Invincible

by Amy Reed

  “Pretend we’re getting pedicures,” she said once. “These chairs are like those ones, don’t you think? The big, cushy ones. Except without the massagers.” She always talked nonsense while I was puking, and I was always grateful. “I wonder if anyone’s ever gotten off on one of those chairs. Like what if you’re sitting there getting your nails done, and some housewife came in her panties in that exact same spot just a few minutes ago.”

  “Gross,” I managed to say through my heaving.

  “You know what’s gross? The contents of your stomach. What have you been eating?”

  I try to imagine she’s with me in the elevator. She’s with me in the exam room while Nurse Moskowitz draws my blood. She pretends to knock her hand while she’s inserting the needle into my portacath. “Oops,” she says. “Did that hurt? Hope we didn’t puncture a lung.”

  She stands behind Dr. Jacobs doing obscene things as he asks me his questions. “How are you feeling?” he says.

  “Okay,” I say. A lie. There’s no way I can even begin to truthfully answer that question in a way he can understand.

  “How is the pain?” he says.

  “Still pretty bad,” I say. Also a lie. But I know how these things work. As soon as I say the pain’s gone, he takes away my pills.

  He doesn’t like that answer. “It should be getting much better,” he says. “You shouldn’t need the Norco for much longer. Ibuprofen should really be enough.” But he’s only a doctor; he doesn’t know anything about pain. “You only have two more refills, right?” he says.

  “I don’t know. Mom is the one keeping the bottle.”

  “Yes,” Mom chimes in. “The bottle says two more refills.” She seems confused. This is nothing like the conversations she’s used to having about me.

  “Evie,” Dr. Jacobs says. “How many have you been taking per day?”

  “I don’t know. Probably around six or eight.” I don’t tell him sometimes I save pills up so I can take three or four at once.

  “That seems like kind of a lot.”

  “The prescription says up to twelve a day.”

  “That’s for severe pain. You shouldn’t be having severe pain anymore.” He’s looking at me the way he looked at Stella all the time, with his eyebrows raised and his chin folded against his neck, looking over his glasses like he knows I’m hiding something from him. “Can you rate your pain for me on a scale of one to ten?” he says.

  “When? Right now? I’m not in any pain because I just took a pill before we left.” I can hear him thinking, Smart-ass.

  “What about when you ask your mom for a pill? What is it then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a three or four? I thought I was supposed to stay ahead of the pain. That’s what you always said before. So I take a pill before it hurts too bad.”

  “That was before. You shouldn’t be having anywhere near as much pain as you were having before.”

  I shrug my shoulders in my best angsty-teen impression. I imagine Stella behind him, giving me the thumbs-up.

  “I want you to taper off the pills so you’re off of them by the time we check in next month, okay?” he says. “Do you think you can do that?”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  “Nurse Moskowitz will get you a handout about how best to do that. Mrs. Whinsett, can you help Evie keep track of how much she’s taking?”

  “Of course,” she says, because she knows that’s the right answer, but I can tell she doesn’t understand what Dr. Jacobs is so worried about. This doesn’t have anything to do with cancer.

  “Now I bet you want to say hi to Caleb,” he says. “I think he’s down in the teen lounge with Dan.”

  My throat closes up and I can’t breathe again. My heart pounds fast in my chest. It pounds so hard I can hear it. It pounds so fast it will jump out of me. I shake my head. That’s all I can do.

  “I’m sure he’d love the surprise,” Dr. Jacobs says. “He’s been pretty down lately.”

  Something inside me cracks a little. A fissure threatens to spread and break me into pieces. But somehow I manage to say no. I manage to say I’m not feeling well and want to go home.

  The thought of seeing Caleb, even just texting him, makes my throat close up. As Dr. Jacobs and Moskowitz leave the exam room, a train car full of history comes barreling toward me, heavy and reckless with things I want to forget.

  “All right,” Mom sighs, turning away from me to grab her purse. “Are you ready to go, then?” But when she turns back, I’m leaning forward with my head between my knees. I’m sucking in air but none of it is getting to my lungs. I can’t see. I can’t feel anything except the absence of breath. I have to get out of here. I’ll die if I don’t.

