to go back and get my mother.

I said it so many times, I think they thought it’s all I could say. But no one listened. No one took me seriously. They thought I’d let it go.

“Can this come out now?” I asked, holding up my hand, which was still punctured with an IV needle co

Joseph nodded and stood to leave. “I’ll go get the nurse.”

“No, you do it,” I said, holding it under his nose, feeling like I wanted to jam it in his face just to force him to touch me. His behavior had been frustrating and confusing. It seemed like he was always arguing with himself about what he should do and then he sat on his hands and did nothing.

“Um, I don’t know, Rosa,” he said reluctantly.

“Joseph, will you look at me?” I tried to catch his eyes. He looked up and it knocked me down. So sad, so loving, so much.

“I’m fine,” I said finitely. “I’m the same person and you need to get that in your head.”

“But, but he could have… I should have been there.” He sighed deeply. How could I make him understand?

I held his gaze, feeling the warm blush only he could create. “I have changed.” He eyes were full of sorrow. “Becoming a mother changed me. Fall… falling in love changed me. But this? This will not change me. Ok?”

His shoulders relaxed a little but I knew he only half-believed me. “Ok.”

I smiled. “I’m serious! Stop treating me like I’m going to dissolve into tears and screaming. I need you to believe it.”

My wrist was shaking from holding it up for so long and he clasped it between his palms. I exhaled, letting out days of pain and fear. This is where I was supposed to be. “Please. Kiss me?” I whispered, not meaning to plead.

He raised an eyebrow and let out a small chuckle. Leaning in, he moved so damn slow I nearly collided with his face in my own haste. Our lips touched and everything did melt away. If there were people in the room, they were flung from the floor and out the window. They were shadows cast from golden light. Everything stretched and bent around us. This was home. Wherever we were, we could take this with us.

Again, like some aggravated prisoner in a cage, my brain rattled inside my head. I put my hand to my forehead. “Ah.”

“Are you ok?” Joseph asked before the sigh had left my lips.

“I’m fine. It’s just…”

“I know, I know. You want to go back and get your mother, right?”

“How did you know I was going to say that?” I asked, irritated by his assumption… even if it was right. My head pulsed and throbbed, nodding vigorously inside and out of time with the rest of me.

His eyes crinkled and he rubbed his forehead. “You even say it in your sleep. You scrunch up your face like that and you say it, over and over. Rosa, you can’t, you know? You’re not well enough and it’s too dangerous.”

I started to argue but bit down on my lip before I said something stupid. Besides, I knew I was talking to the wrong person. It wasn’t up to Joseph. I knew whom I needed to talk to.

I frowned and wiggled my languid, ski

Silently, he unwrapped the plastic bandages from my wrist and pulled the needle out slowly. It was like removing a splinter. The achy, itchy pain disappeared immediately once the foreign object was removed.

“Thank you. Now, can you get Matthew?”

Joseph looked at me like he was going to ask, ‘Are you sure you want to talk to that guy?’ But he left it. He smoothed my hair down and skimmed the shaved part gently.

“You look like one of the dolls in Orry’s toy box,” he laughed.

Orry had collected some nightmarish plastic dolls, all smooth breasts, tiny waists, and half-shaved heads. I really should have thrown them out but I was unsure of whether this was the normal thing for children to be playing with in the world of the Survivors.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, secretly reveling in the return to our normal way of interacting.

No, this would not change me.

“I’ll be back soon. I have something to show you,” he said, gri

I sighed. It would take time. I hoped not too long. I didn’t feel like coaxing him out of this state. I had other things to worry about.

Matthew walked towards me like he was scared I would erupt. And in a way, he was right to be nervous. If I could, I would have scalded him with burning lava. But not for the reason he thought. I wasn’t angry about the cloning thing, the eagerness that had led to him rushing the process. I was simply angry that he didn’t tell us. People think they can hide these things. But it always comes out, usually at the worst and wrong time.

I wasn’t proud of what I was going to do next but I had to use his guilt to my advantage if I was going to get what I wanted.

I tried to keep a delicate balance of looking hurt but not incapacitated, which gave me the awkward appearance of wincing with my face but sitting up stiffly like I had a plank glued to my back.

“You wanted to see me?” he said, his eyes searching for something else to look at other than my determined face. He settled on the horrid, clashing colors of the rug at my feet.

“Yes. I was wondering if you would set up a visit with Gus for me?” I said evenly, even though my insides were shuddering and pulling away from me at the thought of it.

He looked so surprised he had to sit down. He smoothed down his crinkled, check shirt that he hadn’t changed in days. “What? Why?”

I stared at him, rolling over the right words in my head. “You do have some responsibility in this but so does he. I figure you both owe me a favor.”

Recognition sparked in his eyes, “If this is about your mother, I can’t see how…”

I cut him off, “Just set it up. Let me worry about the rest.”

“All right, Rosa,” he said, resigned. I was fast becoming used to him saying my name like a sigh.

As he walked away, I shouted after him. “And go home and have a shower… you look awful.”