Freya woke up with the chills. Her sheets were so damp with sweat that for a moment she was afraid she’d wet the bed. She was lightheaded and her joints had a distant, sweet ache. Like an idiot, she’d given herself a fever, swimming in November.

She remained stuck in the tangle of covers, trying to remember what she’d been dreaming about. It had been so long since she’d had a dream she could remember. The Lunesta obliviated them and left only a metallic taste in her mouth. Freya had been waking up out of a black hole every morning since she began the prescription.

Today was different, whether it was the near-death-experience or the fever, the night had been full of strange dreams. She’d dreamed of tall spires, needle-sharp violent triangles pointed at a pure black sky. Beneath her feet, pulses of light were firing across an endlessly branching network of lines. It had all made sense in the dream, but the significance was melting away in the light of morning.

The fever pendulum swung while she was chasing the dream, and she was suddenly burning. She scrambled to escape comforter and walked naked through the hallway. Freya used the bathroom without turning on the light, she didn’t want to see herself. She thought about changing the sheets on her bed and trying to go back to sleep but it wouldn’t work. She knew she couldn’t fall back asleep. No matter how sick she felt, she had to go bail out Lassa today.

Another strange thing, she was hungry. Freya never ate breakfast anymore. Was that a sign she was building up a tolerance to the Lunesta? It was an awful thought, sleeping was the only thing she had to look forward to. She didn’t even want to think about it.

As she was pushing the thought away, she remembered she had leftovers in the fridge. Finally she could find out if Chinese food was actually better the day after. She’d never had a chance before, to bring back leftovers from her secret dinners with Randall would be tempting the dragon. But as far as she could see, there was no truth to the idea, the dumplings were cold and greasy, the beef tough and chewy. Still she finished everything, and carefully hid the containers at the bottom of the trash. As she ate, she stared at the meteorite’s shell, waiting for the purple orb to do something.

It didn’t. Freya felt much more clear-headed after eating. She decided she wasn’t really that sick, probably she just didn’t want to go bail Lassa out. She turned her attention back to the meteorite. She’d half expected it not to be there this morning, that the whole thing had just been a fever dream. She ran her fingers over the cold metal shell, it was real. More than anything she wanted to just leave her mother in jail. She could take the meteorite and the purple core straight to the biology lab at Grayson and spend the morning examining it under a microscope.

The violet core had pricked her once, but she couldn’t resist picking it up again. It was warm, as if it had been sitting in the sun. Freya took a closer look, rolling it over in her palm and she could see no sign of any crack or protrusion. She looked at her palm, there was no sign of a puncture.

She set the orb down again.

Did I die at the river? Is this hell?

She had to really give it some thought. It didn't feel like hell. But an effective hell would have to feel real, wouldn't it? As much as she didn't believe in god, the idea of hell was not so easily dismissed.

She glanced over to the memory wall. Beside the corkboard map, there was a framed black-on-green playbill. GRAYSON HIGH PRESENTS, A ONE ACT TRIPLE HEADER - NO EXIT - THE LOTTERY - THE GIRL WHO WAS ASKED TO TURN BLUE.

For freshman year drama, Freya had played Estelle Rigault in No Exit. The whole thing was a mire of terrible angst, the girl who played Inez, Saria Jefferson had a terrible crush on Freya, and Freya had a worse one on Peter Berl, who played Garcin. Peter was of course, hopelessly infatuated with Saria. They all hated each other by the time for the performance, and it seemed the whole play would be a disaster.

Instead, it had been a triumph. The weird thwarted love triangle fed right into the play. Mr. Sales, the drama teacher was forever yelling "use it!" at them every time they showed frustration, and the performance was electric. The spring production was a triple play of three one acts, and after the first night Mr. Sales moved No Exit to the finale, because they far outshone the juniors in The Lottery and the seniors in Blue.

Freya had never been in a play that was so good before. There was tension singing in the air with every line, and the audience hung on every word. The performances got stronger as the weekend went on, not weaker. The standing ovation for the Sunday night show seemed like it might never end. There were tears in Randall's eyes, even though it was his third night seeing the play in a row. Even Lassa seemed moved.

There was a gushing write-up in the Sillas River Sentinel. In a delicately worded sentence they'd managed to call Freya perfectly cast in the role of a lascivious child-murder. There had been some talk about them taking the play to the state drama competition that summer, but when Randall died, the plans were quietly forgotten. She hadn't tried out for the fall play.

Hadn't tried out for the fall play, or for the swim team. Hadn't done a thing but go home every night and read and practice guitar. She only kept up the practice and the guitar lessons because Lassa made her. Also because Randall was the one who’d gotten her lessons with Mr. Mathis, who had once been famous. It was supposed to be therapeutic, but it was just music. She played it and felt nothing. One hour a night and back to reading, and at 9 o'clock every night she could take the Lunesta.

You couldn't kill yourself with Lunesta. She'd looked it up on the internet. Even if you took the whole bottle, it would just knock you out and you would recover. Lassa hated pills, there was nothing else in the house but Advil, and that was another thing you couldn't kill yourself with. You would have to take a whole pile of it. It wasn't how Freya would choose to go.

Apparently the river wasn't either. She wasn't sure how her thoughts had gotten here again, it hadn't even been a full day since she almost drowned. It felt like it was just a matter of time.

She was alone, in the empty house with only the quiet humming of the refrigerator, the whispery sound of the heat pump in the vents. She didn't want to go to the jail, but more, she didn't want to see Lassa. If only there were a way to leave her in there.

She shook her head.

It was better to just tear the bandage off all at once.