#NotReadyToDie

by Cate Carlyle

  “No seriously, Ginny. You okay? You want to talk about it?”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted, my standard response for everyone. “The cutting helps me cope sometimes. Hard to explain. It’s not often; I can stop whenever I want to.”

  “If you say so. What’s the tatt?”

  I lifted up my pant leg to reveal the tiny Gryffindor House tattoo on the inside of my left ankle that I’d gotten the day after Dad died.

  “My parents are both huge Harry fans,” I explained.

  “No duh,” Kayla smiled.

  Just then another shot went off, farther away. POP! Then two more. POP! POP! We both snapped our heads back at the sudden violent break in the silence. Then the fire alarm abruptly stopped its incessant wail. Our bonding moment screeched to a halt.

  This was happening and it was real. I was locked in my classroom with a shooter on the loose in the halls. This was not a drill. I shuddered, closed my eyes, then heard a loud bang and all faded to black.

  The summer I turned twelve years old Mom, Dad, and I went on a road trip to the East Coast. Dad’s family, including his only sibling, Uncle Stew, all lived in Halifax. Uncle Stew had been fighting brain cancer for a few months. Stew’s prognosis was not good and he had been given a few weeks to live. When Dad heard the news, he decided we should drive east to see my uncle during summer vacation. It took us two days to get there, Mom and Dad taking turns at the wheel while I was tucked in my nest of books, snacks, and blankets in the backseat. We played the license plate game, an essential part of any Bartholomew car trip. Dad always won with the longest list of different plates; he had an eagle eye and front seaters always had the advantage anyways. That road trip, we loaded up on one dollar gas station hot dogs with all the fixin’s whenever we had to stop for bathroom breaks, we went through six boxes of Timbits on the twenty-hour drive, and I read four books, the entire Scott Westerfeld Uglies series. It was a great road trip, the three of us safe and together with no obligations or distractions and the bleak purpose of the journey shoved aside and unmentioned until we arrived.

  Once we arrived in Halifax, we stayed at Uncle Stew’s house for three days and didn’t see my paternal grandparents at all while we were there. I often talked to Nonna and Poppa on the phone from Ontario, and they had been to visit at our house a few times on their way south to Florida in the winter, but we did not see them that week. While my parents never discussed or explained it, I somehow knew that my uncle and his parents did not speak. I’d heard rumblings over the years about the three of them, hushed chatter through my parents’ bedroom walls.

  “Your parents are such idiots, they aren’t getting any younger and now that Stew’s sick they are willing to lose him without ever reconnecting?” Mom had whispered.

  “I know Susan, I’ve tried to talk to all three of them. Mom and Dad haven’t spoken to Stew since he came out. They’re a product of their time, I guess, and can’t wrap their heads around Stew’s sexuality.”

  “Well, they are a product of their own stupidity if you ask me. Don’t make excuses for them, Stephen. How on earth did they ever end up with such great sons?”

  I’d always known Uncle Stew was gay. I don’t remember being told that he was or it ever needing any explanation, he just was. He was also the funniest, happiest, most handsome man I knew. He had piercing blue eyes, a lazy endearing drawl and an incredible mane of loose brown curls. He could cook like a professional chef, was the top golfer at his favorite Cape Breton club, and drove a V-Rex motorbike like in The Fast and the Furious. He called it his baby.

  But when we visited that summer, that man was nowhere to be seen. The shabby chic front room of Uncle Stew’s downtown walk-up, which had been professionally decorated with vintage finds, contemporary art, and imported rugs, had been transformed into a makeshift hospital room complete with adjustable bed, oxygen tank, and all the bells and whistles associated with dying. Uncle Stew had around-the-clock care and a constant stream of friends and colleagues visiting him, bringing his favorite take out dishes and refreshing the opulent floral bouquets scattered throughout his house. My Uncle Stew, the Uncle Stew I knew and loved, had already left the building. In his place was a lifeless bald man in a hospital bed who we talked to while he slept all day and night, whose every breath was a struggle, and who gave off an odor reminiscent of museums or long-sealed linen closets.

