The next morning I was shocked awake by Fifteen slamming through my bedroom doorway. I jerked upright, my heart pumping crazily.
"Not getting up?" she said, banging the wardrobe doors open. I checked my clock and threw the covers back sharply.
"You could have woken me."
"Just did, didn't I?" She pulled an old school sweatshirt out of the closet and said, "Mine, I think? Unless you own everything now?"
She flounced out. God, she was tiring. Why would she even want her grubby old uniform?
As I dressed, the few memories I had of our separation danced around my head. Fifteen had put up quite a fight. She'd clawed at my face, tried to force me back inside. I'd been stronger than her, though. I was new, full of energy. Like the one who'll try and force her way out of me.
After, I remember looking down at Fifteen's exhausted body, her hands clasped over her weeping face, pink and shining from the trauma of tearing apart and rapidly repairing again. It was weird to be outside of her, to be free of her thoughts. Everything I'd shared with her as we'd grown together, even our joint memories, felt—I don't know—cold and muddled. It was like I'd left all the fire, all the anger, in her. I remember the shock of it, searching for things to anchor myself to ... I knew I was Teva, but then Teva was also in front of me, so what did that mean?
I'd panicked, drowning in the sudden loneliness of it. Of not being part of someone else. I scrabbled around my brain for something to hold on to, and there were Maddy and Ollie and Mom. A rush of relief surged through me as I pictured their faces. It was enough—that triangle of people—to hold me steady. Maddy, reliable, funny, gorgeous Maddy. Ollie, my heartbeat, the center of my world. Mom, warm and safe. I knew them—they were where I belonged.
In that moment of relief, I'd smiled at the girl I'd left behind and she'd thrown her hands aside and flown at me, her bruise-blue eyes raging. That was my first independent memory. Fifteen's hands around my throat as she crashed me into the wall, screaming, "No, no, no! You're not having him, you're not."
I was seeing stars when Mom finally appeared and pulled us apart. It wasn't me she sat with, though. As I rubbed at my sore throat, Mom sat rocking Fifteen back and forth, whispering, "I'm sorry, my darling, so sorry. I should have been here."
I gave myself a shake and pushed the memories away. Life went on.
Until it didn't.
I slipped my blue school sweatshirt over my head and scuffed my fingers through my fluffy hair before heading downstairs.
Six was peeling the wallpaper under the banister. I patted her head as I passed. "That drives Mom mad, monkey chops."
I liked the empty space the paper left behind, though—the satisfying papery scorch where little strips had come away. Six hugged Peepee tightly against her stomach and carried on picking at the paper, her little body huddled in on itself.
Kitchen noise pressed toward me: Mom muttering, banging pots as she emptied the dishwasher; Eva crying and Twelve and Thirteen having a full-on fight over the Rice Krispies.
Breakfast was the craziest part of the day, and at the last moment I couldn't face it.
"I'm off, Mom! See you later."
"What about breakfast? Teva? Wait!"
"I'll get something at school."
I grabbed my coat from the hall stand and left, pulling the heavy front door shut behind me. Cold air bit my cheeks. As I hopped down our worn front steps, my breath made little clouds in the freezing air. With a shiver, I walked briskly toward the huge gates that kept the world out and us in. Weeds that had pushed through the gravel in summer lay wilted by the frost. I crunched over them, zipping my coat up tight.
At the gate, I glanced over my shoulder before I punched in the code and waited to be let out. Mom had drilled it into me that the others mustn't know the code, for their own safety. I had no problem with that. I didn't want Fifteen slinking out after me.
I hurried toward the row of tiny row houses on Hope Street, the early morning sun stroking my back with warmth. I knocked on the flaky green door of number 32. It floated open and Maddy said from behind it, "You're early."
"Yeah, had to escape."
"Shut the door, it's freezing out there."
I squeezed into the tiny hallway, crunching a little plastic car underfoot as I shut the door behind me. Maddy was straightening her shiny black hair in front of the hall mirror. I held out the squashed toy.
"Stick it on there." She nodded toward a pile of hairpins and brushes, odd gloves, and car keys piled on the radiator shelf.
I balanced the broken car on top.
"Can I grab a bit of bread?" I said. "I missed breakfast."
"Mom's in the kitchen, go and bat your eyelashes at her."
I dropped my bag by the bottom of the stairs and pushed open the door into their front room. It was piled high with boxes of saris—Mrs. Ranjha ran an Internet shop from home. I headed to the bright little kitchen at the back of the house. Sometimes I felt more at home in the Ranjha household than I did in mine. It was all so comfortingly normal.
"Morning, Teva. Early again?" Mrs. Ranjha spooned a dribbling blob of oatmeal into Baby Jay's mouth. He kicked his marshmallow legs against the high chair.
Mrs. R. cooed, "He loves his breakfast—don't you, darling?"
I smiled as Jay poked an oatmeal blob out of his mouth and down his chin.
"Can I feed him?" I said.
Mrs. Ranjha handed me the spoon as Jay kicked his pudgy legs in a frenzy of breakfast excitement. He was so cute, he made my cheeks hurt from smiling.
"Time for a cup of tea?" said Maddy's mom.
"Not really. Can I have a bit of bread, though?"
"There's fresh chapatis by the cooker." She took over feeding Baby Jay, saying, "I suppose you're stressing about exams like Madam out there?"
