What Happened in Strasbourg

Chapter twenty three: Breakdown

Three empty weeks went by with the only change being a "coming soon" sign outside on the front lawn. I wondered who would buy it from us, how it could possibly be anything but my house. How could I live in any place that wasn't made of red bricks, surrounded by an old wrought iron gate, covered in ivy? Would there be a day when I could come back here again? It might have not felt like home to my mom or dad, but it did to me.

It was early on a Monday morning, when I woke up to my muted phone vibrating on my nightstand. At first I thought I'd accidentally set an alarm, but when I felt around and grabbed it I saw I was getting a call from Ava. "Hello?" I yawned. "What's going on?"
"Imogen's at the ER."
"What... why? What happened to her?"

I rarely ever got a rush of anxiety this early, and it shook off my sleepiness quicker than a cup of coffee ever could. I thought of the workplace accidents I'd read about after Acheron day. Had she been crushed by a forklift? Had she been taking steroids until her heart gave out? I didn't even want to think about the other possibilities.

"I'm going to visit her right now," Ava said. "Can you come too?"

"Yeah, I can. See you there," I said, and I ran to wake up my mom.

. . .

The rising orange sun glared against the dirty windshield as we drove in circles around a new patch of urban sprawl in search of the elusive urgent care. "Do you have a mask?" my mom asked me. "You can't go into any place like that without a mask, you'll catch something."

"I'll be fine," I said, reaching for Ginger's leash.
"I wore a mask for two years straight!" my mom said, as if she'd somehow stopped this habit after two decades. She narrowed her eyes. "You can do it for a few hours." She pointed towards the glove compartment. I sighed and dutifully took a light blue surgical mask from the dusty box she kept there at all times. I told her I'd put it on once I got inside, which wasn't true, and slipped it into my back pocket. I had more things to worry about than some virus from the 20s that my mom couldn't get out of her head.

The cold waiting room, with its powdered latex air and a buzzing light, was almost empty. The table in the middle was covered in magazines and grubby toys for impatient toddlers. I caught sight of Ava huddled in a chair in the corner with a hoodie thrown over her pajamas. "Good, you're here," she mumbled. "Let's go."

We walked down a linoleum hallway, trying hard to avoid suspicious glances from nurses who knew that we probably weren't allowed back. One of them, a man wearing a face shield and mask, cut us off, "Where are you going?" he asked.

"We're looking for our friend, Imogen," Ava said. "She texted me. She said she's here alone."
"Oh, that girl..." he shook his head. "Right this way."

The small windowless room that he left us in looked like it was meant for young kids with little counting games and blocks along with cartoon posters of animals. But Imogen was anything but the "kid friendly mood" of the room. She lay there, curled up on the paper-covered bed, staring at the ceiling. I noticed her right arm was bent at an unnatural angle and was swollen, covered in fresh red bruises and iv tubing. "Imogen," I said, running up to her. "It's me and Ava."

She turned her head to the side, her lips formed a weak smile but her eyes kept their strange expression. "Gracie," she whispered.
"What happened to you? Are you okay?"

"Well, I'm -- I'm not at the warehouse. So I'm great. Anything not the warehouse is great." Imogen was quiet again. I heard her ragged breathing and the clock on the wall ticking, the only thing in the room that made time feel real. After a while Imogen opened her mouth to speak again but only started coughing -- this horrible, balloon popping cough that I'd heard somewhere before but couldn't place. Her breath smelled like medicine, and there was pink tinted foam on her lips. "Gracie -- sit down-- you look like you'll faint," Ava said, and I felt her hands supporting me under my arms. "Were you having a seizure?"

"No," I mumbled. "Ginger didn't try to alert me so I'm okay. I was just spacing out or something... Imogen? Are they helping you? What happened?"

"She can't talk well right now, she's in a lot of pain." I turned around to see the nurse in the face shield from before standing in the doorway.

"Can you please tell us what happened to her?" I asked. "We're her friends. Is she going to die?"

The nurse shook his head.

"Why's she hurt then?"

"We cannot tell you that information right now."

"I broke my arm," Imogen said, her voice so raspy it was hard to understand. "I closed the car door on my arm over and over -- until it broke. So they'd fire me."

She was hit by another wave of coughing that shook her body. Ginger whimpered and ducked her head. "It was nothing... nothing. Just getting myself out of that stupid job..."

"She's on a high dose of narcotics," the nurse said under his breath. He walked over to Imogen and brushed the sweaty hair out of her eyes. "Shhh, try to get some rest... She doesn't know what she's saying. I would suggest taking all the stories she's telling you now with a grain of salt."
"No, it's true," Imogen said, she couldn't stop blinking. "I really did it. I really broke my arm and it was great."

"It's best to leave her alone now," the nurse said to Ava and I. "She won't be herself until the meds wear off in a couple hours. At this point she's feeling next to no pain, physically or mentally. But she isn't exactly coherent." He ushered us back into the hallway and closed the door.

"I should've done something," I said, turning to Ava. "I knew something like this was going to happen, but I just--"

"I know how you feel," Ava said. "But you're not responsible for her or what happened to her."
"My dad runs the distribution center. I think I'm kind of responsible, aren't I?"

"You feel guilty. It's not the same thing. Nothing that happened to her is your fault."

We each got some lavender hand sanitizer from a dispenser by the door before walking outside. The sun was already halfway up the sky, and the heatwave hadn't let up. Hair dryer wind burned my eyes and nose as we walked across the sidewalk and Ginger panted loudly and squinted her eyes. "I'm sorry." Ava said.

"Why? For what?"

"For yelling at you about Acheron a couple weeks ago... I didn't want to believe it, but maybe you are right. Maybe they are as bad as you say. A good company wouldn't let their employees suffer like that... and the bad things they say about Mir-Tek don't seem true either, honestly."

We sat down on a bench, and I texted my mom to tell her I was ready for her to pick me up.

"I'm sorry too," I said. "I guess I already said that. But like... you're actually right about the risks that come with hating Acheron. It is dangerous, especially if we don't think before we act. We definitely don't want the rug to be pulled out from under our parents' feet all of a sudden. But at the same time --"

"This is gonna seem out of character for me," Ava said, "but can you tell me what you learned on Trench?"

"Really?"

Ava nodded with a sheepish smile on her face.

"You won't tell your parents right? They'd reveal it all to the rest of AIMA-- and then—"

"Yeah, I promise."