“And how did that make you feel?” Amanda pauses. “Is that really why you jumped out the window?”
“No,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. “Because I didn’t—”
“—jump out the window,” Amanda finishes for me. “Shanna did.”
I nod in agreement. “And trust me, Shanna doesn’t care what those two think.”
“What does Shanna care about?”
I glance at the clock just as the second hand ticks into place.
“Time’s up,” I say.
twenty-two
I. Things I Know
A. An LVAD looks like plumbing around my heart, plumbing that requires a power source.
1. I will have a power cord exiting my body near my belly button.
2. I will wear a controller and battery pack at all times, which looks like backpack straps, minus the backpack.
3. “I will continue to lead a full and rewarding life.” (This is a pull quote from the brochure.)
B. LVAD is close to Vlad and is fitting since it will in fact be impaling me.
II. Things I Don’t Know
A. If it will hurt Shanna
B. If I’ll ever see Isaac again
C. If he’ll find me disgusting when I do
(on)c(e) there was a girl[s] made of (me)tal—is it me or is it y-ew-?
Amanda very helpfully left the activities schedule with me after our therapy session, a list of the varying social and recreational opportunities that promise to be invigorating but better not go too far or else it could kill the participants. I give it a hard look, well aware that between her and the nurses I’ll be pestered into doing something, and trying to figure out which will require the least of me.
TODAY AT THE CARDIAC CENTER!
9:00 a.m.—Fun with Watercolors! Local artist Shyane Wergei shows you how to take what’s inside and get it out using a paintbrush.
Probably not the best wording for a heart transplant center.
11:00 a.m.—Bond Over Books! Bring your favorite book and share a passage that matters to you with the group.
I’ll take Mom’s DSM that I swiped and read everyone the entry about my supposed psychotic disorder.
2:00 p.m.—Share the Love! Hop in the cardiac center van for a trip to the Humane Society, where a special dog or kitty is waiting to steal your heart.
Seriously, whoever wrote this did not consider their audience. Also most of us are medically prohibited from hopping.
4:00 p.m.—Meditation with Melody! Relax before dinner with guided meditation.
This one actually has my attention, although I’m not sure an exclamation point has any place near the word meditation.
As predicted, my nurse makes a big show of talking about how bored I must be “all cooped up” in my room all day with “no one to talk to.” She has no idea that I’m continuing to carry on plenty of conversations with both Brooke and Shanna over the laptop, and I’m not in a hurry to enlighten her either.
After my daily maintenance is attended to—weight, blood pressure, temperature—I’m given my privacy back, but Brooke is at school and Shanna won’t answer direct questions so I’m faced with the fact that it’s time to go make some friends.
I’m not good at this. Lilly and Brooke are my friends, but I’ll be the first to admit that this may be a force of habit more than anything. We bonded in kindergarten because Brooke liked to find dead birds at recess, Lilly liked to scream about it, and I liked lecturing them both about germs and keeping their voices down. We were odd children, effortlessly seamed together by our oddness, our parents relieved that we’d found each other, even if our combined personalities alienated everyone else.
Everyone here is dying, which means I have to be nice to them. It’s not one of my better areas, and I know it. I waste ten minutes getting dressed even though I’m wearing nothing more complicated than pajama pants and a hoodie, try to part my hair so that some of the damage is covered, take a deep breath, and pull open my door.
There’s a girl sleeping in a wheelchair by her doorway, legs off to one side, knees pressed together, IV tree keeping guard. I’m untethered, no longer needing constant hydration or pain meds. In their place I have a lineup of orange pill bottles in the bathroom, the myriad of sentinels required to keep me going every day.
I slip past the girl in the hall, making my way to the common room where I find one girl teaching another how to play chess, and a third patient curled into an overstuffed armchair with a novel. I walk over to one of the bookshelves to pick through the offerings, surprised to find some books that would be more appropriate on Mom’s nightstand.
“Careful with that one,” someone says, and I turn to see the girl who had been reading has joined me. “It’ll get your blood pressure up and you’ll be on a low-salt diet. I tore the cover off so it wouldn’t be taken away from us, but if you have to explain your spike and blame the book I won’t forgive you.”
I watch her carefully, trying to figure out if she’s serious or not while I fan the well-worn pages under my thumb.
“You’re new,” she goes on, her eyes roaming my face until they settle on the stitches I couldn’t quite get my hair to cover. “Oh, you’re that girl.”
“Which girl?”
She snorts. “We all come in here looking like we’re dying. You’re the only one to show up looking like somebody tried to kill them.”
I put the book back, my hand going up to finger my stitches.
“Hey,” she says. “What’s the difference between this place and a nursing home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Everybody in a nursing home is waiting to die. We’re all waiting to live.”
One of the girls playing chess turns in her wheelchair. “Layla, how many times do I have to tell you that joke isn’t funny?”
“How many times have I got to tell you it isn’t a joke?” Layla shoots back, and the chess player huffs, returning to her game even though it looks like her opponent might have hit the painkillers a little hard and blacked out early.
“What about, everybody here is waiting for someone else to die?” I suggest.
“What’s that?” Layla’s attention is back on me, her eyes following the curve of the stitches that arch around my neck as my hoodie shifts.
“Your joke,” I explain. “What’s the difference between this place and a nursing home? Instead of ‘Everybody at a nursing home is waiting to die, and we’re all waiting to live,’ you could say, ‘we’re all waiting for someone else to die.’”
I wait for a reaction, but she’s still staring. “You know, so we can get their heart.”
“Right,” she says. “I get it. I just think it’s even not-funnier than my version.”
“Oh.” I go back to looking at the books.
“Which means Nadine over there will hate it,” she adds. “So I kind of love it. Hi, I’m Layla by the way.” She offers her hand to shake.
“I gathered,” I say, taking it. “Sasha.”
Her hand is bony in mine, and I find myself making a terrible assessment of how long she has left, how much time I should invest in this friendship. Then I see the belt around her waist.
“Is that an LVAD?”