  Mom and Dad helped to change and bathe Uncle Stew. They read to him and kept up a constant stream of chatter about old times and memories. I stayed on the periphery, trying to keep my tears from escaping, and was amazed at how everyone was acting as though Uncle Stew was still somewhere in that shriveled husk.

  The day before we left Nova Scotia, four days before Uncle Stew finally let go, Dad took me out to see the Peggy’s Cove lighthouse. He told me that it was an iconic national symbol and a must-see when in the Maritimes. We drove the twisty roads for about thirty minutes, taking us out of the city, and marveled at how the landscape turned from green-treed boulevards to an odd lunar landscape complete with giant boulders seemingly dropped from the sky at random. Dad and I each had the local specialty, Moose Tracks waffle cones, in the Peggy’s Cove tourist shop while we waited for the fog to lift. We then walked out to the lighthouse, always careful to stay on the dry rocks and avoid the wet black ones that could become submerged by a rogue wave at any moment.

  “I’m glad you came, Ginny,” he said. “I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  “It’s fine, Dad. I know I wasn’t much help, but I kinda felt like that person wasn’t Uncle Stew anymore, you know?”

  “I know. And you’re right, it’s best to remember the Uncle Stew we knew and loved. The guy who loved life and lived every minute of it.”

  I noticed a tear trickling down Dad’s cheek and wiped it away for him.

  “Thanks, Gin Gin,” he sniffled. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything, Dad,” I said.

  “Ok, dad-speech alert, my dear girl. Life is awesome and incredible and so damn short. Don’t waste a day. Sure, it can be tough and frustrating, and we don’t always get what we want, but there are so many amazing places to see and people to love and new things to try. I am proud of you no matter what, but I wouldn’t be fulfilling my dad duty if I didn’t tell you how quickly it all goes by and how you have to make the most of each and every second.”

  It was my turn to start tearing up. I swiped a few tears off my cheeks and mumbled, “I will Dad, I promise.”

  “Uh oh, a promise like the one when you promised to stop eating all the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms box before I got one promise?”

  “No Dad, for reals this time.”

  Dad then sprung up and reached his right hand down to haul me up.

  “Enough with the heavy stuff, race you to the gift shop Gin Gin! I’ll buy you the tackiest lobster souvenir you can find!”

  I had no clue at the time that Dad’s days were numbered too. How could I have known that I would look back on that afternoon over and over and try to call up the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand as we scampered up the smooth rocks from the lighthouse?

  That same ridiculous squeezy lobster keychain with the horrid googly eyes that Dad purchased at the gift shop all those years ago, the one that had held my house keys ever since, was being waved in my face when I finally came to on the floor of Homeroom A.

  Blackouts were not unusual for me. In fact, I was the reason that dodgeball was forbidden in our school district. When I was in elementary school and the principal offered a reward to the entire student body for winning sports, or placing in the district spelling bee, or for volunteer or food drive efforts, we would all vote on a reward. Dodgeball always seemed to win out. There was a kind of hedonistic, Hunger Games obsession with dodgeball. We loved the brutality of it, the opportunity to target and get back at those who had wronged us, to trap our classmates in a corner, sniveling and begging, and then knock them clean off their feet with a whack from the giant rubber bal
l.

  The year that I was in grade four, we had an all-day dodgeball tournament as a school-wide reward for clearing all of the rubbish in the schoolyard. During that tournament, Jace lobbed one at me, nothing too severe, but enough to knock me backwards, a stream of spit flying from my mouth as the ball hit me right in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of me. My head slammed backwards into the glass bricks of the gymnasium wall and all went black in my world. My best friend was convinced I was dead and had a severe panic antic. An ambulance was called, for both of us, and I eventually came to, but dodgeball became a thing of the past. I became the infamous “Dodgeball Ginny” for a few years, but luckily, that moniker faded over time; it didn’t stick to me like poor Boot Snack’s nickname.

  “C’mon Ginny, wake up!” Kayla implored, trying to keep her voice low but loud enough to rouse me.

