An Unexpected Debt – Chapter 23

Puking into Vivian’s toilet is my darkest hour. I hate vomiting so much. Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit even more. I sob into the toilet before I flush it, and then I rest back against the wall, my hands on the cool tile floor.

“Fuck, fuck!” I scream at the empty bathroom. I pound my socked feet on the floor and let the tears roll forth. Why does everything have to be so screwed up?

I open my eyes, and Saif is in the bathroom, wetting a washcloth in the sink.

“No. Go away.” I wave at him, hoping his appearance is an aberration.

“Come on, Sky. I’ve seen worse.” He approaches me with the washcloth, but I smack his hand away.

“No. I said, go away.” I stress this as hard as I can. He stops in his tracks. “We are not dating. No matter how perfect you are. I want you. I need you. But this is not your problem, and it will continue to not be your problem. Your family will never accept me, anyway. I’m just… too fucked up. I was weak, and I let assholes take advantage of me, and now I have nothing.” Whatever alcohol that was left in me has finally entered my bloodstream, and I’ve become a slurring, sobbing, vomit-covered mess. “Go!” I shout at him, pushing him away.

His eyes are wide as he stumbles back.

“Sky sad,” Ilaria says, clutching the doorway. Her little brown eyes and messy hair make me burst into tears again. Gus appears and turns her around by her shoulders, handing her off to someone down the hall.

He steps in and shuts the door behind him. Lifting the wet washcloth from Saif’s hands, he nods his head at the door.

“You go, and I’ll take care of this,” he says. Saif sighs and leaves. Good. I hope he never comes back and gets himself involved in this again.

Gus wrings the washcloth out over the sink and approaches me with a good-natured smile. “Not feeling your best?” He’s a nurse, and it’s always been his job to look after everyone.

“You could say that.” I take the washcloth he holds out to me and press it to my face while he checks my pulse on my other wrist.

“You should be nicer to that one because I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” Gus says.

“His mistake.”

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, it can’t be that bad,” he says, laying my wrist in my lap.

“It’s the end of me, the end of my family. I have no one left.”

“Nonsense,” Gus counters. He pushes my hair to the side and rests his hand on the back of my neck. “You need to believe in yourself. Believe in Vivian.”

“That’s right,” Vivian says. I pull the washcloth off my face to see her enter the bathroom. She comes over to me, one hand in a fist, the other coming to rest on my knee. She hands off whatever she’s holding to Gus.

“Listen here,” she says, taking my face in her hands and peering down at me. “You are my heart, Skylar. I love you, and there’s no one in this universe I trust more than you.”

“But —” I try to protest, but she pulls my face towards her.

“No. No excuses. I don’t care that you lied to me. There was nothing you could do. You had to protect yourself. I understand. But I know the secret now, and they’re all going to pay for what they did to you. First daughters are supposed to be cherished. This is unacceptable.”

The fire in her eyes scares me. Vivian does not take no for an answer about anything.

Still, the world is blurry and edged in fear, loathing, and disgust. I hate myself for what I’ve become — a broken, insignificant fool who let a bunch of men take advantage of her for years. I didn’t know until my early twenties that the childhood I endured was wrong, and I’ve been ashamed of it ever since. I burst into another sob.

“I’m so sorry, Viv. So sorry.”

Vivian inhales sharply and rocks back. Her eyes flutter before she gains control and rights herself.

“Did it happen again?” Gus asks, and she nods.

“What?” I ask, suddenly worried there’s something wrong.

She shakes her head. “I’ve seen this moment before.” She clears her throat, and Gus squeezes her arm.

“First things first,” she says. “You have to win a Bridge tournament on Rio?” I nod. “I got all the details from Marcelo.” She squats down and sits on her knees, holding out her hand to Gus. Gus drops three perfectly round blue berries into her palm.

No.

“You need an edge. I know you can win, but a tournament is a big deal. It’s not Bridge with the dads on a Friday evening.” She takes my hand and opens it, placing the berries in my palm. “With these, you’ll see the future, and maybe there’ll be something there for you to use.”

I stare at the berries, the prescient dream berries from Rio. My mouth runs dry, wondering what they’ll do to me. When Vivian started cultivating Rio plants on the Amagi, we discovered quite a few unique ones. It wasn’t just flowers that can make you happy when combined with hot sauce. There were these prescient dream berries that allow you to see glimpses of the future, telekinesis plants that allowed me to float and throw things with the power of my mind, shape-shifting plants, and invisibility ferns, and on and on. So many plants that could make humans into superhumans.

