by Damien Boyes
I knock my shoulder into him, and he nearly drops his books. “When am I going to meet this ‘friend’ for myself?” I ask.
He just smiles, and I’m about to press him but notice Martin Locke and his clique bantering away at their lockers outside math class. I try to keep it together, but of course, Gabe knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Why don’t you just ask him?” Gabe whispers dramatically, then nudges me toward where Martin is leaning against his locker, hair flopped over one eye, talking to his friends Scott and Derek. “I have a feeling he might say yes.”
Gabe knows I have a secret crush on Martin and thinks I should ask him to the Grad Dance, but how can I? Martin’s gorgeous. He’s got thick brown hair and the bluest of blue eyes, and that snaggletooth that pokes down past his upper lip when he smiles …
He’s smart, funny, and even though he could be, as good-looking as he is, he’s never a jerk. If I were someone else, maybe I would ask, but no one “likes” me.
I’m popular enough, I guess, and friendly with plenty of people, boys and girls, but who wants a broken girlfriend, someone who could croak in the middle of making out.
“Hi, Jasmin,” Martin says as I’m about to pass him into Math. Gabe nudges me again, this time hard enough it makes me grunt, and my cheeks flush in embarrassment and I’m instantly torn between slugging Gabe right back and running away in shame.
“Oh, hey Martin,” I say, then nod at the twins. “Don’t you have English now?”
Stupid. Now he thinks I track his every move.
Martin smiles. “Yeah, we were just about to leave,” he says, turning and closing his locker. “Are you going to the Grad Dance?” he asks casually. A little too casually, because I catch him watching for my answer.
Oh. My. God.
The question is so unexpected I can’t make my mouth work. Why is he asking? Does he know something? Could he know I’ll be gone by then? No, that’s impossible, he’s just being polite, right?
Right?
He couldn’t be interested in me, could he?
Gabe clears his throat behind me. “She is,” he says. “Isn’t that right, Jasmin?”
I manage a stunned nod.
“Great,” Martin says, then lowers his eyes and rubs his thumb across his lips in that self-conscious way he does. He brushes by me, heading for Ms. Metcalf’s first period English. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”
Blood rushes out of my head and I get dizzy. I’m glad Gabriel is there to prop me up because otherwise I might have hit the floor.
“Look at the state of you,” Gabriel tuts as he leads me to Mr. Reilly’s math class. “You have no cool at all.”
4
Changes
I don’t mind walking home, even in the dead of winter when the snow’s blowing so hard you can barely see. It sometimes feels like it’s always snowing here in Buffalo, but today is beautiful. Sunny and warm, but not too warm. It’s one of those rare days when it feels like anything could happen.
Between deciding to leave home and then Martin showing a flicker of unexpected interest, this has been a very weird day. It’s hard to picture it, but in less than a month I could be living in New York City. I don’t think I’ll stay there long at first, but I have to wait until my birthday before I can get a passport without a parent’s signature. After that, I want to see the world.
I’ve been saving money for years: birthdays and Christmases and Chinese New Years. I have a few thousand dollars in my bank account, more than enough to get me started. I can bunk with Gabe for a month or two while I get my passport settled and my plane ticket bought—that way I can see what it’s like living on my own without being too far away from Mom and Dad should everything fall apart and I need to come crying back to them.
My stomach flutters. I have a secret. My life is about to change.
Everything is going to change.
I just have to get through graduation—Mom and Dad will be there, excited to watch me get my diploma, with no idea that I’ll be gone shortly after—and then the dance …
Ugh.
Martin Locke.
Could he really be interested in me?
I mean, I guess I’m cute enough, in a way, but no one’s ever called me beautiful or anything. Jaws don’t drop open when I walk by. Cars don’t crash. It’s fine by me—I wouldn’t want creeps ogling me or anything—but apart from my mom, no one’s ever much commented on my looks at all.
It’s just my luck—the impossible happens and I’ve already made other plans.
Maybe it’s a joke, Martin and Scott and Derek playing a prank on me, pulling one over on seizure-girl. If that’s the case, they can all suck it—but for some reason I don’t get that vibe from Martin.
If anything, I think he might actually like me.
I mean, I’ve caught him looking at me, more than once, but I thought that was because I was looking at him. And when we’ve talked he’s always paid attention, like he wants to hear what I have to say and isn’t just waiting for his turn to talk. I thought he was being nice, like everyone else. Being gentle with me in case I shatter.
He does like me …
My breath unexpectedly catches and my stomach flips.
No, this is dumb. I have plans. Plans that don’t involve falling for Martin Locke days before I take off. I don’t need another reason to chicken out. It’s hard enough as it is.
But still, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice. I hear the music start in my head. Feel the closeness of the gym made into a dance floor, don’t have to think too hard about pressing against him, his hands on my waist and mine up around his neck—then a frantic cry snaps me back to reality.
I spin around and see a kid on a bike—a boy, can’t be more than seven or eight—careening down the sidewalk, headed for the intersection. His light is red and Niagara Street is basically a highway, everyone always going way too fast. If he doesn’t stop …
The kid’s wailing and his pedals are spinning like mad and he can’t get his feet on them to press the brakes. A man who must be his dad is running after him, yelling at him to bail, but either the kid can’t hear or is too scared to fall.
