One Past Midnight (9 page)

The silence became uncomfortable.

“What's wrong?” I asked between mouthfuls of toast. Dad continued staring at the same piece of paper he'd been focused on since I'd walked into the room. Mom squirmed in her chair.

“It's probably just a misunderstanding, sweetie.” She gave me a reassuring nod that didn't match the concerned look in her eyes.

“What is?” I put down my slice of toast, my cast clanking on the edge of my plate.

Dad looked up at me from behind the sheet of paper. Something in his eyes—the way they looked at me, but didn't
focus
on me—set off my internal alarms. “Denise called this morning. She did a random stock check before she closed up last night. On the prescription meds.” His glare intensified. “Is there something you want to tell us?”

Oh.

Shit.

I thought I'd covered all bases. Normally inventory happened midweek, which would have given me a few days between working at the store and other casual staff taking shifts. It should've been impossible for the missing drugs to be traced back to me.

Why the hell did Denise decide to . . . ?

Then I remembered how I'd been too nervous to look around when Ethan handed me back the box of pills. Denise must have seen enough to be suspicious.

I wasn't ready for this.

“Sabine?” Dad snapped.

I grabbed hold of my pendant, sliding the butterfly up and down the dainty silver chain, thinking fast.

“I don't know what you want me to say.”

“You could start with the truth,” Dad replied.

I looked at Mom, holding her gaze as if I had nothing to hide. “About what?”

Think, think, think!

My mouth was so dry, my words were starting to stick.

“About the box of heart medication that walked out of the store yesterday. They were only delivered in the morning and were gone by the afternoon. Apart from Denise, you and your mother were the only ones in the store with access.” Dad's neck was getting red patches. He was starting to lose it, glaring at Mom like she should be doing something.

Mom jumped in. “Sabine, I don't know what you . . . Maybe you could explain—”

But it wasn't good enough for Dad and he cut her off. “It's heart medication, Sabine!” He stood up, scraping the chair roughly across the floor. “What were you thinking? If you think you can get high on that stuff, you're sorely mistaken! You would've had better luck in the cough medicine aisle!” He started pacing around the table.

Eyes wide, I couldn't think, couldn't focus. Mom was reaching across the table to hold my hand, as if pleading for an explanation, something that could stop this runaway train. Problem was, my mind was drawing a blank.

“I didn't—”

“Don't even go there! We know it was you. Even
Denise
knows it was you! How do you think that makes us look?
Having staff who know that our own daughter would steal from us? Did you even think about what people would say?”

Dad's foot snagged one of the straps of my bag and he stumbled, almost taking a nose-dive. It was the final straw. After regaining his balance, he grabbed my backpack and upended it on the table.

I leaped up to stop him, but Mom's previously comforting hand suddenly morphed into a viselike grip.

It felt as if everything happened in slow motion. The contents of my bag spilled onto the table. Amid the stash of blood-soaked bandages sat a half-emptied box of pills and a box of extra-strength laxatives.

And just to complete the parental nightmare—the kitchen filleting knife landed with a dull thump.

Mom gasped and Dad looked at me as if every terrible thought he'd ever had about me had been leading to this moment of ultimate disappointment. Before I could think, my mouth was open.

“I can explain! Let me explain.”

Mom nodded, squeezing my hand and then releasing some of the pressure. Dad raised his eyebrows at me.

“Go on then, Sabine,” he said. “Explain.” His tone was flat and dubious.

I took a deep breath, tried to start and failed. Heart pounding, I took another breath and mentally counted to ten. And then, my life of hidden truths, of divided worlds,
my secrets, my
wrongness
. . . The walls I'd worked so hard for so long to construct tumbled down around me. I didn't know if it was because I'd been caught thanks to the change in the rules or the result of some dire need to defend myself and shock my quick-to-judge parents, but when I searched in the bottomless barrel of lies that never seemed to fail me . . . Nothing. Not one little excuse sprung to mind.

“I have two lives,” I blurted.

Mom looked perplexed. Of all the things she'd expected me to say in my defense, this was certainly not one of them. But then, as her mind ticked over the possible explanations for that one comment, the color drained from her face and her expression changed to horrified.

I took another breath. “I've been this way ever since I was born—living every day twice. I wake up in the morning here, in my bed with you as my family, and I live my day. But every night, at midnight, I go through this kind of
Shift
—that's what I call it. One second I'm here in this life. The next, I'm in another life, and for the next twenty-four hours until midnight I'm in that life, with my family there. When I get back here, it's as if no time has passed.”

Tears slipped down my face as I looked at my parents, desperately willing them to see past the craziness of my words to the truth in my eyes. “I know this is weird. It's why I've never told anyone—I never thought there was anything I could do to change it. But . . . but lately something
has
changed. Before, if something happened to my body it would affect me in my other world—like when I got tonsillitis in this world, I had it there too. Now, for some reason things aren't crossing over. So I've been . . . trying to figure it out.” I swallowed.

“You live in two
worlds
?” Dad said very softly.

“Dad, please believe me.”

“You have two different families?” Mom said, equally stunned, eyes welling.

“Look, I know this sounds crazy. But I can explain it all so you understand. I just need you to know why I have the pills”—I glanced at my bag's incriminating contents—“and the other stuff.”

Finally Dad nodded and turned to face me. “Well, make it clear to us, Sabine.”

