Broken Read online

  I can’t imagine what our family would be like without me being sick. What would we talk about? How would we plan our time, arrange family vacations except around trips to specialists and hospital stays?

  But that year, the Year of Nothing Good, all I wanted was not to be sick. Not too much for a thirteen-year-old girl to ask, is it?

  Of course, like all thirteen-year-old girls, my hormone-fueled imagination ran amok. I became one of those Drama Queens I so despised when I met them in the hospital.

  Back then, I kept a journal. Here’s what I wrote:

  I am going to kill her.

  If you’re a police officer and reading this, it means I’ve failed. If you’re anyone else, then why are you being a sneaky perv prying into a girl’s private thoughts?

  But you’ll keep reading. Just to see what happens. If I really mean what I say.

  I do.

  You’ll read about my life and delude yourself that this isn’t real, that no one you know could have this happen to them, that no one you love could be suffering like I am.

  You’re wrong.

  Even as you uncover my secrets, you won’t believe. You’ll dismiss me as an angst-ridden, melodramatic, typical teenage girl. You won’t do anything about what’s happening to me.

  That’s okay. No one else did anything to help either.

  Because I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried everything. No one believes me.

  Despite the life of lies I’m forced to live, I’m determined to tell the truth here. No matter how shameful it is.

  And the truth is: I must kill her.

  Before she kills me.

  Crazy, right? Told you, total Drama Queen.

  So, home from the hospital, I refused to eat or drink anything that came from Mom. The first day or so, before Mom noticed I was avoiding the food she cooked, I felt fine. But then things went downhill fast. Despite avoiding Mom.

  I wouldn’t even drink a glass of water that she got me from the tap as I watched. Instead, I’d retreat to my room, drinking only Ensure and vitaminwater, leaving her in tears and Dad yelling when he got home that week.

  That wasn’t even the worst. Turns out it wasn’t Mom making me sick. Or the medicines the doctors had her give me. Turns out everything was all my fault. Me and my stupid genes making my heart run amok.

  I ended up back in the hospital, worse than ever. A Major Set Back. They almost lost me. Again.

  If it wasn’t for Mom, worried and checking on me in the middle of the night, they would have. She saved my life. Again.

  Then they found my journal. Shit hit the you know what.

  Only good thing that came of it was that my Near Miss finally gave the doctors the clue they needed to figure out what was really wrong with me—my heart was broken.

  So broken that it tried to kill me with potentially fatal rhythms. Nothing to do with Mom or the meds. It was me trying to kill myself. Which of course made me feel even worse for blaming Mom when all she was trying to do was keep me alive.

  Once I was out of the ICU, they made me talk to a shrink. He decided my quasi-homicidal delusions were normal teen rebellion coupled with a high-stress, codependent, mother-daughter dyad.

  In other words, I was a perfectly normal thirteen-year-old. At least as far as my psyche was concerned.

  Dad made me apologize to Mom and she cried and I cried and everything was fine after that. Except, of course, for my broken heart.

  After that there were no more suspicions, no more acts of rebellion…until now.

  I am very aware that I’m taking my life in my hands by coming to school. Being normal might just kill me.

  But it’s my life. If I can’t have a say in it, then what’s the point anyway?

  Might as well be dead.

  Of course, with Mom hovering like she is, trying so hard to keep me alive, I might die of embarrassment before my messed-up heart ever gets the chance to kill me.

  16

  An awful silence fills the cafeteria as my mom walks out. The kind of silence that happens in horror movies, just waiting to be filled with blood and guts and screams when the characters turn their backs on the killer hiding behind the curtain.

  Or maybe it’s the silence of the Serengeti on a nature documentary…right before the stalking hyena pounces on the baby gazelle or giraffe or girl…I look up, half expecting to see one of the Wildcats leap from a varsity jacket onto our table.

  Instead, I’m pelted by a tampon. Still wrapped, thank you, God.

  “Not again,” Nessa groans as the barrage of feminine hygiene products continue.

