The Anatomical Shape of a Heart (27 page)

With all this hanging over me, I drew a quick sketch of a human heart and added diagram labels for all the parts. It was no Max Br
ö
del—I'll tell you that much. And maybe because it was so sketchy, or maybe because my life had been upended, I dug through the bottom of my wardrobe and found my plastic tub of Prismacolors. The scent of wood and wax wafted when I opened the lid. I sharpened the Scarlet Lake pencil and, blowing out a long breath, set the lead against the paper.

I only meant to outline what I'd already done, but half an hour passed, and I'd softly shaded the contours of my entire sketch. I was worried all that color would look garish, but it wasn't so bad.

“Imagine that, Lester,” I said to my one-armed skeleton.

A few snips in the shape of a square, and the heart, along with its diagram labels, was neatly unmoored from the paper. I carefully ripped it in two and pasted the pieces on a sheet of black paper. Done. Before I could chicken out or second-guess anything, I slapped it on my desktop scanner and uploaded the file under my BioArtGirl profile with only the date and time for a title. And, you know, it actually made me feel a little better.

That night Mom wasn't working, so she dropped me off at the anatomy lab and told me she'd be back to pick me up at 8:00 p.m. She didn't add “sharp” to the end of that, but I felt the implication clearly enough.

We were communicating only on a need-to-know basis, but at least that was better than screaming at each other, and it was certainly more communication than Heath and I had. Conveniently, he was spending the night at Noah's. Mom told me this—not him. She also told me Heath had set a move-out date: the day after my art show.

I didn't see Simon Gan in the anatomy lab lobby, but after I'd signed in and clipped on my visitor's badge, I headed into the cadaver room and spotted him in his usual spot. He saw me putting my stuff down and waved. The stand I used to prop up my sketchpad wasn't around, but several extra ones sat across the room. I headed over to retrieve one but stopped when I noticed that something was … off.

Laid out on Minnie's metal table was the body of a skinny old man. His leg had been opened up for dissection near a pair of bloated testicles.

“Miss Adams,” Simon called out.

“There's been a mistake,” I answered, scanning the other sheet-covered bodies. “This isn't Minnie.”

He stopped on the other side of the cadaver and caught his breath. “That's what I was going to tell you. Minnie was cremated two days ago. This is Mickey.”

“Cremated? Why?”

“They were finished dissecting her, and she'd been in the lab for nine months. It was her time.”

“But I wasn't finished,” I argued. “How come no one told me?”

“I asked Dr. Sheridan's assistant to let you know, just in case you wanted to be there for the cremation.”

“I never got an email.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic. “But look at the bright side. At least this new body will give you someone different to draw.”

I didn't want someone new. I wanted Minnie. I wasn't finished! And who was this guy, anyway? Mickey? I didn't know him. He was old and gross, and he stank strongly of formaldehyde. I didn't want to invent a new backstory for his life, and I didn't want to draw the dissection of his leg. It felt like a blasphemy—a slap in the face to Minnie.

Tears blurred my vision. I snatched up my things and raced out of the lab. I didn't stop running until I'd taken the stairs down, story after story after story, and finally ended up on the building's front lawn, planting myself against the tree where Jack had taught me the breathing trick. And I fell to pieces.

My project was unfinished.

My entry for the art show was shot.

What the hell was I going to do? I had only a week. One week! And the unfinished drawing of Minnie had taken me an entire freaking month.

Everything was shit. Two days earlier, I'd been in Jack's arms, satisfied and happy. Now I'd had my freedom snatched away, my brother had betrayed my trust, Mom and I were barely speaking, and my boyfriend might be sent to another planet—which is about how close Massachusetts felt.

And now this?

