Broken (15 page)

After lunch, I leave Mom’s office thoroughly confused. She doesn’t even comment on my being late; all she does is hand me a vitamin and watch me swallow it; then we eat in silence.

Gym is next. I tug Phil through the door to the girls’ locker room. It takes me three tries before I find an empty locker on the lower level and by then the room is swarming with female voices chatting and yelling and squealing, soprano echoes pinging from every surface. Someone has their tunes cranked up—Lady Gaga—adding to the cacophony.

I don’t get to actually participate in gym, but the rules are, even if you’re sitting out, you still have to change into bright orange shorts and a Wildcats T-shirt and watch and learn the rules of whatever game they’re playing. Sounds boring. I’m hoping I can sneak a book in with me. Neither Nessa or Celina have gym this period, so I’m surrounded by strangers.

The girls crowded around me are in various stages of undress. A few stripped their shirts and jeans off immediately and parade around in their underwear, not bothering with their gym clothes as they shout to each other or sing into pretend microphones and dance in time with the music. Others hide behind their locker doors as they quickly change, tugging their shirts over too-big or too-small busts.

I’m not really shy about my body—you get over being embarrassed about being naked real fast when you’ve got dozens of doctors and interns and students examining you. So I get my gym clothes out and strip at a normal pace. It’s not until I finish slipping out of my shirt that I realize people are staring.

“You a cutter?” one girl asks, pointing to the scars that line my belly.

“Shut up, Lynette,” someone else hushes her. “She’s the sick girl, the one who died.”

Tuesday I was able to sneak in without anyone noticing, but I guess word has spread since then. The crowd draws closer. All staring. At me and my scars.

I’m used to doctors and nurses looking, but their clinical assessments are very different from this group whose eyes gleam with curiosity and excitement. Like I’m here for their entertainment.

“What’s that one from?” The first girl points to a short scar under my left rib cage.

“Feeding tube. They call it a PEG.”

“And that?” someone else calls out.

“Exploratory laparoscopy.”

A murmur thrills through the crowd. I’m sweating and no place to hide it, standing there in my bra and panties.

“What about the one on your leg?”

“Oh, that one.” I try to act nonchalant. “That was a nasty one. Intraosseous infusion site got infected. Flesh-eating bacteria.” The last is an exaggeration; it was only regular staph, but they don’t know that.

“Did it hurt?” Her voice is tinged with awe.

“Yeah,” I reply with a shrug. No one has ever admired my scars before. Much less thought about the pain behind them. “Nothing compared to this one though.” I pull down the waistband of my panties, just enough to show the top of my hipbone, and turn so they can see. “Bone marrow aspiration. Had two of those.”

Appreciative murmurs ripple through the crowd. As much as I hate being the center of attention, it’s kind of cool finding a way that my freakiness can be used to my advantage. Maybe I’ll even make some more new friends.

Feels like my plastic bubble might be expanding. The thought makes me smile.

A whistle screams. “Let’s go, ladies! I want everyone out on the floor by the time I count to ten!”

After what happened to Celina yesterday, I worried that gym class would be awful, but it’s actually fun. I keep score while girls play badminton and a few of them even talk to me. And the afternoon looks good because next comes biology with Tony—and no Mitch.

I’m actually humming, off-key of course, as I stroll into biology.

“Hey, freak!”

It’s Mitch. I stop inside the door, stunned. Ms. Blakely is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Tony. The other kids are either gathered around Mitch, watching something on his phone, or working way too hard to ignore us.

Mitch licks his lips like he’s getting ready to eat something tastier than lunch. “Little Miss Priss. Hear you like it rough. Show us those scars of yours.”

I blink, start to say something, stutter to a stop, and can only stare.

He holds up his phone as the others around him snicker. There, in full color, is a picture of me—in my bra and panties. I’m looking over my shoulder, tugging the waistband over my hip. And smiling. I’m actually smiling—excited to be accepted.

Idiot. My mouth goes dry as my heart stumbles. How could I have been so dumb? Thinking those girls were interested in me. It was all a setup.

“Thought you were suspended, Kowlaski,” Tony says, coming up behind me.

“Not anymore. Coach needs me on the field tomorrow and I can’t play if I’m suspended.”

I’m still frozen, unable to look up from a spot on the linoleum where someone must have spilled potassium permanganate, staining it a violent purple. The odd-shaped blob is mesmerizing—I wish I could melt right into it.

Behind me, Tony sucks his breath in. He’s seen the picture. I feel his heavy stare land on me. My ears and neck light on fire as sweat trickles between my breasts.

“Yeah, not much of a rack, but her ass isn’t too bad if you like them bony,” Mitch says.

