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idea where I am. Everything hurts. I'm completely disoriented.
    I try to sit up, but a hand reaches out and pushes me back down.
    " No, no !" A woman I've never seen before leans down over me and fires off a rapid string of Italian.
    I can't understand what she's saying to me. I just hurt.
    " Dove? " I ask. My throat is dry and painful, causing the word to crack.
    She says something else and then a word I understand. Ospedale . I'm in the hospital.
    Vague images flicker through my mind. Glass, blood.
    Oh God, Toby and Laney.
    The woman says something else and then frowns when I don't respond. "Capisce?"
    " Non capisco ," I mutter. Nausea rolls through me, images of Toby grunting atop Laney flickering through my mind.
    The woman – nurse – huffs, her frustration obvious. "Parla Italiano?"
    I know this one, too. But I don't know the answer. I don't know anything.
    " No lo so ," I mumble. I'm frigid. I'm….
    " No lo so ," I whisper again. A tear slides down my temple into my hairline.
    " You fell in glass, Miss Martin," she says in accented English this time. Her expression softens, her hand still on my shoulder to keep me down. "A piece pierced your kidney. You're in the hospital; you've been here for three days."
    Three days?
    " Okay," I whisper, a tear dripping onto my ear.
    "He is," Lexi says, pulling me back into the present.
    I jerk at the sound of her voice.
    Lexi notices.
    "Are you okay?" she asks.
    "I'm fine." I ball the napkin up and drop it into the trashcan, my appetite completely gone. I can't bring myself to look up at Lexi again so I stare at the floor instead. Black and white tiles gleam like pieces on a chessboard beneath the strappy sandals Kit forced me to wear.
    "How are you, Savannah?" Lexi asks, reaching for my hand. "Really?"
    And I know Kit told her everything.
    "I'm–" I don't know how to answer her question. I want to tell her the truth. I want to tell her anything but the truth. I just want to forget. "I don't know," I finally say as she squeezes my hand in hers. And I don't know. I haven't known how I am or what I think or what I'm doing once in the last few weeks. Yet, everyone keeps asking, expecting me to have an answer. And maybe I should have one.
    I don't know that either.
    All I know is that I'm here. Alive. In San Francisco.
    "Savannah." Lexi wraps her arm around my shoulder.
    The gesture is too much. I'm exhausted, confused, in pain, and we just buried her father, yet she's offering me comfort. The last weeks of turmoil break free as if a dam has burst. I start to cry, great, wracking sobs that I can't even slow, let alone stop.
    Her kindness is one of so few in the last two years and it's unbearable.
    She ushers me toward the table on the far side of the room and pushes me gently into a chair before wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pulling me into her. I rest my head against her stomach and just sob. For the girl I was. For the person I am. For fourteen stitches, broken dreams, and a home I don't have.
    "I'm sorry," I cry, trying to pull back to wipe my face.
    "Shh, Savannah. It's okay." Lexi strokes my hair as I've done for both of her sisters in the last eighteen hours and it feels good. Safe. "You're going to be okay."
    I want to believe her, but I don't.
     

     
    "Here, drink this." Lexi presses a glass into my hand.
    I've stopped crying, but my cheeks burn with shame. I don't know what came over me, and I don't know how to react now that the storm of tears has passed. Taking the glass, I bring it to my lips to sip.
    My hands tremble, causing the water to slosh, but I don't spill it.
    "Thank you," I whisper, passing the glass back to Lexi.
    Her bare feet disappear from view for a moment before they return. The chair beside mine scrapes when she pulls it out and settles into it. For just a moment, it's completely silent in the room. And then snatches of conversation from other parts of the house trickle through. A discordant tune plucked out on the piano in the music room