Under My Skin (7 page)

I sit up in bed, clutching a palm to my chest. My raspy breaths fill the room. I don’t know what the bloody hell a QT is, but I do know Shaw had given me a drug that could affect my heart.

Surely, she knows about this side effect, especially since she works with heart transplant patients.

The question then is: Why did she prescribe it for me?

* * *

Dr. Shaw stops in after lunch.

I chew on the questions I want to ask her, grinding down each word into a finely polished accusation. The temptation to speak first settles in the back of my throat, hot and coarse, but I want to see what she has to say first.

Mum pops out of the Barco lounger parked next to the foot of my bed. She sets her Kindle on the windowsill. “Hello, Doctor. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Dr. Shaw smiles at Mum. Her dark eyes simply glow with warmth for her. “I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner, but I had other clients scheduled this morning.”

Mum eats it up like chocolate pudding. My stomach churns on the stale sandwich I’d choked down. “Oh, it’s not a problem, really.”

Dr. Shaw extends a hand. “What happened yesterday must have been quite a shock.”

Were you expecting it?
I wonder.

Mum clasps both hands around hers. “You have no idea. It was so sudden. He was fine when I dropped him off at school and then the teacher called. I’ve never driven so fast in my life. Blasted through a couple of red lights, even.”

Dr. Shaw nods in sympathy, gesturing for Mum to sit back in the lounger. “I can’t imagine how frightened you were.”

“I’m still terrified,” Mum confesses.

“Of course.” Dr. Shaw lowers her brows. “I hear Adam’s heart isn’t functioning as well as it was, but at least he’s been prioritized on the list.”

Mum sucks in a shaky breath. “Silver lining, I suppose.”

I love how they talk about me like I’m not here. I dog-ear the page I’m on in
Frankenstein
and lay the book next to me. I wasn’t reading it anyway, what with all my stewing on Shaw’s choice of medication for me.

Dr. Shaw turns her attention to me. The brightness in her eyes dims. The lines of her face, earlier fragile and soft, morph into stern angles as her brows arch and lips thin. A sign of guilt? “Good afternoon, Adam. How are you?”

I pick at a snag in the blue blanket covering my legs, dissecting the fibers like I want to dissect her expression. “Fine.”

Mum clucks her tongue. “It’s so frustrating, doctor. He just doesn’t tell us how he really is. I don’t know what to do anymore.” She wrings her hands. The vertical line in the middle of her forehead deepens.

I curl my fingers into fists. “Maybe if you hadn’t made me take the new pill, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Mum withers, stepping away from me as if I’d spewed poison at her. “I … I don’t believe that.”

My sickly heart plummets into my stomach. I didn’t mean to hurt Mum. This is Shaw’s fault.

“It was the stairs. The added stress weakened your heart.” Mum sniffs, shaking her head. She wipes wetness from her eyes with a tissue snaked from her pocket.

“Ziprasidone causes unstable heart rhythms. I should think a doctor would know that.” I give Shaw a death stare.

Dr. Shaw frowns at me like a Catholic nun judging a misbehaving child. “I don’t think it’s the medicine, Adam. It was designed to help you stay calm.”

“Did you forget about me having heart failure, oh, and the fact that I’m not schizophrenic? Minor details, I guess.”

Mum huffs. “Adam! How could you doubt Doctor Shaw’s expertise?”

“Look it up. Everything I’ve just said is written down, in black and white.” My voice echoes in the room.

Mum glances at the open doorway. Chatter from the nurse’s station drifts in. “Shh, lower your voice.”

Dr. Shaw purses her lips. “Perhaps Adam and I should speak in private for a bit.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I need some fresh air anyway.” Mum snatches her coat from the cot and rushes out, shutting the door behind her.

Mum left me. She left, never second guessing Shaw’s intentions. Unbelievable.

I toss the blanket aside to draw my knees up.

Dr. Shaw’s direct attention is sort of like throwing yourself on a fire. My skin feels like it’s burning.

“I discussed the side effects with your mother. I told her it was safe, especially at the dose I prescribed.”

“Thanks for talking to
me
about it.”

She places her red bag on the plastic chair for visitors and strides to my bed, heels clicking on the tile floor. Her tight bun, crisp white shirt, and black skirt contrast starkly with the mint green walls and pastel flower wall border. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Dread scrapes its dirty nails down my back. I glance at the door. My legs twitch, ready to launch me out of the room.