  No one hears her over the chants of “freak, freak” and catcalls swelling through the room. Jordan springs to his feet and leaps to the front of the table—Errol Flynn had nothing on his moves; too bad Jordan didn’t have a sword—placing his body between us and the rest of crowd. Pizza crusts and partially eaten hamburger rolls and banana peels fly through the air.

  “Leave them alone,” he shouts. His voice goes nowhere, bouncing off the noise of feet stamping and fists pounding tables. “They didn’t do anything.”

  “Whatcha gonna do about it, lover boy?” The largest Wildcat from the next table stands face to face with Jordan. It’s Mitch Kowlaski. Great. Of course he had the same lunch as I did, because the universe—well, my universe—always works that way.

  Jordan’s just as tall as him but Mitch is twice as wide. He leans closer, spittle flying into Jordan’s face with every word. “You gonna hit me, Summers? I’m just exercising my free speech. You can’t do anything about that—unless you want to fight like a man. Go on, hit me!”

  The chants morph from “freak” to “fight.” Mr. Thorne and another male teacher push through the doors, shoving their way through the crowd toward us. Mitch spots them and pivots to grab his tray.

  “Looks like lover boy doesn’t have the guts to defend his ladies.” He says the last with a sneer directed at us.

  Nessa is holding one of Jordan’s arms with both her hands. I can’t tell if she’s holding on because she’s scared or if she’s holding him back. Celina has closed down, hoodie up to shield her face, ponytail fallen into her tray and she doesn’t notice, fingers clenched into fists as she rocks slightly, like she’s being buffeted by a storm.

  And me? I have no idea what to do. I’m as frozen as that baby bird trapped by the hyena’s paw. The other football players stand up, grabbing their trays as well. I see what they’re going to do. It’s all so clear from the grins they exchange and their body language. If they could communicate as well on the playing field, maybe we’d have won a game already.

  Jordan has his back to our table, focusing on Mitch and the rest of the crowd. He doesn’t see what’s coming. But I do.

  I know I should just run and hide, let the events play out. Stay out of the spotlight, not draw attention and put myself in the predator’s line of sight.

  That would be the smart thing to do. The way to survive.

  It’s what a normal girl would do.

  Just as Mitch is getting ready to swing back around with his tray, dumping it all over Jordan and giving the signal for his comrades to do the same with their trays, I roll Phil between his feet.

  He’s caught off balance and trips, jostling his tray. Instead of landing on Jordan or Celina who are in the line of fire, it dumps into his chest, smearing an open packet of ketchup and fries over the virgin white wool of his jacket.

  He howls in fury as his teammates chortle. We’re forgotten—except for me. I now stand alone in the spotlight.

  Laughter crescendos around me, but for once it’s not aimed at me. Rather at Mitch as he turns and drops his tray on the other table.

  “Way to go, Kowlaski,” one of his teammates sings out just as Mr. Thorne arrives at our little soiree.

  “Problem here, gentlemen?” he asks. “Mr. Sum
mers, care to explain?”

  “It’s my fault,” I pipe up, trying to deflect attention from Jordan. “My backpack got in his way. I’m sorry.”

  From the glare Mitch shoots me, it’s clear my apology is meaningless. I now understand what the phrase “murder in his eyes” means.

  Jordan folds his hand over my shoulder, steadying me. Suddenly both Celina and Nessa are on either side of me. I don’t feel alone or vulnerable. Not even scared.

  Instead, I feel safe. Like I am, for the first time in my life, a part of something…a team.

  It feels good. Better than any of the drugs they give you at the hospital, better than sneaking a piece of forbidden chocolate (it’s on my list of Bad Foods), or sitting with my mom and dad and watching a movie on our couch at home, fire going in the fireplace, winter locked out for the night, no doctors or nurses or symptoms in sight.

  I like this feeling. At the same time, it frightens me. It fills me up, warming empty places I didn’t even know I had inside of me. Addictive.

