Alive Page 3

  I pause to lean on a set of lockers. Being up for an entire day has left me feverish. I feel red and sticky at the base of my neck and behind my ears. The locker cools my skin and I allow myself a few minutes to breathe. I don’t have a firm grasp on what would happen if I overworked my new heart, but I imagine it heating up under pressure before exploding like a bloody pile of spaghetti in a microwave.

  A boy my age who I recognize as Harrison Miller rounds a corner down the hall, whistling, with a book in hand. He stops when he sees me. “Are you all right?” he asks. “You lost?”

  I smile wanly. “Fine, yeah, thanks. Just catching a breather.” I stand up straighter and push the fallen wisps of hair out of my face. Though it’s sweet he asked, I take his comment as a context clue about the rest of my appearance and, to put it in medical terms, the prognosis isn’t good.

  “You must be new here. I’m Harrison.” He extends a hand. “You’re a senior too?” He points to my copy of The Awakening. Harrison, who I’ve known at least in passing for six years, is built like a screwdriver, knobby head attached to a rod-straight body.

  My eyes widen. I don’t know when the last time we talked was. Maybe never. But at a small private school, you know people. “I—I—” I stammer, unsure of what to say. I’ve been in and out of school for over a year, but could people have possibly forgotten me? I pause for a second. Nobody takes this long to answer with her name. Then, on instinct, I answer, “I’m Veronica Leeds.” I use the name Brynn and I once invented to talk to boys online. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of introducing myself as Stella—he’d surely recognize the name and afterward realize he was talking to a girl who’s completely unmemorable.

  We shake hands and—after exchanging a few excruciating niceties about how friendly the people are here and how the class ranking system blows and how the worst thing about Duwamish by far is the uniforms—part ways. By now I feel confident that I’ve turned an unattractive shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, so I duck into the women’s restroom, which smells unmistakably of Lysol and French fries, just as I remember.

  It’s hushed. The sound of running water trickles in from the boys’ restroom next door. Feeling all but invisible in this school, I’m halfway relieved to see a reflection in the mirror. I unzip my bag and take out a travel-size Clinique makeup carrier. I lean over the counter to apply a soft layer of lip gloss and a dash of blush. The last thing I want now is to look sick. I’ve done the whole sick thing and I’m so over it.

  At first glance I think that I spilled my compact on my shirt. The hint of color on my white polo draws my gaze downward. Tucking my chin, I frown at a glob of red on the fabric. I try to scrape it off with my nail. No luck. I feel my eyebrows squinch into a V at the top of my nose.

  When I step back to look in the mirror, crimson handprints cover my shirt from my stomach all the way to my chest. My hand flies to my mouth and I catch a whiff of something metallic.

  “Oh my God.” My voice is a whisper. I stare at the blood. “Ohmygod.” I repeat faster. “What happened?” my voice shrieks.

  I turn on the faucet and pull my shirt underneath it, where I scrub furiously at a handprint. It stays put. Blood crusted on fabric. Smelling like spare change. Blood in the shape of hands. Grabbing at me. Gore. Plasma. Bodily fluid. Get off me. Get off me.

  Beginning to panic, I flee from the bathroom, walking fast the rest of the way outside to the lunch area.

  It’s only when I’m surrounded by other people in the quadrangle that I let my stride slow. My pulse throbs in the two glands at the top of my throat and my hands tremble even though they’re clenched into fists at my sides. I glance down at the gory blots, ready to find someone to tell, but when I do my breath hitches in my chest.

  They’re gone.

  As in, they’re not there.

  I thumb the fabric, looking for even one of the stains, but the only thing remaining is a giant wet spot where I’d doused myself with water from the faucet. Even my fingernails are clean. It doesn’t make sense.

  I press my knuckles into the side of my head and take a deep breath. I’m tired. I must be tired. I rub the heel of my hand into my eye socket and try to shake off whatever it is I thought I saw.

  I was wrong. Confused. Meanwhile, the teeth in my chest gnaw at the new heart in response.

