Lisa’s mouth fell open in horror.
“Oh Jen!”
Jen's smiled faded as she saw Lisa's hand, trembling, reaching towards her. The tips of her fingers drew close to her cheeks when Jen reached up and pulled her hand away.
"I think I know," was her solemn reply.
The look on Lisa's face made it quite obvious, combined with the fact that her face felt that familiar tingling sensation. Lisa's eyebrows, well, almost unibrow now, was raised in concern, and her mouth was uncharacteristically agape.
"But, she's alive, right?" Jen asked, repeating her first question.
"Yes," Lisa replied, "she's alive." She looked sadly at her best friend. It appeared that the Sandman had gone sand happy and sprinkled it all over her face. The light coloring made it impossible to defy the pale complexion of her face, and it was still short and light in color - almost a white color still. However, it was inevitably growing, particularly on her upper lip, and at a rather alarming rate, considering just yesterday her face looked relatively hair-free. The hair on her hands was now curling, and the density now blocked the view to Jen's skin.
"I don't know if I can get up right now." Jen pulled the covers to one side so Lisa could see. The elastic on her pajamas was stretched just a tad as her pelvis had widened some. It wasn't noticeably different to look at, but Lisa could imagine that it was incredibly sore.
Lisa, unable to continue, gently covered Jen and stroked her head. "Don't worry. I'll tell Mom that you know now."
Lisa choked a bit as she left the room and walked back downstairs. Carol was off the phone now and looking quite excited.
"Where is she?" she asked.
Lisa shook her head. "She'll be doing better now that she knows Audrey is alive. But, she's not doing too well right now." Lisa began to sob, albeit very softly.
Carol rushed past and into Lisa's and Jen's room. "Oh," was all that she managed to get out when she saw the girl. Hearing Lisa approaching from behind, Carol turned to her. "Don't worry, I'll catch her up to what's going on and stay with her until she feels better. If you'd like, you can stay home today."
Lisa nodded and walked dejectedly into Andy's room. Posters were plastered all over the film buff's walls, and her shelves seemed to be lined with memorabilia. Lisa had always known ever since she was little that her sister would either be a filmmaker or a film historian. There really wasn't a whole lot else she was interested in, besides comic books and old novels.
She plunked down on Andy's bed and stared at the ceiling. Her calculator was in her room, which she seemed to have been unspokenly forbidden at the moment, and Andy had brought her calculator to school with her for those "wretched" math classes.
She had begun to lose herself in self-pity when her cellphone rang.
"Hello?" she asked.
A crying voice was the reply. "Lisa, is that you?" came the familiar voice of Kelly.
"Yeah," Lisa replied. "You okay?" What a dumb question, Lisa thought. The answer was obviously, "No!" She regretted asking.
"It's Lindsey," Kelly answered. "She's starting to show signs!"
Lisa had wondered why Kelly wasn't in school yesterday. If Lindsey was showing signs, it was bad news.
Kelly regained her composure enough to continue. "The doctor has her on an aggressive hormone treatment, but he's skeptical if it will work. This is all my fault!"
Lisa took a deep breath. She wasn't in any mood at all for this. Her own spirits being under seige at the moment; how could she possibly pick up someone else's?
"You know how Lindsey is," she replied. "She's sneaky, and there was really nothing you could have done about it." She knew that more could have been done, but there was no sense thrusting that kind of guilt on Kelly.
"She never once managed to do anything like that around you!" Kelly retorted.
"I was only with her for a few hours," Lisa replied. "And as the babysitter, I had to watch her. It was my job. You can't help it if your schedule doesn't always coincide with her's."
"So much has happened while you guys were gone!" Kelly sobbed.
"Like what?" Lisa asked, unsure of whether she really wanted to know the answer to that.
"Like, Sarah is pregnant!" Kelly wailed. "She just found out not long ago. Who knows what that's going to cause!"
Lisa wanted to hang up. She was rapidly losing her self-control and just wanted to be left alone now. A few tears began to stream down her face.