I check over my shoulder and see a dump truck flying up the road, trying to catch the light. The kid isn’t going to stop in time. Neither is the truck.
Without thinking I drop my bag and sprint to grab the kid before he can get to the street, but I’m too far away. The boy rides off the sidewalk into the road, where he catches his front tire in a giant pothole, flies over the handlebars, and sprawls into the intersection. He doesn’t get up.
The truck driver hasn’t noticed—he’s looking down at something on the passenger seat.
The kid’s going to get creamed.
I keep going, darting out into the street, hoping I can reach the kid and drag him out of the way before the truck gets to us. But by the time I’m close enough to touch him, I know I’ve done something incredibly stupid.
The driver finally looks up, a donut in his mouth, and sees me and the kid in the road in front of him. By then, it’s way too late.
Screeching tires scramble my thoughts and I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the impact. Of all the ways I’ve imagined dying, getting squashed by a dump truck never entered the top twenty. At least it will be over quick.
I wrap my arms around the boy and hunch myself over him, protecting him with my body as much as I can, for what good that’ll do.
The air grows electric and the world fuzzes in a way I haven’t felt for years, not since I found the green diamond pills. There’s a flash of brilliant purple light and then the truck slams into us with a sound like the world is ending.
Everything goes dark.
The noise is terrifying, all rending metal and crackling energy and the kid is screaming but I’m not dead—we’re not dead.
At least I don’t think we are.
As a matter of fact, I don’t feel anything.
I just got hit by a truck. I should feel s
omething. Maybe I’m in shock. Maybe my brain is finally cooperating for once and protecting me from the pain.
Smoke and heat fill my lungs, and a coughing fit from lack of oxygen finally forces my eyes open.
I’m still alive, somehow still alive.
The kid is clinging to my neck as I stand and stagger us away from the heat, feel the flames on my back as I get him to the corner and drop him into his dad’s arms before my knees give out.
Someone catches me. My hands and feet are tingling, my head filling with light, and I can only think of Mom, sitting at home waiting for me, and how she’ll react when I don’t arrive, when she hears I’ve been hit by a truck, that I had another seizure …
Another seizure. I guess this means I’m not running away.
My head wrenches to the side as the first convulsion grips me. People are surrounding me now, crowded around, and the arms that had been holding me lower me to the asphalt. All I can see are feet. Feet and tires.
Another convulsion tears through me, and someone shoves a sour leather wallet in my mouth, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can do but ride it until I pass out.
My body’s gone but I can still see. The dump truck’s burning, its front-end concave, flames licking through the grill, smoke pouring into the air.
And past that, on the other side of the street, is a man, tall and thin, and he’s watching me.
He’s not much older than I am, with blue-black hair slicked back like some kind of ’50’s greaser and wearing an ancient tweed suit with cuffs that stop well above his wrists and ankles.
My vision closes in, fading to nothing as another tremor grabs hold, and I already know this is gonna be a big one, but in the seconds before I pass out I’m sure I see the man across the road, with his face split wide, laughing at me.
5
Irregular Relapse
Even before my eyes are open I know I’m in the hospital. I can smell it, antiseptic but still somehow never clean. The beeps and whirrs of the equipment were the first music I ever heard, the soundtrack to my disease.
My head is throbbing, as if something has hooked my brain right between my eyes and is tugging on the line. I shift a little, testing the state of my body, and suddenly everything hurts, not just my head.
It was a bad one. From how wrecked I feel, probably more than one, all in a row. I haven’t had a cluster seizure since I was little.
I move my tongue around in my mouth to make sure I didn’t bite it off. I didn’t, but the insides of my cheeks are all chewed up. I’m going to need some aspirin.
Even blinking hurts. I try to get my eyes open but the lights in the room are blazing, rimmed with halos, and I have to squint to see Mom, standing nearby but staring out the dark window. She doesn’t look too distraught. There are no tears, anyway.
I’m in a double room but the bed beside me is empty. The TV’s on up in the corner with the sound off, and the 11:00 evening news is starting. I’ve been unconscious for hours.
Then the room goes wobbly as I remember what happened, and what it means, and the sudden pain in my heart is enough to drown out the rest of my aching body—I’m not leaving anymore.
I’m still sick.
They’ll monitor me here for a few days, probably schedule more appointments. They’ll want to go over my medication, test new doses and combinations, run EEGs.
It’s all happening again.
Which means I’m never, ever leaving.
My chin quivers and for a second I want to let it go, to cry my face off, but I know I can’t. I need to be strong, for all of us. Besides, I learned a long time ago how to keep myself from crying.
I focus on my breath and let the world spin around me, controlling only what I can. Every time my mind starts to wander to my frustration and fear I call it back, focusing on the air passing in and out of my nostrils, breezing up and down my throat, until the urge to fall apart passes.
Once it’s gone, I swallow the last of my disappointment and get on with it.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, in the cheeriest voice I can manage, but my throat is raw and the words come out rough.
