I spend the rest of the day fighting to keep my eyes open. Recovery is still exhausting, and there are several times when I have to creep along like an old woman. I try extra hard not to fall asleep in calc, and, in AP lit, and I finish reading The Awakening while the rest of the kids in my class take a quiz on All the King’s Men. By lunchtime, I’m so tired, I’m not even hungry. I’m seriously considering finding a picnic table to crawl under to nap. Ever since the surgery my appetite has shrunk to zilch, probably because I spend half the day worrying about the time I’ll be met with my next lightning-round burst of pains. If side effects were baseball cards, I’d have a half-million-dollar collection.
I stayed late to talk to Dr. Schleifer, my government teacher, about my makeup work, and by now, I’ve missed the lunchtime crush of students. I walk down an empty hall where every classroom door has been sealed shut until the time when the next bell rings. Through the blinds of the classroom windows, I can make out the students, trapped inside, faces aimed at whiteboards, human specimens entombed inside a series of glassy terrarium tanks, all lined up one after another. I pass through a cold spot on the way to the cafeteria, a not-so-rare phenomenon in Seattle, where the coldest air seems to pool into invisible ice pockets—even indoors. I guess it happens because of the uneven amounts of moisture in the air, but when I was little, my neighbor told me that if you found yourself passing through a cold spot, it meant you’d just passed through a ghost. The image always stuck.
I pause to lean on a set of lockers. Being up for an entire day has left me feverish. I feel red and sticky at the base of my neck and behind my ears. The locker cools my skin and I allow myself a few minutes to breathe. I don’t have a firm grasp on what would happen if I overworked my new heart, but I imagine it heating up under pressure before exploding like a bloody pile of spaghetti in a microwave.
A boy my age who I recognize as Harrison Miller rounds a corner down the hall, whistling, with a book in hand. He stops when he sees me. “Are you all right?” he asks. “You lost?”
I smile wanly. “Fine, yeah, thanks. Just catching a breather.” I stand up straighter and push the fallen wisps of hair out of my face. Though it’s sweet he asked, I take his comment as a context clue about the rest of my appearance and, to put it in medical terms, the prognosis isn’t good.
“You must be new here. I’m Harrison.” He extends a hand. “You’re a senior too?” He points to my copy of The Awakening. Harrison, who I’ve known at least in passing for six years, is built like a screwdriver, knobby head attached to a rod-straight body.
My eyes widen. I don’t know when the last time we talked was. Maybe never. But at a small private school, you know people. “I—I—” I stammer, unsure of what to say. I’ve been in and out of school for over a year, but could people have possibly forgotten me? I pause for a second. Nobody takes this long to answer with her name. Then, on instinct, I answer, “I’m Veronica Leeds.” I use the name Brynn and I once invented to talk to boys online. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of introducing myself as Stella—he’d surely recognize the name and afterward realize he was talking to a girl who’s completely unmemorable.
We shake hands and—after exchanging a few excruciating niceties about how friendly the people are here and how the class ranking system blows and how the worst thing about Duwamish by far is the uniforms—part ways. By now I feel confident that I’ve turned an unattractive shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, so I duck into the women’s restroom, which smells unmistakably of Lysol and French fries, just as I remember.
It’s hushed. The sound of running water trickles in from the boys’ restroom next door. Feeling all but invisible in this school, I’m halfway relieved to see a reflection in the mirror. I unzip my bag and take out a travel-size Clinique makeup carrier. I lean over the counter to apply a soft layer of lip gloss and a dash of blush. The last thing I want now is to look sick. I’ve done the whole sick thing and I’m so over it.
At first glance I think that I spilled my compact on my shirt. The hint of color on my white polo draws my gaze downward. Tucking my chin, I frown at a glob of red on the fabric. I try to scrape it off with my nail. No luck. I feel my eyebrows squinch into a V at the top of my nose.
When I step back to look in the mirror, crimson handprints cover my shirt from my stomach all the way to my chest. My hand flies to my mouth and I catch a whiff of something metallic.
“Oh my God.” My voice is a whisper. I stare at the blood. “Ohmygod.” I repeat faster. “What happened?” my voice shrieks.
I turn on the faucet and pull my shirt underneath it, where I scrub furiously at a handprint. It stays put. Blood crusted on fabric. Smelling like spare change. Blood in the shape of hands. Grabbing at me. Gore. Plasma. Bodily fluid. Get off me. Get off me.
Beginning to panic, I flee from the bathroom, walking fast the rest of the way outside to the lunch area.
It’s only when I’m surrounded by other people in the quadrangle that I let my stride slow. My pulse throbs in the two glands at the top of my throat and my hands tremble even though they’re clenched into fists at my sides. I glance down at the gory blots, ready to find someone to tell, but when I do my breath hitches in my chest.
They’re gone.
As in, they’re not there.
I thumb the fabric, looking for even one of the stains, but the only thing remaining is a giant wet spot where I’d doused myself with water from the faucet. Even my fingernails are clean. It doesn’t make sense.
I press my knuckles into the side of my head and take a deep breath. I’m tired. I must be tired. I rub the heel of my hand into my eye socket and try to shake off whatever it is I thought I saw.
I was wrong. Confused. Meanwhile, the teeth in my chest gnaw at the new heart in response.