  “Evie!” Mom says, her hands instantly on my back. She instinctively starts rubbing the way she’s always done when I’m sick, ever since I was a little girl with the flu. The tightness in my chest releases, just a little. I try to stand up, but I’m too dizzy. “I’ll go get Dr. Jacobs,” she says, turning toward the door.

  I grab her arm. “No,” I say. “Please, Mom. He’ll make it worse.”

  She sits down next to me on the exam table and continues to rub my back. “Oh, honey,” she says. “You’re having a panic attack. Just breathe.”

  “I’m trying!” I am sobbing now. I am sucking in huge gulps of air that are going nowhere.

  “Come on, count with me. In—one, two, three, four. Out—one, two, three, four.”

  I do what she says. Over and over until the world becomes solid again. Her hand smooths a circle on my back. I let her comfort me. I let her remind me how to breathe. When my panic finally subsides, she collects me in her arms. We sit like that for a while, rocking. Maybe I can let myself be held. Just this once. Maybe it’s okay to be weak, but only sometimes.

  I keep my head down as we walk out of the hospital and back to the car. Luckily, we don’t run into anyone I know. The farther away we get, the better I can breathe. Mom tries to talk to me on the car ride home, but she gives up when it’s clear that I am only capable of silence.

  All I want when we get home is to be alone, but I’m not even allowed to lock the bathroom door when I take a shower. “In case something happens,” Mom says. In case I fall. Her fear, ruling me.

  When I remove my brace, my leg is shriveled and gross, white and dry and scaly, like some kind of albino reptile. I have special, gentle, fragrance-free soap. I have instructions to be careful. I have a big jagged hole in my leg, the flesh at the incision still purple and raw and weeping, laced together with black stitches. Inches away on my hip is the faded smaller scar from my first surgery to remove the sarcoma when it was still a little dainty thing, before it spread. I am spotted with other scars from laparoscopic procedures and biopsies. I have been cut apart and stitched back up. I am Frankenstein’s monster.

  I wash gently like I’ve been instructed. My skin is tender everywhere, not just at the incision. There is an army of microscopic cells working overtime to repair this damage, to give me back my leg, to make all of this pain and history go away. Then I’m supposed to walk again like nothing happened, like every other normal girl. And I’m supposed to do things normal girls do, like go to school, drive a car, eat dinner with my parents, fight with my sister, maybe even have sex with my boyfriend one of these days. But all of it seems so stupid. The cells are wasting their time. What’s the point to all their hard work if all I’m going to do is take a math quiz in a few days, or go to the movies, or take the garbage out, or ride a bike, or babysit, or maybe get a job someday making a big corporation richer? What’s the point of any of it?

  Stella would know. She would know exactly what to say to make me not feel so lost and crazy.

  I have to find out where Mom is hiding my pills.

  seventeen.

  “ARE YOU NERVOUS?” KASEY SAYS.

  “A little.” I’m in the passenger’s seat of her car, my crutches in the backseat, my gimpy leg stretched out in its brace, on my way to my first day of sch
ool in almost six months.

  “Everyone is going to be so excited to see you,” she says.

  “I’m just excited to get away from my mom.”

  “Oh, come on, she’s just happy to have you home. She likes taking care of you.”

  “She needs a better hobby.”

  Kasey’s laugh is too loud for such a lame joke.

  A minefield of hugs is waiting for me at school. Hugs everywhere. Open arms and tearful eyes around every corner. I smell so much body odor, so much laundry detergent and deodorant and cheap perfume. By the time I get in the door, I am already sneezing from the artificial fragrances.

  “How are you?” they say. (Depressed.)

  “How are you feeling?” (Shitty.)

  “You look great.” (Liar.)

  “We missed you so much.” (Oh, really? Then why didn’t you visit me in the hospital?)

  But of course I don’t say any of these things. I smile and let them hug me.