She turns from the window and her face collapses in relief and she runs to me and grabs me up in a hug. I can feel her hot tears on my cheek as she holds me, and all I can do is pat her sides because I don’t have the strength to lift my arms. She holds me for a long time and I let her. She needs this. Needs to feel for herself that I’m solid. That I’m not going anywhere.
Even though she frustrates me more than anyone, she’s still my mom—I love her more than anyone, too. When she’s all cried out she pulls away, takes a breath, wipes her face on her sleeve, and then switches to business mode.
“How do you feel, one to ten?” she asks, starting at the beginning of the routine.
“Six,” I lie. This is just about as close to a ten as I’ve ever been.
She knows I’m lying, I can tell by the look on her face, but today she doesn’t call me on it.
“What do you remember?”
Not much, now that I think about it. “Just, I was walking home from school and then … here.”
“That’s it?” I can tell by the way she’s too casual about it that something’s not right. She’s hiding something.
My stomach sucks in on itself.
Oh no. What’s wrong with me?
“What is it?” I ask. “Is it bad?”
She thinks about it for a second, but when she answers I know it’s the truth. She promised a long time ago she wouldn’t lie to me about my health.
“No,” she says. Tears well in her eyes again but she’s still smiling. “They can’t find a thing wrong with you. They want to do an EEG to be sure—but it’s been so long since your last episode, they think it might have been a reaction to the stress of ...” she stops herself, makes a sound that’s not quite a laugh, and shakes her head.
“The stress of what?” I ask, but before she answers I can see for myself, on the TV. There’s a reporter standing at the intersection of Niagara and Virginia, and behind him is a dump truck with its front end all smashed in. It looks like it rammed into a concrete pillar.
And then I remember—that wasn’t a pillar. That was me.
I should be dead. And that kid too.
I lower my eyes from the TV, and Mom’s watching me, waiting for a reaction, but I’m too stunned to do anything but stare back at her.
Why didn’t that truck flatten me?
The reporter is talking to someone, and Mom narrates for me. She’s probably watched it every half hour since I’ve been in here.
“They say you ran into the street after that boy,” she says, and once again bursts into tears. “You stupid, brave, stupid girl.” She comes and sits on the bed and puts her hand on my leg. “They say there was a flash of light and an ungodly noise and then you stumbled out of the smoke and flames with the boy in your arms.” She takes a deep breath and squeezes my leg again. “The paramedics say you died twice—once on the sidewalk and again in the ambulance—but you were stable by the time they got you into emergency.” Now she leans in and her voice lowers, almost like she’s afraid to be overheard. “They couldn’t find a scratch on you.”
“How?” is all I can say. I remember the fear and my vision going fuzzy and the terrible noise and then the flash and the smoke, but I have no idea what really happened.
“No one knows. Not the doctors, not the police. Someone suggested a freak lightning strike.”
“But the sky was clear,” I say. “How is that possible?”
She shakes her head, grinning like we just won the lottery. “It isn’t,” she says. “But you’re still here, and that’s all I care about.”
She leans in again and gives me another tight squeeze, and this time I’ve got enough strength in my arms to return it.
“How’s the boy?” I ask once she’s disentangled herself and wiped her face.
“Brendan,” she says, her voice full of wonder. “He’s absolutely
fine. Traumatized, obviously, but there isn’t a mark on him either”—she pauses for a second—“other than the bruises on his arms from where you were holding him.”
I feel myself flush. “Mom, I didn’t mean to—”
She laughs. “Oh, honey. Of course you didn’t. His parents were in here for hours, waiting for you to wake up so they could thank you. I finally had to tell them to go home and get Brendan to bed.” She sits back with her I’ve-got-a-secret look on her face. “And you know what else?”
I’m not up for guessing games right now. “What?”
At first it seems like she wants to keep playing, but she must see my frustration because she just tells me. “They own River Walk Motors, and they said they want to give you a reward—ten thousand dollars!”
“Ten thousand dollars?” I say, hardly able to believe it. This is too much. “I can’t take their money. I don’t deserve it.”
“You ran in front of a truck and saved their boy,” Mom says. She claps my leg one last time and slides down off the bed. “As far as I’m concerned there isn’t enough money in the world to repay what you did.”
I can’t help but smile at my whipsaw fortune. I wake from the first seizure I’ve had in years thinking I’m stuck here forever, only to find out there’s nothing wrong with me, that the speeding truck I ran in front of didn’t touch me, and now there’s nothing stopping my escape.
“What about the driver?” I ask. “Is he okay?”
She snorts and looks off toward the door. Someone’s coming.
“Hey, Minnow,” Dad says as he pokes his head around the curtain. “You’re awake!”
He looks relieved, but if anything, that only makes him look more tired than usual. He walks around Mom and leans over and kisses the top of my head, picks up my wrist, and starts counting.
“You don’t have to take my pulse,” I say, playfully twisting my arm away.
“Just making sure,” he says.
“Mom won’t tell me what happened to the driver,” I say, throwing her a glance.
