Free Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

me.
    “There’s nothing to apologize for—”
    “Please, it’s all right—”
    Both of them are trying to speak to me, but Sara is closer.
    I dare to meet her eyes and I’m surprised to see how soft they are. Gentle and green
     and squinty from smiling. She sits down on the right side of my bed. Pats my bare
     arm with her latex glove, unafraid. Unflinching. Sonya stands just next to her, looking
     at me like she’s worried, like she’s sad for me, and I don’t have long to dwell on
     it because I’m distracted. I smell the scent of jasmine filling the room, just as
     it did the very first time I stepped in here. When we first arrived at Omega Point.
     When Adam was injured. Dying.
    He was dying and they saved his life. These 2 girls in front of me. They saved his
     life and I’ve been living with them for 2 weeks and I realize, right then, exactly
     how selfish I’ve been.
    So I decide to try a new set of words.
    “Thank you,” I whisper.
    I feel myself begin to blush and I wonder at my inability to be so free with words
     and feelings. I wonder at my incapacity for easy banter, smooth conversation, empty
     words to fill awkward moments. I don’t have a closet filled with umms and ellipses
     ready to insert at the beginnings and ends of sentences. I don’t know how to be a
     verb, an adverb, any kind of modifier. I’m a noun through and through.
    Stuffed so full of people places things and ideas that I don’t know how to break out
     of my own brain. How to start a conversation.
    I want to trust but it scares the skin off my bones.
    But then I remember my promise to Castle and my promise to Kenji and my worries over
     Adam and I think maybe I should take a risk. Maybe I should try to find a new friend
     or 2. And I think of how wonderful it would be to be friends with a girl. A girl,
     just like me.
    I’ve never had one of those before.
    So when Sonya and Sara smile and tell me they’re “happy to help” and they’re here
     “anytime” and that they’re always around if I “need someone to talk to,” I tell them
     I’d love that.
    I tell them I’d really appreciate that.
    I tell them I’d love to have a friend to talk to.
    Maybe sometime.

TWELVE
    “Let’s get you back into your suit,” Sara says to me.
    The air down here is cool and cold and often damp, the winter winds relentless as
     they whip the world above our heads into submission. Even in my suit I feel the chill,
     especially early in the morning, especially right now. Sonya and Sara are helping
     me out of this hospital dress and back into my normal uniform and I’m shaking in my
     skin. Only once they’ve zipped me up does the material begin to react to my body temperature,
     but I’m still so weak from being in bed for so long that I’m struggling to stay upright.
    “I really don’t need a wheelchair,” I tell Sara for the third time. “Thank you—really—I-I
     appreciate it,” I stammer, “but I need to get the blood flowing in my legs. I have
     to be strong on my feet.” I have to be strong, period.
    Castle and Adam are waiting for me in my room.
    Sonya told me that while I was talking to Kenji, she and Sara went to notify Castle
     that I was awake. So. Now they’re there. Waiting for me. In the room I share with
     Sonya and Sara. And I’m so afraid of what is about to happen that I’m worried I might
     conveniently forget how to get to my own room. Because I’m fairly certain that whatever
     I’m about to hear isn’t going to be good.
    “You can’t walk back to the room by yourself,” Sara is saying. “You can hardly stand
     on your own—”
    “I’m okay,” I insist. I try to smile. “Really, I should be able to manage as long
     as I can stay close to the wall. I’m sure I’ll be back to normal just as soon as I
     start moving.”
    Sonya and Sara glance at each other before scrutinizing my face. “How’s your hand?”
     they ask at the same time.
    “It’s okay,” I tell them, this time more