Rewind

by Carolyn O'Doherty

  “I just want everything to stay the same! I never should have told you any of this.”

  Frustration puts more anger into my words than I meant. KJ sits back, cradling his rejected hand. His face is as red as if I’d slapped it.

  “I was trying to help.”

  “You’re not.”

  “So you choose catching Sikes over me?”

  Over you as a friend or as a boyfriend? The clinic door swings open before I can ask.

  “Are you done with your dinner?” Yolly asks, bustling over to pick up my tray.

  KJ stands to get out of her way. He moves stiffly, like someone injured. I can tell he’s trying to keep his face neutral in front of Yolly, but as he turns away I see the edge of his mouth tremble. A yawning hole opens in my chest. All I wanted was to protect our friendship, and instead I’ve made things worse. Our conversation plays back in my head. If he hadn’t come at me so suddenly, if I’d had time to think … Yolly bustles around me, straightening my pillows, fussing with my tray.

  “I almost forgot your medicine,” she says brightly.

  Unlocking the cabinet, she picks up one of the mislabeled dosages and hands it to me. KJ backs away. I gulp down the meds, eager for Yolly to leave so we can continue to talk in private.

  “I’ll let you rest,” KJ says.

  The liquid in my mouth prevents me from asking him to wait. I swallow, too quickly, choking as the chemicals slide down my throat. Yolly pats my back. By the time I’ve stopped coughing, the door has closed and KJ is gone.

  11

  I SLEEP BADLY THAT NIGHT AND WAKE TO THE SOUND of people talking in the main room of the clinic. Amy’s voice, sharp with anxiety, mingles with Julio’s. Somebody groans. The squeak of a wheelchair confirms my fear: another spinner is sick. The clinic has two patients now.

  Sleepiness vanishes. I lie without moving, straining to make sense of the quick patter of words.

  “Did you check his pulse?”

  “Get me an IV.”

  “Watch his head.”

  His. One of the boys, then. My brain instantly calls up Jack’s list of most likely candidates: Jack, Calvin, KJ. I sit bolt upright. Don’t let it be KJ. The patient in the hallway moans again. Jack, I bargain. Couldn’t it be Jack? At nineteen, he’s the oldest spinner. That would be fair. Not that time sickness is ever fair.

  The door next to mine shuts, muffling the voices. If it’s KJ … My mind is incapable of finishing the thought. Please, I beg the sterile room, don’t let it be KJ. Please.

  The tiles feel slick under my feet when I slide out of bed. I tiptoe noiselessly from my room and open the door of the one next to mine. Bright overhead light reveals the scene: Julio lifting an inert body onto the bed. Amy setting up an IV bag. I stick my head farther into the room just as Julio steps back to expose the patient. It’s Calvin.

  My hand grips the doorframe. I must make a noise because Amy whirls around.

  “Alex! What are you doing here? Go back to your room.”

  I can’t let go of the door. Calvin’s face is damp with sweat, his body so limp that my relief the victim isn’t KJ sours. My legs start shaking. I point toward the bed.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  Amy presses her lips together.

  “Go back to your room,” she repeats, though this time she says the words gently. “We’ll know more later.”

  I lie in bed until early morning sunlight squeezes through the blinds to stripe the sheets covering my feet. I trace the pattern with my eyes, listening to the faint noises from next door. Amy comes into my room around 7:00. Her smock looks rumpled, her mouth tight around the edges.

  “You’re awake,” she says.

  I sit up. “How is he?”

  Amy sighs. “He’s stable, for now.”

  I nod. This is Calvin’s third attack. We both know his chances of recovery are slim.

  “I’ll bring breakfast in a bit,” she says. “Right now you need to take your meds.”

  Amy unlocks the cupboard and pulls out a fresh dose. The letters of my misspelled name stare at me accusingly. Next door, Calvin is dying, and here I am being offered a longer life.

  Amy hands me the vial. I want to refuse it, to insist Amy give it to Calvin instead, but I know I can’t. Doing that would only get Ross fired, or worse. I accept the bottle and pour the liquid down my throat. I’m a test subject, I remind myself, taking my own chances to support research that might help others later on. Through the walls, I hear Calvin moan.

