Broken (5 page)

We make it to our table. Jordan manages a smile as I plop down across from him, Celina beside him, and Nessa beside me. I like him even more for that smile. With the sunlight streaming through the window, warming my face, and Jordan across from me, smiling, his hair flopping along his eyelashes again, defying gravity, I can pretend we’re on a picnic or someplace fun.

Until the first spitwad hits me between the eyes and slides down onto my T-shirt.

“Losers,” an anonymous voice sings out.

“Summers found some fresh meat,” a guy from the table of football players beside us says loudly. Someone kicks my pack and it hits the ground with a thud. I grab it and tuck it between me and the window.

Everyone else is studiously ignoring us, yet I’m very aware that they’re also focused on us at the same time. It’s a weird feeling. Reminds me of waiting for the anesthesia to start working, hoping it kicks in before the surgeon starts cutting, but also kinda hoping someone’s gonna rush into the room, say it was all a mistake, and call the whole thing off after all.

My stomach knots with the tension, so tight my hand has to flick the spitball twice before I’m able to knock it to the floor. Jordan straightens, looking around, and I see he’s ready to defend us—defend me. But even I know what the cost would be. I place a hand over his.

He jerks, his gaze slamming into mine. Too much, too familiar.

I try to act casual, sliding my hand away from his. “Those fries look good.” They don’t. They look like they’re ready to melt into a soggy puddle of lard. “Can I have one?”

He says nothing, as if it takes extra long for my voice to penetrate his hearing. Nessa is chattering to Celina about homecoming, even though it’s still three weeks away, talking about signing up for the decorating committee so she’ll have an excuse to go even if she can’t get a date, and should she ask some boy or should she wait and see. They’ve both missed the entire spitball incident—or ignored it…ah, the power of denial. Handy tool to deal with high school, I’m learning.

So it’s just me and Jordan. My skin feels hot all over.

Jordan nods to his plate of fries. “Sure. Help yourself.”

I stretch my hand out, thinking one fry can’t hurt.

“Scarlet!” Mom’s voice cuts through the clamor of students yapping.

My stomach drops to my knees, begging for this to not be happening.

“Scarlet, there you are.”

It’s happening.

Mom stands at the end of our table, holding an insulated lunch box aloft. “You forgot to stop by my office to get your lunch. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

I reach across Nessa for the bag, but Mom holds it out of reach. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

Swallowing my sigh, I introduce her. She shakes Nessa’s hand. “I knew your sister, such a wonderful girl. I’m so sorry for your loss. Let me know if you ever want to talk.”

Nessa nods and ducks her head. Mom turns her attention to Jordan. “Mr. Summers. I trust you’re keeping a good eye out for these ladies?”

“Yes, Nurse Killian.” I can’t tell if Jordan is serious or joking or making fun of her, he’s that good. I make a note to take lessons from him. A poker face like that could come in handy.

“And Celina Price. Hmmm.” Mom makes that nursing noise of hers, the one that makes you want to start planning funerals. “When’s your next free period? You need to stop by my office.”

Celina’s face grows so gray it blends into the gray wall behind her, like she’s trying to fade away, vanish. “Peer support takes up all my free periods,” she mumbles.

Mom doesn’t miss a beat. “Okay, then I’ll be waiting before first period tomorrow. Seven forty-five a.m. Sharp.”

Celina looks down, smushing her food around her plate in a death spiral.

Finally, Mom hands me my lunch and focuses on me. She steps into the aisle so she can feel my cheeks and forehead.

The guys at the next table laugh. They’re jocks, wearing Wildcats letterman jackets—the fluorescent orange snarling outline of the wildcat lunging off the white wool like a hyena stalking its prey. No matter where I move, those hyena eyes follow me.

Mom doesn’t seem to notice. “Are you certain you’re feeling okay? Maybe you should go home?” She takes my pulse. Her eyes narrow, revealing her worry wrinkles. She really is concerned, doesn’t think I can make it all day, much less to the end of the week.

“I’m fine.”

She doesn’t believe me. “Hmm…okay. Well, take another vitamin, just to keep your strength up.” As if by magic, one of her horse pills appears in her hand. She dangles it above my mouth. “Open up.”

My face burns as I feel every single person in the cafeteria suddenly stop eating, stop talking, and start staring. At me.

I have no choice but to get this over with fast. I open my mouth and let my mom pop the pill in like feeding a baby bird who’s too weak to do anything for itself. Baby birds—quick snacks for hyenas. The vision pops in and out of my mind like a hiccup. And once there, it’s just as hard to get rid of.

“Drink. Let me see you swallow it.” I obey. “Good girl.” She brushes her palms together as if finishing an arduous task and smiles at us. “Nice to see you all.” Then she kisses me on the forehead. I’m surprised she doesn’t feel how hot it is, burning with humiliation. “Love ya, bye now.”

Mom leaves, everyone’s eyes following her through the maze of tables as she leaves. Silence reigns. Except for the pounding of my pulse in my temples, ringing out my embarrassment.

My face buried in my hands, I tell myself that the worst is over, nothing else could possibly go wrong today.

I hate being wrong.

When I was thirteen, the Year of Nothing Good, I decided my mom was trying to kill me.

It was April. I was feeling tired but okay, just out of the hospital. Another frustrating stay where the doctors did everything except cut me open, which they’d get around to later that summer, costing me a trip to the beach Make-a-Wish had organized—I still have never seen the ocean. Despite all their tests, they had no explanation for my symptoms, so they’d decided to monitor me off all meds, in case I was having an “idiosyncratic” reaction to one of them.

Somehow the idea that maybe I didn’t need
any
of the medicine Mom gave me got warped into a suspicion that Mom was behind
all
my symptoms.

After all, I’d pretty much been sick my entire life and she’d been around almost that long, pushing pills down my throat, hauling me from doctor to doctor. It just didn’t make sense, one little girl having so many symptoms that all those smart doctors couldn’t figure out. And, if Mom was the cause, then as soon as I proved it, for the first time ever, I’d have a chance at being a normal girl.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my Mom. I really, really didn’t want her to be the one making me sick.

After all, our entire family revolves around her taking care of me, Dad heading out on the road earning a living and keeping us—me—well insured, and me being sick.

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.

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. Summers, 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.