“Thanks, Daisy,” she says softly.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask.
“Actually, yeah. I’m feeling a lot better now. The hospital gave me some painkillers and I slept most of yesterday. Good stuff. Of course, even though I’m feeling better, my parents made me promise to stay in bed for another couple of days.”
I nod, not sure what to say next.
“I read your email a little while ago,” Audrey says. “Sorry for not getting back sooner. That sucks about your parents dragging you to Kansas City. Oh, but of course I wasn’t mad at you. How could you think that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just…” My voice trails off. “Anyway, I’m back.”
“I’m glad,” Audrey says. “Speaking of which, did my brother pick you up in KC? What’s going on?”
I crawl up and sit next to her, leaning against the headboard like I did earlier with Matt.
>“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.’ ”
“Something like that,” Matt says. He’s smiling fully now and, knowing all I do about Audrey and how sad his life is right now, his smile seems precious.
“What exactly did you say to them?” I ask, taking in his profile. The golden sunset illuminates his features and makes everything else hazy. It’s as if I’m seeing him through one of those filter apps that makes your pictures look old-school. I admire his thick black eyelashes and the straight line of his nose. I sit on my left hand to keep from reaching over and touching the scar on his perfect chin.
“I said that you’re from a small town and got lost in a big city,” Matt answers, pulling me out of my imagination. “I said that you were scared and needed help and I was going to go help you.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Weren’t they mad that you weren’t staying home to be with Audrey?” I ask.