The Before by Emily McKay Page B

water. Water, water. Not a drop to drink.”
    I felt a scream of rage building inside of me. “That doesn’t help! Give me something else!”
    Joe put his hand on my shoulder again and this time he crouched down and looked at me. “Hey. Chill. Maybe she came here for a reason.”
    “Great. But until she freakin’ tells me why she came here, I can’t do jack about that.”
    “Well, she means something, right? I mean, when she does this, she always means something. So just think it through.”
    I blew out a breath, fighting my emotions. I was furious with myself for losing my temper. Furious with her for bolting and for being so damn coy. And even with Joe for having more sense than I had about what she needed.
    But none of that mattered. If she needed something, if she’d come here for a reason, then she wouldn’t walk out until I’d figured it out. Mel might not be much of a talker, but she was stubborn as a pit bull.
    “Okay,” I murmured. “Water.”
    Mel nodded distractedly.
    “But not really water, right?” Joe asked. “’Cause you have that at home.”
    “Right. Water, but not water.” I scanned my memories for things about water that Mel had said or done. “Water. Water. Swimming. Pools. Hydration. Other drinks?” Mel just shook her head. “So maybe it’s not the water. Maybe it’s the poem. ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ Coleridge. Boats. Sailboats. Albatross. Birds.”
    But she was scowling now. “Between the devil and the deep blue sea.”
    “Okay, not the poem. The ocean.”
    “Deep blue sea,” she said.
    “So it’s water and it’s blue.”
    She nodded. “Deep blue sea. Water, water everywhere.”
    And that’s when it hit me. “Shit.” I looked at Joe and laughed nervously. “She wants to make a purchase.”
    She nodded frantically.
    Joe frowned, backing up a step. “What?”
    “The blue sea. Water, water. She’s talking about Valium. She had a doctor back in middle school who put her on Valium for a while. Right after Dad left. They helped calm her down. She only took them when things were really bad, because she didn’t like them. She said they made her feel like she was under water.”
    “And they’re blue,” Joe said simply.
    “Yeah. And they’re blue.”
    We both looked at Mel. She was nodding. An expression on her face almost like a smile.
    How smart was she? She knew she was freaking out and needed to calm down. She was trying to solve the problem herself.
    I looked at Joe. He and I hadn’t exactly been friends in the last couple of years. I hadn’t been a customer either, but of course, most kids knew the kinds of things he sold. Mostly pot, but prescription stuff, too. Prozac and Xanax mainly. “Do you have anything like that?”
    He frowned. “Maybe. I’ll have to look. But you said she had a prescription.”
    “She did. But Mom hasn’t filled it in years, because Mel didn’t like it. Still, she must have figured that she was going to need them.”
    Now I wondered if that had been one of the calls Mom had made today. Had she tried and failed to get a refill of Mel’s Valium prescription? Was that why Mel had thought of it, or was Mel just thinking further ahead than either of us?
    It made sense. If Mel was freaking out now, while things were bad but we were still at home, then how much worse would she be when we were off on our own, at the Farm facility?
    Joe looked nervous. “I do have some stuff, but I can’t tell you about dosing. I mean, normally I don’t worry about that kind of thing, ’cause with most people I figure they know what they’re getting into. But with Mel . . .”
    “It’s okay,” I assured him. “We’ll be careful.”
    “You should really just refill her scrip.”
    “There’s no time. We’re scheduled to report to the transportation hub tomorrow morning.”
    “Wow. That’s . . . really soon.”
    “Is it?” I’d had the same thought myself and still didn’t like hearing it aloud. “I was hoping they were just