  I crumple the empty vial in my hand.

  “Don’t worry about breakfast,” I tell Amy. “I’m not hungry.”

  Dr. Barnard releases me from the clinic the next afternoon. I shower and put on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt I’ve washed so many times the Nike swoosh across the front has faded to gray. Comfort clothes. The common room is quiet when I make my way downstairs. Someone tuned the TV to a nature show, but the sound is down low and no one seems to be watching it. Aidan, Yuki, and Raul are sitting around a Scrabble board. They all look up when I walk in, offering the barest acknowledgment before returning to their game. It’s unclear whose turn it is. Raul idly shuffles the tiles on his tray. Yuki stares around the room with a blank look in her eyes.

  When I was a Younger, I remember that the older kids dying seemed sort of distant. All it meant was a different face handing out meds, or a change in the dishwashing schedule. That’s not true anymore. Now it isn’t the older kids who are dying. It’s us. I know that look in Yuki’s eyes. Every one of us has it at one time or another. It’s the question that haunts us all: Who’s next? Him? Her? Me?

  I skirt the game-playing trio and walk over to where KJ is sitting with Shannon. He’s chosen the seat Calvin preferred. The book Calvin was last reading rests in his lap. The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination. I wonder how far into it Calvin got. KJ strokes the picture on the front as if it’s a small animal.

  “Hey,” I say. They turn their faces toward me. Both of them have circles under their eyes. KJ’s shirt looks like he slept in it. Shannon’s usually tidy braid is fuzzy with loose hair.

  “How are you doing?” I ask KJ.

  He offers me a tight smile. “I should be asking you that.”

  I shrug. “Barnard let me out, so I must be OK.”

  KJ doesn’t answer. His unspoken disapproval hangs between us. I twist a strand of my shower-wet hair around one finger. Compared to their rumpled state, my clean, soap-scented presence seems somehow disrespectful of Calvin.

  “Any news?” I ask.

  “His fever is still really high,” Shannon says.

  She’s wearing the nurse’s smock I saw her in when she brought me lunch earlier. In the last two days, she’s practically taken up residence in the clinic, moving between my room and Calvin’s to bring us food, hand out meds, and take temperatures. At least, that’s what she was doing for me. Her duties with Calvin may have been more clinical.

  KJ sighs. Shannon reaches over to take his hand.

  “Dr. Barnard is with him now,” she tells him. “He’s doing everything that can be done.”

  The finger wrapping my hair twitches, yanking the strand painfully against my scalp. Barnard is not doing everything that could be done. My standing here is proof of it. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, trying to think of a way to help.

  “I’m going to head up to my room,” I say. “Read for a while.”

  KJ nods. No one else says anything to me as I leave.

  I hurry down the hall, not toward the dorms, but to the main stairs. The floor is wet from a recent mopping and I have to walk carefully so I don’t slip. Dr. Barnard’s office is off the lobby. I wave at Charlie behind his glass window before knocking on the door.

  “He’s out!” Jack yells through the wood, a fact I am perfectly aware of since Shannon said Barnard was in the clinic with Calvin.

  “That’s all right,” I say, loud enough for Charlie to hear. “The message I have is for you.”
>
  I open the door, closing it behind me with a snap. Jack is sitting on the floor, surrounded by stacks of medical magazines. He looks to be in the process of sorting them, though at the moment, the process seems to include him lounging against the bookcase flipping through yesterday’s sports section.

  “What’s the message?” he asks me.

  “There is none,” I say, crossing the room to Barnard’s desk. “I need to use the phone.”

  Jack raises one eyebrow. “I assume you have permission for that?”

  “The same permission you have to do that,” I say, nodding at the paper in his hand.

  “Yeah, but I’m me and you’re you. Miss Goody Two Shoes doesn’t break the rules.” Jack tosses the paper aside. “Who are you calling?”

  “My agent.”