  “How was your first day back at school?” Mom shouts as soon as my foot crosses the threshold into the entryway. She has the uncanny ability of a golden retriever to know exactly when any member of the family will be getting home. For my dad, that hasn’t been often since the surgery.

  “Exhausting,” I call back, plopping my backpack next to the large South African man-sculpture my parents bought on their honeymoon. I’ve always loved our house because it isn’t all Pottery Barned out—except for our coffee table, which Mom got on sale and which she insists looks like an authentic frontier piece. My parents used to travel a lot before I was born and sometimes after, too, right up until the time when I’d gotten sick. They had a one-week trip to Santorini planned, but had to cancel on account of the fact that my heart started giving out.

  Who knows? Maybe they’ll go now.

  I drift into the living room, where Elsie’s busy knocking blocks together on the floor and Mom’s supervising from the kitchen, looking at one of those fifteen-minute-meal cookbooks filled with recipes that will inevitably take her, like, forty-five.

  “Stel-lah!” Elsie shouts at me. Lately, she only has one volume, and she punctuates it by slobbering all over her chin. “Lah! Lah! Lah!”

  “Hi, Elsie.” I plug my ears until she stops repeating the last syllable of my name. Remind me what’s cute about baby talk again?

  “Shhh, Else,” Mom says. She’s been reverse-aging Benjamin Button–style since I woke up from surgery. She looks at least ten years younger without all the worry. Makeup’s part of her daily routine again, and she uses the curling iron to tame that patch of frizz around her temples.

  For me, the memory of a briefcase and high heels cling to my mother like the Ghost of Christmas Past. But Elsie will never see that. It’s a piece of my mother that was carved away, yanked out the same way my heart was yanked out of me. It’s simply no longer part of her, like swimming is no longer part of me. Another victim of the aftermath of my surgery.

  “Come sit down and let me make you a cup of tea.” The familiar worried look flashes over her face, wrinkling her forehead. I must look tired. But she doesn’t say anything, and I sit in one of the whitewashed kitchen chairs and try to look more spirited. She turns down one full-color page and gets up to start rattling around the kitchen.

  “When’s Dad coming home?” I ask, trying not to sound resentful.

  Mom levels her chin and peers over the top of her glasses. “He’ll get home when he gets home.”

  I blow at a strand of hair that’s getting in my face. “Will he be home for dinner tonight?”

  Mom pulls out a ceramic mug from the cabinet. “I’m sorry.” She lifts her eyebrows. “I guess we just assumed you’d want to go to college someday.” There’s a sly twinkle in her eye. “Or would you rather just live with us for the rest of your life? Because your dad and I would be happy to arrange that, you know.”

  I bury my forehead in my arms. “Fine. Fine. Gratitude. I get it.” My dad used up more than his allotted time off during my surgery. He’s a lawyer at a midsize firm in town, but lately you’d think he was on the brink of curing cancer, given how much they’re making him work to catch up. Sick-girl consequences…and yet another thing for me to feel guilty about, I suppose.

  “Any headaches today?” she asks, as if offhandedly. Her look’s practiced. Face perfectly relaxed, not even a crease of worry. But I know better. This is how she asks the questions that keep her up at night. Light and airy, so as not to startle the patient.

  “I told you. They’re not headaches.” I pick at a hangnail.

  I can feel Mom tense. She hates when I snap at her. She hates the fact that she can’t und
erstand what I’m going through and hates it even more when I point it out.

  “I called Dr. Belkin. Are you getting enough rest? He wants to know if you’re getting enough rest.” My “headaches” are probably already a three-page entry in the Stella binder. Google searches have been run. Doctors have been phoned. And all the while, she’s still calling the pain that lights my body up like a Christmas tree a freaking “headache.” But that’s my mother. She’s got to turn each part of my illness into something she understands. A one-word label. Honestly, I can’t really blame her. She cocks her head. “Maybe you’re back in school too soon. Do you feel it was too soon?” This again?

  “Mom. I was already having the…the pain before today. Remember?” I put my elbows up on the table. “It’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Now can we please talk about something else?” If my parents had their way, they’d swaddle me up in Bubble Wrap and stick a FRAGILE sticker on my forehead. If there’s one realization I’ve settled on since my surgery, it’s that I can’t let this happen. Not even figuratively.

