Broken (6 page)

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 severe 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.

“Sorry, Ms. Blakely,” he says with a sincere frown worthy of any budding sociopath. “I have no idea how that happened.”

“Give me that.” She yanks the striker from him, her hands streaked with soot from my sweater. “Scarlet, I think you should go see your mother. And, Mitchell, you’re going to the principal’s office.”

“Maybe I should help Scarlet,” Mitch says sweetly. “She doesn’t look so good. Her heart, you know.”

He’s right about one thing. I don’t feel good. The room is spinning and the stench of burnt hair fills my nose and mouth, gagging me. My heart is doing a weird jangly two-step and I’m gasping, trying to get enough air. I steady myself with one hand on the lab bench and one hip against the stool.

“Anthony,” she calls to another student. “Help Scarlet down to the nurse’s office.”

All I see in my blurry vision is a bunch of black spots bouncing in time with my heart, a boy’s legs clad in jeans, and a pair of black Reeboks. Right before I puke all over them.

Thankfully, the other kid, Anthony, has great reflexes. He dodges most of the vomit. Unfortunately, the rest of the class begins to gag—nice to know they have such empathy. Anthony half carries me out of the lab, down the hall, and around the corner to the nurse’s office. Then he leaves, before I even get a chance to thank him. Probably doesn’t want to risk the chance of seeing me puke again.

So here I am. Me and Mom, each taking our inevitable roles: careless and caregiver.

I brace myself against her reaction. Is she going to be cool and efficient, Mrs. Professional Nurse? Hysterical and angry at the risk I took insisting on attending school? Or a frenzied dynamo, saving me, calling 911, giving the medics report, revealing my sordid medical history like a magician unraveling a mile-long length of ladies’ silk underwear from his sleeve?

I lie on the examination table. It’s much too hard to be called a bed. They probably do that on purpose to keep kids from staying here long, faking. I watch warily as Ms. Blakely explains what happened, hauling Mitch in with her on their way down to the office. Mitch leans against the open door, leering at me, making rude gestures behind the adults’ backs.

“Maybe I should sue,” he says when Ms. Blakely finishes.

My mom spins to glare at him. He seems immune. In fact, the smile he gives her in return borders on seductive—or creepy, hard to tell with Mitch. I can see why he’d be attracted to Mom; it happens all the time, especially to hospital interns. With her long blond hair and a figure like a movie star, she’s pretty glamorous. That’s how folks know she’s not my biological mother, not with me and my Plain Jane flat chest and skinny hips.

“This school has faulty equipment. I had no idea it would start a fire. You all”—Mitch’s tone grows indignant—“placed me in danger.”

Mom’s mouth opens and shuts again as she swallows whatever she was about to say. She stands rigid but I see wrinkles form around her lips—a sure sign that a storm’s gonna hit.

Ms. Blakely isn’t so controlled. “You didn’t know a fire starter might start a fire?”

“No, ma’am.” Mitch manages to look innocent, injured, and insolent all at once.

She shakes her head and gets a faraway look in her eyes as if counting the days until the weekend or end of school or her retirement. Or maybe she’s counting the millennia since Prometheus discovered fire, wondering how Mitch eluded all those generations of human evolution.

“Come with me, Mitchell,” she says, her words ending with a sigh of exasperation. “Sorry, Cindy,” she murmurs to my mom as she hauls Mitch away.

To my surprise, my mom stands there saying nothing as she watches them leave. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but she’s thinking hard. Then she heaves her shoulders as if getting ready to lift something heavy and turns to me. I know that look.

“I’m not going to the ER.” I launch a preemptive strike. “I feel better. And my arm is fine, see?”

She looks at my arm. It’s not even red anymore, no blisters, no singed hair. My wool sweater took most of the damage. Thank God I wasn’t wearing polyester. Too bad I wasn’t wearing a wool cap. I string my fingers through my hair, the burnt ends crispy and snapping off.

“Still, you almost fainted.”

