Broken Read online

  Reputation for what, I have no idea, but again hope blossoms in me. Maybe he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t care what a girl looks like or if she’s too bony or has to carry her own AED and would probably die if they tried to ever kiss or, God forbid, fool around.

  I might not make it that long. Not with the way my heart is banging against its cage, desperate for escape. How sad would that be? Dying before a first kiss?

  Not sad in a tragic, melancholy, write a sonnet way. Sad as in desperate. Loser. Freak.

  My cheeks heat with a blush. I grab the handle to my backpack, hoping my sweaty palm won’t slip. “Guess I’d better go.”

  But I can’t move, too busy reveling in the fact that the toe of Jordan’s hiking boot is touching my left foot.

  Then, miracle of miracles, Jordan touches my elbow. I dare to glance up, my head rushing in sync with the bass line of my heartbeat.

  “Hey,” he says. “I think that’s your mom.”

  He nods over my shoulder to the tall blond in the nurse’s uniform rushing down the hall as if there was a life-and-death emergency waiting for her, a pill bottle held aloft.

  “Scarlet,” Mom calls in a rush, her voice loud, so loud everyone looks away, embarrassed for me.

  Before she can reach me, so fast I think maybe I’m imagining things, Jordan breathes into my ear, “I like your shirt.”

  Then he escapes the spotlight of pity, leaving me to burn alone in my hell on earth.

  “You forgot to take your pill this morning. Are you okay? You look flushed.” Mom’s hand expertly feels my forehead, searing me with its coolness. I cringe, search for an escape, but there is none, my back to the lockers. “I think you should come to my office, lie down. Let me check you out.”

  Her words douse embers of hormonal flames into a soggy, muddy mess, inking my insides with soot that tastes of burnt toast, like what Mom gave me once to make me throw up after I ate Something Bad.

  Silly me, letting hormones expose me to hope—I have no immunity. I need John Travolta’s plastic bubble to shield me until I can build a resistance.

  In the meantime, I release my backpack and let my mom—well, stepmom actually, but she’s the only mom I’ve ever known—Nurse Killian, drag it and me down to the school nurse’s office.

  Accepting the fact that this won’t be the last time, I vow to let my hair grow longer than the shoulder-length bob it’s in now, the better to shield my face as I hang my head. Shame and embarrassment wage a war, both declaring victory while my insides curl up in a fetal position and surrender without even a whimper.

  4

  When you’ve spent more time in a hospital bed than at home, and your mom is constantly taking you to new, better, top-flight teaching hospitals, and you have an obscure diagnosis, you get used to med students, residents, and consultants coming in and stripping you naked, their clinical gazes as cold as their hands and stethoscopes.

  I’m numb to it, barely notice being touched anymore. By anyone.

  Until that one brush of Jordan Summers’s hand against my elbow. Staring at my mom’s Nurse Mates, following the little red hearts on their heels, I cradle my elbow where he touched me, a smile breaking through. No one can see my smile. Which makes it all the more special.

  This was why I fought my parents so hard about coming to high school. All this special and exciting and secret stuff. Things you can’t learn from TV or books. Things you have to feel for yourself if you want to know what it means to live.

  Really live, not just outlast a doctor’s prognostication.

  Goose bumps pepper my arms. Being a real girl—okay, pretending to be a real girl, a normal girl—is intoxicating. Worth putting up with the humiliation of facing guys like Mitch Kowlaski and his friends this morning.

  I don’t want this giddy feeling to end. But, just like Cinderella, I’m on a strict deadline. I only have this week to prove I can be normal, attend school without killing myself.

  That’s hyperbole—but it’s also exactly what my folks are most frightened of. After all these years of shielding me from danger, they think a few days of acting like a normal girl will be the death of me. Or at least trigger another Set Back.

  It’s up to me to prove them wrong.

  Mom leads me into her office and closes the door. She sits me down in the student chair, stretching my arm along the desktop as she takes my pulse. It’s fluttering in such disarray I wonder if my heart has learned Morse code. I imagine it tapping out J-O-R-D-A-N over and over again.

