I scrambled out the door before anyone could speak, mumbled, “See you later,” and tumbled into the late-afternoon air, a chill sweeping over me that hadn’t been present before. Because even if the tiny part of me was right, it didn’t matter. I had to know the truth.
As I rushed through the guesthouse front door, I told myself, You’re blowing it all out of proportion, Mila. Mom will explain it, and everything will be fine.
I couldn’t have been further from the truth if I’d tried.
With a deep breath, I shoved open the white swinging door that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, to find Mom rummaging in the white walk-in pantry.
The sight of her slim, jean-clad figure, shuffling through cereal boxes and containers like today was any other day, gave me a sudden urge to shake her. My arm looked like something out of a nightmare, and she was looking for a snack?
When she turned around, a bag of her favorite dried pineapple in hand, she smiled and said, “Hey, honey. How was school today?”
I just stood, wordless, staring into Mom’s familiar face. It was so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that sometime, somewhere, she had started keeping things from me. But when? Why?
Was she sheltering me from something she didn’t think I could understand? Not that it mattered. It was like I could feel the fragile bonds of last night’s reconciliation snapping around us under the strain of her lies.
By the time I opened my mouth to ask, her astute gaze had fallen on the hoodie wrapped around my arm. Hunter’s hoodie. “Oh no,” she breathed, her eyes closing as if to block out the sight. Her sharp inhale pierced the room, a harbinger of bad things to come. But when she opened her eyes, efficient, capable Mom was back. The Mom who hunted noises in the night with flashlights. The Mom who didn’t let anything, not even the knowledge that she’d just been trapped in a lie, faze her. “Show me.”
Show me? Didn’t she know she was doing this all wrong? She was supposed to tell me everything was going to be okay.
Why wasn’t she doing that?
“Show me,” she repeated, louder, when I didn’t move.
Slowly, I reached over and untied Hunter’s hoodie with my free hand, let it collapse onto the cheerful blue-and-white tile floor. Contrary to my fervent wishing, the alien parts protruding from my arm had not disappeared. The white liquid had ceased leaking, but the twisted wires, the plastic—they were still there, like the guts of a child’s mechanical toy.
Mom gasped. “What happened? To do this kind of damage, you would have had to hit something sharp at an incredibly high velocity!”
When Mom said “something sharp,” Kaylee’s words clicked in my head.
I was sure you’d landed on that rusted hunk of metal.
“I was thrown from the back of Kaylee’s truck,” I murmured, but Mom wasn’t listening. She was too busy inspecting my arm. I scrutinized her expression, searching for even a trace of the shock I’d felt when I’d first seen my injury. The shock I still felt. But there was nothing. No exclamations of disbelief, no sobs, no cries of horror. Nothing at all to indicate that the interior makeup of my arm was news to her.
The flare of hope that maybe, somehow, Mom hadn’t known about this, known that my arm was completely freaktastic and had just failed to mention it to me, smothered to death, right there, in my chest.
Mom’s own chest rose and fell under her soft blue tee. She reached for my hands. “Mila. I know this is hard, but I need you to listen.”
I allowed her to take them. And waited. Waited for an explanation that could make sense out of this. After all, a simple, logical explanation had to exist. It had to.
Mom’s cheeks showed an uncharacteristic pallor. “How many people saw this?” she demanded. When I just stared at her, dumbfounded by her reaction, she grabbed my shoulder and actually shook me. “How many?”
“Just . . . just two. Kaylee and another friend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! You’re starting to freak me out—please, just tell me what’s going on!”
Her grip on my shoulders eased. Resignation settled over her face. “Follow me.”
That simple command gave permission for the dam inside me to burst, unleashing wave after wave of craziness and anxiety. I followed her down the hallway, and by the time we arrived at her bedroom, it was a wonder I wasn’t shaking.
I wanted to turn and run. To tell her to forget that I’d just demanded an explanation, to forget the whole thing. We could tape some kind of permanent bandage over my arm, pretend it didn’t exist.
I wanted to run. Instead, I followed her into the master bedroom.
She headed for her antique mahogany dresser and squatted before it. The bottom drawer, always obstinate, finally popped open.
I stared blankly at the assortment of colorful folded T-shirts, wondering what on earth they had to do with my alien arm. Then Mom yanked the drawer out completely, set it aside, and peered into the dresser. I squatted next to her and immediately saw her target. In the very back corner, a bit of silver gleamed under a piece of masking tape.
A key.
Once she had the key in hand, Mom led me into the laundry room, halting just in front of the door to the garage. Finally she turned, smoothing my hair away from my cheek before dropping her hand back to her side. “Mila, before we go any further, I need you to know that I really do care. In fact, I believe now, more than ever, that you’re worth all the risks.”
Those words froze me to the core.
Inside the garage, she led me to a bunch of empty moving boxes, arranged neatly against the far back wall. Or at least I’d assumed they were empty. After dragging down the top three, she reached inside the bottom one and withdrew a shiny silver metal box by its handle. An oversized toolbox.
As she turned to carry the box into the house, I flinched away to avoid touching it. My body’s reaction to knowing, without a doubt, that whatever was locked away inside that innocuous-looking container was likely to change my life forever.
When we reached the living room, Mom set the box on the coffee table and pointed to the overstuffed green couch. “Have a seat, Mila. This is going to take a while.”
I sat. The silver key headed for the lock. Three seconds until my life exploded.
The key turned. Two seconds.
The lid opened. One second.
And . . .
Whatever crazy ideas I’d had about the contents of the box, I could say with certainty that none of them involved a silver iPod and matching earbuds. Which were exactly the items Mom withdrew.
“Here. Listen to this while I fix up your arm. It will explain everything.”
Mom looked away, her strong, capable fingers brushing quickly under her eyes. Then she extended the earbuds toward me. Two round white circles, only a quarter inch in diameter each. Nestled like tiny bombs in her upturned