His nose keeps bleeding for a while, so I leave him alone and drink my milkshake and watch the water taxis glide across the East River. Finally he straightens up, dabbing at his nose and looking more than a little pale. He doesn’t apologize.
“All done?” I say.
“I think so.”
“Here.” I hold his milkshake out to him. “Sugar.”
“You look cold,” he says. “We can go soon.”
“Take your time.”
He starts to take his scarf off.
“Stop,” I say.
“I’m not cold. Here.” He wraps it around my neck. It’s big and soft like a blanket, and he winds it all the way around my shoulders. I burrow into it despite myself. It smells like cinnamon.
He looks out at the water, and I try not to stare at the way the light coming off Manhattan outlines his profile like someone painted him here.
“This is really beautiful,” I say. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about it.”
“My dad used to bring me here when I was a kid,” he says. “He’s really into boats, so anywhere you can see them, we were there. Did you ever do that thing off Battery Park where you can ride on a ship, like one of those old-time ships? You can even help them haul in the rope if you want to.”
“Uh-uh.”
“We should do it sometime,” he says. “We don’t have to haul in the rope.”
I smile. “Okay.”
“Boats and the castle in Central Park.”
“There’s a castle in Central Park?”
He claps his hands together. “Oh my God, there is so much we have to do. I am so excited.”
I shiver a little. I don’t mean to.
He smiles at me. “Not tonight, though. Let’s get you home.”
“No,” I say, a little because I feel like I’m supposed to, but mostly because I don’t want to.
He laughs. “You’re freezing.”
“We just got here, though.”
“So? We can hang out a million more times. We don’t have to fit everything in tonight.”
“Okaaaay.”
He gives me a hand to help me up.
“How are you?” I say. “I think you lost a couple pounds of blood.”
“I’m all right. I’ll go home and sleep it off.”
“I thought you said it happens all the time!”
“It does,” he says. “I sleep a lot. You’ll see.”
We start back to the subway, but my body is not behaving. It’s never easy for me to go from still to moving, and refrigerating my joints and then expecting them to immediately work correctly was clearly too much to ask.
He tilts his head at me.
“Don’t look at me.” I feel like a marionette.
“But you’re cute.”
“Watch it.”
“Okay, I honestly wasn’t actually thinking you were cute, I’m just trying to be nice. Not that you’re not, but…I was actually wondering if you’d like a hand.”
“I’m okay.”
“You can grab onto the cast. I won’t even know.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Okay,” he says.
I clear my throat. “Are we getting on different trains?”
“Nah, I’ll bring you home and then switch directions.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” he says, and my frozen heart thumps and grows.
By the time we get to the train, though, all I’m thinking about is my ankles and my neck. All I want to do is collapse into a heap, and of course the train is packed. Of course. We crowd around a pole, and I try to stay upright when the train lurches forward. He’s standing facing me, and I stumble a little bit into him.
He makes himself shorter so he can look me in the eye.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything. God, I’m tired. You know what will be fun?”
“What?”
“When we can stop pretending that we’re interesting people who go out and do things and instead we can hang out and just do nothing.”
It’s incredible to hear those words out of someone’s mouth besides mine. Not that I’ve ever said them, actually. Who would I say them to? “That sounds amazing,” I say.
“You want to come over after school on Monday and… Do you play video games? Bash the shit out of some monsters?”
“Not really, sorry.”
“Do you watch TV?”
“Yes, I watch TV.”
“Perfect. Come over on Monday and watch TV.”
“Okay.”
We get to Court Square, even more people pile on, and when the train starts again, I put my hand on his chest to steady myself and accidentally make a noise in my throat.
“Yeah, okay,” he says softly. “Hang on.”
“What?”
“I’m just picking someone. Mmkay. Him. Excuse me?” he says to a man sitting near us. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my friend here—I know she looks fine, in fact she’s very beautiful, wouldn’t you say?—but she actually has, well, we call it an invisible illness. It’s a joint condition, and she’s having a hard time standing for this long. Do you think she could sit down?”
I can’t even look at him, but the man stands up, and Sasha guides me into his spot. He leans against the pole in front of me and smiles down at me, his ankles crossed. He’s proud. He still has a little bit of blood under his nose.
I say, “Y’know, you’re standing there all smug, and you should probably literally be at home on oxygen right now.”
“I only need oxygen when I’m sick,” he says.
“Oh yeah, and what are you right now?”
The train goes above ground, and I slowly twist my head enough to see the skyline rise up over the tracks. I turn back at Sasha, expecting him to be watching it, too, but he’s looking at me.
“Right now, I’m good,” he says.
I still feel awful, but I don’t really mind at this moment.
What’s your idea of
a perfect date?