  But for right now, I stand up straight. My friends surrounding me—I never even had friends before. Not ones that lasted longer than a stay in the hospital.

  No plastic bubble or sterile dressings or flimsy patient gown between me and the rest of the world. The center of attention.

  I’m surprised how much I love it.

  17

  After lunch is art. I opted out of music since I can’t tell a waltz from a samba. Escorted by Jordan, Celina, and Nessa, I thread my way through the halls, feeling nauseous and achy. I decide to blame it on the extra vitamin Mom made me take. That’s better than admitting it’s fear of Mitch retaliating, anxiety over embarrassing Jordan in front of half the school, or just plain old fatigue.

  I’m not about to give up, tell my folks they were right, I can’t last a whole day. Quit and go home. Not with my two favorite subjects coming up: biology and world cultures. Last period is Spanish, which I couldn’t care less about. I promise myself I’ll nap in Spanish class if I have to.

  I make it to art. The door is open and the scent of paint and turpentine and something greasy—pastels?—wafts through the door, making my stomach feel even more queasy. The others linger as long as they can. Nessa jokes about some TV show I’ve never seen. Celina halfheartedly chimes in, but at least her hoodie is back down and she’s trying. Jordan says nothing, just scowls, watching the other students as they pass like they’re suspects in a police lineup.

  “I’ll be fine,” I finally say, their concern making me more nervous than any potential retribution from Mitch or his cohorts. My cheeks burn with a permanent flush made worse every time someone in the hall stops and points at me, usually with a nod and jeer or laugh. “Really, you can go now.”

  “Just remember,” Nessa says, touching my arm and looking me in the eye, “it’s only high school.”

  Celina shakes her head, her ponytail twitching. “Yeah, only three years to go before graduation. Easy time.”

  Jordan says nothing, simply squeezes my elbow as if sharing his strength. I inhale deeply, trying to ward off a headache and failing, then enter the classroom.

  The art teacher, Mr. Yan, is an Asian-American hippie, with a bald pate fringed by long, dark hair that brushes his shoulders, thick glasses that make his face twist in a permanent squint, and a constant smile.

  Seems like no one can do wrong in this class as long as they have a reason for what they do. We work on textures and collages, “exploring the power of sensations,” and it would have been fun except the glue smell makes my headache worse.

  By the end of class, my stomach is churning like water sloshing in a goldfish bowl. My headache almost drums out the sound of the bell ringing.

  I make it to life sciences on my own. It’s a junior-level course and of the four of us, I’m the only one taking it. The biology room doesn’t have desks. Instead, it’s lab tables with sinks and an outlet for a Bunsen burner and lights with magnifying lamps. The room smells of matches and damp earth and sulfur. As if mysterious and magical things happen here.

  The only empty seats are in the back. I’m alone at the table. The second bell rings and still no partner. I don’t mind, more fun for me. My headache eases off a bit as I explore the drawers and discover safety goggles—we’re going to be doing stuff dangerous enough to need safety goggles? How cool is that!—and a Bunsen burner and Petri dishes and tons of cool glass containers and measuring apparatus and tongs and wire stands and…

  “What are you doing here, freak?” Mitch Kowlaski takes the stool beside me. He still has his jacket on, but now the stain is worse. He tried to blot it and instead he just spread it so bad that the Wildcat looks like he’s a werewolf, blood gushing from his fangs.

  If I point this out to him, will it appease him or make him madder? He jostles my stool as he slings his bag up, almost knocking me off. From his smile, he did it on purpose. Great. My favorite subject and he’s going to ruin it.

  Sliding my stool as far from him as possible, I take out my notebook and wonder what cool experiments we’ll be doing today. I lean over the table so my back’s to Mitch, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave me alone.

  No such luck. He hits me with a spitball, right at the nape of my neck so it splats wet against my skin and then slides down beneath my shirt when I try to grab it.

  “Stop it.” I glare at him. My headache’s back, thanks to Mitch.

