Free Translucent by Dan Rix Page A

him.”
    “Why?” Her voice carried bite.
    “I don’t know.” My voice grew defensive. “Maybe because what we did was really fucked up and I feel like I owe something to the family. I need to see how much we hurt them, I need to own up to it. I’m not like you, Megan. I’m a nervous wreck. I don’t even sleep anymore. It’s like I fall into this gray zone for a few hours and then wake up. That’s what my life is now.”
    “You’re doing it again,” she said. “You’re acting like I wasn’t there. You always do that.”
    “Oh, please,” I sneered. “You weren’t in the driver’s seat.”
    “We were both there.”
    “So what? It was my fault.”
    “Stop saying that. We made the decision together.”
    “It was my fault, and you know it.” I looked away, and my gaze ended up on the terrarium in the corner of her room—her pet garden snake, idiotically named Salamander .
    “You want to know something?” she said. “I’m jealous of you. I’m jealous . You’re okay being vulnerable and sobbing your heart out and moving on with your life, but I can’t. I can’t let it out. You want to know what that means? You want to know what that feels like? It feels like I’m dead inside. Like I’m hollow. That’s what it feels like for me, and that’s how it’s always going to feel. So quit acting like you’re in this alone. This is our burden, and we shoulder this together.”
    I nodded, my eyes tearing up. She was right.
    Here I was, crying again, letting my emotions out. She never cried.
    “I love you,” I muttered.
    “Love you too,” she said.
    In the silence, I realized I was still rolling the sticky stuff around with my thumb, playing with it and stretching it around my finger, which tingled a little. How was there more of it now?
    I looked down.
    The sight made me gasp, and a choking terror squeezed around my throat. It was a moment before I could spit out the words. “My finger . . . my finger! Where’s my finger?”

Chapter 7
    Megan’s bedside lamp warmed the back of my hand. She brought over her desk lamp too, plugged it in, and trained it on my fingers, and I felt the blaze on my cheeks, the side of my neck. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
    “Hang on, one more,” she said, rushing out the door.
    “Megan, wait, don’t leave me!” I called, hating the fear rising in my voice.
    I tilted my hand, and felt another wave of nausea.
    “It’s spreading,” I whimpered.
    She dragged in a tall lamp with three pivoting bulbs and set it up above me. I felt more heat, brighter light. Finally, she knelt in front of me and grabbed my wrist, tilting it to examine the finger—or lack thereof.
    “That is so weird,” she said. “It’s not bleeding.”
    “I can see the bone.”
    “Yeah, but it’s not bleeding. Does it hurt?”
    “ Look at it! It’s gone.” At the joint, my index finger ended in a stump—a gray center surrounded by purple flesh. “Oh God . . .”
    “Why aren’t you bleeding?”
    “Call your mom,” I begged. “Call 9-1-1 . . . I had something on it, something sticky . . .” Flesh-eating bacteria . I winced and averted my eyes. “Eww, this is so gross.”
    But with my eyes averted, I noticed something.
    I didn’t feel anything. No pain.
    Just that weird tingling.
    I’d heard about that. People who lost limbs sometimes described phantom pains that seemed to come from the missing limb itself, even though it wasn’t there. Did that explain the tingling?
    I closed my eyes and imagined moving the finger, even though I didn’t have it anymore. Sure enough, I felt the sensation of it moving.
    Just an illusion.
    I lowered my hand and imagined tapping the hardwood floor.
    A phantom touch registered. It sure felt like I still had my finger. But when I opened my eyes, there was nothing there. Just this gruesome stump.
    A stump that wasn’t bleeding.
    Cleanly severed, the cross sections of individual veins gleamed in the light, a bluish violet color. Quivering