Invincible

by Amy Reed

  “Sweetie,” Mom says, leaning forward to take my hands in hers, not even caring that I’m obviously drunk. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”

  Somehow, I’m able to focus long enough to look in her eyes, and that’s when I know. This isn’t about me at all.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head, suddenly way too sober.

  “It’s Caleb,” Mom says. “His parents just called.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “He went into emergency surgery last night,” Dad says. “He didn’t make it.”

  I hear a sob that must be mine, like all the air being sucked out of me, but it sounds far away, as if I am somewhere outside this room, listening through the heating vents. Who are these people? What are they saying? Who is that girl who looks like me? Why is her heart so broken?

  “I wish you’d told us he was doing so poorly,” Mom says. “We had no idea. He seemed so healthy the last time we saw him.”

  “I have to go,” I say, standing up. I must get away from this news and this house and these sad faces. Anger, I would know what to do with. Anger, I can deflect with my own. But sadness and loss, how am I supposed to fight with that?

  “Sweetheart, wait,” Mom says. “Let’s call a truce for now, okay? We’re here to support you through this.”

  She doesn’t get it. I don’t deserve their support. I don’t deserve their comfort. I don’t deserve anybody’s comfort. It’s my fault I was such a lousy friend to Caleb, that I wasn’t there for him at the end. Stella never would have done that. She never would have abandoned him. I’ve failed her. I’ve failed them both.

  “I need to be alone,” I say. They don’t try to stop me as I walk out the door.

  if.

  Dear Stella,

  I’m sitting in a cab I’m going to pay for with my mom’s stolen credit card and I just bought $80 worth of pills from a drug dealer at People’s Park, so I guess I’m a real outlaw now. It seems like it should feel at least a little fun being bad, but all it feels like is necessary, a chore, like homework or washing the dishes. Except there’s no shame in dishes. The dishes aren’t dangerous.

  I walked up to the seediest-looking guy I could find, complete with multiple face piercings and neck tattoos, and said, “I’m looking for Norcos.” No “Hello.” No “How are you?” It was so easy. Too easy. He only had Oxy, so I figured, what the hell? If I’m going to be a fuck-up I might as well go all the way, right? I took one pill just to see how strong it is because I have no idea what my tolerance is anymore, but I have an envelope with a bunch more burning a hole in my pocket. It should only be a few minutes until it kicks in.

  I’m not really sure what I’m waiting for. Why don’t I just take them all and get it over with? Go out in style. I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes right now. I can hear you saying, “Come on, Evie. Suicide is so cliché.” But really, Stella, what’s more cliché than cancer?

  The thing is, everything that matters is gone. You’re gone. Caleb’s gone. Will and Kasey are gone, in their way. The Marcus I thought I loved is gone. What else is there for me to do? Finish a bunch of homework over the summer so I can do senior year with a bunch of people I don’t like? Barely graduate, then go to a crappy college my parents can’t even afford, major in something I don’t even care about, start a career I hate? Marry some guy I don’t love, have some kids I don’t want?

  Do you think this cab driver is happy? He spends all day and night in this car that smells like puke and air freshener, driving around drunk people like me. He was probably a neurosurgeon where he comes from, but he had to flee his country because people are all ultimately assholes and will always find ways to start wars and kill each other and run innocent people away.

  No matter what I do, I’m going to die alone. Even surrounded by people, everyone dies alone. Then what? Then nothing. Then life is over and it wasn’t worth anything.

  I think I’m going to take a few more of these pills.

  Stella, I miss you so much it makes me sick. Remember when you said everything cool has happened already? I know you were just talking about music, but it feels like everything good in my life has happened already too. The best I can wish for is to spend the rest of my life thinking about the past. And what kind of a life is that, wishing the whole time it could go backward?

  But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe I don’t have to waste all that time. Maybe I can be with you sooner. Maybe I can be with you now.

  Love,

  Evie

  thirty-four.

