Sick Kids In Love

by Hannah Moskowitz

“Sasha, what? Girls don’t just walk around in stick-on bras.”

  “Look. I think they’re fascinating now. It’s your fault.”

  “I’m taking off my shirt now,” I say.

  “Hang on!” He shuts off the nebulizer and hurries to his bedroom door and locks it. “Okay, go ahead.”

  I pull my T-shirt over my head. I feel very confident while I’m doing it, but as soon as I feel the air on my skin, I’m suddenly very aware that this is the first time a boy has seen me without a shirt in any sort of non-bathing suit situation. I try to project confidence.

  He gestures toward me. “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. You look like that and it’s supposed to inspire me to show you my grotesqueness? You look amazing and I want to staple my shirt to my body.”

  “Sasha,” I say.

  He groans.

  “Look, I have a belly, too.” I grab it and shake it.

  “That’s not the same,” he says. “I look like I’m pregnant with twins. You look like you’re…sitting down.”

  “Fine, I’ll just put my shirt back on.”

  “No…”

  “Then take yours off.”

  “Can’t we have sex with my shirt on?” he says.

  “Sure, yeah, we could, this time. But at some point, I’m going to see you with your shirt off. It’s going to happen.”

  “That’s true,” he says.

  “It’s just me,” I say. “Plus, then I’ll take my bra off.”

  “Sure, if you don’t run screaming into the night.”

  “It’s day.”

  “Well, that’s how long you’ll be screaming.” He wheezes out a sigh. “All right,” he says, and he pulls his shirt over his head. He looks at the ground.

  “It’s not that bad,” I say, which might not have been the perfect thing to say but feels better than saying there’s nothing weird about it or what stomach? He doesn’t want to hear that. I don’t like when people pretend I’m normal.

  “I look like John Hurt in Alien,” he says.

  I reach behind my back to unfasten my bra and wince a little.

  “You okay?” he says.

  “Yeah, can you do it?”

  He comes back over to me, still avoiding eye contact. He kneels in front of the bed and reaches around behind my back to undo the hooks. I let it fall forward off my shoulders.

  “Oh, fuck,” he whispers.

  “Feel better now?”

  He cups the back of my head and kisses me.

  …

  My legs are still shaky when I get home that evening. I’m turning on the oven to reheat some of the pizza Sasha and I ordered for lunch when my dad comes in.

  Act normal, act normal. “Hi,” I say. “Want me to put a piece in for you?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He kisses my forehead. “How was your day?”

  “It was fine. I hung out with Sasha. And his family.”

  “How are they?”

  “They’re good. His mom called while I was there, so I said hi to her for the first time. They’re in Tanzania, and they’re about to move all the way across the country for some new project.” I turn the dial on the oven.

  “And how’s Sasha?”

  “He’s good, too. He’s doing some project on Machu Picchu where he has to build a model out of clay. His lungs have been giving him trouble lately, but the last round of ERT helped a lot.”

  “Must be hard,” Dad says.

  “It is, sometimes.” I slide the pan into the oven. “But it helps having someone who understands.”

  And he laughs. He laughs at me. It’s just this soft little chuckle, but for some reason that’s the last straw.

  I stand up and cross my arms.

  “It’s not as if you and he are…the same.”

  I look at the chair at the kitchen table where I used to sit and drink Shirley Temples and pretend it was medicine and someone was taking care of me.

  “No,” I say. “No, it’s the same. It’s not… It’s not identical, but it’s the same experience. And it’s not something that healthy people understand.”

  My dad doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m sick,” I say. “And I don’t wish that I wasn’t. And I don’t really care how uncomfortable that makes you anymore.”

  “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” he says, and I just shrug my shoulders, and he suddenly has something he needs to check on his phone. I want to run up and hide in my room, but I force myself to stay here, waiting by the oven, not getting out of his way. Not being convenient.

  It’s been a pretty big day for me.

  …

  “So did you end up calling your mom?” Sasha asks me. We’re walking back to his place, licking ice-cream cones the next day. It’s sunny and bright, and I would skip if I had another person’s body.

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you?”

  He shakes his head.

  “I decided to call the prison where my sister is instead,” I say.

  “The credit-card-fraud sister?”

  “Yeah. I got a mailing address for her, and I sent her a care package.”

  “Huh,” Sasha says. “I thought she was awful.”

  “She’s not great,” I say. “But…I thought I wanted to call my mom, but then I really thought about it, and the urge that I actually had was to reach out to somebody and be the bigger person, but I didn’t actually want to talk to or interact with or think about my mother in any way. So I did something else.”

  He’s smiling at me.

  “What?” I say, even though I know what.

  He licks his ice-cream cone. “I just think you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met.”

  Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I say, and I skip just for a few steps.

  What’s the worst thing that could happen?

  That’s a good way of looking at it, I think. Just do it! What’s the worst that could happen? Probably not as bad as you think. Probably nothing you can’t get through.

  —Linda Janis, 44, surgical nurse at Linefield and West Memorial Hospital

  I would say…death. It seems to me it would be death.

