by Meg Leder
I wonder how long it takes for tetanus to set in.
The skunk continues to nose along the base of the bridge path, but the boy and I are still, the only other noise an overly optimistic summer tree frog singing away.
Either ten minutes or two hours or eight hundred forty thousand years pass.
And then I feel it building in my left elbow, a right rib, both pinky toes: My body inexplicably wants to jangle and shake itself in a frenzy.
The longer I stand there, the more I need to move.
I press my nails into my palm.
I force myself to count backward from seventeen, then figure out multiples of twelve until I get to 372 and it gets too boring.
I weigh the merits of being able to disappear or run away at the speed of light.
I am just starting to wonder if my parents have sent out the police yet, if Charlie made it home already, when I hear a soft humming from above me, something familiar.
My mind tries to place it.
“Um, what are you humming?” I ask, my voice quiet.
The humming stops. “What?”
“You were humming something. It sounds like that new Taylor Swift song.”
“No,” he mutters.
“No, it isn’t Taylor Swift, or no, you’re not humming?”
“Crap,” the boy says in a loud whisper. “Just let it go.”
I frown. “Bully,” I mutter under my breath.
The skunk, sensing the boy’s sulkiness, settles itself down in the middle of the path, clearly not planning to go anywhere in the next five minutes, let alone five hours.
A few billion stars burn into existence and blink themselves out again.
“I’m not a bully,” the boy finally says.
I feel a little bad that he heard me, but not enough to apologize.
I start to think about Charlie’s words, but I can’t go there.
Instead, I wonder what Taylor Swift is up to right now.
I contemplate the merits of tetanus.
Inside my head, I sing all the lyrics to the song the boy was humming.
I wonder what gymnastic maneuvering he had to utilize to get up on this bridge, if he knows how to rock climb.
I can’t believe I thought he was Spider-Man.
If Spider-Man were real, he’d be way nicer.
I tell myself I’ll count to one hundred and when I do the skunk will be gone.
I do, and it’s not.
My mind goes back to Charlie—what it might have felt like swinging out over the river, what it might have felt like the moment the vine snapped.
My palms start to sweat.
What if he had landed in shallow water or hit his head on a rock?
What if he cut open his leg, and it gets infected?
Even though I’m standing up, there’s a pressure pushing on my heart, like someone is sitting on me, like there’s a family on top of me, a whole city, an entire world.
I wipe my forehead.
What if Charlie gets sick again?
What if Charlie and I are broken for good?
My legs start to go all pins and needles, and I grab the beam next to me.
The skunk stops moving, staring warily in my direction.
“Are you okay?” the boy asks.
“No,” I say, bending over, my breath starting to hitch.
Charlie got sick and Charlie got better and Em and Matty are going to see Paris and in less than forty-eight hours I will be on my way back to my internship.
And then, in eleven weeks, I will leave for Harvard.
In four years, I will graduate from undergrad.
In eight years, I will graduate from med school.
In eleven years, I will finish a pediatric residency.
In fourteen years, I will finish a pediatric hematology or oncology fellowship.
In fourteen years, when I pass my board certifications, I will be a doctor.
I will be thirty-two.
I let out a strangled gasp.
The skunk stamps a foot, its tail poofing out.
“Parker, take it easy,” the boy says from above, and a distant part of me wonders how he knows my name, but I push it aside, trying to breathe.
My body is sweating and pulsing, and my mind flashes to my first dissection in biology class freshman year, how the scalpel sliced through tissue-thin frog skin but not as easily as I’d thought, and how in med school you cut open people, and how the human body is so crowded inside it makes me claustrophobic—organs packed thick in muscles and tissue and fat.
“Oh my God,” I say, conscious it’s too loud, but I can’t stop, my breath running itself in and out in sharp takes.
I hear the boy say “Hey, hey, now,” note the quiet panic underneath the gruffness, but I’m thinking about how after our mom got her gallbladder removed, we’d catch her absentmindedly rubbing the incision site, like she was trying to reassure herself she was here, that not everything was gone.
I’m thinking about the poster on the wall of my dermatologist’s office, the ABCDs of melanoma—asymmetry, border, color, diameter—the pictures of cells run wild.
I’m thinking about when Charlie barfed in the backseat after one of his first chemo treatments, how what came out of him was chartreuse and chemical-smelling, how I threw up next to him and our mom pulled over as quick as she could, all three of us crying then.
Sometimes I wish you were dead too.
“Just look at me. Look at me,” not-Spider-Man says, but I can’t.
All I can think of is cells and blood and bodies and cancer and how nothing is okay, not really, how nothing will ever be okay again, how it’s never enough.
A loud moan escapes my lips, and at that second, the skunk puffs itself into a creature three sizes larger, its tail twitching.
I wonder fleetingly if it’s pregnant, its belly is so low to the ground, and I see froth on its mouth and realize I am going to get sprayed and mauled by a pregnant skunk with rabies.
And then a spray paint can comes hurling down from the cosmos, thunking into my shin, and I yell “Oww!” right as not-Spider-Man yelps, falling from his perch on the bridge and onto the hard ground.