  I don’t look Mom in the eyes—I know exactly what I’ll see and I’m not ready for it.

  But I can’t escape her voice.

  “Scarlet, I think we’ve made a mistake, letting you try school. I’m sending you home.”

  5

  Mom sees any deviation from my baseline as a Symptom.

  I see it as cause for celebration.

  Now that I’m actually at school, instead of lying in a bed imagining what life in high school would be like, I feel great. A little light-headed—but not the headachy, nauseating vertigo that means I’m getting ready to have a Set Back. Or worse, a Near Miss.

  More like lighthearted.

  Who ever thought my heart, so broken and damaged, could feel so light?

  I don’t tell Mom any of this, of course. She’d be on the phone to Dr. Richter or Dr. Frenzatta or Dr. Cho before I could finish my sentence. Convince them to rescind my school privileges, sentence me to more mindless, boring bed rest.

  Bed rest. Now there’s an oxymoron for you. I can sleep in bed—when I’m not in the hospital being poked and prodded every twenty minutes. But I can’t rest in one. How can you rest when your body is cramping with pain and all you can taste is rust and your head is pounding and your heart feels like it’s ready to explode?

  Much less the times in between when you’re being steered—on your bed—from one test to another or waiting for the next brainiac expert to weigh in with his theory of why your body is trying so very hard to kill you.

  If you have to lie there, resting, another second, you know you’ll go insane…

  But I guess it’s different for most kids. And most moms.

  Mom bustles around the front part of her examination area, grabbing her stethoscope and BP cuff. It’s the first time I’ve been here in her place of work. I think about all the kids parading in and out, asking her for help, trying to ditch classes or maybe seriously sick or injured, and she’s there for them.

  It’s not a very distinguished area to be saving lives in. Same moss-green walls as the hallway, bulletin board with sports physical schedules and immunization info and warnings about teen pregnancy, proclaiming the marvels of abstaining. “You’ll feel great if you just wait!” a perky church-girl squeals with glee.

  There’s an examination bed on the other side of the curtain from me and behind that a second curtain, office desk, chairs, and a built-in double-door cabinet in the far wall. Small dorm fridge in the corner. Outside the door, the nonstop shuffle of students provides background noise, punctuated by the clang of lockers and murmur of voices.

  I take a breath from my belly and hold it a few seconds, feeling my heart slow in response. My pulse steadies. By the time Mom gets her blood pressure cuff and the oxygen monitor on me, my vitals are 100% normal, All-American girl.

  I say nothing, knowing she really doesn’t want me here, that she’s scared Something Bad will happen, that I’m taking a huge Risk.

  That’s what moms are meant to do: worry. I feel bad because I’ve made my mom worry a thousand times more than any mom should ever have to.

  But I can’t help it. This is my one and only chance to be normal, and I’m not giving up. Not yet. They promised me a week to prove myself. Today’s only Monday.

  Protesting will only make things worse. Better to let her change her own mind than try to change it for her.


  “Hmm,” she says, frowning at the monitor. “Everything looks good. Still…what’s next on your schedule?”

  As if she doesn’t have my schedule memorized. “Meeting with the counselor, Mr. Thorne, and the peer support group.”

  “Right. PMS.”

  I cringe at her use of the acronym. The school has assigned me “peer mentors.” Two kids in my grade and a junior to oversee us along with the guidance counselor. They say it’s something they do for every student with “special needs” and that it’s meant to help me “acclimate to Smithfield High’s academic and social life.”

  Of course, in their infinite wisdom, they named it Peer Mentoring and Support: PMS. Exactly the kind of label any kid with “special needs” who needs extra help to “acclimate” wants. Sometimes I wonder how adults got to be in charge of anything, much less my life.

  Mom’s mouth does a little wiggle-dance, like that witch on that old TV show. I hold my breath, waiting for the magic. “Okay. I guess you can go. But take an extra vitamin just in case.”