Tony takes a step toward him but even I know that’s a bad idea. I grab Tony’s arm and steer him to an empty bench across the room just as Ms. Blakely comes in. “Okay people, let’s get started.”

I hunch over my notebook, scribbling Ms. Blakely’s lesson on plasmids, working hard to ignore the giggling and note passing and furious texting going on all around me. Tony nudges me gently with his elbow and points with his pen to his notebook.

Ignore them. You’re better than they are.

I turn my head away. Easy for him to say.

One thing you learn fast in a hospital is how to vanish. Not physically. Mentally.

Like when you’re lying on your belly, naked from the waist down, and they’re shoving needles into your pelvis, sucking out bone marrow like high-paid vampires. Or during MRIs, you can’t move a muscle without messing up the scan and there’s noise like jackhammers going off all around you, so you just…
poof
…leave it all behind. Go someplace else.

My someplace is walking on a beach. I’ve never been to one in real life, so I let my imagination fill in the blanks based on the movies and books I’ve read. My beach is nice and quiet, warm sand beneath my feet, a gentle breeze.

And no one in a white coat or with a needle or scalpel anywhere within a hundred miles.

As Ms. Blakely drones on, I try desperately to escape to my beach. And fail. Maybe because this kind of pain is different from physical pain.

It invades every crevice of my mind, making me question everything. I feel betrayed and ashamed and guilty—what have I done? I don’t know, but the feeling is there and I can’t deny it—and angry and stupid and scared and, and, and…alone.

I’m sitting in a crowd of people and am desperately alone. Exactly what I fought so hard to come to school to avoid.

Is this how Lacey felt when she collapsed in the hallway and died? Except she wasn’t alone. I was there with her and the nurses and doctors were all trying to help her.

No one can help me now.

I squeeze my eyes tight, salt stinging them. But I don’t cry. Instead, I wonder why the hell I wanted so desperately to come to school, to try to be normal.

Tony nudges me as Ms. Blakely breaks us up into our teams to work on our genetics presentations. “Did you get your medical records?”

I haul them out of Phil’s pack. His eyes bug when he sees how much there is to go through. “This is all you?” He starts leafing through the pages. “Don’t suppose you have them digital so I can cut and paste into our report?”

“I have them on my Dropbox, but haven’t had a chance to organize them yet. My mom put those together.” I’m reluctant to touch the binder. Somehow it feels like touching a jar filled with someone’s ashes. “You can keep those and I’ll email you the shared folder from my Dropbox account.”

He’s totally focused on the project, doesn’t even notice my monotone or that I’m pretty much checked out, too busy ignoring the stares and whispers aimed at me. “That works. I can work up a PowerPoint tracing the mutation back—your family’s been tested, right?”

“My mom died right after I was born and my dad hasn’t been tested yet. But I can get a family history from him tomorrow night when he’s back in town.”

“Tomorrow night?” His head jerked up at that, back in the real world. “Aren’t you going to the football game?”

I grimace, nodding to Mitch and his buddies. “Probably not.”

“Don’t let those goons stop you. Besides, they’ll be the ones on the field getting the snot knocked out of them. Isn’t that worth watching?” He pauses, twirling his pen again but this time fumbling it. “I was kinda hoping you might want to, maybe, if you’re in the mood, go with me?”

I’m stunned. Amazed. Elated. Defying gravity and spinning into outer space. My heart thumps yes, my mind shouts yes, my stomach shivers in anticipation.

“Scarlet?” Ms. Blakely is standing behind us, holding a piece of paper in her fingers. “You need to report to the principal’s office. Immediately.”

“But—” I look at Tony. I can’t say yes in front of a teacher.

“Now.” She scoops up Phil and hands him to me. I grab my notes and stand. Tony is staring at me—everyone’s staring at me, but Tony is the only one I care about. “Let’s go, Scarlet.”

“Call me,” I mouth to Tony who nods. I’m trembling with excitement about tomorrow and hope he sees that in my smile.

Then I turn to leave and see the look on Ms. Blakely’s face. She looks worried.

And it’s contagious.

Mom is waiting outside Mr. Beltzhoven’s office. She doesn’t look happy—her face is pulled into so many directions that it’s done something unimaginable, twisting her movie-star good looks into something ugly. She sees me, pivots like a soldier, raps twice on the door, then enters without waiting for him to answer.

The principal’s office is tinier than I imagined. No windows. No books. No vanity wall, which surprises me. The only decor is a few cheap motivational posters.
Courage
happens
by
chance, not choice. Life is a bowl of lemons, so get squeezing.

They don’t even make any sense. Maybe that’s why I’m having such a hard time fitting into Mr. Beltzhoven’s school.