I scream.
The boy lies there, eyes closed, and I run around the skunk, fall to my knees, kneel beside him, then suck in my breath with a jolt of recognition.
Not-Spider-Man is Finn Casper.
This is who’s leaving the messages?
His cheekbones look sharp enough to draw blood, everything about his face angles and hollows. Traces of the black eye remain, the skin around it mottled yellow and purple now, and there’s a smear of red paint alongside his nose, like he accidentally scratched it.
I wonder if I should call 911.
But then Finn opens his eyes, and everything about him that’s messy (his hair) or busted (the scabs on his knuckles) or crooked (his nose) or bruised (his left eye)—it all disappears in the dark gray looking back at me, still a storm growling heavy on the horizon, and I’m in first grade all over again.
The world tilts.
Finn slowly props himself up on an elbow, wincing, and I inadvertently scramble back.
He notices. “Did you get bit?”
“Bit?”
“The skunk?”
I scan the space behind me. No sign of the skunk.
“No. The can you dropped must have scared it off.”
“I didn’t drop it. I threw it.”
“On purpose?”
“I was worried the skunk was going to bite you.”
“Oh,” I say, and then it comes back to me, the freak-out I was having right before Finn fell. “Oh,” I repeat.
He studies me. “Help me up?”
“Yeah.” He entwines his fingers with mine as I pull him to his feet.
He stifles a groan. “That is going to hurt tomorrow.”
I look down at the discarded spray paint can, then the message written above us.
“So you’re the one painting these all o
ver town?” I’m too nervous to ask if he remembers me from first grade. “Aren’t you worried about getting caught, you know, for defacing public property?”
He steps back, a dangerous flicker in his eyes before his expression hardens. “You won’t report me, will you?”
“No, no.” I shake my head hard. His gaze goes to my left hand, which is inadvertently circling my right wrist again. So quickly, I almost miss it, he winces.
I release my wrist. “Your secret is safe with me, Finn.”
“You remember my name.” He sounds surprised.
“I do. It’s just, the other day at the Float, I didn’t think you knew who I was. You didn’t say anything.”
He tightens his hands into fists. “You didn’t either.”
Now I’m flustered. “I’m sorry. I should have said hi.”
He uncurls his hands, stretches his palms out flat, like he’s steadying himself.
“You don’t have to explain. I understand. After my brother . . .”
I shake my head, not wanting him to say anything more.
Crickets and tree frogs are making their night noise, and the creek is babbling below us, and my heart is knocking around in my chest. Finn bends down to grab his backpack, shoving the errant spray paint can inside. He stands, studies me. “Are you okay? Do you need me to call anyone?”
“I’m okay. The skunk didn’t bite me or anything, thanks to you.”
“I don’t mean the skunk,” he says.
My face goes hot. I can’t believe he saw me like that. “Yeah, I’m totally fine. I’m really sorry for all the trouble. Seriously.” I shift uncomfortably.
He looks doubtful but simply says, “Okay.”
“Okay,” I echo.
“Well, have a good night, then,” he offers.
“Yeah, you too.”
He slings his bag over a shoulder and starts to head to the bridge.
“Hey, Finn?” I call out.
He turns around.
“Thank you. For helping me.” I swallow, the words hard to say. “I needed it.”
He nods. “Anytime.”
I watch him leave, wondering what just happened to me under that bridge.
Fifteen
I WAKE UP TO the smell of cut grass and the rumble of our neighbor’s lawn mower, and squint at the clock.
8:04.
Mustard, wedged against the windowsill and the screen, stops licking his paw to study me, then stands, stretches, and pads his way over to my chest. He begins kneading it, happily drooling, a throaty purr.
I didn’t sleep much last night.
When I got home, Charlie’s door was half open, so I crept up, peeking in, making sure to angle myself to the side so he couldn’t see me. But he was sound asleep, sprawled out on his bed, still in the shirt and shorts he was wearing at the river, snoring.
Even though he was on his side, I was worried about him throwing up, so I eased down against the wall outside, pulling my knees up against my chest and resting my head there, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest from the hallway.
I startled awake a little before five, but Charlie was still safely on his side, so I got up, massaging the crick in my neck, and made my way to my own bed, half awake, half asleep, wondering if I was dreaming the whole thing.
But the spot on my leg that I banged against the bridge is throbbing slightly, which means none of it was a dream: Charlie’s behavior, Matty’s revelations, Finn Casper and the skunk, whatever it is that happened to me when I was standing under that bridge.
What if I have some weird heart condition?
I remind myself I’d had to get caught up on all my vaccinations and pass a physical to be eligible for the internship program. There was nothing wrong with me then.
But there is now.
I’m all wrong.
I close my eyes, trying to still my body, but my mind doesn’t quit, thoughts circling frantically like they’re on a kids’ race car track—no beginning, no end, just a frantic whizzing around and around.
Em’s leaving today.
I have to go back to the internship on Tuesday.
Charlie’s been smoking pot.
He tried mushrooms.
That second after the vine snapped, the water dark, my brother disappeared from the world.