I love doing something weird, like paintball or geocaching or just, like, something that he’s really passionate about, y’know? I can be interested in anything if the person telling me about it is interested in it enough. It’s, like, infectious, y’know? People’s excitement for things. So I want to know what it is about him that makes him special. When you see someone really light up like that…that’s how you get to know them. Now whyyyyy are you asking?
—Maura Cho, 16, romance expert
Wherever she wants to go and whatever she wants to do. Trust me, three years into a relationship, you learn these things. Some things you can compromise on. Some things you can have great, invigorating discussions about. Not where you’re going on dates. Men out there, listen to me: just let her pick.
—Sheldon Bartlett, 17, feminist
Well, if you ask my father, it’s… I’m not sure. If you see my father, can you ask him?
—Sasha Sverdlov-Deckler, 16, Snarkmaster 5000
Oh, wow. Something with candlelight. Dinner somewhere romantic, with a view, and maybe fireworks. And then afterwards we’d go for a walk in the park. Or a carriage ride! And, of course, a kiss. That sounds like the perfect date, don’t you think?
—Claire Lennon, 16, dead
Seriously, you’re gonna ask me this right now?
—Ashley Baker, 17, single
Chapter Eight
Ashley and Justin broke up this weekend. They’d been together since the very beginning of sophomore year, so something like fourteen months. She texted us about it on Sunday, and he’s not at school today.
“He’s taking it really hard,” she tells us at lunch.
The walls are covered in paper snowfla
kes that are already starting to peel off. Our cafeteria’s made up of tiny circular tables which seem like a bad design choice, because people are always dragging them around to put two together and teachers are always yelling at us not to. When Justin would eat with us, we’d have to squish an extra chair around our table for him. Now, we all fit.
“What happened?” Maura asks.
“He just… I mean, you know he was pissing me off the whole ski weekend. He’s always trying to show off, and half the time he has no idea what the hell he’s talking about, so he looks like an idiot, and everyone around him knows he looks like an idiot. I mean, his friends are always, like, exchanging looks about him when he says something stupid, and he doesn’t even notice. And I feel bad for the guy, but like, at some point you’re just wondering… Why isn’t he noticing?”
We nod and sip our sodas.
“But, I mean, it’s sad,” she says. “But once I made up my mind, I just, I, like, couldn’t even stand to be around him anymore until I did it. I just knew it was the right call. I wanted to wait until after the Snow Ball, but I just, like…once you know, you just know.”
“Totally,” Maura says.
“I remember when I broke up with my first girlfriend,” Siobhan says. “It was like, I wrestled with the decision for ages, but then once I made up my mind, that was it. Like I didn’t waver for a second.”
“That’s exactly it,” Ashley says.
“There’s just this relief about deciding,” Siobhan says. “And once you get there, all you want is to not have to deal with the relationship anymore, and as quickly as possible.” She kisses Luna’s cheek. “Not you.”
“But now he was too sad to even come to school?” Ashley says. “And just…ugh, I was so happy once it was over, and he can’t even come to school. I feel terrible.”
“Well hey,” Maura says. “At least we’re free of boys now.”
Ashley takes a bite of her sandwich. “That’s true.”
“Except for Ibby’s boy,” Luna says.
I roll my eyes.
“Hang on,” Ashley says. “What? What did I miss? How long have I been breaking up with Justin?”
“Did it take a long time?” Maura says.
“It felt like years.”
“Ibby’s going to some guy’s house today,” Luna says.
“You say some guy like he’s some random guy I met on the way here and agreed to go home with,” I say.
Maura says, “I mean, he’s kind of a random guy you met at the hospital and agreed to go home with.”
“You met him at the hospital?” Ashley says. “Does he volunteer with you?”
“Not exactly,” I say.
Ashley raises her eyebrows.
“He’s coming to get me after school,” I say. “You all can meet him and form your own opinions.”
“Do I get to have an opinion about Sick Girl dating in general?” Siobhan says. “Because I’m pro.”
“Sick Girl is not dating,” I say.
“Sick Girl should date Sick Boy,” Luna says. “I think it’s romantic.”
“I don’t know,” Ashley says. “Seems to me like one of you needs to be able to shovel snow in the nuclear winter.”
“That’s what my dad’s for,” I say.
“Mmm. He could shovel my snow.”
“Gross, Ashley.”
Luna adds, “And what does that even mean? Is that some straight thing?”
“It’s nothing,” Maura says.
Ashley licks yogurt off her spoon. “This single life is not for me.”
…
Sasha’s waiting outside school when it lets out. His school day ends at 2:15, and ours keeps going until 3:20. Ridiculous. He looks a little pale, leaning against the railing at the bottom of the stairs, but he smiles when he sees me.
“You’re wearing my scarf,” he says.
“I didn’t want to forget to give it back again.” I start to unwind it.
“No, I like it on you.” He looks around at my friends. “Hi.”
