Free Be Not Afraid by Cecilia Galante

the world is all that about?”
    “I don’t know.” I glanced away from the orange ball in her stomach. “I really don’t.”
    “Well, maybe it’s just part of everything else that no one seems able to make sense of today.” She crossed her thin arms over her chest and gazed around the room. “Although, they are ninety-nine percent sure it’s epilepsy, what she has. And that she had a grand mal seizure today. So that’s something at least. A diagnosis. And it’s an entirely treatable condition, too, thank God. With the right medication, she’s going to be just fine.” She pressed the fingers of one hand against her breastbone and winced. “They’re saying she might even be able to go home tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow?” Dominic repeated. “Really?”
    “That’s what they’re saying,” Mrs. Jackson replied. “There’s no reason to keep her in a mental hospital if she has epilepsy. It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “I know, but—”
    “I don’t want her here.” Mrs. Jackson caught herself, glancing at her husband. “We don’t want her here. She doesn’t belong in a place like this. I’d rather have a nurse come to the house and help me take care of her there.” She nodded once, the discussion finished.
    A pregnant pause filled the room. I bit my lip, stared down at my shoes.
    “They just gave her a little something to calm her down.” Mr. Jackson gestured toward a closed door behindhim. “She’s in there resting now. I think it might be a good time, if you want to go in.”
    I could feel something sour pooling in the back of my throat as I looked at the door.
    “You want me to go in with you?” Dominic asked.
    Yes.
I hesitated. “No. It’ll be all right.” I tried to smile. “I’ll yell if I need you.”
    “Yell?” Mrs. Jackson inquired. “Why would you need to yell?”
    Dominic and I exchanged a look. “She won’t,” he said. “Go ahead, Marin. Take your time.”
    The room was tinier than I expected, smaller even than my bedroom at home, with tan padded walls, a dark-green-carpeted floor, and a panel with three different colored buttons close to the door. Cassie was in the middle of the room, stretched flat on her back in a hospital bed. Both her eyes were closed and white blankets had been pulled up to her waist and then folded over again. A single pillow beneath her head looked as if it had just been fluffed, and someone had combed her long blond hair. Heavy straps secured both of her wrists, and her hands were positioned carefully on either side of her, as if someone had arranged them after she had gone to sleep.
    Her body told a different story. The purple orb inside her tongue had gotten darker. Beneath the lower half of her bare arms, I could see little blue and pink glimmers under the skin, darting this way and that way, like bright fish.And on the right side of her face, beneath the soft gauze taped to her cheek, was a deep, cavernous carving of the number eight. I stared at it for a moment, repulsed and horrified at the same time; the damaged nerves and severed vessels quivered with pink ribbons of pain, and the edges of it dripped blue.
    Would that be the worst of it? I flicked my eyes over her face, scanned the top of her head. I dropped them lower beneath her eyes and then over the top of her head one more time, just in case, but there was no sign of anything else. No dark suggestion of what I thought I’d seen before.
    Okay.
    Deep breath.
    Okay, then.
    I walked closer to the bed and rested my hands on the metal railings. “Cassie?” My voice was a whisper.
    Beneath the lids, I could see her eyeballs moving, first to one side, and then to the other. She blinked once and again and then stared up at the ceiling.
    “Cassie.” I said her name again, a little louder.
    She turned her head, looked at me, her eyes coming into focus. “Marin?” Her voice was hoarse; her lips quivered.
    I nodded.
    She tried to sit up, but the restraints around her wrists made it