Across the Universe - Beth Revis [79]
Harley stands up. “Let me get you some more water.”
“No.” I want to be alone. I want him to go and let me shrink into myself.
“But I think—”
“NO!” I scream. My hands slip down my sweaty arms. My fingers scrabble back up to my elbows, and my fingernails dig into my flesh so I can’t lose my grip on myself again. “No,” I whisper. “Please. Just leave me alone. Let me be alone.”
“But—”
“Please,” I whisper into Amber’s fur.
Harley goes.
I lie curled on the bed for a long time, my eyes shut but my vision still achingly clear.
My arms grow tighter and tighter, pulling my knees so hard against my chest that it hurts. It doesn’t help. I am tired of hugging myself. I want my daddy to hug me and tell me he’ll kill anyone who hurts me. I want my momma to kiss me and stroke my hair and tell me everything will be okay. Because the only way I can believe anything will ever be okay again is if I hear one of them say it.
I let my knuckles relax. They are white on the edges, and my fingertips tingle as the blood returns to them. The insides of my elbows are slick with sweat. Creaking, popping sounds escape my knees as I stretch my legs fully out.
For a moment, I lie flat on the bed, but that reminds me of lying flat on the grass in the field, and I jump up so quickly that I make myself dizzy.
I cross the room to the door in three long strides, but when I reach for the button to open it, my hands are shaking.
They’re still out there.
With their sweating, pulsing bodies, with the up-and-down rhythm, with their hungry eyes and clutching hands.
I have to, I whisper to myself.
But my hands won’t stop shaking.
I let my head fall against the cool wall. I am panting from the effort of standing close to the barrier between me and them. I want to call Harley or Elder to me, but I don’t have that ear button they use to communicate. And besides, Harley can’t save me every time.
I punch the button. The door zips open. Before it has cleared the doorway, I punch the button again, and the door slams back shut just as quickly.
I plan the route in my mind. I imagine myself running, running, running so fast no one can catch me. I can see the path so clear before me that I think I could run it without opening my eyes at all.
My hand slips over the button, and the door flies open. The hall is, thankfully, free of people. I rip open the glass common room door, and hold my breath as I race past the people who are too distracted to notice me streaking by them. My neck screams at me for the number of times I whip it around, looking for danger over my shoulder. I slip inside the empty elevator. And for the first time since I left my room, I allow myself to breathe again as I push the button for the fourth floor.
That hallway is deserted, too, and I send a silent prayer up for that. Still, I run past the locked doors, part of me fearful that they will swing open and reveal rooms full of eager men hungry for something other than food. I don’t relax until I’m in the other elevator, sinking down below the madness of the ship, into the deathly quiet of the cryo level.
I want to see where they are. That’s all. I tell myself, that’s all.
I run, first. But as I get closer and closer, my steps drop off to a walk, then a slow, rhythmic thud... thud... thud of each individual step on the hard floor.
I come to a complete stop at the row. I stare at their numbered doors: 40 and 41.
And then I run to the doors. I fall to my knees, and my hands are uplifted, one on each door. And I’m sure it looks as if I’m in rapturous praise of something holy, but all that’s inside me is a scream ricocheting around my hollow body.
For a long while, I stay on my knees like that, with my arms up and my head down.
I just want to see them. That’s all, I tell myself, that’s all.
I stand. I wrap my hands around the handle of the door labeled 40, and I shut my eyes and grip the handle and pull it open. Without looking at the block of ice exposed, I spin on my heels and jerk open number 41, too.
There they are.