Some of the Parts (8 page)

I
get all the way home before I can breathe without feeling like there's a snake tightening itself around my neck.

I'm caught between wanting to forget how Amy sounded and wanting to get another jolt of the anxious energy her anger shot through me. I'm becoming an addict, a junkie for feelings. It doesn't even matter if they're good feelings or not.

Maybe this is what everyone likes so much about doing drugs. But it's all a matter of finding the right one.

What can I do to make myself feel something again, right now? Everything in the house has been sanitized, reminders removed, pictures and trophies carefully boxed up by my father to “give us some time.” There's nothing here that will shock me. I think about throwing myself into Nate's room, going through all of his stuff in the hopes of finding more secrets.

Then I remember the mail in my desk drawer.

My hands are shaking with doubt by the time I get to my room, but I don't care. I take the whole pile out and flip it over. Start from the bottom and work my way up. It's all mass-produced, there's nothing of him in it, but I open everything and stare at his name on every piece of paper. I hear myself breathing too quickly but I keep going, opening everything, until I get to the Life Choice envelope.

It looks so much more official, somehow, than the other mail and for a split second I start to tell myself that I've gone far enough for one day.

Then I rip it open anyway.

There are two letters inside. One is in a plain sealed envelope, and the other is loose, just folded up like all letters are—the bottom edge folded up to the middle and pressed, the top edge folded down over it. It's just regular white printer paper. I pick it up even though my arm feels suddenly like lead, as if the rest of my body is conspiring to paralyze it. I lift the top edge and see words, but they jumble as I read them, as if my eyes, too, are trying to keep this secret.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. McGovern:

I look at the envelope that holds the other letter. Handwritten on its smooth paper skin is simply
To the family
. The letters are shaky, tremulous, and the same writing is all over the lined paper I withdraw from the envelope. Words swimming in place, pushing against the confines of their wide-ruled lanes.

Dear friends,

I do not know your names. I do not know the name of the son you lost, but I know that your tragedy enabled me to live a new life, and for that, I thank you.

My doctors said that my chances of survival without a lung transplant were basically nonexistent. I would certainly be dead by now if it were not for the sacrifice that your son made by donating his organs to people like me, people in desperate need.

There are no words strong enough to express my gratitude, but I hope that the knowledge that your son did not die without purpose will bring you some small measure of comfort.

Sincerely,

Gerald R.

I go back to the other letter, the typed one, with
LIFE CHOICE
printed in blue at the top. Underneath that, in a smaller font but still in blue, it says
TRANSPLANT SERVICES DIVISION.

Because your son was in excellent health,
the letter says,
and possessed type O-negative blood—the universally compatible blood type—we are honored to report that we found recipients for the following organs.
Then comes a list:

heart

liver

lungs

kidneys

corneas

There is more, but my eyes won't move from the list. I whisper the words to myself over and over again. There's a certain rhythm to them, like a poem or a song. As I say them, I start to see them, shapes extracted from the body. The heart like a fist. The liver like the head of an ax. The kidneys, a pair of quiet creatures, rounded toward each other. I loved the map of the human body in my biology textbook. Now all I can see in my mind is a butcher's diagram, dotted lines directing where the different cuts of meat begin and end.

Waves of nausea push at me. This is the other side of feeling again. It can't all be smiles and sunshine and happiness. There's messiness, there are dark edges and hurt. There's a toll to pay on the bridge out of limbo. And here it is.

My parents donated Nate's organs.

They gave him away.

This is what they were talking about in the kitchen. My mother said these people could write letters to her. These people for whom the doctors divided my brother up and took the parts they wanted. It's in the letter.

The nausea subsides and then rises again. I throw myself at the cookie tin, grabbing for Matty, but my fingers brush something softer. His wallet. I let them close around the leather, pull it out, and open it before I lose my nerve.

His driver's license is there, held behind clear plastic. I haven't looked at it in a long time. After he first got it, I used to stare at it through the plastic but he never let me take it out. Now I break that rule, too. I pinch my fingernails underneath the plastic and draw it out of its pocket. Flip it over and there it is.

A tiny red heart, in the bottom right corner. Tiny white letters.

DONOR
.