  She was waving Dad’s lobster keychain in front of my face, and snapping her fingers, trying desperately to get my attention and bring me back from my memories, back to reality. I could see the lobster’s googly eyes up close, magnified and slightly grotesque, and then all went black again. I could hear the urgency in Kayla’s quivering voice for a moment, and then back to silence. All of a sudden, I heard a loud THWACK and felt a sharp sting on the side of my face.

  “Hey!” I sat upright and confronted Kayla. “What’d you hit me for?!”

  “Oh, thank God! Sorry Ginny, you kept fading in and out and I was worried you would never come to. I can’t do this day on my own. I need you!”

  “Damn, Barbie,” I exhaled. “You pack a punch. Who knew?”

  Kayla looked confused.

  “Barbie? Is that what you think of me? A little Freudian slip there, Ginny? Not nice.”

  “Sorry,” I looked away. She had just brought me back. Maybe I could be nicer? Maybe she wasn’t just a vacant airhead screaming cheers and flashing her butt? Dad had always said I judged too quickly.

  “My bad, Kayla. It won’t happen again.”

  It was hard to kick the habit of thinking of her as a Barbie, even though my first impression was probably not accurate. Kayla was smart and beautiful and tough as nails, and I could kinda, maybe, see us hanging out if we survived this day.

  Kayla held out half of a white Kit Kat bar and popped the other half in her mouth.

  “Here have some.”

  I let my piece lie under my tongue and begin to slowly melt. My eyes rolled back in my head, in a good way for once, as I savored the smooth chocolate, my first food of the day.

  “Oh my God Kayla, that was so good!” I groaned.

  “Ssshh,” she whispered. “I don’t need anyone to know I have chocolate just yet. They might go all Lord of the Flies on me if they get desperate. But you looked like you needed some sugar in a bad way.”

  “Yeah, I did. I’m known to black out if I haven’t eaten, or if it’s that time of the month, or if I bang my head. That piece of Kit Kat is all I’ve had today. So, thank you.”

  Kayla waved it off.

  “No worries. I’m a chocoholic; always have a stash somewhere nearby. Got the ass to prove it,” she gestured at her perfect butt. I sat up a little straighter trying to conceal mine underneath me. Gawd, what must she have been thinking of my cottage cheese butt? And why did I even care what she thought?

  “Good to know.” I smiled. “I guessed you might have a sweet tooth from the Wonka wallpaper on your phone.”

  “Oh, that!” she giggled. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was my favorite book growing up. My Gran was a librarian, and whenever she visited I begged her to read it to me. And I loved Willy Wonka movie too, the original Technicolor version, not that creepy Johnny Depp mess.”

  I’m sure by this point my mouth was hanging open. This day just got curiouser and curiouser. I decided to confide in this Full o’ Surprises Barbie.

  “Funny thing, Kayla. Chocolate Factory was my favorite childhood book too. Despite my name and my parents’ best efforts, I couldn’t get enough of it. Don’t get me wrong, the Harry Potter books are great, I get the whole wizards and spells and wands fascination, but there was just something about rivers of chocolate and fudge rooms that fascinated me. Spoke to my sugar obsession I guess.”

  Kayla looked at me with squinty eyes, as if she was sizing me up. Maybe I wasn’t quite who she’d assumed I was either. Rein it in, Ginny. Verbal diarrhea about your favorite topic isn’t pretty. Scares people off. And you actually need this girl’s help. At least for today!

  “Before she turned out my bedside lamp Gran would always recite her favorite Gene Wilder line from the movie,” Kayla slowly whispered, clearly remembering something bittersweet.

  “We are the music makers,” Kayla started.

  I cut her off and finished her thought with, “and we are the dreamers of the dreams.”

  Kayla just stared at me. Yep, I definitely wasn’t who she’d expected either.

  Shaking her head slightly as though she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed or what to say, Kayla glanced down at my left arm and then looked me in the eye. I hadn’t been aware until that moment that I had been repeatedly gouging an old cut scar on my forearm with my fingernails while we’d been talking. I had succeeded in opening the wound, and it was now bleeding.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I reassured her. “It’s hard to explain to people. No one else gets it.”

  “Try me,” she whispered as she patted my left hand. “I’m a pretty good listener. And a kick-ass medical professional, as you now know,” she joked.

