Fractured Read Free

nurse doesn’t smile. ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she says.
    She scans my Levo, frowns. My stomach clenches, afraid what it will show. My levels should have dropped low after what happened: nightmares sometimes even made me black out when it was functioning as it is meant to. But who knows what it is doing now?
    ‘Looks like you just fainted; your levels have been fine. Good, even. Did you have any lunch?’
    Give her a reason.
    ‘No. I wasn’t hungry,’ I lie.
    She shakes her head. ‘Kyla, you need to eat.’ She lectures on blood sugar, feeds me tea and biscuits, and, before she disappears out the door, tells me to sit quietly in her office until the final bell.
    Alone, I can’t stop my thoughts spinning around. The girl with the broken hand in my nightmare, or vision, or whatever it was…I know who she is. I recognise her as a younger version of myself: my eyes, bone structure, everything. Lucy Connor : vanished years ago from her school in Keswick, age ten, as reported on MIA. Missing In Action, the highly illegal website I saw just weeks ago at Jazz’s cousin’s place. She was part of me before I was Slated. Yet even with my new memories, I cannot remember being her, or anything about her life. I can’t even think of her as ‘I’ or ‘me’. She is different, other, separate.
    How does Lucy fit in this mess in my brain? I kick the desk, frustrated. Things are there, half understood. I feel I know them, but when I focus on details they slip away. Indistinct and insubstantial.
    And this was all brought on when I realised I was using my left hand. Did Nico see? If he saw I was writing with my left hand, he’ll know something has changed. I’m supposed to be right-handed, and it is important, so important…but when I try to focus on why I am meant to be right-handed, why I was before, why I don’t seem to be any more, I can’t work it out. The memory goes all distorted, like fingers smashed with a brick.

CHAPTER THREE
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    Mum appears at the nurse’s office as the final bell rings. ‘Hello there.’
    ‘Hi. Did they call you?’
    ‘Obviously.’
    ‘Sorry. I’m perfectly all right.’
    ‘That must be why you passed out in the middle of a lesson and wound up here.’
    ‘Well, I’m fine now.’
    Mum tracks down Amy, and drives us both home. Once through the door I head for the stairs.
    ‘Kyla, wait. Come talk to me for a minute.’ Mum smiles, but it is one of those that is more on the lips than the whole face. ‘Hot chocolate?’ she asks, and I follow her into the kitchen. She doesn’t chatter as she fills the kettle, makes our drinks. Mum isn’t much of a talker unless she has something to say.
    She has something to say. Unease twists in my stomach. Has she noticed I’ve changed? Maybe if I tell her, she can help, and…
    Don’t trust her .
    After being Slated, I was a blank. It took nine months in hospital for me to learn to function: to walk, talk, and cope with my Levo. Then I was assigned to this family. I grew to see her as a friend, someone I can rely on: but how long have I known her, really? Not even two months. It seemed longer before because it was my whole life out of hospital, all I could remember. Now that I have a wider frame of reference, I know people should be viewed with suspicion, not trust.
    She sets the drinks in front of us on the table, and I wrap my hands around the mug, soaking heat into cold hands.
    ‘What happened?’ she asks.
    ‘I guess I fainted.’
    ‘Why? The nurse said you hadn’t eaten, yet your lunchbox is mysteriously empty.’
    I stay silent, sip my chocolate, focusing on the bitter sweetness. Nothing I can say about it makes much sense, even to me. Writing with my left hand made me faint ? And that dream, or whatever it was. I shudder inside.
    ‘Kyla, I know how hard things are for you right now. If you ever want to talk, we can, you know. About Ben, or anything. It is all right to wake me up if you can’t sleep. I won’t mind.’
    My eyes