“Okay,” I said, blowing out a breath, relieved he seemed to be at least willing to hear more. “I don't know when the change happened, maybe since I turned eighteen, but when I broke my wrist, that was the first sign. When I shifted the other night, my wrist wasn't broken in my other world.”

Mom was silent, but Dad nodded me on and I couldn't help but feel a rush at finally being able to tell them all of this. My deepest fears of him yelling “liar” and throwing me out of the house weren't coming true.

I sat up in my chair. “After that, I decided I needed to know for sure. I mean, the physical parts of me have always
been connected, but now . . . Well, if they aren't, everything is different. So I started conducting tests. First my hair.”

“And how did that go?” Dad asked.

I felt myself nodding. “Great. I mean, for the first time I was able to cut my hair and not have it change in my other world.” I couldn't help the hesitant smile. Dad made a feeble attempt to return one. I took it as another encouraging sign. “When I went back there I had my hair dyed blond, and it didn't change anything here either. And then . . .” I stalled.

“It's okay, Sabine, you can tell us. We can see you've been . . . trying out some other theories,” Dad said, sounding surprisingly calm as he glanced at the bloodied bandages heaped in the center of the table.

For the first time in my life, I considered that maybe they'd always known, had figured it out somehow. I felt a surge of relief as I continued to explain. Maybe they could help me work this out. Maybe I wasn't as alone as I'd always assumed.

“Well, I wanted to test everything. So after my hair, I tested my skin and . . .” Rather than trying to tell them I'd been hacking at myself, I pulled up the sleeve of my top to expose the bandage and grimaced. “I know it was stupid, but I was really careful and the thing is, it worked. When I shifted last night, none of the wounds came with me!”

Dad nodded and pressed his lips together. Mom was sobbing at the table. I decided to keep my focus on Dad. He seemed to be taking it better.

“How many areas have you tested?” he asked.

“Just my arm, leg, and belly,” I said, wincing a little as Mom gasped. “But I was careful and none of them are deep, I swear!”

“It's okay, Sabine. It's just a lot to . . . take in for your mother and me. We've always known that you've been . . . dealing with some things that other people weren't. It's good to get it all out in the open, and we're grateful you've confided in us.” He scratched at his neck. He always did that when he was nervous.

Or lying.

Instinctively I recoiled and turned to Mom. She was still crying, barely looking at me.

“Mom? You believe me, right?” I said, suddenly fearing I'd made a horrible mistake. Mom couldn't stop sobbing, but Dad came around and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Of course we do, Sabine. It's just going to take some time for us to absorb. How about you give your mother and me a few minutes to process everything and then we can have another chat? I'd like to know more about your other life.”

Still feeling uneasy, my eyes darted between them. “Okay. Well, I was going to head out for a bit anyway.” I stood up. Exit was a good plan. Dad seemed to be trying to understand, but Mom wasn't coping. Plus, those alarm bells were ringing louder in my mind.

“Actually, would you mind staying around here? I think it's important we talk this through. Could you wait in your room?” Dad looked at me and then glanced pointedly at Mom, as if imploring me for a chance to calm her down before I left.

I thought it through. I would never have expected Dad to take all of this so well, but he seemed genuinely interested in what was going on with me. I still felt a gnawing unease, but if I took off now, it would only look bad. Make them think that I was lying. And he would never,
ever
trust me again. No. I needed to stand up to this, make them understand. So I clung to the hope that it would all be for the best, nodded to Dad gratefully, and went to my room.

I wedged myself up against my door, straining to hear what Mom and Dad were saying. Besides a few loud sobs from Mom and the occasional stern use of her name by Dad, they spoke in hushed tones. The phone rang a few times, but even then all I could hear was Dad's muffled voice, which sounded relaxed and formal. Must be work related.

I waited.

When it was clear I wasn't going to overhear anything, I collapsed on my bed and started to rehearse all the things I was going to tell them, carefully selecting the examples I'd use to help them understand. It wasn't going to be easy. I'd had my whole life, twice over, to come to terms with this existence, and I still didn't fully understand it. Plus, I'd seen Mom's face when I told them I had another family . . . That was
not
going to be a pleasant conversation. I decided to keep the details as vague as possible for now. There was
also the money issue; Dad wouldn't like that. But I couldn't help the small bubble of excited anticipation. I was
finally
telling someone.

I waited.

Dad would come and get me. I hoped that when he did, we'd get a few minutes alone together and he'd bring me up to speed on how Mom was taking it all.

I waited.

It seemed like the whole day passed, several hours at least.

It was quiet. I'd run out of theories and practice speeches and had started to wonder if they were still even out there. I was about to go looking for them when I heard a knock downstairs at the front door.

A stern knock. Three life-changing thuds.

I wasn't sure exactly why, but my stomach flipped and I started instinctively backing away from my bedroom door.

I hadn't even made it to the window when Dad opened the door and held it there for the man and woman who walked in. Our family doctor followed, standing beside Dad.

The bed was between them and me—and since my bed-room basically only
fit
the bed, the situation became instantly defensive. I could see the man and woman calculating how they were going to close the distance.

These people were not my friends.

These people were my worst nightmare.

“Sabine,” my father—no longer Dad—said in a low commanding voice. “Sabine, we are trying to help you. These nurses are here to help.”

They held their hands in front of them—reminding me of the way Dex had approached me the night before—like I was a wild animal. In that moment, that's exactly what I felt like.