  His smile widens and he assumes a fake mad-scientist accent, pretending the straw in his hand is a cigarette. “The freak speaks. Maybe we should dissect it, see what makes it tick.”

  “You sure you’re in the right place? I thought you were a senior. This is junior biology.”

  Wrong thing to say. Red flushes his face. I watch his hands, worried about those big fists. They could pound the crap out of me before the teacher has a chance to make it back here.

  “Shut up, freak.” He’s starting to resemble the wild animal on his jacket.

  I decide to take his advice.

  The teacher, Ms. Blakely, is talking about genetic drift and adaptation. “If adaptation to increase potential offspring’s survival is an external force on an organism’s genetic code, what other forces could lead to a change in DNA?”

  “Environmental changes,” one student calls out without raising his hand. Looks like Ms. Blakely is pretty informal—maybe it’s the lab benches, giving the group a more collegial feel, or maybe it’s because it’s a junior-level class.

  Mitch pokes me in the back, nudging me to look at the doodles he’s creating on a stack of torn-up graph paper. “Thought you’d like to see what I have in mind for you,” he whispers, sliding the top sheet toward me. “Just how weak is that heart of yours anyway?”

  He keeps whispering, threats that grow more specific and explicit—not to mention anatomically impossible—the more I ignore him. His drawings show a bit of artistic talent, although his repertoire seems limited to pornographic images, spurting blood, and wicked-looking knifes.

  I turn on my stool, leaning over my notebook to block any view of him or his doodles, trying to concentrate despite a rushing in my brain that’s drowning out both Mitch and Ms. Blakely.

  “Okay, now we’ve got some external pressures, what about some internal genetic pressures?” Silence. “Anyone?”

  Timidly, I raise my hand.

  “Scarlet?”

  The rest of the class turns to look and I pull my hand back down, flushing furiously at my gaffe. “Viruses and bacteria can insert their genetic material into our DNA when they infect us. That’s also the basis for gene therapy.”

  Ms. Blakely looks surprised. She beams and nods and turns to the board to sketch a short length of DNA. A few of the other kids also look at me before turning away. I can’t help my smile.

  The boy in the bubble—the real one, not John Travolta—suffered from an inherited disease called se
vere combined immunodeficiency. I looked it up, excited that such a terrible disease could be fixed by bone marrow transplant. For a little while, I hoped that since Long QT is also caused by a genetic defect, the doctors might be able to do the same: cleanse my bad genes with radiation and pump in healthy new ones to mend my broken heart.

  Unfortunately, for me, the damage is done—my broken heart can’t be fixed so easily. Other than the daily meds I take, the only treatment is one I keep refusing, despite my parents’ urgings: surgery to implant an internal defibrillator that will shock my heart whenever it runs amok.

  I already have enough scars. Not to mention the thought of having a machine inside me, shocking me whenever it feels like it, terrifies me.

  Especially as one of the major side effects of the internal defibrillator is random shocks. They don’t damage the heart, but patients have gone insane from the anxiety and anticipation. Waiting for a bolt of lightning to shock you from inside your own body? No, thank you. I’m freak enough already.

  My mind drifts, my headache pounding and my stomach tumbling to the same beat when suddenly I smell something burning.

  Pain sears through my arm and I jerk back to see there’s a small bonfire beside my arm and my sweater is smoldering. A lock of my hair that had been dangling down as I rested my chin in my hand is now smoking. I reach for my hair first, smothering it with my palm, the hair breaking away in an ugly clump.

  The smoke and smell and my yelp are enough to alert the others. Tiny flames dance along the surface of my sweater. I jerk loose, turning it inside out and dropping it to the floor before stomping on it. Mitch laughs, scattering the ashes of his pornographic threats as he pretends to help me.

  “Scarlet, are you all right?” Ms. Blakely is at my side, examining my arm. It’s red and throbbing but no blisters. Not yet anyway. She picks up my cardi. It’s ruined. Then she turns to Mitch. The idiot is still holding the flint striker.