2
“Adam! Adam, wake up!” Iris’s voice was firm as she grabbed him.
Adam jerked into consciousness, unsure of where or when he was, of whose hands were on his arm. He scrambled backwards, slamming into something and feeling it in his ribs. The headboard. The headboard of the bed in his old bedroom at Iris’s.
Iris stood next to the bed, hands up in a sign of surrender, easing closer. “It’s okay, kiddo. It’s just me. You’re okay.”
Adam nodded, but his heart was pounding, and his stomach—
He lurched to the other side of the bed and vomited in the trashcan he kept there. Heaved, anyway, but he didn’t have much to show for it. Remnants of a bowl of cereal? He’d forgotten to eat lunch.
Please, let me be done. Adam hung over the mattress, gripping the sides of the trashcan, waiting long enou
