Killing Olympia

Day 6/365

The first thing I feel is someone's hand wrapped around mine, so tightly wound it's almost like they're trying to drag me out of unconsciousness. I remembered opening my eyes. Them falling just as fast. A white ceiling. The smell of septic floors. The harsh burn of old bandages coming off my skin. I'd tried to say something. Gibberish had come out of my mouth, along with saliva and delirium. I remembered being dizzy, feeling like I was falling, having to grab hold of something, anything, to make it feel like the bed wasn't spiraling and spiraling. I had tried to swallow. I had felt the pipe they'd forced down my throat and into my lungs. For the first time in my life, my body was actively against falling asleep. Something inside of my gut, hot and flickering, wanted me to get up right now.

Except I didn't. I couldn't. My arms were heavy. My toes moved only if I ended up sweating, making my pillow damp as it soaked into the fat fabric. My fingers shook too much for me to even grab hold of the bedsheets. Something was sitting on my chest. Something light, something much lighter than whatever was on my arm. I blinked. Crust had formed around my eyes. I turned my head. Each vertebrae in my neck grinded against one another, making this disgusting sound inside of my skull. Until I was looking at the person asleep beside me, her head resting on my forearm, her fingers clutching onto mine. Comic books littered the bed around her in a heap.

My comic books. The ones I've read dozens of times over. The ones I could probably recite off the top of my head. Every panel, every big reveal, every twist ending—-and my mom's other hand was lying flat on the last page of The Mighty Olympians, Volume One. The issue that Dennie had done entirely in black-and-white. The one he'd signed for me when I was little, ruffled my hair and told me this copy was mine to keep. It was the draft issue.

The one that never got published, because all in all, it was a sketchbook full of ideas and notes.

I even forgot that I had that thing. That's where I'd scribbled my own costume designs during those early years in high school, and it took me thirty minutes to shuffle, to breathe, to wait for the tide of nausea and darkness to subside, to finally look at what mom had been reading before she'd fallen asleep. I froze, going so rigid it hurt.

The large window to my left bathed us both in warm sunlight, the kind that made the bedsheets stick to your skin and the pale blue sky mesmerizing to look at. I stared at mom. Watched her shoulders rise and fall. Her hair was back in a pony tail, one that was barely doing a good job of keeping it all in one place. Three coffee mugs sat on the table beside me. Two empty. One full. A dinner plate smeared with ketchup and fries was on the floor behind her, where…where… I tried to move again. Blinked slower. I swallowed and tried not to look too hard at the mattress on the floor, covered in messy sheets, as if she'd kicked them off, next to the suitcase filled with unfolded clothes and sweaty vests and How long have you been here? Why… She was here. Right there. Holding my hand and holding onto the page of the book where I'd drawn mom and I flying through the sky, her in a labcoat and myself in a costume. There used to be one more figure. I'd scribbled it out so thoroughly I'd torn through the page.

I stared at that picture for so long my eyes began to sting. It was kiddush. Messy. So poorly done that I could do that now probably in this state, and I didn't even have the strength to let go of my own mother's hand.

The heart monitor beeping above me was monotonous up until a second ago.

The moment it got faster, mom bolted upright, stood, and put her hand to my cheek.

We stared at one another. Sunlight painted half her face golden. It made her eyes sparkle, and when she blinked, there was a moment, a split-second, when she only started to understand now that I was actually awake.

It took mom an entire minute of staring, of breathing, or rubbing my cheek with her thumb, to nod. She nodded again and swallowed. Nodded again and grabbed hold of the metal railing next to my bed. She kept nodding, making her hair sway, as she took off her glasses and let them fall to the floor. I watched her through the hair that had fallen loose out of her ponytail. I watched as she sat down with her back to me and started to shudder.

"Ronnie?" I croaked. My throat was so dry it came out harsh and short. But I said it again. And again.

Because I just, please, needed to see my mother's face right now.

She did me one better, and pressed her face into my neck and held me so tightly that I had to wince and ask her to ease up. She didn't let go. It felt like she'd never. Mom stroked her fingers through my hair. She whispered things I couldn't hear and felt her tears on my cheek when she pulled away and stared at me, as if I was something so unreal that she couldn't believe it. I tried for a smile. The only thing that happened was I squeezed my own tears out of my eyes. It felt silly, feeling this way. So…happy. I'd been braced for rage, maybe even hate and disgust.