“I stood up too fast and it smelled so bad and—” I shut up. Fast. But she lasered in on my admission.

“And what?”

“And I didn’t eat all my lunch.” Didn’t eat any of it, actually. I was too busy ruining Mitch’s jacket and, apparently, my future.

She blows out her breath in that long-suffering exhalation mothers master. “Scarlet. How can I trust you if you won’t take care of yourself? Coming to school was a bad idea. You should stay home. The deal’s off.”

“No!” My shout surprises even me. “Mom, no. Please. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

She turns away without answering, raiding her stash of emergency rations, giving me a gluten-free almond butter protein bar and a bottle of orange juice. I dutifully chew as she takes my pulse and blood pressure, monitors my oxygen level, listens to my heart. Finally, she pulls her stool up and sits down across from me.

“You really want this, don’t you?”

“More than anything,” I answer between chews. I’m afraid to say more; sometimes the more you push Mom, the more she digs in.

“Well, you are closer to me here than you would be at home.”

I nod, watching her expression warily.

She rolls up her stethoscope, shoves it into the pocket of her lab jacket. “If you’re going to stay in school,” she finally says, “we need some ground rules.”

I nod again, a wad of almond butter getting stuck in my throat. I don’t want to gag, but I can’t spit it out, so all I can do is keep swallowing over and over, trying to get it down. Mom doesn’t seem to notice. Like for once, she’s actually treating me like an adult.

The thought terrifies me. Even though I’ve been through more and seen more than most kids, I know nothing about the world outside the hospital or my home. One day here in high school and even Mom is acting like I’ve changed.

My mouth goes dry and the mouthful of almond butter is growing to the size of a small mountain range. It won’t budge. I begin to wonder if maybe I’m allergic to almonds, even though I’ve never had problems before.

“First, I need you to stop by here after lunch, let me check you—” Check to see if I’ve eaten, she means. Since my meals usually consist of hypoallergenic protein supplements mixed in with baby food and the occasional high-fiber, gluten-free cracker on the side, she’s probably smart to do this. I’ve been cheating a little on my diet at home, even snuck a Pop-Tart the other day, but I don’t dare try any of the food I saw on the cafeteria line. I might be going through some kind of adolescent rebellion, but I’m not masochistic.

“And you need to not fight me about taking your meds,” Mom continues as I feel my throat closing shut and fight against a swell of panic. I grab the OJ and gulp it down. It burns as it trickles around the almond butter glob.

“That’s fine,” I manage, my words only slightly garbled by the almond butter. Another sip of OJ and it finally slides down, hitting my stomach with a slosh that echoes through me. I’m surprised she doesn’t hear as my intestines grumble in complaint. “I can do that.”

I’m lying. After the headache and flushing and nausea from that extra vitamin at lunch today, no way am I going to take more of those. But she doesn’t need to know that—not like the doctor even prescribed them; they’re just extra protection, like getting a flu shot and drinking echinacea tea when I get a sniffle.

She’s looking at me. I try to keep my face blank like Jordan did when the others were teasing him in the cafeteria earlier. Finally I get the seal of approval when she nods.

“And lastly”—Yeah, there’s a lastly!—“You need to let me know if you have any symptoms—and I mean
any
—right away, before you get sick. That’s a deal breaker. If I can’t trust you—”

“No, you can, you can.” I don’t want to get sick again, be embarrassed in front of everyone like today. And I sure as hell don’t want to end up back in the hospital. “I promise.”

She smiles and hugs me, back to being my mom instead of my keeper. She kisses my forehead, testing for fever like when I was a baby. “Okay,” she says with a sigh. “We’ll compromise.”

Compromise? I already said I’d do everything she asked. I consider protesting but know better—not when she has that “she who must be obeyed” look. So I sit and wait for her to pronounce my sentence. Will it be life—with my new friends and everything a normal high school girl gets to enjoy?

Or a death of sheer boredom stuck at home doing cyberschool?