  —Hwan Cho, 52, father

  Oh God, don’t get me started thinking about that; I’ll never stop. I’m trying to be more prepared, though. I feel like I’m always… I don’t know. I’m sick of being the one who doesn’t see what’s going on.

  —Maura Cho, 16, best friend

  So if we’re looking at this statistically, the three deadliest natural disasters of all time took place in China. Makes sense, when you think about population density. However, one of those was in the 1550s, and even the most recent one—that’d be the deadliest, the 1931 China floods—was, as you can tell from the name, more than a minute ago. If you look at stuff that’s more recent, say, since the 1970s, now you have to start worrying about other areas of Asia, mostly India and Pakistan. And, of course, Indonesia. So that brings us to what I think is, as far as I can see, the biggest threat to us right now as a human race, which is the Lake Toba supervolcano in Indonesia. It’s the largest volcanic lake in the world, located on this really populated island, like fifty million people. Plus, it’s close to the ocean so, yeah, more tsunamis. Last time it exploded it unleashed, like, a metric fuck-ton of shit, give or take a few, and some scientists are doing studies that make it look like it could explode again at any point. So I think that’s something we all need to be concerned about, and that’s probably the worst thing that could happen. Everything else is doable.

  —Sasha Sverdlov-Deckler, 16, realist

  That sounds like the Ibby I know and love.

  —Claire Lennon, 17, dead

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “So, like, asking if you wanted to help carry Luna’
s books when she sprained her ankle…” Maura says.

  “Right, that’s a good example.” We’re stretched out on her bed with about twenty bottles of nail polish. She’s working on her toes while I do my fingers. It’s a little after ten at night on a Thursday, and we’ve already had dinner with her parents and studied for our Spanish test, so this is our reward. Maura lives in Forest Hills, the same neighborhood as my dad’s hospital, in a very cramped and impeccably decorated apartment. “That made me feel like this thing that’s wrong with me is old and boring and not important when something new comes up. Like Luna’s temporary injury is more valid than this thing I live with every day. Not that her sprained ankle wasn’t valid, but…it made me feel like you’re sick of my thing. And it’s not going anywhere, so what am I supposed to do with that?”

  “I think it was like…” She paints on a stripe of nail polish. “We didn’t want you to feel like you were less capable.”

  “And I appreciate that, but I don’t actually need to feel more capable. I need to feel like it’s okay to not be more capable.”

  Maura flops backward on the bed. “This is so complicated. I’m not complaining, it’s just, I don’t want to get it wrong.”

  “I know, but once you get the idea of it, it all kind of starts to come together. It’s not a list of rules to memorize; it’s just a mindset.”

  “Okay, but, like…right now you’re sitting here doing your nails, and it’s like I’m supposed to expect that you couldn’t ever do that.”

  “Yeah, today’s a good day,” I say. “But it’s better to not expect good days, ’cause then they’re a nice surprise instead of everyone getting disappointed when I’m not having a good day. This isn’t the usual.” My phone rings over on her nightstand, and I blow on my nails.

  “Who’s calling you?” she says.

  “Sasha. I told him I was with you tonight.” I look at it and consider not picking up.

  “So scold him for bothering you,” Maura says.

  “Good point.” I reach for my phone, trying not to smudge my nails. “Hey.”

  “Isabel, it’s Dmitri.”

  Sasha’s dad, calling me from his phone. And his voice sounds funny.

  Everything kind of slows down.

  “What’s wrong?” I say.

  “Everything’s all right. Sasha’s okay. But we’re at the hospital.”

  He’s not supposed to be at the hospital today. “What happened?”

  “His spleen ruptured. We were on the train, and it stopped suddenly, and someone elbowed him in the stomach and…that was enough.”

  Shit, shit, shit. “Do they have to take it out?”

  Maura tugs on my pants with worry on her face. I hold up my hand.

  “They do,” Dmitri says. “They’re bringing him into surgery as soon as they can, but if you—Nick, hold on—if you can get here soon, you can see him before he goes in. He’s in a lot of pain, but he wants to see you.”

  “Yeah, I’m in Forest Hills already. I can be there in ten minutes.” I start gathering my stuff. “How’s he doing, can’t they drug him?”

  “They are. They’re going to sedate him soon, before they bring him in for surgery. That should help.” Dmitri sounds pretty calm, all things considered, and I grab onto that like a life raft.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there soon.”

  “What’s wrong?” Maura asks as soon as I hang up.

  “Sasha has to have surgery; it’s an emergency.”

  “Holy shit, is he okay?”

  “He’ll be fine, I just— Do you know where my socks are?”

  “Yeah, here,” she says. I tug them on and then my shoes and start messing with my phone. “Who are you calling?” she asks.

  “No one, I’m getting an Uber. I don’t want to wait for a cab.”

  “In this traffic, either one’s gonna take way longer than walking,” Maura says. “It’s just, like, six blocks.”

  It’s eight blocks. I take a deep breath. “I’m taking an Uber.”

  “Seriously, it’ll be easier to—”

  “Maura,” I say. “I’m taking an Uber.”

