The Girl In Between (The Girl In Between Series Book 1)

  ***

  An hour later my mom and I were sitting in Dr. Sabine’s office. Dr. Banz and his creepy assistant were there too. I wasn’t really listening, mostly just glancing out the window, trying to spot Felix’s car in the parking lot.

  “What do you mean by new development?” my mom asked.

  I snapped to attention.

  “We’ve been having some very recent success using a drug called Nilostasia.”

  “The trial you mentioned before?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Banz said. “A few of our patients have seen some remarkable results in just the past month.” He spoke quickly, excitement painting his cheeks.

  But there was also a sense of urgency to his words and it made me wonder what had happened to the funding problem he’d mentioned a few weeks ago.

  “That’s amazing,” my mom sighed, gripping my hand.

  “So when do I get to try it?” I asked.

  “Well…” Dr. Banz took a breath, smiled. “We’ve been looking to deepen the pool a little bit. It’s not ready to be tested outside my supervision but we are looking to fly in some potential candidates to participate in the next phase of our study.”

  “Fly in. As in go to Germany?” my mom asked.

  Germany? It felt so far away.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Three to four months,” Dr. Banz said.

  I inhaled. “When?”

  “Dr. Banz and Mr. Vogle will be with us until the end of the month,” Dr. Sabine said. “You could leave for Germany right after graduation.”

  “In four weeks?” I asked.

  My mom leaned forward. “We’ll have to think about it.”

  Dr. Sabine nodded. “Of course.”

  I almost said no, that I was ready to go, that I’d wanted to find a cure more than anything and that I was ready. But then I started thinking about a barrage of creepy German doctors that looked like Vogle. I thought about the drug being a fluke. Of it not working for me or worse. What if I ended up in a permanent coma and then I couldn’t find Roman and I couldn’t go to college and one day my mom would be bent over my bedside, grey hair falling into her face as she told them to pull the plug?

  I realized that I’d always felt safer doing the trials under Dr. Sabine’s supervision because I knew they’d been properly vetted by the time they finally reached her small office in Austin from whatever European laboratory they’d come from. But this was new and scary and what if I couldn’t do it? Or even worse, if I could do it, what would happen to Roman if the drugs finally worked?

  After the appointment my mom and I had lunch at a little outdoor café downtown. I was pushing my pasta around the plate, trying not to think about dying.

  “You thinking about what Dr. Sabine said?” my mom asked.

  I nodded.

  “You don’t have to do it, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “If it’s too much, it’s too much. The trial will still go on without you and if they find a cure then it won’t be long before it makes it to Dr. Sabine.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then they keep trying. We keep trying too.”

  “And what if trying means we go to Germany?”

  She looked at me, reaching a hand across the table. “Then we go to Germany.” She folded her napkin into her lap. “You know me, I’m the nervous wreck who worries about every little thing. But you’re different. I still remember the day you climbed that old oak tree behind your grandparents’ farmhouse. Grandpa caught you dragging the ladder over to reach the first branch.”

  “Yeah and he took it away.”

  “He said, ‘you want to climb that tree? Then climb it on your own and climb down on your own.’”

  “He always said if I couldn’t climb back down without his help then I couldn’t climb at all.”

  “Right, and you did it. You were, what, six years old? You climbed that tree to the very top and then you just sat there.”

  “For an entire day,” I laughed. “I couldn’t figure out how to get down.”

  “And he wouldn’t help you. I remember I was so scared. Your grandpa sat under that tree all afternoon waiting for you to come down but he must have nodded off because when I went to check on you, you weren’t in the tree. You were sitting at the kitchen table with your grandmother and drinking a glass of milk.”

  I started to laugh. “Milk. Yeah, I remember that. Not how I got down but I do remember the milk.”

  “No one’s really sure how you did it but the point is that you did and you’ve always been that way. You always figure things out.”

  “So you’re saying I should sleep on it?”

  “Not too long.” She smiled. “You’ll figure it out, Bryn.”

  I tried to believe her. I wanted to. But suddenly I felt small, like I was still that little kid who’d climbed that tree, only minus the boldness.

  “Do you want to see something?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “We just finished a design project in Bluestone Park.”

  I glanced across the street, the trees lining the footpath in full bloom.

  “We can stop by Amy’s for some ice cream on the way back.”

  I smiled. “And suddenly I’m feeling a lot better.”

  We decided to walk, leaving the car at the restaurant and cutting through the food trucks on our way to the other side of the park. I looped our arms and it felt strange being so close.

  I usually rushed our hugs and pulled away when she tried to kiss me on the cheek. I was distant because being close made me feel weak. But in that moment, I was weak. I was worried. About Germany and Roman and my mom and me. So I reached for her and she reached back.

  I saw the crows first. Black. Bulky. Paper feathers quavering in the wind. They circled the fountain like they were guarding it, wings extended, sharp beaks opened wide. It had three tiers, the fountain. Birds were splashing near the top and moss scaled the marble design, spilling onto the ground in long scrolls that looked synthetic.

  “I thought it was such a lucky coincidence that we finished it just in time for the museum’s newest installation to go up. I thought the birds were a little creepy at first but I figured it was something you’d like.”

  I could feel her watching my face, waiting for it to change, for me to smile.

  “It’s less modern than what—”

  “Are you sure I’ve never seen this before?” I stopped her.

  She shook her head. “They put all of the landscaping in last week.”

  “And the birds?”

  “A few days ago. You were—”

  “Sleeping.” But I remembered it. All of it. “Are you…?” And then I was quiet, just staring at the birds splashing in the bath. Cardinals.

  We stood there for a long time and I could see my mom’s face in the corner of my eye. Worried. Tired.

  She gripped my shoulders and then she said, “You know I’ll be right there with you if you want to go to Germany. Or if you don’t, I’ll be right there too.”

  “I know,” I said. “You always are.”

  “And I always will be.”

  Hot tears pricked at my lashes. I blinked. Because she was wrong. Because she would get older and so would I. She wouldn’t always be there. Whether I still needed her or not, she wouldn’t always be there.

  That’s why I had to do it. That’s why I had to swallow the fear and go to Germany. Because things were happening to me. Because I was seeing things and feelings things. And because my mom couldn’t take care of me forever. At some point I had to start taking care of myself.

  Chapter 25

  Roman