Not for the kind of emotion that ended up with me laughing, choking on the pipe in my throat, which in turn had mom laughing quietly too, rubbing her eyes against her sleeve and shaking her head and quietly swearing.

When I started coughing and choking, she quickled poured me a glass of water and tilted it into my mouth. Slow. Easy. I still managed to splutter and cough, but at least I could lick my lips and actually taste my own saliva.

Mom cupped the glass in both of her hands, staring at me, worry on her forehead, a smile threatening her lips.

Her face looked like it didn't know what feeling she should be showing right now.

And usually, that would result in bored, almost passive Veronica.

Now, her face teetered on every emotion possible. One moment sparkling with infectious glee, and then she'd wince, and the smile would go, whenever I coughed and I had to stop moving so the pain burning through my body wouldn't lock every single joint in place. She would wait for me to stop coughing, then pour more water into my mouth. Not enough to parch my throat. Not enough to wash away the vague taste of bile and bitter medicine.

Enough, though—more than enough. Besides, I don't think I could keep watching my own mom drip feed me water. It almost felt surreal, watching this woman who'd missed every school play, every track meet and soccer game and even my own graduation, stand there beside my bed, glass in her hands, silent as the shadow she was casting over the messy mattress on the floor behind her. Mom set the glass down slowly, then kneaded her palms.

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"Hey, Ry," mom said quietly. She moved closer. Rubber my arm. Slid her hand down my forearm and curled her fingers around my hand, gentle, easy, so warm and soft that I wondered if it was really her holding me right now.

"Sorry for sleeping in so long," I said. She silently chuckled. "Guess I got a little tired recently."

"You picked up my bad habits," mom said, pinching her nose. "Sorry. I just— Give me a sec." She didn't move, didn't shake or cry or breathe out haggard breaths. She stepped back, rolled her shoulders, looked me over one last time, and then smiled. "I'll have to call the rest of the team. We need to make sure that you're starting to—"

"I want to go outside," I whispered. I was looking at the sky. At the puffy white clouds drifting along the pale blue ocean sitting above our heads. I pulled my left arm off the bed, angling it so sunlight could prickle against my skin. It felt so…warm, so buttery and good that I felt like opening my mouth and drinking it in. I slowly flexed my fingers, feeling my muscles straining to work, watching as my hand shook with effort until it fell back onto the bed all on its own. I was panting. Pain was carving up my arm. But I was smiling, because man, did you see that? I got my own hand to work, and that sunlight felt great, like holding liquid gold in the palm of my hand.

"We need to do some tests first," mom said. "You've had fourteen surgeries, and the reason you're probably feeling so weak is because we had to microdoze you with Ambrosia. It's nothing too much, and nothing your body hasn't handled before. It was just to make sure that we could operate on you without your body becoming too hard for anything we've got in the operating room. Your joints are going to hurt. Walking will take a while, too, so—"

"Hey, mom?" I asked her. She paused and got closer. "Did you like the drawing I made?"

She blinked. I could almost see the gears slowly grinding away in her head. Then she looked at the book beside me and slowly picked it up. She smiled a little. The small kind that creased the corners of her eyes. She pulled the chair and sat down, then looked at me. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I loved all of them. But how come you never showed me any of these things? I mean, we could have stuck all of these up onto the fridge back at home."

"I never thought you'd care," I said. I tried to shrug. Not happening. My spine felt fused solid.

Ronnie took a moment to respond. Several quiet moments when she flipped through the drawings, going from ones of us, to ones of her doing science and math that I could never understand, to the first costumes I had ever designed for myself. I flushed with embarrassment when mom paused on one labeled the Ultra Mega Cool Costume.

It wasn't any different than the others. Same colors, just with a cropped jacket with its sleeves rolled up, fingerless gloves and a thick golden belt. I'd seen some old Cape wearing it and thought it was the best thing ever.

Looking at it now, and man I was a dork—no wonder I got picked on in middle school.

Mom looked up. "Well, you're still living with me, and that fridge needs some new memories."

"Actually?"

She shrugged. "Why not? It's not like I'm any kind of artist myself."

"Not true," I said. "You're the nerdy kind of artist, you know?"

Mom raised an eyebrow. "Did you just call me a nerd, Rylee?"

"Pointdexter would be a better word, but—"

"So now that she's a big-shot superhero, my daughter thinks her mom is lame. Alright, I see how it is." She put her hands up. "And here I was thinking that you thought my two PhDs and five masters degrees were cool."