"Mmm, sort of."
I peeled a warm chapati from the pile and smeared it with butter before tearing a golden corner off and putting it in my mouth. Mrs. R. made amazing chapatis. I watched her pop the last spoonful of creamy goo into Jay's mouth and a tiny knot tightened in my throat. Their life was so different from ours. So normal, so alive. All the noise and mess in my house was ... well ... dead.
I'd never have a little brother. Dad gone, Mom writing books all day, inventing lives for other people instead of living one for herself. There'd never be anyone different in my house. Just me, me, more of me.
Maddy walked in, folding the top of her school skirt over. Mrs. Ranjha rolled her eyes.
"Madeeha, if that skirt gets any shorter it'll be dangling round your neck like a scarf."
"Thank you, Mother, I note your lack of fashion sense and duly ignore it. You ready, Tee?"
I forced myself to swallow past the knot in my throat and nodded. "Thanks for the chapati, Mrs. R."
Maddy kissed Jay's feathery hair. "See you later, poo face."
He chuckled with delight, and I stole a sneaky kiss off his soft baby head.
"Come on, then, Tee, if we get in early we can go to the library."
I followed her out before saying, "Library?"
"Genius, eh?" Maddy hooked her arm through mine. "Mom's constantly on my back about exams. My plan is to look like a model student so she'll leave me alone. You should have heard my woe is me, geography is so hard speech. Oscar-winning."
I smiled to myself. Maddy was a model student; it just wasn't easy to fit in at school if you were brainy, really brainy, and beautiful and you worked hard. I sometimes thought she did as much pretending as I did; maybe that's why we were such good friends.
"Why did I choose geography anyway?" she said.
I had a tiny pop of panic as I delved into Fifteen's memories and couldn't find the answer. Then it came to me: "Because you had a crush on Dr. Walker."
"Oh yeah. Just my luck to get Smitt. Remember when Dr. Walker first came? His funny little bow tie?"
I mumbled something. Talking about the past was difficult. Some things were relatively clear; some I had to piece together from stuff people said and a fog of inherited memories. How well I could remember seemed to depend on how important the memory had been to the others. Fifteen's memories of Ollie had transferred pretty much intact.
"You all right?" Maddy asked.
"Yeah, just thinking."
"Daydreaming about the lovely Ollie, perchance?" Maddy said.
"Kind of."
My thoughts pinched. My best friend had no idea what a mess my life was. Not a day went by when I didn't think about telling her the truth, but I always fumbled it. I'd gotten pretty close but something always held me back. It was so hard to explain. I wished I could, I wanted to—maybe she could even help. I suppose it was kind of ridiculous thinking about telling everyone on the Internet when I hadn't even told Mads.
I looked at her, tried to imagine her response. She knew some stuff—she knew my skin was pretty bad, but like everyone else, she assumed it was eczema. What would she say? Would she think I was freak? Would she hate me? Be disgusted by me? My heart skipped. Could I tell her? Was now the time? Could I explain something totally inexplicable?
"Mads?"
"Yeah?"
"You know I sometimes have problems with dry skin?"
"Mm hmm."
"Well, what if it wasn't eczema? What if it was something a bit more serious than that?"
"But it isn't, though."
"But what if it was?"
"But it isn't. Is it?"
I didn't answer.
Maddy stopped walking.
"Tee?"
Oh god, could I trust her? Could I actually tell her? She'd think I was crazy. Unless ... what would Maddy say if I took her home, showed her what my life was really like ... My heart raced insanely ... Mom would never let her in the house, would she?
No one must know. People wouldn't understand. They'd take you away. You'd be experimented on, treated like a freak show. Mom had told us over and over.
"What? Tee, come on." Maddy laughed nervously.
I looked at her, aware of my own breathing coming just a little bit too fast. How would she feel to know I wasn't the Teva she thought she knew at fifteen? Or thirteen? Or eight? That I wasn't the girl she'd choked on a stolen cigarette with? And I wasn't the girl she'd cried her heart out to when Ben Harrison had turned up at the sixth-grade disco with some other girl?
She'd know I was a liar for a start.
My throat tightened.
"Come on," she said. "It can't be that bad? Is it scabies? I had that when I was at St. Michael's."
What if she thought I'd stolen Fifteen's life? In my darkest, most honest moments, I knew that was true. It wasn't my fault, but it was true. I couldn't tell her, I couldn't risk it.
"Nits, then?" Maddy teased. "You've got nits, and you think you've given them to me? Oh god, now I've made my own head itch," she said, frantically scratching.
I laughed and that was it—the moment for telling was gone. She made things so normal. I needed that normality. If Maddy knew, everything would change—and I wasn't ready for that. When I'd found some answers—a cure—then I'd tell her. Then there'd be hope, not just a hideous tangle of worry that I could only forget when I was with her or Ollie.
So I said, "You loon, Madeeha. It's nothing, come on, we might make it in time to get doughnuts." I yanked her arm. "I'm starved."
"You literally never stop eating."
I clamped my teeth together. She was right. I was always eating. My hand strayed to my waist. "Am I fat? Do I look fat to you?" I tugged the hemline of my skirt down a tiny bit. "Can you see the fat part at the top of my legs?"
"I was joking! God, Tee, you're not fat. You are such a worrier."
She didn't know the half of it.