“Have you had more suicidal thoughts since you texted?”

“No.” I curl my fingers around my toes.

Shaw eases onto the bed so close that her hip touches my arm. I drag my gaze up to meet her dark eyes. She arches a brow. “Uh-hmm. Considering what your mom said about you minimizing things and your uneducated assumption that I purposefully prescribed you a medication that will make you sicker, how can I trust you?”

Anger burns through my entire body. “Trust
me
? How can I trust
you
? That medicine could’ve killed me.”

“I thought you wanted to die.”

My whole body tenses. I can’t even blink. Inside, my heart withers, as unsettled as I am about what she’s said.

“It’s hard to have a conversation when only one person is talking.” She shifts closer.

“Adam, are you in there?” There’s a silvery tinkle to her voice. She’s playing with me. This whole thing, it’s all a game. Mum is duped, Dad is oblivious, and I’m stuck in a room alone with a viper. I’m just not sure if she wants to poison me with her venom or simply mess with my head.

“Um … ” I’m disarmed. The argument I was so prepared for before her arrival demolished. My trippy heart leaps into a faster—and wobblier—pitter-patter. I try to keep my breathing steady. The room is so stifling that my throat screams for water.

She taps a finger against my temple. “You’re such a bright, insightful, and pensive boy with so much potential. Don’t shut me out. I can help you.”

I pinch my eyes shut. “No.”

Her fingers press lightly on the inside of my wrist.

I hold my breath.

After a few seconds, she sighs. “Your heart isn’t regular now and the medicine isn’t in your system anymore. Do you need more proof that it wasn’t the ziprasidone, or are you satisfied?” Her weight leaves the mattress. After a few clicks of her heels on the floor, the plastic chair creaks.

I chance taking a breath and open my eyes.

“Shall we start our session?” Shaw sits with her hands laced in her lap.

“I don’t have anything to say,” I whisper.

“Your mother is terrified you’ll die before you get a transplant.”

“I might.”

“Do you want that to happen?” Her voice is smooth like her serene expression, as if I’d never accused her of anything. As if she hadn’t just played with my emotions.

I shake my head, hoping it’ll clear the confusion from my mind. It doesn’t. “No.”

“Then why do you spend so much time thinking about suicide?”

“I don’t want to kill myself.”

“But you’re thinking about death. Fantasizing about it. Desiring it.” The quicksilver in her tone cuts me.

It also severs the noose she’s tied around my neck. “That’s not true.”

“But it is. Would you like to review the texts you sent me?” She unclips her phone from her belt and holds it up. A new rope binds itself around my psyche.

“You’re twisting things around.”

“I’m challenging your thoughts so you can see how illogical they are.” She tightens her hold.

I struggle against her. “What happened to insightful?”

Her eyes spark with friction. “You seem more agitated today. I understand you’re angry with me, but really, would you have even tried the medicine had you known about the
very rare and unlikely
effect it has on cardiac conduction?”

“No.”

“Exactly. So let’s move beyond this … hiccup … and focus on you. What’s been on your mind?”

I’d known for a long time my life expectancy is a fraction of everyone else’s. I’m a faulty model. It’s the hand I was dealt. I should accept it for what it is. Instead, I’m gripping hope around the throat, strangling it, forcing it to change the natural order of things to extend my time on the planet. And it comes at a cost.

“Talk to me, Adam. Let’s not disappoint your mother any further. She worries about you so much, and, with your being tight-lipped, she has good reason.”

I’m a fly trapped in Shaw’s spider web. There’s no escape, so I give myself over to her. “Someone has to die so I can live. It’s not fair. And say they find a heart and the surgery goes well, will I be the same … after?”

“You’re carrying around a heavy burden, facing existential questions decades ahead of when you’re supposed to.” The sweet and spicy layers in her voice are gone. It’s just her now. She’s dropped whatever technique she was using to challenge me.

Relieved, I relax my shoulders and stretch out my legs. “It’s weird, is all. I want a new heart so I can move on, past this
nightmare
. I look forward to it, dream about it, but it also means I’m wishing for someone’s funeral. That’s kind of sick.”

“It’s the survival instinct. We all have it.”

“So you believe me when I say I’m not suicidal?”