I rolled my eyes. "You're only saying that because I barely got my high school diploma."

"I guess some apples do fall far from the tree."

I laughed. She smiled. I said, "Is one of those PhDs in the field of being a jerk?"

She kept rubbing her thumb over my knuckles, looking at me with puffy, exhausted eyes that had slowly started sinking into a face that probably hadn't known what sleep felt like in days. Mom swallowed. I heard the wad of spit slide down her throat. She tensed her jaw, and something shifted in her eyes. "You have no idea," she said quietly, her voice barely registering over the thump of blood in my ears, "how many times I wished death on them."

"Mom—"

"That entire fucking species," she whispered, now looking past me, now looking at the clouds and the sky that reflected off her pearly eyes. "One by one. A genocide on a scale so bad the universe won't ever forget it. What fucking right do they haveto play rulers of the universe? Most of them are inbred. The other half just want blood so their king can tell them how great of a job they've done like some kind of fucking attack dog." Spit was on her lips. Her other fingers were tapping against the metal railing, one after the other—click, click, click. Mom looked at me. Looked at me in a way that almost made me want to shift in the bed and move away, but I couldn't. I barely had the strength to stay awake. And then she smiled. That darkness around her eyes seeped away. "And they'll be lucky to see the end of the year."

Her words sat in the air, mingling with the old plate of food she never finished, with the half-finished coffee mugs sitting on the bedside table next to me. Mom didn't stop rubbing my hands, now cupped in both.

I licked my lips, my heart monitor loud and quick. I opened my mouth, closed it, then cleared my throat.

"If it's cool with you," I said, "I'd like to go outside. Just for a little bit. I need some air."

"Ry, hun, we still need to run a few tests before you start getting out of bed."

"They're coming," I said. The air seemed to get sucked right out of her, out of the entire room. I looked at Ronnie, my jaw tensed, my entire body in dull, pulsating pain. "And when they come, they'll take the sky from us, and the sea, and the dirt right underneath our feet, and turn it all into hell, so would you just please listen to me for once and take me outside?" My voice had cracked. Just slightly. I swallowed. Looked away. "Just for a minute."

Just for a single minute, I'd like to smell the sunlight and see the wind and feel the sky.

My body felt so raw, so cramped and filthy and stiff. I needed eternity above me.

Not a white ceiling and the beeping drone of a machine telling me that I'm alive.

I know I'm alive—I can feel the same spiralling hatred inside my gut, too.

But…

"Mom?" I asked.

"Alright," she said, standing up. "I'll get us a wheelchair. I'll be right back, Ok?"

I nodded.

It took a while for her to let go of my hand, fingers unwinding like it was a knot that hurt her to unravel.

I watched mom leave the hospital room. I listened to her bare feet slapping the tiles, shoes forgotten.

I slowly turned my head and stared at the sky, hands on my gut, one arm in a sling and a cast. One of my ears was ringing. My stomach had a jagged pale scar across it. My feet moved—barely. Uncoordinated. Wrong.

But the sky was gorgeous today, and I wasn't going to waste another one of these things.

It felt like I had blinked. One moment I was at Gayne's feet, the next I was here. A terrible magic trick.

A very painful, agonizing, bloody magic trick.

But at some point, I had an epiphany—I had been dead to rights, and Bianca was still just my crush! Like, what the fuck was I doing? Those old-timers on the farm were right. I should have popped the question way before my spine went rigid and every part of me got hard and sore. Bucket List Item Number One: make Bianca my girlfriend—pending. Butterflies fluttered around my stomach. I tried to purse my lips and failed. When mom came back, wheeling inside a squeaking wheelchair, I was smiling at the sky, watching as a pair of birds danced across it.

"Ready?" mom asked me.

"Just give me a minute," I whispered.

The world looks so perfect today.

I want to engrave it into my memory. Keep it here forever and ever, because I wanted to make sure that Bianca sees the same thing day-in, day-out, and I promise you, these would be the kind of skies she'd always see for as long as she lived—for as long as everyone on this planet lived, because tell you what, guys—I loved this place.

Earth might not like me, but I liked Earth. And I certainly loved Bianca Ross.

So…saving it was kinda a win-win, anyway.

Slowly, I turned my head to look at mom, smiling at her. "Alright," I said. "Let's do this."