DOGWOOD ✔︎

27 | The Whole Truth

|photo by Kendall Hoopes from Pexels|

It takes me a moment to figure out that I'm sitting in the back of our family car.

"You passed out," Dogwood says, soft and urgent.

What? "Why?"

"It was my fault. I was trying to stay calm, but..."

"This is the last time I'm going to ask you nicely," Dad says—from somewhere outside the car. His tone is the opposite of nice. "Move. Out of. The way."

"Kyle has been trying to talk your father out of taking you to the hospital, but it's not working. You need to get out of the car."

I twist around to look out the back window. Dad is looming, large and angry, in the driveway but I don't see... "Where is Kyle—when did he even get here?"

"None of that matters, Ginna! You have symptoms that will be diagnosed incorrectly if you go to the hospital. And what do you think will happen if you try to tell the doctor the real reason for your condition?"

Crap. I have to get out of this car. I open the door and stick out a leg, but I can't go any farther. I'm trapped.

"Unhook the seatbelt."

Oh. The belt whizzes into the holder and I step out, into the garage, clinging to the open car door for balance. Kyle is sitting cross-legged on the asphalt and Dad looks madder than he did the day he found me using his putter to hammer my soccer goal anchors into the grass.

"Dad," I say—and he shifts his harsh glare to me.

"Get back in the car, Ginna."

I shake my head. "The hospital is...it won't work because..."

Kyle gives me a nod, encouraging me to go on, but the words won't come. Not with Dad's accusing eyes bobbing back and forth between us.

"I'll give you one minute," Dad says, poking at his watch. "Can either of you give me a reasonable explanation for why I shouldn't take my daughter—who had a panic attack at school, slept for an entire day and then passed out in my arms—to see a doctor?"

Kyle scrambles to his feet. "A doctor can't fix what's wrong with her," he says, keeping his gaze on me. "She needs to be here at home. Right, Ginna?"

"Yes," I say. To Kyle first, and then louder to Dad. He's still doing the eye-shift, but they're not as narrow now. Curiosity has softened the lines in his forehead.

"I need to stay near my tree," I say. "I'm in...there's...a situation. Something I've been keeping from you for a really long time because..." I blow out a breath. "This isn't going to sound reasonable to you and it's going to take way more than a minute. Okay?"

Dad exhales in a gust, sort of sagging in on himself like a slumpy little kid. And then he nods.

"You need to give him the shortest possible version," Dogwood says, loud and panicky.

Why—because of the frozen flowers? What's going on, Dogwood?

"The flowers are..."

Whoa. There's a weird tugging in my chest.

"I'm trying to shield you from my emotions—because your heart is racing!"

It's not going to slow down until you tell me why you're so afraid.

"It's a message. I've violated the laws of nature—caused physical and emotional harm to another being. I don't know what's going to happen to me, but I have to go back now!"