  Jack looks disappointed. I pick up the phone and dial the number listed on the agent contact sheet pinned up beside Barnard’s desk. It only rings twice before he answers.

  “Carson Ross.”

  “Mr. Ross. Hi. It’s Alex.”

  “Alex?” He sounds surprised. “Everything OK?”

  “Yes.” I glance at Jack, who is openly listening to my conversation. I wish I could kick him out, but there’s no reason I can think of that won’t make Charlie suspicious.

  “I was released from the clinic today.”

  “I heard. I’m so pleased. It even sounds like your chronotin levels are low enough that you can resume time work.”

  “They are?” I ask, momentarily distracted. Does he mean my real levels or the ones Amy wrote on my chart?

  I rub some dust off the phone’s base, framing my words with care.

  “You know that Calvin’s sick now? Well, he’s really fond of German food, and I was wondering if maybe you could get him some. Like that stuff you got me the other day.”

  Silence. Across the room, Jack watches me with a puzzled expression. I squeeze the phone closer to my ear.

  “Alex,” Ross says, “that stuff I got for you, I only have so much.”

  Tears burn the edges of my eyes. I turn around so I’m facing the window.

  “Couldn’t we share it?”

  “It won’t work. He’s too far gone and they’re monitoring him way too closely. I’m sorry.”

  A single tear slides down my cheek. I knew it was a long shot, but the completeness of my failure still stings. I say something I hope sounds understanding. Ross apologizes again and says he’ll see me soon. Then he hangs up.

  I stand with the phone pressed against my ear, staring out the window. It’s raining. One of the gutters in the Center’s roof must be clogged because there’s a steady drip splattering against the glass.

  “Since when does Calvin like German food?” Jack asks.

  The gushing water turns the view outside into a blur. All I can see clearly are the bars that keep us locked into our small, short lives. I rub my eyes before turning to replace the phone.

  “I just thought it would be nice to do something for him before he, you know.”

  Jack tips his head to one side.

  “And that’s what that call was about?”

  “Of course,” I say, then add, hoping to distract him. “Remember the other day, when you said Dr. Barnard was up to something? What did you mean?”

  Jack cracks his knuckles one by one, the pops a counterpoint to the pattering rain.

  “Let’s just say our Dr. B. likes his reputation as the world’s chronotin expert, but resents that his big research projects don’t get enough support from this poorly funded public institution.”

  “So what are you saying? That he pads the budget?”

  “Maybe he does.” Jack wiggles his eyebrows. “Or maybe we’re all part of his grand plan to get ahead.”

  My mind jumps to the confusing Aclisote dosages I’d seen in Calvin’s file.

  “Are you saying he’s experimenting on us?”

  The still-wet strands of my hair tickle the back of my neck. The other day at breakfast, Shannon said there wasn’t a threshold for the sickness, that everyone had their own level. What if she was wrong? What if there were specific triggers, and Dr. Barnard was manipulating them? Raising and lowering our medication just to see what would happen? I close my eyes, trying to drum up the numbers I’d seen on the others’ charts.

  Jack bursts out laughing. “You should see your face.”

  I back up, cheeks flushing. I should have known Jack was just messing with me.

  “Forget it,” I say. “I’ve gotta go. Dr. Barnard will be back soon.”

  “Hey, don’t be mad,” Jack says, making no effort to stifle his amusement. “I was trying to give you a genuine tip.”

  “I bet.”

  I realize everyone deals with fear and grief their own way, but I have no sympathy for Jack’s version of it. The door slams behind me as I stomp my way out. Jack’s laughter chases me across the lobby and all the way back up the stairs to my room.

  Calvin dies later that night. Yolly announces his death while we’re at breakfast the next morning, adding a few words about what a great spinner he’d been and how we’ll all miss him. Yuki and I are on kitchen duty, so I hear the news from behind the metal counter, where I stand looking out at the other kids scattered around the cafeteria tables. Nobody reacts with surprise. Across the room I see KJ bent low over his plate, absently stirring his scrambled eggs into mush with his fork. I can’t see his face, but Jack, sitting beside him, is pale, with all hints of his usual mocking swagger leached from his face.

