Free Skinned -1 by Robin Wasserman Page A

final y. “No guys or…whatever?”
    “No guys. No whatevers.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Why?” Quinn sat up, crossing her legs and resting her elbows on her knees. “According to you, it’s not like I’m missing out on much family fun time.”
    “Yeah, but…”
    “Go ahead,” she said.
    “What?”
    “Ask. You know you want to.” Quinn brushed her hands through her long, black hair, smiling. “I love this,” she said, dropping the inky curtain across her face, and then giving her head a violent shake, whipping the hair back over her shoulders. “They got it exactly right.”
    She was crazy, I decided. It was as if she liked living like this.
    “Go ahead, ask,” she said again. “I real y don’t care.”
    “And I real y don’t want to know,” I lied. “But fine. Why no visitors?”
    “Dead parents, remember?”
    If she wanted to act like it was no big deal, so would I. “Yeah. You said. Poor little orphan. But there’s got to be someone.” She lay back down in the grass, turning her face away from me. “Doctors. Staff. No one important. Not that it matters now.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because everything’s different now. Once I’m out of here? It’s a new life. Anything I want. Anything. ”
    “How did they die?” I asked quietly.
    “I thought you didn’t want to hear the tragic saga?”
    “Maybe I changed my mind. Unless it’s too hard for you to talk about.” But I didn’t say it the way Sascha would have, al fake sensitive and understanding. I said it like a chal enge, and that’s the way she took it.

    “Okay, but I’m just warning you, it’s quite tragic. You’re going to feel pretty sorry for me.”
    “Don’t count on it.”
    “It was a car accident,” she said.
    I flinched. And even in the darkness she must have seen.
    “Yeah, weird, isn’t it? Who gets in car crashes anymore? But here we are. Statistical y improbable freaks.”
    “Were you in the car? When it…”
    “I was three. We were—” She paused, then barked out a laugh. “This is the first time I’ve ever had to actual y tel someone, you know? I didn’t know it would be so…”
    “You never told anyone ?” That was too much, too soon. Especial y from a girl who wouldn’t even tel me her last name.
    “It’s not like you’re special or anything. I just don’t…I don’t meet a lot of new people. Or I didn’t. Before.”
    “You don’t have to—”
    “I was three,” she said quickly. “We were going to visit someone, I don’t even know who. I just remember they got me al dressed up, and it was exciting. I mean, they must have taken me off the grounds before, at least a couple times, but I guess I was too young to remember. I remember this, though. I remember being in the car seat, and listening to some song, and playing some stupid vidgame for babies—You remember, the one with the dinosaurs?”
    I nodded.
    “I was winning. And then—I don’t know. I don’t remember. Next thing, I wake up, and I’m in a hospital. They’re dead. And I’m…” She threaded her fingers through her hair, then let her arms fal across her face. “It was a bad accident.”
    “You were hurt.”
    She didn’t say anything.
    “Bad?” I guessed.
    “Worse.”
    “Worse than what?”
    “Than whatever you’re picturing. Worse.” Her voice hardened. “Let’s just say that prosthetics and organ transplants and al that? Fine. Great, if you’re an adult. But when you break a three year old, it’s not so easy to put her together again.”
    Enough, I thought. I get it. But I didn’t say anything. And she didn’t stop.
    “Picture a room. Lots of machines. A bed. People to shovel in the food, shovel out the shit, shoot up the painkil ers. People to clean. People to do anything and everything. And in the bed, wel …a thing that eats and shits and gets high and gets cleaned and the rest of the time just pretty much lays there.” But I didn’t want to picture it. “How long did it take?”
    “To