“Shh,” he said calmly. “I know you’re upset. I know you loved Ginger. But unfortunately, I can’t do it, Daisy.”
“Why?” I wailed.
“Because it won’t work on her,” he said softly.
“How do you know? Have you ever tried?” I cried. Mason smoothed my messy hair and sighed.
“Daisy, the rabbit had cancer. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes!”
“Well, we’re learning that there are certain limitations to Revive,” Mason said, like he was giving a report to his superiors, not comforting his pseudo daughter.
“What does limitations mean?” I asked, still facedown.
“It means that the medicine only works on certain types of bodies.”
“People bodies?” I asked.
“Yes, and rat bodies, too, but that’s not what I mean,” Mason said. “I mean that it only works on bodies that are healthy before they die. Bodies that die suddenly—not from a disease.”
“What’s a disease?” I asked, rolling over and looking up at Mason. My tears stopped when my inquisitive nature took over. Mason was quiet for a moment, probably trying to decide how to boil it down for a seven-year-old.
“A disease is a really bad sickness that—”
“Like a cold?”
“Shh, let me finish,” Mason said, lightly touching my hand. “It’s like a cold, but a lot worse, and usually it’s not something you can catch from someone else or fix with medicine.”
“Am I going to get a disease?” I asked, sitting up straight. “I don’t want to die again. It hurts!”
“No,” Mason said confidently. “You’re not going to get a disease, and you’re not going to die again. But Daisy, listen to me. Ginger had cancer. That’s a disease. An incurable one, which means it can’t be fixed. Hers is the type of body that cannot be saved with the Revive medicine. Understand?”
I looked at the cage near the door, at the motionless rabbit inside, and said nothing.
“Ginger had a nice life, Daisy. Knowing that should make you feel a little better.”
“It doesn’t,” I said honestly.
Mason gave me a weak smile. “Someday it might,” he said before leaving my room and taking Ginger the dead rabbit with him.
Matt and I stop at a gas station about thirty miles out. Matt pumps and pays, then says he’s going inside for food. From the car, I watch him walk the aisles, scrutinizing the snacks. He holds up a pack of Twizzlers and I shake my head no. He waves some chocolate and I make a face. Finally, he holds up a bag of chips. I give him a thumbs-up and mouth Coke, too, but he doesn’t get what I’m saying, so I text him. He reads it and we make eye contact and laugh, both of us grabbing on to something meaningless like texting about junk food because the meaningful stuff is too huge.
At around five, we pull back onto the highway. Just as I’m opening the chips, my cell rings. Even though he’s not supposed to be finished with Wade for a couple of hours, I know it’s Mason calling to check in. I’m not ready to talk right now. I don’t want to lie to him about where I am, and if I tell him, he’ll try to make me come back.
“You should tell your parents where you are,” Matt says, reading my mind.
“They’ll find out eventually; I left a note.”
“Yeah, but you should tell them you’re okay. Parents worry.”
“Oh, really?” I ask. “Where do your parents think you are right now?”
Matt looks at me, then back at the road. “With you,” he says simply. “They trust me.”
“How nice for you,” I say. I hear Matt laugh a little under his breath. “What, you said, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad, I know Audrey’s sick and all, but I’m taking off to go save drunk Daisy from a stupid situation.’ ”