(I don’t let myself think about the words he said.)
I sit up, displacing Mustard, and lean over, resting my head in my hands, my breath coming in deep sharp gasps.
It is ridiculous, this panic. I don’t even know what I’m panicked about.
But thinking that doesn’t help.
Instead it makes it worse, my breath moving even faster, and I wonder if you can get heart attacks at eighteen.
I force myself to go through the yoga breathing cues Em taught me before I took the SATs, but my heart and brain are having none of it—they hate yoga as much as I do.
I’m going to die.
I stand up.
Em.
My whole body points itself to her.
I look at the clock. She hasn’t left yet.
I could text her, but what would I say? “Em, I think I’m having a nervous breakdown. Text me back” doesn’t feel right.
Besides, if I don’t move my body soon, I feel like the panic may slip outside, swallow me whole.
I slide on a clean tee and my jean shorts and Converse from last night and slip downstairs. Luckily, Mom and Dad are reading the paper on the back deck and don’t see me, so I don’t have to explain to my poor parents that their daughter may be having a heart attack.
Outside, our neighbor Mr. Edwards waves at me from the lawn mower, but I can’t deal with him right now, so I break into a jog for the five blocks to Em’s house, even though I hate running as much as I hate yoga, and it’s already too hot, and I forgot to put on deodorant. But after a few minutes, my feet start catching up with my heart—propelling me forward, outside of myself.
I round the corner to Em’s and then stop, bending over and placing my hands on my knees, a knife in my gut, and try to slow down my heaving breaths, as big and deep as the time Charlie accidentally kicked a soccer ball into my stomach, knocking the air right out of me.
When I straighten, I see Em and Matty loading their backpacks into the car. He says something I can’t hear, and she starts laughing, doubling over into one of her laugh-snorts—the only thing about Em that isn’t obviously lovely—and Matty guffaws loudly in response.
I hear Charlie’s words again: Sometimes I wish you were dead too.
At that second, I’m so envious of my best friend and her cousin, of how close they are, I’m pretty sure if a fairy-tale witch offered me the chance to steal all their happiness for me and Charlie, I would seize it without giving either of them a second thought.
What is wrong with me?
I back up slowly, then faster, then turn and start to run again until I’m sure they can’t see me.
As my shoes slap the sidewalk, I try not to obsess about last night, what Matty said about Charlie.
About Charlie soaring across that river.
I massage the crick in my neck from watching him sleep, and the morning’s sadness and anxiety start to morph into something else, something that makes me feel ugly on the inside, something that makes me run even faster.
What if Charlie hadn’t come back up from the water last night?
What if he had thrown up last night and choked on it in his sleep?
I get angrier and angrier, and my shins burn.
Charlie’s so close to getting everything back.
And he’s messing it all up.
He’s so selfish about his health, I want to shake him by the shoulders or kick him in the shins, something to get his attention, something to hurt him into taking care of himself.
He was awful to Matty and Em last night, and even though Erin and Charlie broke up, I’m sure Erin would be devastated if she found out he’d been cheating on her.
I shake my head, flex my fin
gers.
Not to mention Mom and Dad. If they lose him now, thanks to something reckless and preventable? They don’t deserve that.
(And behind all of that, his words. Sometimes I wish you were dead too.)
I shake my head.
No.
When I get home, I find our parents at the kitchen table eating eggs and toast.
“Hey,” I say, resting my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath.
“You’re out and about pretty early,” Mom says. “Charlie’s still sound asleep.”
Of course he is.
“She’s getting ready for those doctor hours,” Dad says to Mom.
“I need to talk with you guys about something,” I say.
Mom looks at me more carefully. “Everything okay?”
I shake my head. “Charlie was drinking last night.”
“What?” Dad asks, putting his fork down.
“I’m sure he was just celebrating a little bit with everyone else, right?” Mom offers.
“More than that. He drank so much he could hardly stand. He was messing around at the river on this vine, and for a second we were all worried he drowned. And it’s not just last night. Matty said he’s been smoking pot and trying other stuff too. He’s not taking care of himself.”
Dad’s palm slams down on the table. “For chrissakes. What’s he thinking?”
Mom looks like someone’s punched her in the gut, and I feel a twinge of guilt when I see her eyes glistening.
“I’m sorry, but I thought you should know,” I say. “He needs help.”
As the words leave my lips, I know I’m not wrong. Charlie’s messed up in a way that goes deeper than the cancer in his blood. He needs help.
But the absolute certainty I felt in telling is short-lived when Dad stands up, hollering, “Charlie!” He goes to the bottom of the steps, yells louder. “Charlie!”
I hear a distant sleepy “What?”
“We need you downstairs. Now!”
“Just a minute.”
Mom leans over, squeezing my shoulder gently, and I take that as my sign to leave.
When I get upstairs, Charlie’s emerging from his room, rubbing his eyes. He smells sour, like beer and river, and I can tell from the expression on his face he’s hungover.
“Jesus, what’s up with Dad?” he asks in a half yawn.
I shrug, unable to look at him.