  Am I really back? My body’s here, but I don’t feel connected to it. My mind is somewhere else, a place where time stopped. What was the last class I went to? What was the last homework I turned in? What is my locker combination? Everything feels surreal, like the world is going on without me, and I’m a ghost, invisible. Everyone’s smiling, but they look right through me.

  Will is waiting at my locker with a single red rose, and despite my growing disdain of his flower choice, I warm a little at the sight of his big, handsome grin. He kisses me on the cheek, takes my bag from Kasey, and hoists it over his shoulder with a pleased look on his face. Part of me is grateful, proud to still be the one on his arm. But part of me wishes I didn’t need his help. Part of me wants to say I can carry my bag by myself.

  First period is European History. We’re somewhere in the Reformation now, but the last thing I remember is the beginning of the Dark Ages. My teacher is weepy and interrupts herself in the middle of her lecture to tell me to take all the time I need to get back in the swing of things, to come see her for help anytime. She says this in front of everyone while they all stare at me. Maybe she knew someone who had cancer. Maybe someone she loved died from the same thing I had. That is the only excuse for her behavior.

  The whole cafeteria claps when I enter at lunchtime, and I want to die.

  I probably shouldn’t say that.

  I sit between Kasey and Will. The same old people are at the lunch table as were here six months ago, plus a freshman girl who managed to work her way up, and minus Alex Monroe who moved to the East Coast last month. “What else is new?” I say, and everyone kind of looks at each other and shrugs.

  “Alison and Justin broke up,” someone offers.

  “Oliver Kent got expelled for selling weed.”

  “Missy Chang almost got on Teen Jeopardy!”

  “Keyshawn Duncan came out.”

  “The theme for this year’s prom is ‘A Night in Paris.’”

  I can’t believe I came back from the dead for this.

  Will has baseball practice after school and Kasey has cheer. She invites me to come along and watch, but that’s just too depressing.

  My exciting after-school activity is riding a stationary bike or hanging out in a lukewarm swimming pool with Sandy the physical therapist. She says she’s amazed at how fast I’m progressing. She calls it a miracle. My parents call it a miracle. Everyone throws the word around like it explains everything: a miracle’s doing all the work, not me. They don’t say anything about how I stay long after my physical therapy appointments are over to keep working, how I go to the pool even when I don’t have appointments, how I come home exhausted and sore and strong, how I’m down to one crutch weeks before expected. They think I’m tired in the evening because of weakness. Mom puts her hand on my forehead to check my temperature. Dad says maybe I should rest after school instead. But I spent the whole past year resting. I am done with rest.

  In the water, I am weightless. Nothing hurts. I am not clumsy. I don’t need crutches. I can do flips like I used to, but now they’re in slow motion—dreamy, graceful. In the water, I am not broken and I do not need anyone’s help.

  But then I return to reality. I eat dinner with my family and listen to Jenica complain. “Evie tries to get herself killed hobbling around the neighborhood and you practically throw her a party,” she whines. “I get an almost perfect score on the SATs and no one says anything.” Even two weeks later, she’s still harping on my not getting punished for that. At least she doesn’t paint a smile on her face and pretend everything’s perfect like Will and Kasey and everyone else I know.

  This is my life now: Conversations stop when I enter rooms. Words are replaced by empty smiles, as if I am too fragile to be included, as if I need to be protected. People talk to me like I’m a child. I’m getting stronger, but no one sees it. When I make jokes, people look at me like I’m speaking a different language. Apparently, dying girls aren’t supposed to be funny. And apparently nobody got the memo that I’m not dying anymore.

  I’m supposed to fit back into their world and I’m supposed to live up to my role as Cancer Girl. No one seems to realize I can’t do both of those things at the same time. Those people all went on living while Cancer Girl was dying. Their lives went forward while hers stayed still. She spent the whole last year just surviving while they all went on having lives, and now she’s so far behind she’ll never catch up. And I don’t even know if I want to.