  She hands me one of the wheat-colored horse pills from a bottle in her purse—my mom is always prepared. For anything. That’s why she’s so good at her job. Nothing surprises her.

  As she turns to get me a glass of water, I palm the pill. I hate the damn things; they get caught in my throat and if I take too many of them, I feel flushed and dizzy. I looked up the side effects of the ingredients—multivitamins with extra doses of stress vitamins and antioxidants—and figured out that the high niacin content was probably causing it.

  Mom doesn’t know about my cheating. Refusing to take my vitamins is my one and only act of rebellion. How pathetic.

  I pretend to swallow and hop to my feet, grabbing Phil.

  “I’m here all day,” she calls after me. “Anything goes wrong, I’ll be right here waiting.”

  She can’t see my smile stretching so wide it hurts. Now that we’re past Mom’s opening-day jitters, I’m certain nothing will stop me from lasting to the end of the week and proving to my folks that I’m healthy enough to stay in school.

  The bell rings. I join the crush of kids in the hallway, letting the tide carry me to the library where I’m meeting with Mr. Thorne and my peer support group. My new friends. Truth be told, my first friends outside a hospital.

  Phil rolls over someone’s foot. “Watch it, freak.”

  Mitch Kowlaski. Just my luck that we seem to be on the same trajectory as we follow our schedules. I press back against a row of lockers, hoping he’ll keep walking.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  His foot looks fine; there’s not even a mark on his white and orange Nikes. But he doesn’t care. He’s obviously figured out I’m an easy target: no friends to defend me, no defenses of my own. He smiles and leans in, caging me between his arms. “You talking to me? That’s not how it works around here, little girl. Freaks don’t talk. They just get the hell out of my way.”

  One of his football buddies stops, watches us for a beat. He’s taller and skinner than Mitch but still muscular. He grins at me and I’m waiting for him to join in on the torture-the-new-kid fun. Then he surprises me by punching Mitch in the arm. “Ditch the bitch, Mitch. We’re gonna be late.”

  Mitch’s scowl packs almost as much force as his bad breath. Stale coffee and garlic. He spins on his heel and turns away. Just as I dare to step back out into the corridor, this time keeping Phil close by my feet, he jumps back at me, raising his arms fast like he’s going to hit me or grab me, and shouts, “Boo!”

  His buddy laughs as I startle. I trip over Phil and bounce off the lockers before skittering away, hiding in the crowd.

  That plastic bubble of John Travolta’s is looking better and better.

  6

  One thing living in a hospital has taught me is that you can survive anything, even the worst news imaginable. Once you know what you’re up against, you can start to fight.

  It’s uncertainty that will kill you.

  The not knowing.

  Is this a symptom or not? Am I imagining that twinge or is it a harbinger of worse to come?

  Is this real or am I crazy?

  That’s why I—we, Mom and Dad and I—embraced my broken heart.

  Long QT Syndrome is the real name. The calcium pumps in my heart are genetically faulty, letting my heart hop, skip, and run headlong off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote, legs still pumping hard even as he plummets into the abyss.

  These abnormal rhythms will kill me. Twenty percent chance of dying at any moment in any day. Just like that, dropping dead.

  Nothing I can do about it—except fight to have a normal life. At least until my crazy, broken heart decides to spaz out on me.

  I’d much rather fight against the Long QT than put up with frustrated doctors ordering yet another test or pill or surgery, like they did before we found it. They’d look at me like I was playing some kind of game, making things up just to annoy them or get attention or because I’m nuts.

  Finally getting my death sentence freed me from those labels. I’m no longer the crazy sick girl, looking for attention. Now I’m the dying girl, certain—unlike almost everyone else—of exactly how I’ll go. I might not know when, but I know how.

  And I know how I want to live until the end. I’m not letting the odds or jerks like Mitch Kowlaski stand in my way.

  Wrestling with fog, that’s what it felt like all those years of not knowing.

  Now I’ve got something to push back against. And it feels good.