  I GUESS THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE WOULD CALL A BEAUTIFUL day. The sun is shining and the air is warm. But this beach is still covered in dog shit and garbage. There’s the dead seagull from—When was I here last? Yesterday? This morning? I can’t even keep track of my own life anymore. The bird is slightly more decayed. Flies have picked it apart a little more. Soon it will be just brittle bones that will sink into the sand.

  I wish it was night. I wish it was dark. All this sun and cheerful blue sky and puffy white clouds feel like an insult. I sit on a piece of driftwood and take my boots off. I bury my feet in the sand, feel it cool between my toes. The sensation sends a shiver up my legs, into the parts of me that are broken, the sick bone removed and replaced with something stronger, indestructible. I wiggle my toes and feel this texture created by time, by years of water lapping against stone, softening it, breaking it down to tiny, crystalline pieces. Even the hardest things are porous. Even the sharpest rock can be smoothed by wind and waves. Fire makes rock, but it is the other elements that shape it.

  The world shifts and I realize the pills I took a half hour ago have finally kicked in. Relief spreads through me and I am suddenly warm. Suddenly, life doesn’t feel like such a huge disaster. I missed this. God, how I missed this. My despair fizzles into nothingness and evaporates into thin air. I am free. I am boundless.

  I look at my toes and wonder how they’re even moving, how the signal from my brain can make it all the way down my body. How is this even possible, when that seagull is decaying, eaten by tiny bacteria; when Caleb and Stella were so big, so strong, yet lost their wars against microscopic viruses? How is it possible that I am here and they are not?

  All of this time, all of these days of self-destruction since I’ve been out of the hospital, I don’t even know what I’ve been fighting. God, fate, science—whatever I choose to call it doesn’t change the fact that I survived and they didn’t. No one chose for that to happen. No person decided whose life was worth saving and whose life was expendable. I don’t know who I’m angry with. I don’t know who to blame. I don’t know who to rage against for this injustice.

  The answer is nobody. It is not for me to know why certain people are taken and some survive, and my destroying myself is never going to answer that question. My being gone will never bring them back. I can let myself be consumed by fury, by loss, but the waves will keep dancing against the rocks and turning them into sand, life will keep changing forms, and I am powerless to stop any of it.

  And I don’t want to. The world is complicated and painful, but it is still a place where toes can wiggle in sand, where people can love each other enough to tell them hard things, where people can be forgiven. The only thing that can ever be counted on is change, transformation. I have been transformed. I can be transformed again.

  I miss them. I miss them so much. Stella, Caleb, you are being turned into sand. The world is rubbing against you and turning you into something new and small and precious. It’s a miracle, all of it. My feet, my legs, my lungs, my heart. My memories of you. The love inside me, lapping against my ribs.

  I know I am high, but this feels like clarity.

  I don’t want to be that girl, that tragedy, that statistic. My life is worth more than that. I lived through cancer and I’ll live through this, whatever this is. I will stop burying my fear in the sand. I will say I was wrong. I will tell everyone I love them—Marcus, Mom, Dad, Jenica, Kasey, Will, everyone. I will stop pushing them aw
ay. I will accept help. I will stop fighting. I will be still. I will let myself be transformed again.

  I text Marcus: I’m sorry. Meet me at the beach. I love you.

  I walk to the edge of the water and throw the rest of my pills in.

  My feet are alive with the pain of sharp rocks digging in. But this pain will make my skin strong. I will build calluses. Someday I will be able to run across the beach.

  I take off my shirt and throw it behind me. I pull off my pants. I look at the scars on my hip, my leg. I will have them for the rest of my life. They will always be there as a reminder of what I survived, of how hard I fought. Every time I look at them I will remember to be grateful. I should not have survived, but I did anyway. And I cannot waste that. I cannot take it for granted. It would be an insult to Stella and Caleb. It would be an insult to their fight.