She tips her head to the side. “There’s a difference between actively planning your death and passively letting it happen. On the other hand, they’re opposite sides of the same coin.”

“What do you mean?”

“Death is scary.”

My stomach twinges. She’s laying a new gauntlet for me to navigate.

“And you face it every day.”

I hold my breath, waiting for the next mental hurdle.

“Must be exhausting. Perhaps your fantasy of me prescribing ziprasidone as a method to hasten your death allowed you to reconcile your passive suicidal thoughts as logic. It allows you to kill yourself without actually having to do it.”

A dull throbbing beats at my temple. I rub a finger on the spot. What is she saying? That I really do want to die and I’m not aware of it?

She points a finger in the air, the Socrates to my Plato. “Furthermore, perhaps you tell your mother that you’re fine because you don’t want her to intervene to save you. Perhaps you want fate to make the decision for you.”

I dodge her hypothesis with a lame block. “I
am
fine. My heart’s still beating.”

“Not for long.”

The blow strikes me across the ribs. I can’t breathe. She’s won.

“I’m not saying that to hurt you. I’m saying it to remind you of reality.”

“I don’t need reminding.” My voice barely passes my lips.

“The idea that everything is okay has taken such a deep hold that it’s reached delusional proportions, which is a sort of psychosis. Delusions can become so deeply entrenched in a patient’s mind that they disrupt therapy and I couldn’t risk that ruining the progress we’ve made. It was one of the reasons I selected ziprasidone for you.”

“I’m not crazy.”

She stands. “You’re in a hospital, connected to a bunch of wires, you need twenty four hour monitoring in case your heart goes into a lethal rhythm, and you’ve been prioritized on the heart transplant list. I’m not sure what more evidence you need to prove your imminent mortality.”

I peer up at her. “Why are you trying to scare me?”

She leans so close our noses almost touch. “To show you how much you want to live and that you’re willing to suffer the mental torment of having another person die for you to survive.”

Darby

Daniel parks his vintage prize in an empty spot at the back of the high school’s parking lot. He closes his eyes and lets the engine rumble for a minute. A smile warms his face. God, he’s in love with a car.

“Should I leave you two alone?” I ask, unclicking the seatbelt.

“Today’s V-8 engines don’t sound the same.”

“Whatever, lover boy. A car is for transportation.”

“Lover boy? I’m your brother. Isn’t that, like, gross somehow?” He scrunches his nose and cuts the engine, halting the vibrations slowly turning my insides to Jell-o.

“Ugh.” I open the door, yanking my backpack from the floor as I stand.

Daniel leans over and gives me a dimply smile that makes most the girls in our class swoon. Thankfully, my sibling powers have made me immune. “Love you too, sis.”

“Shut. Up.” I slide the bag’s straps over my shoulders after slamming the door in his face.

His jock buddies swarm around the car, an Axe body spray army that instantly dwarfs me. As the smaller fraternal twin, I got the short end of the stick on so many levels and my small size is one of them.

They’re all wearing their red and white letterman jackets. Pride oozes from them in the form of toothy grins and fist-pumping yelps. The Argyle Angels are anything but. More like devils with pitchforks, horns, and slippery tongues.

Tyrell, the basketball team’s center, breaks free from the horde and pounds on Daniel’s window. “Hey, Big D!”

Lamest nickname ever.

I tip my head back to take in the giants invading my personal space. Redwoods have nothing on these solid trunks of muscle. “Excuse me,” I say.

No one moves.

“Get out of my way!” I chop my arm against rows of beefcake like an explorer hacking through jungle vines with a machete.

Several whacks later, I’ve made a dent in the meaty forest. The sun is brighter here, and the air clearer … even if it is heavy with exhaust fumes and teenage hormonal drama. Emo kids drape themselves on benches, geeks bow to their new tech, popular kids’ gossip, and romantics hide between cars for a quick game of show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

It’s not a real love connection until someone gets slapped.

I smooth my hair—it’s still wet from my shower—and tug on a blue strand. By the water fountain, I make a pit stop to catch what a pair of sophomores are saying about the kid who collapsed in class yesterday. The hallway noise is so loud I can only catch, “exchange student,” and “heart condition.” I move on to travel the high school highway alone, stomping my black army boots every step. It makes people move out of my way.