  Yuki starts dragging the tubs of dirty dishes back to the sink. I turn the water on extra hot and we load the dishwasher together in silence. As soon as the kitchen is reasonably clean, I blow off my job with the Youngers and go looking for KJ. Since he doesn’t have regular assignments, KJ can be anywhere: in Barnard’s office messing with his computer, in the library fixing a wobbly shelf, changing light bulbs in some random hall. It takes twenty minutes before I track him down. He’s in the common room, standing directly across from me in front of the shrine Yolly always sets up when someone dies: an eight-by-ten photograph framed in black and surrounded by four tall white candles. The photograph is an old one. Calvin looks about sixteen, unparanoid, with chubby cheeks and longer hair. He’s smiling crookedly, as if caught in the middle of telling a joke.

  Tears sting my eyes. I hover in the doorway, waiting for the wash of sadness to pass before I go inside.

  “Here,” a voice says. “That looks better, doesn’t it?”

  Shannon appears from where she must have been on the far side of the room. She’s carrying a handful of flowers from the courtyard stuffed into a glass decorated with beads that spell out Calvin’s name. I shrink back into the hall. Shannon places the flowers in front of Calvin’s picture, and she and KJ stand side by side, staring at it.

  “Thank you,” KJ says. His voice sounds husky. Shannon puts her hand on his shoulder and rubs it gently.

  “He was peaceful at the end,” she says. “I doubt he felt much pain.”

  The tears in my eyes well over. KJ nods.

  “I’m glad you were with him,” he says. “I didn’t like to think of him up there alone.”

  Something sharp knifes through my insides. It’s not that I envy Shannon’s ability to bring KJ solace; it’s that it doesn’t feel fair. I hung out way more with Calvin when he was alive than Shannon ever did. I should be the one sharing KJ’s sorrow.

  I wipe the wetness off my cheeks and take a step forward.

  “I’ll never let any of us go out alone.” Shannon’s soft voice carries through the space between us. I hesitate, one foot hovering over the threshold, not wanting to interrupt.

  “Nothing matters more than all of us spinners supporting each other,” she says. “I learned that after Steve died. We’re all the family any of us has.”

  KJ turns to Shannon and wraps his arms around her, his face resting against her bright hair. My foot trembles a little as I set it back on the ground. Shannon strokes KJ’s b
ack. She’s still talking, but the words have melted into a soothing murmur. KJ’s shoulders begin to shake. He says something to her, and she lifts her head. Their lips meet.

  The knife in my gut twists. As quietly as possible, I back out of the room. KJ and Shannon remain locked in their embrace. I turn, walking quickly, aimlessly, wanting only to put space between me and the scene I just witnessed. How is it I’ve managed two voyeuristic encounters in less than a week? The beat of my feet echoes in a brain that seems to have gone blank. It’s good they’re together, I tell myself, good they can offer each other comfort. Another gut stab denies the generosity of my thoughts. I take the stairs to the second floor at a run.

  “Alex!” Yolly calls. “Julie was asking where you were. You’re late for class.” Her forehead wrinkles as she studies me. “Are you not ready to go back to work?”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Sorry. Heading there now.”

  Tariq is the first name on my list. As soon as the door to the practice room closes behind us, I freeze time without touching him, then lay my head on the table and sob.

  The rest of the week drags by in a dark blur. KJ and I exchange stilted conversation when we see each other at mealtimes. At night in our room, Shannon shares breathless confessions about the progress of their romance. When she falls asleep, I lie in my bed, staring up at the dark. In the clinic, when KJ said he wanted to be with someone romantically, I assumed that person was me. I guess I was wrong. I replay our conversation over and over again in my head. Was there a point where things could have gone differently? I want to rewind the whole afternoon, tell him about my new skill less abruptly, and ask him what he meant when he said he wanted to spend more time with me. Except rewinds don’t work that way. All you can do is watch an unchanging past, listening to words that no longer make any sense.