I’ve always wondered what kind of future I would see if I took the berries. I considered stealing some from Vivian once, but I respected her enough not to.

The only problem here?

She smirks at me. “I know, I know. You’ll probably be sick after taking them. But I swear it’s not as bad as it used to be. I only grow this epsilon variant now.”

“They won’t make me sick?”

“Well,” she says, drawing out the word, “probably, but not as sick as I was. No one has ever been as sick as me. Just be glad we have any at all. Considering how terribly I’m doing with the plants nowadays.”

“I hate puking,” I say, clearing my throat.

“You’ve already booted dinner. It’s the best time to take them,” she insists.

I close my fingers around them, and tears spring to my eyes. “I can’t accept your kindness anymore. I fucked up big time.” When I think about how easily my mom dismissed me, I can’t believe I’m even still in Vivian’s house after what happened.

“That’s not how things work around here,” she says. “Not in my family.”

She stands up.

“Take them now, and Gus will bring you up to your room. He’ll watch over you tonight to make sure you’re okay.” She knocks her foot against mine. “This is not over. You’re going to go win this tournament, and when you return home to me, we will discuss how you’ll move forward.”

She retreats to the door and stops with her hand on the knob.

“Oh, and that Saif? You better be keeping him. Or I’ll really disown you.”

Her wink is the last thing I see as the door closes.

—-

Puffs of light spark and dance. I flutter my eyes and wave my hand in front of my face to stop them from landing on my cheeks and lashes.

India Dellis stands next to me. “Time is such a slippery thing,” she says. “The harder you hold on, the faster it flies.” I touch my fingers to my forehead, and her smile vanishes. Her mouth moves, but the words are garbled. Maybe a different language.

A circle of light stands in the jungle, rain pouring down from the sky. I jump as it explodes and smokes. Someone pulls me to the ground. I stand up later and crawl forward. A tall purple plant reaches out for me. Dancing light swirls out of it as I stroke my hand over the long, thin leaves.

I’m lying outside, looking at the stars. I’m crying. I turn my head, and Kalvin is next to me, his eyes on the sky too. “Do you ever think about the thing in the desert? The one that saved us? I miss you, Sky.”

Sparks fly, and I laugh. It’s funny to think of Kalvin missing me when we were so at odds at flight school.

I yell at my mother. Dominic’s angry face. Saif holds me. I laugh at something his sister says.

We’re in the final round, and the crowd noise is hushed. A clock on the wall reads 19:05. A woman dressed in black has thirteen cards in her hand, and she’s debating about what to bid. She has enough high cards to crush me. She chooses a bid and hesitates. We can’t beat her unless…

Sparks again. They fly in my hair, and I shake them out.

There’s a gun in my face. I can’t breathe.

I’m drawn to a handsome man at a bar. Have I been here before?

“You never let them kiss you or hold you.” Takemo smiles, leans down, and brushes his lips over mine. I push him away. He laughs.

“Oh,” I say, sitting up in bed. “Oh shit.”

Gus snores in his recliner chair on the other side of the room before his eyes pop open. He shakes off his sleep, grabs a bucket and a datapad, and stands up. I point to the datapad.

“Really?” he asks.

I wave frantically. “Hurry. I don’t want to forget anything.”

He rushes across the room and delivers the datapad to my outstretched hands. When the notes app is open, I stare at it for a moment before memories trickle back in. My fingers fly as I try to put the details down. Takemo, Saif, his sister, India Dellis… Dominic. He was angry. He was with someone? I can’t remember. I press my eyes closed and struggle to recall the Bridge hand I saw. Was it important? She had a few honor cards but then a run of the same suit. Spades, I think. I write them down.

When I’m finally done, I sigh and flop back in the bed. Sparks light up in my vision, and I see Saif and Kalvin sitting together at a dinner table. I smile.

Gus appears over the bed, the bucket in hand. “You’re smiling? That’s new. I have yet to see anyone come out of prescient sleep happy and not puking their guts out.”

“I thought no one was as sick as Vivian was,” I say, closing my eyes against the sparks.

“She lied. She knows how much you hate puking.” Gus yawns. “Go back to sleep. You may have more dreams before morning.”

“It’s already wearing off.” I yawn and roll over onto my side.

Closing my eyes, I put myself back where I was, sitting at a table, eating good food and drinking wine with Saif and Kalvin. There are two other men at the table with us, but I can’t see their faces.

Their love, though?

I can feel that.