  “Um, okay,” I muttered. Here goes, putting it all on the line here, Barbie. Be kind. “When I cut it kind of feels like I’m frozen in time, removed from the situation, and it takes me out of whatever I’m struggling with in the moment. And then when the cuts scar over I kind of like how they look. Battle scars, I guess. Or proof that I have survived? Pride, maybe? Then when the cuts start to disappear, I have to freshen them up. And they’re mine too, you know? Something only I know and I can control.”

  My trust issues kicked into full gear as I suddenly realized I was revealing way too much to someone who was pretty much a complete stranger the day before, someone I would never normally even say hello to, a cheerleader!

  “Never mind,” I apologized. “I bet I sound completely nuts.”

  “No, no, no!” Kayla stopped me, “I kind of get what you’re saying. I can see how it could make you feel that way, and how it could become a habit. But you do know you can’t keep doing it, right?” she asked softly. “The cuts could get infected. And it’s really just a temporary fix for something that’s hurting you that you really should work on. Not that I’m an expert or anything. Just a concerned friend.”

  A concerned friend? I had not seen that coming. But it felt good. Maybe we would become friends if we made it out of this room. Stranger things have happened. All the gadgets on Star Trek became real things. A reality show star became President of the US ... And there was a shooter on a rampage in my high school hallway. In sleepy little Southwestern. Maybe nerdy ole Ginny Bartholomew and a cheerleading Barbie could become friends.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “My mom would love you. She’s always on my case to stop cutting, checking my arms when she thinks I’m not looking. She thinks I’m hurting myself because my dad died unexpectedly and I never got over it.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad,” Kayla offered. “But I think we have enough blood in this room already today without you creating any more. What if, when you want to hurt yourself, you tell yourself that it isn’t your arm you’re cutting but that it’s your mom’s or a friend’s or even mine? Would that help you to ease off?”

  No one had ever suggested Kayla’s strategy to me before, and she did have a point about the blood in the room already.

  “I might give it a try,” I told her. “Thanks.”

  “Alright,” Kayla started to lift herself up into a crouching position, “I think we should do some triage, check around
the room and see how everyone’s doing. At the vets’ hospital I have to do that in the ER sometimes, ever since Stretchergate.”

  I vaguely remembered Stretchergate from a few years ago. Larry Groenewegen was a local veteran, a Dutch immigrant to our town after World War II, and everyone called him “Ladder Larry” because he had ladders propped up all over his house and was constantly climbing up on his roof to sit and look out over the houses. The guy was never content on terra firma. He fell off many times but it never seemed to affect him. After one particularly hard fall he took himself to the ER at the main hospital to get checked over. Ladder Larry waited all day to see a doctor and eventually just curled up on a stretcher in the hall outside the ER for a nap. They found him dead on that stretcher after he’d been waiting there for eleven hours. He’d had a brain bleed. Larry hadn’t had a family doctor; they were scarce in our town. His death made our little local news and then got picked up nationally and was even covered on CNN. Mom said it was a “shameful testament to the state of healthcare and overcrowded hospitals.” I thought it was just really sad.

  “Let’s go up and down the rows and just see if anyone needs help,” Kayla suggested crouch-crawling off down the first row. Suddenly aware that I was subconsciously starting to gouge at my scars again, I balled both hands into fists and followed Kay-la. Damn Barbie, you are one calm cool piece of work. Wish I could say the same for myself.

  I wasn’t quite sure what Kayla and I would find as we moved around the room, but a part of me was preparing for a bloody, chaotic no-man’s-land battlefield scene, even though my rational brain knew the shooter had never been in the room. The first row of desks we crawled along was dead quiet. Each desk had a student underneath, sitting or lying down, and most were either tracking the drama on the news on their phones or texting or playing games for distraction. I made a mental note to tell Mom about the irony of the situation if I saw her again. Mom was always arguing with me that video games desensitized people and that they had a hand to play in the violence in the world, but today those games were calming people and bringing peace during a violent event. Maybe I could finally win an argument with Mom. We moved on to the second row and checked on the huddled masses there. Kayla waved me over to one of the other cheerleaders, Keira maybe, or Kelsie, who did not look good at all.