“You need to keep in mind that each new card affects the others. The meaning won’t be clear until all cards are laid out. Their order, orientation …”
She continued her explanation, but I found it hard to hear her over the pulse hammering in my ears. After this, I’d know. I’d be able to breathe and relax and maybe start processing all of the thoughts I kept forcing aside. I’d know if we should have the college conversations Dad began and Mom terminated. I’d sit Ally and Hillary down, explain why I’d been so horrible, but tell them not to worry because soon …
“Do you understand?” she asked, gripping my hand with hers. The deep purple-black of her nail polish was disturbing against my pale skin.
I nodded. Soon I would understand everything.
“Good. I need to center myself before we begin.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, audibly.
I looked at the deck and my anticipation decayed into terror. The longer she kept her eyes shut, the more ominous the tarot cards appeared. My lip found its way between my teeth.
“I am ready.” She opened her eyes and stared at me. “Let’s begin.”
She flipped the first card with a flourish. It showed a couple in an Adam and Eve posture. “Ah, the Lovers,” she intoned, caressing a dark nail across the title written at the bottom.
I leaned in, curling my hands around the desk. I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips.
She turned the next card: the Tower—a building struck by lightning, people falling. I shivered as I searched the alarming illustration for symbolism.
The third card didn’t need a label. As soon as she’d moved her hand and revealed a skeleton mounted on a white horse, I knew. The letters D-E-A-T-H at the bottom were superfluous.
I didn’t want to know anymore.
I didn’t notice my trembling until I parked my car in the empty lot at East Lake’s beach. The moments between fleeing from the third card and turning off the ignition were a blur. I had no memory of the turns or decisions that took me to this deserted location. Or if I’d answered her calls of “Wait! I’m not finished,” as I’d bolted out the door.
I stumbled out of my car and vomited on the cracked pavement. The car beeped incessantly to let me know the door was open, but I turned away. My shoes crunched on the frozen sand coating the parking lot as I crossed to the picnic tables where we used to be organized into grade school swim-lesson groups. The same one where I’d first told Gyver I was sick.
We’d had birthday parties and picnics here, back before we turned ten and it became uncool to go to East Lake’s small beach. Chris’s house was across the lake; the Jet Skis pulled up on his dock until the spring. I’d been to so many parties there.
I could see my memories on the surface of the water, rippling with the wind or when an autumn leaf gave up its hold on an oak tree and spiraled down to drift on the lake. Nights of giggles and smiles and dances and kisses. Sleepovers at Ally’s house, where she and I tiptoed downstairs so we could surprise Hil and Lauren with banana pancakes in bed. So many hours of Hil’s hairbrush dance routines, Lauren’s homemade facials and crazy beauty regimens, Ally’s mom’s brownies as we studied and watched musicals. Why hadn’t I appreciated these things when I was healthy? Why had I hidden away from them all fall?
I wouldn’t have a second chance. I cried all the time, yet I couldn’t right now. Maybe I’d used all my tears. And, really, what was I giving up at this point? There wasn’t anything left of the giggling girl I used to be. I’d killed Mia Moore the first time I’d decided to hide my illness.
I wasn’t going to beat leukemia; I was going to die. I’d been dying all along—it had just taken me this long to realize it. I expected the knowledge to burn, but I felt frozen. Defeated. I didn’t care. No, I did care—but caring wouldn’t make a difference.
I laughed; the bitterness in it ricocheted off the empty landscape. My car continued to chirp for my attention.
Blinking, I took deep breaths, retraced my steps, started the car, and drove home. I went into the house, not bothering to bring in my school bag from the backseat. I wouldn’t be doing homework; it wasn’t important anymore.
Chapter 40
My life had a time limit. It was becoming an obsession. Would my funeral be well attended? Would my name echo in the hallways and inspire tears from the classmates I was busy alienating? Would the yearbook be dedicated to the girl who hadn’t survived senior year?
I twined my fingers more tightly with Ryan’s, trying to cling to the here, the now, the present. And when it was just us, it was easy to be distracted by his hands and lips—thank God the kissing ban had been lifted. To almost forget I was a living dead girl. But right now I wasn’t going to think about anything medical.
I flipped his hand over, pulled loose my fingers, and began to trace them across the lines of his palm. “Does that tickle?”