So. LC downed pills.

I can't help thinking about that, as I sit in this cold chair, rubbing my three-fingered hand against the scar in my bony side and waiting, watching, hoping for any sign that my friend is going to wake up. I can't help thinking about my mother, tilting one of those orange bottles back and shaking all of the capsules into her mouth. Or maybe dumping them into her hand and popping them all at once. And my father, sitting in a chair like this one, waiting while she lay still in a hospital bed. Because that's what must have happened, right? When someone takes too many pills, takes enough pills to die, they go to the hospital and everyone rushes to save them while they just lie there. And the family waits, because that's all they can do. That's all Dad could have done.

I can see him doing it. Sitting in a chair like this one, with his head low, biting hangnails or just . . . sitting. Staring past his hands and at the floor. Too deep in thought to be found by anyone but her. By my mother. She could always find him. And I'll never understand that –

Carl. Carl can always find you.

"Right," I murmur. My Carl. He knows where to look for me. He knows who I am, better than anyone. Anyone . . .

"Hey."

I pull my hand out from under my shirt. Beth. Beth, standing in the doorway. She's found me. She's pulled me out. I must have not been as lost as my Dad had to have been ten years ago. Or maybe I'm just always so lost that I can be lost and still be found. Or find someone.

"Hey," I say.

"How're you feelin'?"

"Alright. How long has it been now?"

"Too long," she says. She checks the hallway, then comes in and sits where my feet just were. "Sydney. You're not turnin'."

I look back at Carol and don't say anything.

"It's been too long." She puts her hand to my forehead, and I pull away instinctively, but she does it again and I let her this time. "And you don't have a fever. You're not turnin'."

I just stare at Carol.

"Couldn't you at least act happy?" Beth half-demands, half-pleads.

"I'll be happier when it's been longer." I glance at my deformed hand. "And when I get used to this."

"This?" Before I can stop her, she's pulling my hand up by the wrist. "This is nothin'. My dad didn't have his leg. Your uncle didn't have his hand."

And now they're both dead.

I tug my arm away from her. The out-of-place joy from seeing her alive is still pumping through me, but the more you love someone, the more you feel it when they irritate you. Or maybe that's just me. Maybe that's just now. "You think I haven't been tellin' myself that? I lost a couple of fingers. I'll get over it."

Assuming she's right, and I'm not turning.

And she is, you know, says a little voice, one of my own, not someone else's. You'd know it by now if you were. You just would.

And isn't that supposed to make you happy? You told Dawn and Carol you wanted to live.

I do want to live.

"Beth, we've gotta get out of here."

"I know. And we will." Her eyes shift to Carol. "I gave her medicine. You can't say that to anyone, only Dawn and Dr. Edwards know."

I don't know who else she thinks I would tell, but I nod anyway.

"It'll make her better," she says. "It will. And when she wakes up, we'll work out a plan. Or we won't. And your parents and the others will come and get us."

"My parents?"

"Yeah."

I pop the knuckles of my good hand. "What makes you so sure they'll come?"

Her brow wrinkles up. "Because that's what we do. When someone goes missin', we go after them. That's how it's always been. That's why we trust each other, that's why we survive."

I know she's right. They'll come – the group, I mean, our people. But it's those two words that hang in my mind, nagging at me: Your parents.

"You trust LC?" I mutter.

Beth takes a deep breath. "I do." She waits, maybe for me to scream or hit her or something, but I don't do any of that. "Sydney, when we were all apart . . . I was with your mom and dad. And your mom . . . She was the one who really kept us goin'."

"Yeah? How's that?"

"Because she's brave. And strong. And I don't know if I could have made it without her there. Because . . . because even when things got hard for your dad, she kept on bein' brave and strong. She kept on bein' there."

"And my dad wasn't?"

"No, he was, he just . . ."

She's struggling. So I save her.

"It's okay, I know. He didn't look for me."

Beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . goes Carol's heart monitor.

"Sydney, it wasn't like that," Beth finally says. "I mean, it wasn't like . . . it wasn't like he didn't want to find you. He just couldn't let himself believe it was possible. He couldn't let that hope in, because he didn't think he could handle it if he found you dead."

"Yeah. That would have been awful for him. Luckily, I was alive. Runnin' with a group of bandits. One of 'em tried to rape me twice."

Somehow, that's gotten easier to say. And it knocks Beth quiet again. And, you know how it goes – beep . . . beep . . . beep . . .

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry. But you can't be angry at your dad."