  …

  I don’t know this girl at the front desk. She’s probably a volunteer. Ordinarily I would blow right past, but they’re strict about visitor’s badges in the pre-op areas. I lean on the desk and try to smile. “Hi. I’m here to see, um, Aleksandr. Sverdlov-Deckler.” I spell it for her.

  She types on her computer for a really, really long time. I’m holding my keys just to have something to do with my hands, and I dig the teeth of one of them into my thumb. “I’m not seeing him,” she says.

  “Yeah, he just got here; he might not be in the system yet. Can you try Sasha?”

  “Sasha…”

  “Sverdlov-Deckler, yeah.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “He’s in pre-op, can I go up? I know where it is, my dad’s a doctor here, I’ve been walking around this hospital since I was two. It’s my boyfriend, he’s scared, I…please? Can I just get a badge? Please.”

  She sighs and takes out a visitor’s badge. “What was the name?”

  “Sverdlov-Deckler.” I swallow. “Aleksandr.”

  I grab the badge and head to the elevator and push the button for the floor about a hundred times. “Come on come on come on.”

  I text Sasha’s dad on the way up to get the room number—why didn’t I ask for that on the phone?—but he doesn’t answer. It’s fine. I can poke around pre-op. But the first things I see when I get off the elevator are Sasha’s little brothers kneeling and playing with one of those clunky wood-and-wire puzzles in the waiting room. Nick runs over and stops me before the woman watching them, probably a nurse or a social worker, can stop him.

  “It’s okay,” I say to her. I give Nick a hug. “Hey, short stuff.”

  “Sasha’s sick,” he says.

  “Yeah, do you know which room he’s in?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  I take his hand and bring him back to Josh and the woman with them. Her hair’s down, so I’m thinking social worker. Nurses never wear their hair down. “Do you know which room their brother’s in?” I ask.

  She says, “I think it’s eleven forty-two.”

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  Eleven forty-two is about as far from the waiting room as you can get. No wonder Dmitri left the kids with a social worker. I head through hallway after hallway. There’s a woman wailing in one room, and it carries all the way through the floor.

  Eleven forty-two. I pause with my fingers on the handle.

  Relax, I tell myself.

  You’ve seen him in the hospital before.

  Splenectomies are easy surgeries.

  They do a hundred of them a day.

  This is part of what you signed up for. This is real life.

  I turn the handle.

  Sasha’s curled up as small as he can get, facing away from me, and something about that seems wrong, like it’s not allowed and he’s supposed to be stretched out neatly in his bed, filling it like people always do on TV. Dmitri’s sitting next to him, Sasha’s hand clasped tightly in his, and he looks up when the door opens. The room’s divided by a green curtain, and on the other side, a doctor’s talking quietly to someone. Dr. Yates. I know her. That doesn’t matter right now. I’m not thinking straight.

  Dmitri smiles at me and touches Sasha’s arm. “Hey, bud. Isabel’s here.”

  He rolls over very slightly as I come to the bed. His eyes are swollen, and his hair’s tamped down with sweat. He grabs onto my shirt, and I kiss him lightly. His lips are really chapped. “Hey,” I say softly. “You good?”

  “I’m Frida,” he says.

  I push his hair off his forehead. “What?”

  “I had
a train accident.”

  I laugh a little. “I guess you did. How are you?”

  He closes his eyes. “Hurts.” I see him squeeze his dad’s hand.

  “I know.” I can’t stop touching him. His cheek, his shoulder, his arm. Right in front of his dad. But he’s still hanging on to me, and I just feel like something really bad is going to happen if I take my hands off him. Like he’ll just vanish.

  “Did you see my brothers?” he says.

  “Yeah, they’re with the social worker, they’re fine.”

  He nods, eyes still closed.

  “They’re doing the surgery tonight?” I ask.

  He licks his lips. “Yeah. They said it’s not gonna take very long.”

  “That’s good.”

  He winces and pushes his head back into his pillow. His whole lower body is curled up to his stomach, like he’s trying to protect it. “Fucking hurts!” he says, yelling the last word.

  “I know,” Dmitri says.

  “How much longer is it gonna be?” Sasha asks him. “I just want them to knock me out. This is fucking…” He blows air out of his mouth.

  “Hey,” I say. “You’re doing great. Do you want me to find your nurse?” There’s a white board on the wall with the name of his surgeon and his nurse. Betsy. I don’t know her.

  “Yeah,” Sasha says. “Find out why the fuck they won’t give me more morphine.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you. I love you.”

  I smile. “I love you, too.”

  I talk to four different nurses who lead me down three different hallways before I finally find Betsy. Even though I try to channel Sasha instead of being my appeasing self, she gives me the answer I was expecting—no more morphine, and they’ll get to him soon.

  “He’s in a lot of pain,” I say. “And he’s upset, and this is going to be a long recovery for him… He’s the one with Gaucher disease.”

  She pats my arm. “I know Sasha.”

  I didn’t give any indication she could touch me, and I’m really pissed off about it. “Okay, but…he’s not used to this, this sudden kind of thing. Emergencies like this, he’s not used to it. He’s scared, and he just wants to know what’s going on.”