“Good. I look forward to seeing even more of you.”
A man with glasses and a loosely tied tie was walking up to ask her something, so I smiled and walked over to my usual seat, hidden in the corner, beneath a READING OPENS DOORS poster.
I opened my bag. It was the same bag I used for school and right at the top, in its own little pocket, was my EpiPen. The world contracted around it, a pupil narrowing in bright light. Fuzzed at the edges.
“Take it out,” said the voice. “Take it out and inject yourself with it.”
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s for an emergency. For anaphylaxis.”
“You think it might hurt you if you inject it when you are not suffering an allergic reaction?”
“Yes.”
“Good. So do it.”
You know this part.
Me: “Please.”
The voice: “No.”
Me: “Please. Don’t make me.”
“You ignored me. You ignored me and spoke to that girl with the stupid hair. You remember what happened to your mom? That was because you didn’t listen to me.”
“What?” I said, under my breath. “I didn’t hear you back then.”
“Yes, you did. See? You’re so ******* pathetic, you don’t even remember **** like that. I was there.”
Confusion seemed to blur the edges of everything. “No … you came … after the foot. On the beach.”
“Wrong. Take the EpiPen.”
“It could kill me. Give me a heart attack.”
The silence of thought.
“Well,” said the voice. “Let’s take the risk. Or this time, I will kill your father. I will make the guy he had a fight with come back with a knife when the restaurant is closed.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Try me.”
What could I do? I picked up the casing, took off the outer plastic box. Removed the gray safety catch. It actually doesn’t look much like a pen—it’s thicker, more like a pregnancy test.
Anyway, I stabbed the black end into my thigh and felt the sharp sting and heard it give a click. You have to hold it there for ten seconds; that’s something some people don’t know about epinephrine. To give it time to get right into the muscle. Maybe the voice wouldn’t know that. I started to pull it out—
“Uh-uh,” said the voice. “Ten seconds.”
I counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five—
I had to stop counting. My breath was rushing. My heart was filling my body. It was in my neck and my eyes, pulsing, getting faster and faster. The library was spinning the way the world spins when you’ve been swimming in the ocean all day—the way I used to with Dad, before Mom died—and then you’re lying in bed with your eyes closed.
I put my head between my knees. Sweat was beading on my forehead, drops of it hitting the cheap concrete floor with a sound so loud I thought Jane would hear. I actually felt my heart
—stop—
for the longest
moment.
And start again with a jolt that hurt. I think, and I’m embarrassed to say this, I was actually disappointed for a second. I wanted to be gone, to not have to deal with this voice anymore, this angry murdered person in my head all day long.
I must have dropped the EpiPen because I heard it clatter on the ground. There was no universe beyond the blackness of my closed eyes. There was no time apart from the fast beating of my heart.
Gradually, gradually, the world started to come back. My heart slowed—it was still going terribly fast, and I felt like it was going to burst at any moment. I gasped, and put my hands over my mouth, trying to breathe in my own carbon dioxide, to wind myself down.
“Oh,” said the voice, in the tone I imagine boys use when discussing the bees whose wings they have torn off. “You didn’t die.”
Then a dark shape loomed in front of me. I looked up. Jane was standing there, looking down at me with solicitude turning her face into one big frown. “You need help?”
“Outside,” I said quietly. The voice would want to punish me, but what could it do that would be worse?
Jane got one hand under my arm and levered me to my feet, then escorted me out the front door and onto the sidewalk. I sank down against the side of the building.
“What happened?” she asked. “You have low blood pressure?”
I knew she was going to find the injector. “I … had some cake. From a bakery that supposedly is nut free. But I felt my throat swelling. I used my EpiPen.”
“Jesus. I should call the paramedics.”
“No, no. I’m fine.”
“Really, I’m going to call an ambulance. You need to go to the hospital. Get checked out.”
I looked into her eyes. “I’ll go. I’ll go, I promise. But not right now. Not an ambulance. My …” I searched for inspiration. “My dad will be pissed. I’m not supposed to eat out.”
Something in her wavered. “I’ll call a cab, go with you.”