"I'm so sorry," Lisa replied. "I'm at a loss for words right now."
"I don't know what to do!" Kelly replied. "I have my sister to worry about, and she's blaming herself and I'm blaming myself, and then Sarah calls me up in a panic -"
"-And Jen's mom almost died!" Lisa finished. "I'm sorry, but my mind is full right now. If you want to help Lindsey, you should first stop blaming yourself and try to keep her from blaming yourself. Shifting blame is just going to blur the actual problem. But that doesn't help me at all!"
"I'm sorry," Kelly whimpered. Lisa had never raised her voice like that before, at least not to her knowledge. "I think I'll just let you go then."
There was a click as the phone hung up. Lisa stared at the phone, wondering if she had done the right thing. Her head was swimming. Her best friend had nearly lost her mother, and in her anxiety, had jumpstarted her hormones; one of her teammates had gotten pregnant while her body was swimming with those same hormones, and now an innocent child was going to suffer from them as well.
She instantly dialed Andy's number. With her own mom preoccupied with Jen, and with Jen in no shape to handle more bad news, the only person she could think of was her sister, far away in New York.
"Hello?" came Andy's voice.
"Did I interupt something?"
Andy could hear that her sister's voice was cracking up. Something was seriously wrong.
"What's wrong? Is Audrey all right?"
"Yeah, she's fine. She's at a hospital in Russia."
"Then what's the matter?"
"Everything!" Lisa blurted out. She began to relate, in minute detail, all that had happened in the past 24 hours.
On the other end of the phone, Andy listened patiently. Lisa just had to get things off her chest, she knew. She hadn't done this since she thought for sure she was going to get a "C" in Home Econonomics.
When she had finally finished, Andy sighed. "Look, it's hard, okay? I know it's hard. But, you shouldn't get your own self worked up over it. I can't be there right now, but I'll be home in just a little while. You of all people know that things eventually work themselves out, right?"
There was no reply on the other end, so Andy repeated her question until Lisa answered in the affirmative. When she had done all she could for Lisa - and she figured that just listening would have helped greatly - she hung up and headed off to class, her sister and Jen weighing heavily on her mind.
Lisa laid the phone down on the nightstand and dozed off, exhausted, on the bed.
Meanwhile, Carol sat in bed with Jen, her arm wrapped around the girl's shoulders as she leaned up against her. Jen had calmed quite considerably now that her mother was alive, but her worry had turned predominately to her current appearance. She didn't know what she looked like, and really didn't care to know. She could almost feel it.
Carol watched her intently, occassionally fighting off the urge to cry, however softly the tears would fall. In Jen, she saw what would happen to Lisa - what could be happening to her right now. She also saw a young girl with everything to live for now torn between worry for her mother and worry for herself.
Carol was hard pressed to find a spot of skin on Jen's body that didn't appear to be sprouting hair. Her face and neck were pretty much covered, although the hair was still very light in both (percieved) density and color. However, the rest of her was very thick now.
"You have to do something about that," Carol said, reaching over to grab the pump from the nightstand. Jen could feel that she was right. She'd been ignoring that awful feeling for quite some time.
She took the pump from Carol, and with great effort managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Carol watched painfully as the girl managed to stand. She walked with great difficulty towards the bathroom, the pain in her thighs, hips, and abdomen preventing her from moving properly.
Carol aided her by placing her hands on the girl's waist to steady her as she walked. It was exactly the same way she had taught her girls to walk when they were babies, although she recalled how stubborn Andy was. She would always brush away her hands, take a few steps, and fall flat on her face. The memory made Carol giggle internally.
Once in the bathroom, Carol left Jen to lean against the sink, seeing as she was having no real difficulty.
"I'll leave so you can have your privacy," she said. "If you need me, I'll be in the bedroom, so you can just shout."
Jen nodded, being careful not to hold her head erect, or she would be staring right into the mirror. Satisfied with the nod, Carol retreated into the bedroom, leaving Jen to do her business.