He’s sitting behind his desk, a middle-aged man who might once have been handsome before he gained a belly fatter than Santa’s. He stands to nod to Mom then sits back down, a barren wasteland of fake oak veneer stretching out between us and him. He turns his smile on me and his teeth show. There’s a piece of spinach caught between them. Other than that, his smile could have been the same as Mitch’s. Hungry. With me a tasty little tidbit being served up to him.
Yum
yum.

“Curtis, we need to take action on this immediately,” Mom says as she takes her seat. She sits on the edge, chin high, hands folded in her lap. Her posture conveys royalty and superiority. It takes me a second to realize Curtis is Mr. Beltzhoven.

Mr. Thorne enters behind us and suddenly the room is way too crowded. He and Mom exchange glares of mutual antipathy. As if she thinks this is all his fault.

“I think it might be best for Scarlet if she waits outside,” Mr. Thorne says.

Mom bristles at that. He has no idea who he’s dealing with. Things are going to get ugly. “I know what’s best for my daughter. And after the way you mishandled Yvonne Woodring’s suicide last year, I’m surprised Curtis allows you to handle anything.” Mom purses her lips, cherry blossom lipstick feathering into wrinkles. Uh oh.

Thorne’s impervious to her insults. “Behavior like this is quite worrisome.”

“He’s right, Cindy,” Mr. Beltzhoven finally speaks up, earning a glare of his own from Mom. “We need to nip this in the bud.”

“Nip it in the bud? You mean stopping any further harassment of my daughter before I file civil suit against the school district? You have read the new federal antibullying mandates, haven’t you?”

Mr. Beltzhoven doesn’t back down, to my surprise. Instead, he looks awake, like now he’s finally interested. “Have you seen the photos in question?”

“Of course not. I don’t—”

He swivels his computer monitor in Mom’s direction. There I am larger than life—well, not literally, but it feels like those images on the screen fill the entire room.

One of them is zoomed in far enough that you can see the scars on my belly. Not to mention how small my boobs are. Jeez. Why couldn’t the zoom at least make them look bigger?

The whole thing’s surreal. I’m floating again, heading off for a long walk on my beach, dissociating from what’s going on here, barely hearing the grownups as they decide my fate.

What I think or say is meaningless, so why bother? Just like being back in the hospital.

Thorne says, “I’ve talked with several students present in the locker room at the time. They all say Scarlet posed voluntarily. And you can see for yourself she’s smiling for the camera.”

I never even saw the cameras. But I know better than to say anything, preempt my mom. I can’t stop staring at the me on the screen—she does look happy.

Which is really pitiful when you think about it.

Should’ve never trusted those girls…but how do we know who to trust?

After all, I really know no one here at school other than my mom. Some people seem nice, but how can you tell who’s a friend and who’s an enemy?

Take Tony. Maybe he’s acting like a friend just to get a good grade on our genetics project. After all, who better to partner with than a girl like me who comes complete with her own medical records and genetic freakiness? Or Celina, Jordan, Nessa—there’s no reason for them to be my friends. We’re just assigned to peer support together, prisoners sentenced to the same cell block.

At least in the hospital you didn’t have to worry about being betrayed. Hurt, lied to, bored to tears…yes. But no one pretended to help you just to make you suffer for their amusement.

Maybe I was better off without friends. Maybe Mom was right.

Should’ve just stayed home. Alone. Until I die.

But…that’s not how I really feel.

I’m sure it’s what Mom will tell me once we’re alone, that I should have listened to her, that I don’t need any of my friends. That all I need is her.

She loves it when she’s right and the rest of the world is wrong.

But I really
do
like Tony and Jordan and Nessa and Celina. It feels unbelievably good having someone besides my mom to talk to and share my day with.

All those wonderful, exciting, thrilling things that happened to me this week—more than in my whole life. Well, unless you count almost dying. But that’s not exciting. Anyway, it’s merely what everyone expects from me.

I’m going to miss being a sophomore freak.

Closest to normal I’m ever gonna get.

Of course Mom isn’t letting Thorne get away with tarnishing my reputation. Or hers. “So,” she says, leaning forward to turn the computer monitor off, “you’re suggesting that my daughter somehow posed for pictures she didn’t even know existed and then sent them to the entire school?”

Mr. Beltzhoven answers, “We’re still trying to track down who sent them.” Then his smile widens and I brace myself for something bad. “So far all we’ve found is an email address. It belongs to a student, but of course, we need to verify—”

“Verify, schmarify,” Mom scoffs. “Who is it? Who did this to my daughter? And why?”

The principal rocks back in his chair. “Maybe Scarlet can answer that. You see, the email belongs to Celina Price.”