  7

  Kids fill the hall from wall to wall. Despite the unfamiliar press of bodies, I don’t panic. Instead, I let them steer me, like running with a herd of wild, untamed horses. At the end of the corridor, the herd separates into two, leaving me alone in front of a high glass wall.

  The library.

  Footsteps and lockers banging and voices colliding barrage me. Then I open the door, cross over, and step inside. I’m greeted not by silence, but instead by a hushed burble, relaxing, like the sound of a water fountain. I stand, enjoying the sensations, and take a breath.

  School smells so much better than the hospital. And the library smells the best of all. To me, a good book is hot cocoa on a stormy winter day, sleet battering the window while you sit inside, nestled in a quilt.

  A room filled with books?

  I inhale deeply, a junkie taking her first hit. Sweet, musty paper. Ebony ink so crisp it threatens to rise off the pages and singe my nostrils. Glue and leather and cloth all mixed together in a ménage à trois of decadence.

  Another breath and I’m drunk with possibilities. Words and stories and people and places so far from here that Planet Earth is a mere dust mote dancing in my rearview mirror.

  Hugging myself, containing my glee, I pivot, taking in books stacked two stories high, couches and chairs strategically positioned to catch the light from tall windows lining both sides of the corner, like the bridge of a battle cruiser, broad, high, supremely confident, and comforting. In here, I dare to imagine that I might just survive high school after all.

  “Can I help you?” the student manning the desk asks.

  “I’m supposed to meet Mr. Thorne here?”

  “Upstairs, first room on the left.”

  “Thanks.” I follow her finger to where she points to two flights of lovely wooden steps, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired. Not too steep—but that meant there were more of them. “Can I leave my bag down here for you to watch?”

  She pushes her glasses up with an ink-smeared thumb. “No. I’m not allowed. But there’s a handicap elevator behind the stacks.”

  “Thanks, I’m fine.” I haul my bag to the base of the steps, eager to meet my peers who also have “special needs.” I’ve never mentored anyone before. I hope I’m good at it, can help them.

  Tugging my bag up the first step, there’s a loud thump as the w
heels hit the riser. So much for doing things the easy way. Collapsing the handle, I grab on tight and haul it up. I barely clear each step, but my gasping is quieter than the thumping.

  C’mon, I try to psych myself up. This is what you’ve been training for, sneaking into the kitchen and lifting those water jugs when Mom wasn’t looking.

  Mom doesn’t approve of physical therapy—in the hospital she always refused PT, worried they’d push me too far and give me one of my dreaded Set Backs. But I knew the more I lay around, the weaker I’d feel and I’d never make it through a school day, so I started doing stuff on my own. Push-ups, sit-ups, hauling gallon jugs, going up and down the steps even though I’m not supposed to.

  It paid off, because before I know it, I’m standing in the doorway of a small conference room, winded but alive.

  Three kids sitting at the table look up when I arrive. A black girl with the figure of a fashion model and clothes to match. The girl beside her is kind of plump, with long, dark hair caught in a simple braid curled up in the hood of her gray sweatshirt like a cat napping. And Jordan Summers.

  I’m surprised to see him. Guess it must’ve shown, either that or I was more out of breath than I thought, because next thing I know, Jordan is guiding me into a chair, while the plump girl is taking Phil from me, and the black girl jumps up and skitters back and forth, watching but not really doing anything to help.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Jordan asks. My heart is tap-dancing his name again.

  “I’m fine.” I manage a smile. At least I hope it’s a smile. Maybe not, because he looks panicked.

  “I’ll grab you some water.” He rushes out of the room.

  The second girl hauls my backpack over to me. “What’s in this?” she asks as she takes the chair beside me. “You on the bowling team?”

  Up close, I see that, if you look past the layers of gray clothing, she’s actually beautiful. Exotic-looking. Hers is a true tropical golden complexion, unlike my sun-neglected sallow one. High cheekbones, gorgeous deep-brown eyes.