"I'm sick of being angry," I say.

"Good."

"Yeah."

"So . . . your mom . . . ?"

"My mom's dead, and she ain't coming back."

"You're not listenin' to me."

I snap my head around and meet her eyes so fast and hard it's like I'm throwing a brick. I hope. "Then make it clearer."

She isn't fazed. "Your dad made himself think you were dead to save himself from what he thought was false hope. That was –" She swallows. "Weak."

I shoot up from my chair, and she grabs my good arm. This time she doesn't let go when I try to jerk away. "But your mom never stopped believin' you were alive. Never let off on your dad about searchin' for you. She said she knew you were alive. She could feel it."

I pull harder on my arm, then shake it outright. That finally gets Beth to release me, though her mouth is tight when she does. "She could feel I was alive?" I say. "Where was that feelin' when I was alive in Atlanta? At the farm? At the prison? Where was that feelin' when she was screwing the Governor at Woodbury?"

Beth's head swings around to the door, then right back. "Keep your voice down," she hisses. "I thought you didn't want to be angry anymore."

"I don't," I hiss right back. "I . . ."

She stares up at me. Her eyes, they've never had the same impact that Carl's eyes have, that my dad's eyes have. But they're so big and wide that you kind of want to pour everything you have into them.

"She abandoned me, Beth. They both did." I begin to shake my head. "She gave up on me two years ago. And he was the only one I had left. And I thought I could always count on him. That was the deal. That was the damn deal, but . . . then he gave up on me, too. And I nearly died. I nearly lost everything. I stopped caring. I stopped doin' anything but existing." My head is still shaking, shaking harder and faster. Beth is rubbing both of my forearms, rubbing over my scars and trying to get a word in, but I can't put a hold on mine. "And now I see things. I hear things. And I can't even go to him about it. He knows, but I can't talk to him about it. He's an entirely different person now. And LC?" A hot tear streaks down my face. "My mother? Beth . . . Can you even . . . imagine what it feels like to have your mother not want you so much –"

Then she's standing and holding me. "No," she says, and her voice cracks. "No. But I don't think it was like that. I don't think it was like that at all, and I think if you hold onto that forever, you're gonna miss out on somethin' most of us never get . . . A second chance."

I fight her hold, but she doesn't let go. And I break. Why not? I'm insane. I get to break.

"She's my mother!" I sob. "She's supposed to always be there, always, and she wasn't! She doesn't deserve a second chance! She doesn't! And neither does Dad! They screwed up! They screwed up!"

"Where would we be, Sydney?"

"What?"

"Where would we be? Any of us? Without second chances?"

My tongue tangles up in my mouth. Beth pushes me away, holds me at arms' length. "Second chances from the people we love? From life, from – God? Where would we be without them?"

I don't know – I don't know what she wants –

She folds one arm over. The single scar there is as visible as any of mine. "I'd be in a grave next to my dead mother's body. Just some farm girl who . . . liked to sing, and ride horses."

"That's different –"

"Or maybe I'd be alive and my sister would want nothin' to do with me! Maybe Daddy would have wanted nothin' to do with me!" She shakes me some, and I don't fight it. "I was Leah, Sydney! I believed with everything I had that I wanted to die, and it wasn't because I didn't care about my family, it was because I cared too much to sit around and watch them die! But I changed my mind! I changed my mind, I decided to fight, and Daddy and Maggie never thought twice about forgivin' me!"

"It's . . . it's different . . ." I sob, but suddenly I can't remember why.

"It's not different. I broke. But I got better. And I started tryin' again."

"Tryin' . . ."

. . . . .

"That's why I left," Carol says. "I just had to be somewhere else –"

My dad turns on her. "Well, you ain't somewhere else! You're right here!" Hard stare, the kind he's good at, the kind that really gets into you and tugs stuff around. "Tryin'!"

. . . . .

"Beth . . ."

"We don't have a lot left in this world, Sydney. But we have our families. We have the people we love. And whether you want to admit it or not, you have more than most. You have the luxury of a second chance. With your mom. With your dad." She holds my arm up again, so the bandages over the holes are right in my face. "This could have killed you. But it didn't. You're alive."

I fall against her. I just need to cry. She told me last night we don't get to cry anymore, but now she's throwing a whole lot of other stuff at me and it all seems much more important than not crying.

"You're alive," she whispers, running a hand down my hair. "They're alive. Don't waste that, Sydney. Don't you dare waste that."