  Of course, the first time I had the pain, it was terrifying. We rushed back to the hospital. I cried. My parents cried. They ran tests. Nothing. But now…now I just do my best to forget about it each day. At least until it’s time.

  “What about college applications?” I say. Since I joined the swim team in sixth grade, I’d had one goal: a scholarship. And once I hit ninth grade, it became more specific—the top-ranked Stanford team, which suited my parents, it being their alma mater—and we all became part of the same team. We were going to get me into Stanford. That all changed the day of my diagnosis. “Can we talk about those? Deadlines are coming up in a few months.” While it hasn’t been officially opened for debate, now that we’re subtracting swimming from the equation, I’m not sure I’m dead set on going to Stanford. Not sure I’d get in now either.

  Mom frowns, pausing at the sink with one hand on the faucet. “Stella, we’re not finished here. If you insist on continuing with school right now, we need to get a handle on these headaches, on what’s causing them.”

  “Mom, please,” I whine. “Not now.”

  “Then when?” She sets the timer on the microwave to thirty seconds so that she has to talk over the radioactive hum. “I’ve read about this. All transplant patients suffer a certain amount of acute rejection. The biggest risk of hyper-accute rejection falls between weeks one and twelve.”

  “Does everything have to be so life-and-death? I’m not a ticking time bomb.”

  Just then, there’s a big belch—a sound somewhere between what might emanate from a frog and an overweight fifty-year-old—coming from the living room. Mom sets the mug down on the counter and freezes.

  “Elsie?” she says, eyes wide.

  But it’s too late. The next noise is more liquid, like the gurgle of a toilet unclogging, followed by a sickening squelch. Mom rushes into the living room, wiping her hands nervously on her jeans.

  I turn around to see Elsie, covered in yellow slime. Mom kneels beside Elsie, taking her shirt and blotting at Elsie’s chin. “It’s on the carpet, too.”

  Before I can get out of my chair, Mom has whisked Elsie off the floor and is scrambling to the closest bathroom. The door clicks shut behind them and I hear the bathtub start to run and Elsie begin to cry. Meanwhile, my cup of green tea sits untouched on the counter.

  I snag my bottles of Avapro and Imuran from the cabinet and my backpack from the foyer, and trudge down the carpeted hallway to my bedroom.

  “Great talk,” I call over my shoulder, knowing Mom won’t be able to hear me. Even though she means well, it’s exhausting being the subject of my parents’ containment strategy while Elsie reaps all the cutesy baby nonsense.

  My bedroom smells like vanilla. Mom must have lit the candle in it before I came home from school, which softens my mood slightly. Plus my bed is made, the fluffy lavender comforter tucked underneath the pillows. The yellow sunflowers Brynn’s parents sent are starting to droop on the nightstand but are still pretty, and I make a mental note to water them so they don’t die. The rest of my room still shows signs of the fact that I’ve been living in it nonstop for the past month. Magazines are stacked on the floor. The trash can’s filled with Starburst wrappers and empty Doritos bags. A short stack of books is piled near the foot of the bed, either finished or almost. None of them are on the school reading list.

  In the far corner is a bin filled with trophies and medals. I asked Mom to take them off my shelves because I want them thrown away, but she says I’ll regret that when I’m older. Honestly, I doubt it. By now, my legs and arms have atrophied beyond the point of recognition. Sometimes I dream about swimming, about the smell of chlorine and the way it feels to churn up a frothy path with your feet. About the moment when you pass a girl in the next lane who’s two years older and should be five seconds faster but isn’t. Not that it matters, since I’ll probably never swim again and I don’t think anyone—even Future Stella—will be super impressed that I won All-County in a swim meet freshman year.

  I check my watch. I’ve got less than an hour, so I slide my laptop out from the bottom shelf of my nightstand and log on. There’s a green circle next to Henry’s screen name, so I click on it. I need to have some sort of human interaction before the pain starts.

  stelbelle022: Hey.