In a rage, I grabbed the sketchbook out of my bag and tore out pages.
Rip!
Sketches from the first day in the lab when I'd gotten sick in the bushes.
Rip!
All my preliminary drawings.
Rip! Rip! Rip!
Detailed studies, experimental angles, and the final sketch. I crumpled up the expensive French-milled drawing paper that had cost me several days' salary and sloppily pitched it at the bushes. People stared. I yelled obscenities at one person, until I realized how banana-boat crazy I sounded, all emotional and dramatic.

Like Heath.

Or my father.

The empty sketchpad fell from my hand. I leaned back against the itchy bark of the tree and stared blankly at the lengthening shadows on the closely shorn grass, now littered with torn pieces of Minnie's body. Plump birds pecked at the paper, searching for food. Students strolled up and down the sidewalk behind me.

When my breathing had slowed so much that I was practically meditating, I got out my phone to see what time it was. Mom wouldn't be there to pick me up for another half hour. Out of habit, emotionally numb and hollow as a beach ball, I checked my email. A comment waited for me at
Body-O-Rama
.

I clicked the link and was surprised anew at the bright Carmine Red in my depressing heart sketch—did I really do that?—and scrolled down past my BioArtGirl profile to read the single-line comment from a newly created profile, RockabillyBoy. It said:

Have a little faith.

I stared at that line in wonderment. And as if the words themselves had power enough to create change, an idea bloomed inside my head.

28

Mom says I'm stubborn, and maybe that's true. But she also taught me not to blindly follow rules without thinking. Not everything in this world is fair, and people with power don't always have sense.

If I had anything to add to that, I'd say that even good people make bad mistakes (like Mom lying about Dad, which I could forgive her for). And sometimes good people break the rules, like Jack and his golden words—which his parents had to forgive him for, too. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but if they looked at it logically, they'd eventually understand that he was doing it for the right reason.

It was a Noble Defiance.

And that's why I came to the realization that the lesson I'd learned from the jumbled mess of recent events was not that sneaking around was wrong. Sneaking around for the wrong reasons, sure. But sneaking around for the right reasons? That was a Noble Defiance. And that's why Mom continued to let me go the anatomy lab, because she knew I'd been doing it for the right reason.

That's also why I didn't tell her about Minnie's being cremated. I just quietly picked up my ripped drawing paper, flattened it all out, and crammed the pages back into my sketchpad. And when I got into the paddy wagon, Mom pulled away from the curb and asked, “How did it go?”

“I've had a small setback,” I told her. “But I know what to do to fix it.”

I just needed Jack's help.

Two days later, I got it.

Mom was working, so she asked me to drop by the ER after my scheduled session at the anatomy lab. I could do that; I wouldn't actually be working in the lab that night, but I'd be only a few buildings away. At six o'clock, I waited in the lobby of the mental health hospital, pacing near some empty visitor seats.

Please don't be a mistake.

When I saw Jack's dark pompadour come through the door, all the anxious energy bouncing around in my body coalesced into an arrow that propelled me straight toward him. He didn't miss a beat, just opened his arms and picked me straight off my feet. All his goodness hit me at once. His lemony hair wax. The rustling noise his old leather jacket made. The solid wall of his chest and the warmth of his neck, where I buried my face.

“There you are,” he murmured in his low voice, the words vibrating through me as I clung to him, more grateful than I'd ever been. “Everything's right in the world again.”

After a time that was too long to be polite but too short to be satisfying, I released him and slid down his body until my toes found the floor. “Did they let you come, or did you sneak out?” I asked, blinking back happy tears.

“I convinced them that suddenly stopping my visits with Jillian would be a bad idea—which is true, and they knew it. So I'm out on parole, but they've got a tracker on my phone. I told them six to eight, like you suggested, and they expect me home right after.”

“That's fine,” I said, curling my fingers around his and tracing the bones on the back of his hand with my thumbs. I couldn't
not
touch him. It was physically impossible. “It's enough time—that is, if Jillian's agreeable.”

“I cleared it with Dr. Kapoor. He talked to her, and she's okay with it. Or she was earlier. Let's hope she's still having a good day.”

“If not, it's okay. I just don't want to upset her routine.”

