“All right, enough,” I say, making a swipe for the phone. Brooke is quicker, pulling it out of reach.
“I’ll give this to you, but only if you promise me it’s not going to get you hurt again. You’re still my friend, and I got enough on my conscience as it is.”
I lick my lips, eyes on the phone. “I promise.”
“Okay.” She hands it to me, and I jam it into my waistband, the plastic case absorbing my body heat in seconds.
“So your mom said you’re having some kind of surgery in a couple of days?”
“Yeah. It’s called an LVAD. You should google it, right up your alley. I’ll have a cord coming out of my belly. My friend Layla out in the lobby, she’s got one.”
Brooke’s eyes go to my door, all calculation. “Do you think she’ll let me see it?”
“We can ask,” I say, twisting the knob.
“Listen.” Brooke stops me. “There’s something I want to tell you before you hear it from anyone else, and I don’t know how you’re going to take it. So . . . I don’t know, should you be sitting down or something? Do I need a crash cart?”
“Brooke, I found out my heart could stop working at any moment and I’ll drop dead. Nothing you can say is more shocking than that.”
“Heath and Lilly are together,” she says, closing her eyes and then screwing one back open slowly when she doesn’t hear a body hit the floor.
My hand grips more tightly on the door handle, and I wait for the shock, a wave of anger or jealousy, maybe the cold touch of wrath. But there is nothing, not even a jolt of surprise that spikes my blood pressure. Shanna rests, unperturbed, beating a steady rate that seems completely nonplussed by this turn of events.
“How’d it happen?” I ask.
“They were both pretty torn up about you, and everything. I guess they were comforting each other and got a little too enthusiastic or something, I don’t know. I wasn’t thrilled about it when she told me, but if it means anything to you, I think they’re both happy.”
“No,” I say, opening the door. “That doesn’t mean anything to me at all.”
twenty-four
My texts are a history of everything I’ve missed, my responses as absent from the record as I was in the world.
From Brooke
Dude? WTF? Did that just happen?
OK u need 2 call me I can hear sirens.
There’s a chunk of yr hair hanging from the window. Screencapping.
Like, b/c u can explain how u made it look real. Not b/c it’s awesome.
Alright. It happened.
WTF?
From Lilly
Sasha?? Sasha??
U NEED 2 ANSR ME! U R FREAKING ME OUT!!
Not funny
Now it’s really not funny b/c ur not at school.
Tlkd to ur mom. Will try to come and c u.
I can’t help but smirk at Lilly’s assertion that she’s only going to try to come see me, as if my fall from grace had bumped me down on her priority list a few notches. Or maybe she was already making out with my boyfriend by then.
From Heath
Talked to Lilly and Brooke. Don’t know what’s going on.
Please call me.
At school. Everyone is saying different things and asking me questions. I don’t know what to tell them. Call me.
Got home and my mom said she talked to your mom. I don’t know what to think.
That’s the last text I have from my boyfriend, that he doesn’t know what to think. I’m sure it was excruciating for him.
From Isaac
Sorry had to go, dad’s truck wouldn’t start needed a ride to work
Hey lady, where are you?
hearing things @ school call me
You need 2 answr me crazy shit going on
where the fuck r u?
went to your house yr mom not happy to see me
WTF?
Is it b/c of me?
My eyes fill up at his last text. The others asked if I was okay, wondered where I was, or wanted the truth about what actually happened. Isaac was the only one who had the guts to ask if it was his fault. And it wasn’t, even if him leaving that night is what pushed Shanna to great lengths for his attention, it’s not his fault.
It’s hers. It’s the fault of a girl who doesn’t know how to live what little bit of a life she’s been given, a small space tucked into the dark cavity of my chest. It’s the fault of a girl who doesn’t know how to be a real person, the fault of a girl who maybe already knew that she only had so much time left.
I run my thumbs over the phone, not sure who to answer first or what to say to any of them. Brooke is the easiest, so I tackle that first.
From Brooke
WTF?
Phone works—ty!
From Heath
I don’t know what to think.
I talked to Brooke. Sounds like you figured it out.
I’m surprised when three little bubbles pop up right away, which means Heath is typing an answer.
Will come visit. You can be mad at me then.
Maybe I will be and maybe I won’t be. It’s hard to say. Whatever corner of my heart was reserved for Heath has been subsumed by Shanna, and she has no use for him. Even though he’s only coming to officially dump me to my face, I have to give him credit for making the drive and being a gentleman. Or maybe he just wants it on the official record for when he runs for governor that he didn’t abandon his terminally ill girlfriend. I can picture him as an adult wearing a three-piece suit, holding up one of my senior pictures and the cardiac center’s visitors’ log at a press conference. He might even manufacture a tear.
I ignore Lilly’s assertion that she will try to come see me. If she brings it up I’ll tell her I tried to text her, but I had a lot going on in between therapy and surgeries. Which leaves me with the last text that came in, from Isaac. I tap my thumbs against the screen.
From Isaac
Is it b/c of me?
Hey. Not your fault. I’m at the cardiac center in the city. Surgery scheduled for tomorrow.
Just like with Heath, my response is immediately followed by the ellipsis inside a bubble. But I don’t picture him the way I did Heath, someone looking to be absolved. Instead I can see him keeping his phone nearby, needing to hear from me because he actually cares. And that’s kind of terrifying.
What kind of surgery? U scared the shit out of me.
I’m getting an LVAD . . . it helps my heart work. Mom says it’s a good thing I fell out the window b/c that’s how we found out I need a transplant.
My answer to Isaac is longer than my texts to anyone else, mostly because there was no planning involved. With everyone else what I texted was designed to procure a specific response. A breezy thank-you to Brooke so that she wouldn’t worry, a quick jab for Heath, one he could choose to respond to or not. If I ignore Lilly completely she won’t have the guts to text again, easily excised from my life. But with Isaac I’m just typing, saying what I think, and he’s answering the same way.
U gonna be ok?
Don’t know yet . . . I have to stay here until I get a heart and don’t know when that will be.
I pause, thumbs hovering over a new text, unsure whether I’m giving up on future Sasha Stone, waiting on rewards that I might not live to reap. Like with my clarinet, my hands make the decision.
Come see me?