  I unscrew the caps of my prescription bottles and empty two pills of Avapro and one of Imuran into my open palm. The medicine doesn’t even make me throw up anymore. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is.

  huskiejones8: hey

  huskiejones8: i’d have thought u’d sworn off the whole internet thing now that uve reentered the human race.

  stelbelle022: The Replacement Child struck again.

  I take a swig of water from a leftover cup on my nightstand.

  huskiejones8: lol

  huskiejones8: what was her diabolical plan this time?

  stelbelle022: Puke. Again. An oldie but goodie.

  huskiejones8: zero points for creativity. she must be getting lazy.

  stelbelle022: I think it’s more, don’t fix what ain’t broke.

  stelbelle022: I swear, she’s only 1 and she’s already an evil villain mastermind.

  huskiejones8: aw, sibling love.

  stelbelle022: haha. Let’s see how you’d feel if your parents decided to replace you with a younger, cuter model.

  stelbelle022: Too bad I screwed things up and didn’t kick the bucket.

  Right as I hit “enter” I wish I hadn’t. My parents would die if they saw that and, besides, my entire existence has caused enough pain as it is.

  huskiejones8: speaking of which, did u survive ur first day back?

  I’m glad he ignored my comment. I was lucky that Brynn and Henry let me tag along with them all day. In the past year and a half, Henry has gotten popular. Like really popular. The kind where girls doodle his name on notebooks. Sometimes I swear I’m just a fixer-upper project for him. Take pity on the sick girl. A plot out of one of those ’90s teen flicks where the homecoming king tries to be nice to the misfit. But I know I’m only being cynical.

  stelbelle022: Ish.

  I don’t mention the bloody handprints. Or the fact that they made me feel as if I’m losing my mind.

  huskiejones8: a rousing endorsement.

  A couple minutes pass without the chime of a new IM and I take the opportunity to check my celebrity blogs, but no one famous has either broken up or gotten back together within the past twenty-four hours. It’s a real downer.

  The window containing my conversation with Henry flashes with a new message.

  huskiejones8: well, i’m glad ur back…

  It’s the dot-dot-dot that worries me. I’m still not ready for this conversation. I’m not ready to decide what Henry and I are yet. It’s too soon. And what if it ruins our friendship? I’ve only got two and a half friends as it is. I can’t stomach losing another.

  Henry and I became friends over a stringy-haire
d girl with dated clothes and telekinetic powers. Her name was Carrie and she was a character in a Stephen King novel that Henry and I both read at age twelve, well before either of us was old enough. We’d call each other in the middle of the night: Are you sleeping? What page are you on? Both too frightened to keep going but too competitive to stop. Pretty soon we were challenging each other to see who could out-scare the other. First there was The Exorcist, followed quickly by Hell House, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Amityville Horror, until we were no longer freaked-out little kids but connoisseurs.

  We began mainlining episodes of The Twilight Zone in the basement of Henry’s house, and we eventually discovered this crazy paranormal conspiracy podcast called Lunatic Outpost via a superfan message board. We would spend hours coming up with our own nutty theories about ghosts and dead presidents, and I could almost forget I was sick.

  I return to the window.

  stelbelle022: I should probably get started on this homework.

  huskiejones8: and get to work planning your next stage stealer from the Replacement Child

  stelbelle022: It’s weird…I’d have thought the whole heart transplant thing would have done that.

  huskiejones8: chubby cheeks are a hard card to trump.

  stelbelle022: True.

  I sign off and ten seconds later, the screen goes dark. So much for that distraction. Now all I have to do is wait.

  It’s four thirty-five. Thirty-three minutes left.

  I navigate to YouTube and watch a couple of stupid cat videos, which are only mildly amusing. When I’ve run out of attractive links there, I flip on the TV. I like the background noise. Plus there’s a Friends rerun I haven’t seen in a long time.

  I do my best to avoid checking the time, but with seven minutes to go, my hands start to sweat. Relax, I try to tell myself when I notice my fingers digging into the comforter. My dad has a theory. He says I anticipate the pain, therefore get stressed about the pain, therefore cause the pain. I’m a walking, talking self-fulfilling prophecy—or, as my dad claims, a Pavlov’s dog.