  I step into the water and gasp at how cold it is. I know it’s dirty, tainted with agricultural runoff, city storm drains, and industrial junk, but still, I feel cleansed as I walk farther in. The cold water makes my thoughts and senses sharp. It washes away my pain and all the stupid things I’ve done, all the hurt I’ve caused the people I love. It washes me and makes me new so I can start over. I wade in deeper and my body shudders. Is this what it feels like to be reborn? I lay on my back and let the water hold me. It can break apart rocks, but it can also cradle me like this. We can be so many things at once.

  I am suspended and full of peace. I look at the sky, at the great blue-and-white blanket, and I feel safe. There is a place for me under this sky, a place for me in this world. And as soon as I’m finished floating, I will start figuring out where I belong. But the floating feels so good. The clouds are down pillows, falling, falling, lighting upon my body, my face, my nose, my—

  No, this is not what peace feels like. Why can’t my feet touch the ground? Why can’t I breathe? Why does my body feel so numb? Why is it not doing what my brain wants it to? Why are the clouds that are supposed to be in the sky in my head now?

  The pills. In the cab. I took so many pills.

  I try to swim. I kick and flap my arms. I am such a good swimmer. Sandy the physical therapist said I am such a good swimmer. But I am not moving. The shore is no closer. Why does it feel like something’s pulling me down? My lungs are full of cold. Which way is the shore? Which way is the sky and the earth and the water and all of the things that are supposed to hold me?

  I hear someone, a voice. A sound like birds, like angels. Stella, is that you?

  Marcus, where are you?

  I see the sky through moving glass. I am slipping. I’m falling in slow motion. I’m a feather on the wind.

  The world is so beautiful; I didn’t see it until now. All of my friends and family, both here and gone, all of them, beautiful.

  Everyone, I’m sorry. I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to make my life worth something.

  Stella, keep singing. Stella, I’m listening.

  Marcus, I’m waiting for you. Let’s start a new kind of adventure.

  Are these your arms around me? Why are you screaming?

  I love you. I love you. I love you. I love

  Evie’s and Marcus’s stories continue in book two,

  UNFORGIVABLE

  Coming in Summer 2016

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, as always, to my fearless agent and tireless cheerleader, Amy Tipton.

  Anica Rissi, my brilliant editor and collaborator, who gets me like no other. Thank you for believing in me all these years, and for taking me with you on this new adventure. It is an honor to have been chosen.

  My husband, Brian, who keeps me sane throughout this crazy business. Thank you for keeping me grounded, and for helping me keep an eye on the forest when all I want to do is inspect every little tree. Thank you for holding my hand during the part where I thrash around and want to give up.

  My daughter, Elouise, who gives me a reason to do everything.

  Very special thanks to the following:

  Cheri Gillies, friend and nurse, for sharing your knowledge of pediatric oncology, prescription painkillers, cancer treatment, hospital jargon, and all things medical.

  Melinda Krigel, Media Relations Manager, Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland, for your generosity and enthusiasm in helping me with this book.

  Suzanne Berks, Child Life Oncology Specialist, Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland, for taking the time to meet with me and discuss the amazing work you do.

  And a big thank-you to everyone who dedicates their life to healing children. The depth of your hearts astounds me.

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  About the Author

  Photo by Erika Hart

  AMY REED was raised in and around Seattle, where she attended a total of eight schools by the time she was eighteen. Constantly moving taught her to be restless, and being an only child made her imagination do funny things. After graduating from film school, she earned an MFA in writing from New College of California. Amy currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and a well-loved dog. She is no longer restless. Find out more at www.amyreedfiction.com or follow her on Twitter @amyreedfiction.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Books by Amy Reed

  Beautiful

  Clean

  Crazy

  Over You

  Damaged

  Credits

  COVER DESIGN BY HEATHER DAUGHERTY

  COVER ART & HAND LETTERING BY JULIE McLAUGHLIN

  Copyright

  Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  INVINCIBLE. Copyright © 2015 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014949411

  ISBN 978-0-06-229957-4

  EPub Edition © March 2015 ISBN 9780062299598

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