Broken (11 page)

I lie in bed, so many questions rampaging through my mind that I know I’ll never sleep.

Every time I close my eyes, I see Jordan. The way it felt when his hand brushed my arm yesterday. The way he looks at me—through me. And Tony with his goofy smile and the way he talks so fast when he’s excited, like he’s afraid the future will catch up with him before he finishes explaining his ideas.

Two boys. One makes me burn; the other makes me feel warm and tingly. Is it lust or love or just a crush?

How do you know the difference? Before or after you kiss? Or have sex? Or ever?

The whole sex thing puzzles me. I’m not stupid; I know the mechanics. Despite the parental controls my folks have locked down the computer and cable with, I’ve seen porn. A little. Once, by accident. It was pretty gross and didn’t seem at all real.

Start with kissing. How does that first kiss ever happen? You’re standing there, staring into each other’s eyes, close enough that every time you breathe out the other person is smelling what you had for lunch, and suddenly you’re kissing? Is there some kind of secret signal? How do you know if you should tilt your head to the right or left? How far do you open your mouth? When do you start using tongue? Eyes open or closed—even the romance novels and movies can’t agree on that one.

Who decides when to start and stop? Is that something guys know how to do, like leading when they dance? So all I need to do is sit back and enjoy it? But after seeing the guys my age at school, they seem pretty clueless. Women do mature sexually faster than men, so maybe I’m supposed to already know this and be teaching them?

I groan into my pillow, frustrated. Not just by the feelings making every part of my body feel like low-voltage electricity is surging through me, but by the images bombarding my brain. Images of me and Jordan and Tony. But since I’m looking out through my eyes, I can’t see what I’m doing or if I’m doing it right. And even if I could visualize it, who’s to say my imagination would get it right anyway?

How does anyone make it past that first kiss? Much less what comes after?

It’s pretty obvious I’m not getting any sleep tonight, so I might as well get a head start on our bio project. I sit up and throw my pillow to the floor. Sneaking my iPad out, I go online and start reading my medical records. I figure I’ll just skim through them, highlight any juicy parts, and we’ll plug everything into the slick-looking family history graphic Tony’s designing.

The records are sorted in various folders. GI, that must be my food allergies and when I couldn’t digest stuff properly, needed a feeding tube and then a central line that went through my chest. I hated that thing. It kept getting infected and once it broke and blood was everywhere—I almost died before Mom fixed it. Believe you me, she was not very happy with the nurses in that pediatric unit. Can’t remember now which one it was. I think Philly? Maybe Baltimore. Because Pittsburgh came later, that I remember.

Cardiac, that one’s obvious. Urology, ugh, hate those guys; they stuck catheters up my bladder and it turned out there was nothing wrong down there, so all that humiliation for nothing. And Misc, which I guess is everything else.

I click on the Misc folder, scan the dates of the files—and there are tons—searching for the oldest one, dated when I was only a few years old. I open it and start reading.

The first line goes something like this:
Apparent
life-threatening event in a twenty-two-month-old white female, full-term product of a twin gestation…

That’s when I stop. The iPad lays on my lap, the only light in the room its ghostly glow. I shiver and wrap a blanket around me before looking at the screen. I want to look, but something in me doesn’t want to see, creating a strange tug-of-war inside me. Finally I can’t resist. I pull the screen near my face, hiding under the blanket—hiding from what I don’t know. Myself, I guess.

I read the words again. They haven’t changed.

Twin?

Twin! I don’t have a twin.

It’s impossible, preposterous—surely I’d know if someone shared my mother’s womb, was born at the same time as me, was that close…God, wouldn’t it be wonderful? If I had a twin, a real-life twin—which I don’t, of course, it’s ridiculous, the record is wrong. Because if I had a twin, I wouldn’t be so all alone. I’d have someone to talk to, someone who understood…

My heart lurches, knocking against my rib cage like someone knocking on the front door, asking to be let in. All I have to do is open it.

I close my eyes and remember the nightmare that’s haunted me all my life. The one with the clowns and the little boy crying. He’s maybe three or four. His hair is much more fair than mine, almost white, while mine’s red. His eyes are blue like mine, but that doesn’t prove anything.

He looks familiar—but that doesn’t mean he looks like me. Of course he looks familiar. After all, I’ve been dreaming of him since I was four. I’ve never told anyone though.

Not even Mom or Dad know about the little boy.

Or maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe they
do
know.

Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.

What if he’s the missing part of me, the reason I’ve always felt so empty and alone?

My palms sweat so badly I have to wipe them on my comforter before I pick up the iPad again. My twin isn’t mentioned again in the first file. I open another record—these are scanned photocopies of handwritten charts, so blurry they’re almost impossible to read. I try another tactic: search for the word “twin” in all the files, hoping to find something from a word processor document. Otherwise it will take weeks to decipher all those old scanned files.