  Everyone seems closer now because they bonded over my impending death, but the irony is that I got left out of that bonding. Kasey and Will are practically best friends after spending all that time worrying about me together, and even though they’re supposed to be the two closest people to me, I feel I can barely have a conversation with either of them. Now that I’m back, no one knows what to do with me, and I don’t really know what to do with them.

  The pain pills aren’t coming fast enough. I need more than I used to. I’ve started feeling sick in the morning before I take my first pill. I looked up how to roll a joint on YouTube, but I’m too chicken to try to buy rolling papers.

  Caleb keeps texting, and I keep starting to write back and erasing it. I’m not a part of his world anymore, either. I’m a traitor to Cancer Kids by getting well. I’m an alien among everyone else. I’m not dead, but I’m not really alive. I fit nowhere. And I’m so sick of feeling sorry for myself.

  if.

  Dear Stella,

  When I can’t sleep, I listen to your CD and look out the window and imagine I’m somewhere else, like I’ve been plucked out of this life and put somewhere brand-new, where I don’t have a history, I don’t even have scars, I’m reborn, like I just came out of the factory, still warm from where my parts got glued together. And the future is infinite because the past hasn’t come with me, because it’s not dragging me down like an anchor, not pulling me back into itself. Until that day comes, until the magic happens that wipes my memory and my body clean, I will never be able to truly be free. I will always be marked, always defined by what I survived.

  Remember how I told you my parents don’t fight? Well, things have changed. They try to keep their voices low, but it’s pretty impossible to not hear the constant bickering about money, about the hospital bills they’ll never be able to pay off, about not knowing how they’re going to pay for Jenica’s college, about having to get a second mortgage on the house. And then we all sit down for dinner and pretend everything’s okay, even though Mom’s face is still striped with tears, and Dad’s grinding his teeth, and Jenica’s looking at me with daggers in her eyes. And I want to tell her, Well, you should have thought of that a year ago, so you could have killed me before I got sick and saved us all a lot of trouble. You’d have plenty of money to pay for college and nobody’s life would have had to stop so mine could keep on going.

  God, I am so sick of my own thoughts. I limp through my days listening to this whiny voice in my head complain about how nobody understands me. Whenever Will or someone at school offers to carry
my books, I want to punch them in the face. I know they’re just trying to be nice, but I am so sick of being pitied. I’m so sick of being defined by having been sick.

  If you were here, you’d want to slap me. I want to slap me. I’m doing nothing with this life I should be grateful for. I’m doing nothing to deserve it. I don’t know who I am and I don’t know where I belong. I want to find myself, but I don’t know where to look. I feel like I’m disappearing.

  I want to make you proud, Stella. Is that weird? I want to be someone cool enough to deserve our friendship. I want to live large enough for both of us.

  I want I want I want I want.

  I’m taking good care of your hat, by the way. Maybe someday I’ll actually be brave enough to wear it outside of the house.

  Love,

  Evie

  eighteen.

  I PAINTED MY CANE BLACK WITH PURPLE STRIPES IN ART class today. The teacher patted me on the shoulder and said, “That’s nice, Evie.” The first thing Kasey said when she found me in the hall was, “Isn’t that kind of goth?”

  I got my math quiz back, which I’m pretty sure I answered maybe two questions right on, and instead of a grade, the teacher drew a smiley face and wrote, “Good try!” like I’m in kindergarten.

  But at least I can drive now. And at least my parents are still in this weird phase where they’re afraid to say no to me, as if they’re afraid that upsetting me will bring the cancer back. Mom hands me her keys and I close the front door behind me before she’s finished saying, “Be careful.” I have Stella’s magic box with me, even though I still don’t have a pipe or rolling papers or even a lighter. I heard someone talking once about smoking out of an apple, but I have no idea how that works.

  I have nowhere to go, so I wander. I drive up to Telegraph by the university, past the jaywalking college students and fake homeless kids. I drive down College Avenue, with all the moms in yoga pants pushing strollers. I drive down Fortieth past the hipster coffee shop and the restaurant where mac and cheese costs fifteen dollars, past the BART station, past the Emeryville strip malls, onto Mandela Parkway and into the West Oakland ghetto.