So he wanted this,
I think. But did he really think about what that meant, checking that perfect little box at the RMV? Surely, he never imagined that anyone would take him up on this particular offer.

My parents did, though.

Cross my heart.

He taught me that when we were younger, how to make a promise that way.
Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.
We had to do it quietly so my mother wouldn't hear. It always bothered her, even though it never meant that much to us. Now, though. Now it means something entirely new.

His heart is still alive, in someone else's body.

I wanted to feel. Now I feel too much. It's a jumble, anger mixed with aching sadness mixed with…relief.

I thought I had to let him go, but now I know that he isn't really gone.

I tuck the letters back into their envelope cave, slide it under my pillow, and start the music.

friday
9/26

I
am bursting with secrets. I carry them with me to the carnival like a collection of breakable and precious artifacts. I do not want to show them to anyone—I am already a novelty in my school and would rather not become known as a lunatic on top of everything else.
Act normal.
My mission. Still, it seems a shame to keep these things all to myself.

I navigate between the bodies, floating, buoyant. So many heartbeats in one place that I can almost feel them synchronizing with each other like a chorus of bass drums. Everyone seems vulnerable now.

Be careful,
I want to tell them.
Anything can happen. You are the key to someone else's survival.
I see their pieces, their eyes and openings, their precious bones holding everything together. They have no idea.

Mel is a tornado, marking a path of angry instruction from booth to booth. “Wake up!” she hollers at her inattentive volunteers. “Haven't you ever been to a carnival before? You're not supposed to let everyone win
every time.
”

I look for Amy, wanting and not wanting to see her in equal measure. Maybe she's at home, listening to the playlist I tortured myself with for hours last night. The one she claimed not to know about.

Chase appears, another solitary ship on the sea. Other, cooler girls—accustomed to having first dibs on any boy who is new to Molton and at least passably attractive—track him with eyes as hard as stone and whisper to each other when he stops next to me. I feel like all sorts of people are staring at us, but he is oblivious, focusing instead on Mel.

“Wow,” he says, watching her.

“I know,” I say. “She is really in her element, isn't she?”

Even though she is yelling, she has a huge grin on her face. She spins around, stopping every few feet to take a picture with her phone. She points it at me and Chase for a half second but then turns away and tucks the phone into her back pocket.

“Having fun?” Chase asks.

I nod. Can he see the secrets? Are they writing themselves on my skin? It feels like it. He takes my silence as a chance to say something else.

“I just wanted to tell you—” But I cut him off, grabbing his hand. I can't let this elation go to waste, can't let even a hint of serious conversation take it away.

“Chase,” I tell him. “Life is short. This is a carnival. And it has a truly excellent beanbag toss.”

“Is
beanbag
one word or two?” he asks me.

“Exactly! Let's go.” I drag him farther into the gym, weaving through the crowd at breakneck speed.

“Whoa, Nellie!” Chase grabs our joined hands with his free one and pulls us to a stop. “You passed the beanbag toss, like, three booths ago.”

Sure enough, we are parked in front of Fiona and Zoey's kissing booth.
CHEEKS ONLY
says a sign. Zachary Burlie is threatening to lower his pants. “I've got two cheeks right here,” he crows.

Fiona and Zoey roll their eyes. “Ew,” they protest halfheartedly. “Don't.”

Ms. Doberskiff arrives to rescue her cheerleaders. “Zachary,” she says, “if I see even a hint of your underclothes, I will personally escort you out of the school. Or better yet, I will install you in the dunking booth and let the girls' softball team have their way with you.”

Zachary slinks away, pants in place, and Ms. Doberskiff notices me and Chase standing there.

“Tallie, Chase, I am sorry you had to witness that.” Ms. Doberskiff seems to think that once you've been traumatized, just about any little thing can send you spinning off the rails. “I'm not sure this booth was even sanctioned by Principal Hunter….”

“We're fine,” Chase assures her. “But I think it would do us some good to release our unexpressed emotions at the beanbag toss.”

“Very constructive,” Ms. Doberskiff says. “Tallie, are you all right?”

She probably asks this because I am craning my neck to see over the carnival booths and into the bleachers, in case that boy I envisioned is there again and I can get another feelings fix. I reassume a normal stance and assure her that I am. But after Ms. Doberskiff walks away, Chase takes my hand again.

