Gods of Anthem (2 page)

They leave the grey-eyed man to die.

No one glances back but me.

I glance back just once.

It’s time for
my monthly chemo. The room’s packed with prisoners waiting for poison to be fed into our veins. Mr. Grey Eyes now lives in my dreams. I’m afraid he didn’t really die, and that he’s actually back among Bodega’s general population.

I’ve searched the halls for him … just in case.

A nurse passing by looks at me for a beat longer than necessary. She can tell I’ve got something to say, but when she draws near, I pretend vague confusion. Mentioning the beaten man in the woods won’t do anything. These people aren’t exactly my friends.

After treatment, it’s the showers. The girl after me takes one look at my huddled form in the stall and leaves. She’s given me her turn. Nowadays, that type of kindness is in short supply, but we still find some here and there.

My skin’s raw from scrubbing as I try to scrub away the feeling leftover from the meadow. Still, no tears. Under the nozzle, I’m waiting for the spray to mix with the salty drops, but nothing comes. It’s worrisome that I’ve become so detached. So unlike me to lose this last bit of humanity.

My spine isn’t just stiff anymore—it’s ice. There’s nothing left. Pale and thin, my spirit is as sick as I am. Sicker, with this new thing. Even if Mr. Grey Eyes is dead, who’s to say another grey-eyed man won’t replace him?

I’ll do what I always do: stay on guard and let bitterness eat another chunk of my heart.

The very guards I’ve hated since arriving at Camp Bodega four years ago, had saved me.

Now that’s something new, indeed.

My knees are
raw from crawling to the bathroom and back. After chemo, and since I receive the strongest type of medicine, my insides turn outside for about a week. This round’s built up and has now peaked after three months of heavy doses. So much so that I can barely lift my head.

Mimi thinks I’m dying, so she stands next to my bunk, crying. I’m always careful to flush before she sees my urine’s red color, and I keep my mouth closed, too, to hide my radiation blisters. She doesn’t need to see my pain. Yes, Mimi needs to know these things, but she won’t find them out from me.

A nurse comes in to check and makes a note to lessen my dosage next round. The mere thought has me rushing back to the toilet to try to throw up what’s not there.

Upon my return, a guard blocks my path.

We stare at each other, while he seems concerned…?

No, that’s not it.

Interested. Yes.

“Thank you,” I say.

The helmet tilts.

Is that a nod?

Seeing us in the hall, Mimi rushes forward and helps me back to bed, her round eyes taking in the scene with worry. Her tiny body tries to support my weight and aid my steps.

“What are you doing talking to them?” Mimi demands. “They’re trained zombies. I just know it.”

My small bunkmate is fiercely protective. I shuffle back to my bunk without answering. Talking expends too much energy, and I don’t want her to know that chemo will be like this, so it’s easier to let her think I’m sick from something else.

“Psst …”
The little voice in the darkness slices through my thoughts.

I’d been attempting to sleep, but mostly fighting nausea.

Mimi’s thick whisper spurs my eyes to open, and I focus on the above bunk’s rickety metal and dingy mattress, before I turn onto my side with a creak of coils.

She waits to see that I’m truly awake and, seeming satisfied, she says, “Can you keep a secret?”

Giant brown irises dart through the shadows—wary, careful. Wise. They brim with hope, too, like only a child’s eyes can in this place. I’ve tried not to look into them too often.

Deborah, the unofficial hall monitor, leans off of her own bunk down the way to hiss a “Shhh!” at us.

We ignore this and inch forward into the tiny light produced by the square window between our sides of the aisle. Bunks lined from wall to wall in our large section host many, but it’s quiet tonight. Not a lot of tears for once.

Mimi sits up, because apparently this announcement is too great to be told while lying down.

My heart breaks to see her silhouetted there; a slight figure draped in a smock two sizes too big. At age nine—almost ten, as she’d remind me, and not much younger than when I’d arrived—her cheeks are still baby-fat-full, like a chipmunk hiding food, and her freshly shaved head makes her ears stick out.

Those ears are the sweetest things I’ve seen in what feels like a thousand years. But I’m certain, someday, maybe soon, when her adolescence has broken, she won’t see them as cute. She’ll feel ugly and realize her shaved head means only one thing: she’s sick. And if she’s sick, she’ll never leave this place. And to add to that insult, she’ll die without hair.

No little girl should have to lose her hair, her decoration.

“What?” I’m trying to smile, but it’s been so long since I’ve aimed for something between congenial and amused. By the twist of Mimi’s face, it’s not very convincing.

She cups her small hands around her mouth to muffle the sound, but she’s still at an age where her idea of “hushed” is a breathy tone of normal level. “My mother’s going to come for me.” Mimi nods in assurance. “She promised. She’s a politician! I’m getting out of here soon.”

I freeze. Spit sticks in my throat, and I’m choking back a strangled sound. Turning toward the wall, I hide my honest-to-a-fault face.

I’m blessed with a pout like my mother’s, an expression that bends low whenever frowning, so every nuance shows clearly the denial of what I’ve been told. If someone’s lying to me, my two very high and telling brows, even bald, knit together with such vehemence (as they’re doing right now) people often think I’ll cry, when I’m not sad in the slightest.

Fact is, the last time I’ve truly cried is too long ago to remember. But that’s never stopped my face from taking on a similar expression.

With a voice like breaking glass, I tell her, “Go to sleep, Mimi.”

“You believe me, don’t you, Liza?”

That last sentence has bent my larynx straight in half, and my features feel as crumpled as the pillow beneath my head.

Little pieces of plaster from picking at the wall break off into my hand. The bitter distraction fills my mouth from the paint under my chewed nails.

Mimi’s mother could be God in Heaven and it won’t help her. She’ll die in this camp. Just like her friends.

Just like me.

She gives up after a time and, with a sigh, flounces down before soft snoring begins minutes later.

Forcing myself to drift off is a losing battle, so I’ve rolled back to face her, knowing she won’t hear me now. That tiny head pokes out of her covers, one perfect shell ear luminescent, and the sight brings unwanted emotions. “No one leaves,” I whisper.

Still no tears.

“Not ever.”

The sooner she knows the truth, the better.

I’ll have to tell her that someday.

Another day …

I jolt awake,
and my plasticware clatters to the floor in a rain of sporks. For a moment, I’m confused as to where I am.

Mimi sits across from me, and her nimble fingers catch my water cup before I spill that, too. “You fell asleep … again,” she says.