“Me and you both, but all we can do is try.” He pulled me against him for a moment and kissed me several times on my head. “Ready?”

I nodded, and we headed down the hall to check in. The ward was louder and busier than it had been before. The day rooms were just closing up for the evening, and the patients on Jillian's hall had all been fed dinner, the orderly informed us as we passed a few of them in the hallway. Even during normal business hours, the ward wasn't a chaotic zoo, the way these wards are often portrayed on TV. Maybe it was different upstairs on the fifth floor, where they kept the patients on suicide watch and the ones who were too out of control for social privileges. I remembered Jillian saying how much she hated that floor, and I wondered how many times she'd been up there.

We rounded the corner, and just like the first time, there she was, peeking out her door. Only instead of disappearing immediately, she waved at us—just once before she slipped back inside. The orderly left us with the same instructions as last time.

I could smell the cigarette smoke before Jack opened the door. She was already sitting cross-legged on her bed, with the window cracked.

“Yo, Jillie,” Jack said brightly. “Cool if Bex comes in?”

“Yeah, yeah. I told Dr. Kapoor it was fine.” Her eyes darted to my bag before jumping around the room.

I greeted her and asked, “Did your doctor tell you why I wanted to come? That I want to draw you?”

“Yeah. Why? Is it part of Jack's secret word puzzles?”

I was careful not to mention that he wouldn't be doing those anymore. Jack had prepped me in advance to keep quiet about that, and about the possibly of his being sent away to boarding school. “No, it's for an art show. It would be on exhibit, and if it's good enough, it could win me a scholarship.”

“Why would anyone want to see me?”

“Because she wants to immortalize you,” Jack said playfully.

Jillian looked at him, then at. “Is it an art show about crazy people?”

“It's an art show about science,” I told her. “I usually draw people for anatomy studies, but a few things have happened to me recently, and I decided I'd rather tell the story behind the body.”

She looked confused. Maybe I wasn't saying it right. I tried again.

“I'd like to draw a couple of sketches of you today, and while I'm drawing, I was hoping you might tell me stories about things you like. You can talk about anything you want, and I'll try to incorporate it into my work.”

“Like art therapy on Fridays with Dr. Yang?”

“Exactly like that,” Jack said, smiling. “Except you'd be more famous, because you'd get to be on display in an art gallery. I showed you Bex's art on that website, remember?”

“Yeah. It was pretty dark. I liked it.” She laughed briefly and rubbed the heel of her palm against her thigh, back and forth, back and forth.…

“What I really want to do,” I said, “is to draw you here today, and then take the sketch home and work on it some more. And when I'm finished, I'll get Jack to bring the drawing by and make sure you think it's okay before I enter it in the contest.”

Jack tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention. “And if you give us the thumbs-up, the painting will go on display in Bex's art show next week. We'll take a photo of it hanging up. Just like I do with the word puzzles. Maybe even make a video so you can see how many people will be looking at it.”

We'd already talked about this the night when before, Jack was able to give me a quick call: He said might not even be able to go to the art show unless he found a way to sneak out. Even doing this today was risky, especially now that I knew his parents were tracking his phone. But I couldn't dwell on it. We just had to take one day at a time and see how things played out.

“I don't want to hide your scars,” I told Jillian. “I want to show you as a whole person. Just like anyone else.”

“You want to show my schizophrenia.”

“Yes.”

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. Her eyes darted away, and a small line formed in the middle of her forehead. I knew decisions stressed her out because her mind tangled up all the possible outcomes, but no way was I doing this without her permission.

After biting on her nails and taking several drags off her cigarette, she finally asked, “If you're going to im-m-mortalize me, can you make my hair longer?”

“Any way you'd like it.”

“Okay, then. Jack can show you pictures of how it used to be. That's how I like it.”

“Yep, I can show her,” he confirmed.

“All right,” she agreed with a shy smile. “I'll do it. Where do you want me to sit?”