“Are you?”

“What?”

“All right? You're acting kind of strange.”

“I'm
fine,
” I tell him, and then, before he can ask any follow-up questions, I ask him to get me some popcorn.

“Um, okay,” he says. “I'll be right back.”

“I'll be here!” I sound ridiculous, like Martha when she lays that false cheer over her real voice like frosting. But it works, he believes me, and I actually do a little spin to celebrate, or maybe just to see what it feels like. And of course, Amy is right behind me and I knock her cotton candy to the floor.

“Hey!”
she yells. Then she seems to realize that it was louder than necessary and says “Dammit” just as I say “Sorry.”

A few kids have stopped to see what's going on and I am acutely aware of their eyes on us, both of us. The girl with the dead brother and the dead brother's girlfriend. Like some kind of performance-art piece.

“Sorry,” I say again, in case Amy didn't hear me.

She looks around and laughs, again too loud. “Oh,
no,
don't
worry
about it, Tallie. It was an
accident.
No big
deal.
”

She keeps talking, keeps saying it's okay, but she won't make eye contact with me, and as I'm looking at her, I can see the girl who used to be my friend, like a phantom blotted out by this new version of Amy. I hate this new Amy, and more than that, I hate how much she hates me. I don't know what to say to her, but if she would just—

“Amy!”

She stops, surprised that I would interrupt her.

But before I can say anything else, Chase reappears with the popcorn. And Mel. “What the hell is going on?” she barks, and I'm about to yell at her, too, because why not? But then the anger evaporates just as quickly as it hit. I feel it draining out of me like water and I don't say anything when Amy slips away through the crowd.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“That did not look like nothing,” Mel says.

“Sorry.” I'm really tired now. “I think I need to sit down.”

Chase and Mel walk me over to the bleachers and I let them steer me while I concentrate intently on the floor so I don't have to see all the weird looks I'm getting. I let them plop me down on the lowest bleacher, and when Mel asks if I need anything, for some reason I tell her that I want cotton candy. I don't even like cotton candy. She looks skeptical but she doesn't argue. She says to Chase, “You'll stay with her?” and he nods.

We watch her walk away.

We sit.

“Are you…” Chase starts to ask me if I'm okay. I can hear the whole question in those two words.

“I'm okay,” I tell him. “It's just…There's some stuff going on.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice is very quiet, like I'm a wild animal and he's afraid of startling me.

The truth is, I hate secrets. They're everywhere—whispered in the hallways at school, hidden in closets at home, waiting in your mailbox. They're like extra molecules in the air, clogging my nose, humming in my ears and my brain, making me itch.
Tell us,
they hiss. And Chase is sitting here, asking about them, and they're getting louder and itchier.

“I…can't,” I tell him.

“You can if you want to,” he says.

I look at him. His eyes are the color of melted chocolate. I can see that he's really listening to me, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't think I was completely crazy if I said,
I killed my brother and my parents donated his body and I have to make it up to Amy but I don't know how.

And I'm just about to try and explain it, or some version of it, when I remember the maps.

Nate used to draw elaborate treasure maps and send me hunting for hidden items all over the house and the backyard. I got really good at reading the maps and pretty soon the game was over too quickly, so he switched to rhyming clues to slow me down. It wasn't finding the things that made it great—those were just toys he'd taken from my room. It was decoding the puzzle.

Maybe this is the ultimate puzzle. Maybe, knowing there are pieces of Nate still in the world, I can find a way to fix what I did.

“Tallie?” Chase is staring back at me. “What is it?”

It's the perfect chance to tell him, to say something like
How do you feel about scavenger hunts?
But the secrets are mine, still. The burning weight of them is the first original thing I've felt since the accident. Everything else has been so predictable. The stages of grief were laid out a long time ago, and my reactions to the binder, to the finger trap, weren't breaking any emotional ground. Those moments woke me up, but they weren't my choice. This is different. This is something entirely new.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “I'm fine.”

Then Mel comes back with the cotton candy and the three of us sit there, watching the mad choreography of the crowd, while I eat it. It melts in my mouth and goes down like medicine, and we don't say a word.