Free Heartless by Leah Rhyne Page B

face.”
    I looked at Lucy, who hovered over his shoulder, and she nodded. “Close the door?” I said to her, and she did.
    I leaned closer to Eli. “Are you ready?”
    He nodded. I took off my glasses.
    Eli staggered back. “What the hell, Jo? Is this some kind of a sick joke?”
    “It’s not a joke,” I said. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but we think I’m dead.”
    I don’t think he heard me. He was too busy learning for himself what Lucy and I already knew.
    From the safety of a few feet away, he leaned closer, staring. His eyes traced each curve of my face, at first with a clinical precision. He saw skin, still milky-white beneath our amateur makeup job. He saw my eyes, once blue but now leeched gray, the irises having bled out their color hours earlier. He saw the flap of skin I sewed back in place with careful little stitches that no amount of foundation or blush would hide.
    Eli’s clinical precision melted. He stood, backing away, his face a mix of terror and disgust. His hand flew to cover his mouth, and he ran. Seconds later the sound of him retching in the bathroom echoed down the hall.
    “Poor guy,” I said to Lucy. “He’s always had a sensitive stomach.”
    “Yeah, and you’re starting to get more grotesque again,” Lucy said. “Maybe you should have prepared him better?”
    “I’ll know for next time.”
    “Are you planning many more of these reveals, Jo? Because if so, I want to start recording them with my phone. I’m sure we can make a great montage sequence of you making random people hurl.”
    “You can show it at my funeral.”
    Lucy looked away and closed her eyes. “Shut up,” she said.
    For lack of anything better to do, I kicked the ground and pushed the desk chair in a circle, relishing the slight change in equilibrium as a chance to feel something physical. At least my brain still registered movement, if not heat or cold or touch. The room swam before my eyes while I spun and spun and spun.
    From her seat on the floor, Lucy frowned. “Don’t talk like that. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
    “Yes, it does,” I said. “Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.” I spun again, and again, eyes wide open, watching the room fly past. When Eli appeared in the doorway as it whirled by, I tried to stop, but only succeeded in launching myself from the spinning chair. As I tumbled to the ground in a heap of arms and legs, I heard a snap.
    “Jo!” said Lucy. “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, of course,” I said, though honestly I wasn’t sure. Lucy and Eli appeared on the floor beside me, pulling me up, disentangling me from myself. When all was said and done and I was once again on my feet, my right forearm dangled limp inside my thick black pea coat. It didn’t hurt, but it also didn’t seem right, the way it wiggled.
    “Can one of you help me take this off?” I asked.
    Eli peeled the coat carefully off my shoulders and set it on his bed. When he turned around and saw the crazy way my arm wriggled and dangled, his face turned green again.
    “Really?” Lucy said to me. “You had to break your arm on top of everything else?”
    I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said. “Does it matter?”
    “Yes, it matters!”
    “I don’t think it does.”
    I couldn’t meet Lucy’s eye.
    “Jolene Hall, you’re starting to sound like a defeatist! I thought we came here to get some answers, and now I think you’re giving up.” Lucy took my cheeks in her hands and forced me to look up from the floor. “I’m not going to give up on you this easily, Jo, and I think it’s time you reevaluate how you’re looking at things.”
    “Girls.” Eli’s voice was timid, quiet. Not at all like his usual self.
    I ignored him. “It’s not like I have much to hope for at this point. Look at me! I’m falling apart! Do you really think they’ll be able to put me back together?”
    “Yes! I have to believe that because I’m not about to start writing my best friend’s