“This is the welcoming committee,” I say. “Ashley, Maura, Siobhan, Luna. They, uh, let’s see. Siobhan makes sculptures, Luna does theater, Maura’s on, like, every sports team, and Ashley…also a lot of sports teams.”
“And newly single,” Ashley says.
I give Sasha a look, and he sticks his tongue into his cheek and grins. “And newly single,” I say.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” he says. I look at his fingers gripping the railing.
“We should go,” I say. “Lots to do.”
He nods.
“See you guys later,” I say to the girls, and I slip my arm into his. He looks a little surprised—though not half as surprised as the girls—until he gets what I’m doing, and then I feel him relax into me a bit. It’s just this small shift, but it feels like the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. He’s telling me I’m helping. That my impulse was right.
I give him a little tug on the arm and walk away with him.
“Bye!” they screech after me. “Have fun! Wear a condom!”
“Sorry about them,” I say.
He takes my hand.
“I gotcha,” I say. “You okay?”
“I am. I just…long day. School was one thing after another, and…I don’t know. Sapped all my energy.” He’s breathing kind of hard.
“We don’t have to do this,” I say. “I can just go home.”
“We’re going to my house and lying around, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then no, come,” he says. “It’ll be a lot more fun doing that not-alone. Do you mind if we take a cab?”
“Of course not, whatever you want.”
“Cool. Am I hurting you?”
“You’re totally fine.”
“How are you? How was your day?” He puts his arm up for a cab.
“It was good. Ashley broke up with her boyfriend, so that kind of dominated the conversation.”
“She’s the other blond one?”
“I’m the other blond one,” I say.
“Never.”
“No, Ashley’s, like… She’s a thing. She’s captain of the basketball team, does great in school, up until yesterday was half of a power couple. She’s killing high school.”
“You don’t want to be one of those people who peaks in high school,” he says.
“Why not?”
“I have no idea,” he says. “That’s just what I tell myself.”
“I feel like everyone’s gotta peak somewhere. I think saying it can’t happen in high school is just people who sucked at high school being bitter.”
“Do I strike you as bitter?”
“You really don’t, actually.”
“So,” he says. “It must be good advice.”
“I’m not doing so bad,” I say. “I get good grades. I’ve got my column. I’m thinking about college.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re peaking here,” he says. “We’re juniors, we’re all thinking about college.”
“Where do you want to go?” I ask.
He laughs. “I don’t know.”
“Do you…think you’ll stay in the city?”
“Oh yeah, definitely.”
I try not to smile. “Me too.”
We get into a cab and Sasha tells the driver 28th and 7th in Manhattan and asks him to take the bridge. He slumps down in his seat and rests his head against my shoulder, just a little, just carefully.
“Is your family gonna be home?” I say.
“My sister will be home from school. The boys are at their mom’s house.”
“Will your sister like me?”
“She’ll probably stay in her room, honestly. I warned her there was gonna be someone over. It’s nothing against you, she’s
just not super social.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s kinda sad,” he says. “She’s really sweet, and she doesn’t give people the chance to know her.”
“Oh, so like the opposite of us.”
“Exactly. Not sweet, and forcing people to know us.”
I stretch my legs out as far as I can without moving him off my shoulder, point my toes.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asks me.
“What are you doing?”
“Upstate to see my dad’s parents and my cousins and everything, like every year. Aaaand you?”
“Just me and my dad,” I say.
“Is this the first year just you and your dad?”
“It is, yeah.”
“Eesh.” He turns his head to look up at me. “Want to come upstate?”
I laugh. “Can I bring my dad?”
“Does he speak Russian?”
“Do you speak Russian?”
“Nope. He’ll fit right in.”
Sasha has the cab drop us off right in front of his building. I always just tell them “Oh, this is fine” and end up walking a block.
“I thought you couldn’t ask people for things,” I say after we’re out.
“That’s for non-illness stuff. This is accessibility. Trust me, in my family, they train you early to ask about accessibility.”
That sounds incredible. I wonder what I was trained for early.
I remember my mom saying I was a natural at posing for pictures.
“Fourth floor,” he says. “Don’t worry, there’s an elevator. You good?”
“I’m good.”
“You get stiff when you first stand up, huh?”
“Don’t…take notes on me.”
“Yes, God forbid I keep track of what you need,” he says.
“I don’t need anything.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“I’m invincible.”
“Yep.”
“I’m a stereo that just plays the high notes.”
“Oh, so you’re broken?”
“Yeah.”
“That adds up,” he says.
Sasha says hi to the doorman so I say hi to the doorman, and I resist the urge to ask him what his idea of a perfect date is, and then halfway into the lobby I give up resisting the urge and go back and ask him. Sasha waits, leaning against the wall by the elevator, watching me the same way he did the other night on the train.
Sick Kids In Love Page 7
