Fangirl

her set the whole world on fire just to watch it burn.
    The woman stood up and stepped toward Cath.
    Cath stood still.
    Laura walked past her to the nurses’ station and said something quietly.
    “You’re the sister?” the nurse asked, looking up.
    Cath nodded.
    “We just need you to answer a few questions.”
    Cath did her best: She didn’t know what Wren had been drinking. She didn’t know where she’d been or whom she was with.
    All the other questions felt like things Cath shouldn’t answer in front of a stranger—in front of Laura, who was just standing there, watching Cath’s face like she was taking notes. Cath looked at her, helplessly, defensively, and Laura walked back to the corner. Was Wren a regular drinker? Yes. Did she often drink to drunkenness? Yes. Did she black out? Yes. Did she use any other drugs? I don’t know. Was she on any medication? Birth control. Do you have an insurance card? Yes.
    “Can I see her?” Cath asked.
    “Not yet,” the nurse answered.
    “Is she okay?”
    “I’m not her nurse. But the doctor just briefed your mom.”
    Cath looked back at Laura, at her mom, at this upset blond woman with tired eyes and really expensive jeans. Cath went to sit across from her, steadying herself. This wasn’t a reunion; this wasn’t anything. Cath was here for Wren.
    “Is she okay?”
    Her mom looked up. “I think so. She hasn’t woken up yet. Someone dropped her off at the emergency room a few hours ago, then left. I guess she wasn’t breathing … enough. I don’t really know how it works. They’re giving her fluids. It’s just time now. Waiting.”
    Laura’s hair was cut into a long bob that hung like two sharp wings under her chin. She was wearing a stiff, white shirt and too many rings on her fingers.
    “Why did they call you?” Cath asked. Maybe it was a rude thing to ask; she didn’t care.
    “Oh,” Laura said. She reached into a cream-colored Coach bag and pulled out Wren’s phone, holding it across the aisle.
    Cath took it.
    “They looked in her contacts,” Laura said. “They said they always call the mom first.”
    The mom, Cath thought.
    Cath dialed her dad’s number. It went straight to voice mail. She stood up and walked a few chairs away, for two feet of privacy. “Dad, it’s Cath. I’m at the hospital. I haven’t seen Wren yet. I’ll call you when I know more.”
    “I talked to him earlier,” Laura said. “He’s in Tulsa.”
    “I know,” Cath said, looking down at the phone. “Why didn’t he call me?”
    “I … I said I would. He had to call the airline.”
    Cath sat back down, not right across from Laura anymore. She didn’t have anything more to say to her, and there was nothing she wanted to hear.
    “You—” Laura cleared her throat. She was starting every sentence like she didn’t have the breath to finish it. “—you still look so much alike.”
    Cath jerked her head up to look at her.
    It was like looking at nobody at all.
    And then it was like looking at the person you expected to see comforting you when you woke up from a nightmare.
    Whenever Levi had asked about her mother, Cath always said she didn’t remember much. And that had always been true.
    But now it wasn’t. Now, just sitting this close to Laura unlocked some secret, half-sized door in Cath’s brain. And she could see her mom, in perfect focus, sitting on the other side of their dining room table. She was laughing at something that Wren had said—so Wren kept saying it, and their mom kept laughing. She laughed through her nose. Her hair was dark, and she tucked Sharpies into her ponytail, and she could draw anything. A flower. A seahorse. A unicorn. And when she was irritated, she snapped at them. Snapped her fingers. Snap, snap, snap, while she was talking on the phone. Stern eyebrows, bared teeth. “ Shhh. ” She was in the bedroom with their dad, shouting. She was at the zoo, helping Wren chase a peacock. She was rolling out dough for gingerbread cookies. She was on the phone, snapping. She was in the bedroom, yelling. She was standing on the porch, pushing Cath’s hair behind her ears again and again, stroking her cheek with a long, flat thumb, and making promises she wasn’t going to keep.
    “We’re twins,” Cath said. Because it was the stupidest thing she could think to say. Because that’s what “you still look so much alike” deserved when your mom was the one saying it.
    Cath took out her phone and texted Levi. “at the hospital