I get two more results.

The oldest is from when I was four. A list of symptoms and test results and stuff—it looks like a note my mom wrote to help her remember everything to tell the doctor. It’s just a plain text doc, no letterhead or hospital logos. All it says halfway down the list is:
twin?

I stare a long time at that question mark, wondering what the hell it means.

The other result is my cardiologist’s dictation from his initial evaluation during the hospital stay last summer when I almost died and they finally found the Long QT.

Patient is full-term product of an uncomplicated twin gestation. Fraternal twin, a brother, died age three of what was then termed “sudden infant death.” Given patient’s symptoms and presentation, I suspect this death may have actually been a sudden cardiac event precipitated by Long QT. Genetic testing pending on patient. If she carries one of the Long QT gene mutations, I would recommend testing of her father and any immediate family, since the biological mother died of complications due to childbirth.

The words blur before me as I blink back tears. They keep coming anyway, sneaking beneath my guard. A brother. I have a brother. I wasn’t alone—I didn’t need to be alone…if it wasn’t for our damn genes breaking our hearts and killing us.

I sink back against the pillows.

“I miss you,” I say even though I have no idea what his name is.
Was.
Why can’t I remember him? More than just how he looked. I want to know him, who he was…who
we
were.

I close my eyes and try, just like Mrs. Gentry taught us.

Darkness dances beneath my eyelids. I try to use it like a blank movie projector screen, flashing memories on it. Lots of white coats and white walls and white sheets…needles and tourniquets and scalpels…pain in my belly, pain in my chest, pain everywhere…the taste of cotton in my mouth as everything turns pumpkin orange…someone crying nearby, a kid, someone else whispering to them to “hush, it’s not your turn yet”…can’t breathe, overwhelmed by the smell of flowers—artificial like fabric softener or soap—the orange blurs then white blotches rearrange into triangles and circles—the clowns laughing, crying, howling…

The scream chokes me and I wake. I sit up, heart thumping so loud I’m surprised it doesn’t make the bed shake. Sweat makes my skin clammy, sheets tangle around me, comforter half off the bed, half on the floor. The clock says it’s four thirty-two.

Dried tears scratch at my eyes. As my heartbeat slows from a gallop to a mere canter, all I can think is:
why
didn’t Dad ever tell me?

I’m just as nervous today as yesterday. Maybe more; after all, my entire life has changed since then. I’ve made it through a full day of classes, just like a normal girl. According to Nessa, there are two guys who like me—and I like them. Plus, I need to figure out a way to ask my father about my dead brother without admitting to stealing my medical records from my mom.

My brain is fuzzy with everything I have to do today—including navigating school and everything that entails. Who knew being a normal girl was so complicated?

I pick out my clothes carefully, trying to walk the line between looking good for Jordan and Tony, but also not wanting to stand out, grabbing the attention of Mitch and the other jocks.

I settle on a pair of leggings and a soft burgundy V-neck sweater that hugs what little curves I have. I dig around my closet and find a pair of ballet flats I’d forgotten I had. When I look in the mirror, my face still looks too pale—vampire girl, that’s me—but unless I want to try to sneak makeup from Mom’s room, there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’m trying to avoid Mom as best I can. I now understand why she didn’t want me to see my records—she was protecting Dad. But there are too many questions that might just break free if I let my guard down and I’m more than a little afraid of the answers. So I bottle them up inside, keep my head down and mouth shut, and we make it to school intact.

I wait in the library for the rest of the peer mentoring group, taking advantage of the privacy of the conference room to glance through my medical records some more. It’s slow going. Not only because of the out-of-focus scanned documents, but also because there’s a lot I don’t understand.

Not the medical terms; those I’m familiar with or can easily look up. It’s more the sequence and timing of things—it’s not at all the way I remember.

I’m wondering if my brain might be damaged after all. Turns out I’ve been having Near Misses since I was a little baby—Mom’s right, I’ve already used up a lot more than nine lives.

Nessa and Jordan arrive together. Jordan doesn’t even look at me; he just slumps in his chair and stares out the window.

So much for him being interested in me.

Nessa flounces into one chair—the one across from me—then changes her mind and hops to the one beside me. “Whatcha working on?” she asks as I scramble to hide my iPad in its notebook.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

She twists her mouth into a pout and sulks.

Celina stumbles in, tripping on the doorsill, never looking up as she slides into her seat and pulls her hoodie up, withdrawing into its protective shell. Her eyes are red and puffy like she’s been crying, and she’s been biting her lips so hard that at the corner of her mouth there’s a speck of blood.

Mr. Thorne practically skips in. He scans our faces and rubs his palms together, eager to dissect our collective adolescent angst.

He leans forward, his chair thumping to the ground, and cradles his chin in his palm, his gaze moving around the table like a roulette wheel before finding a target.

“Celina.” He practically purrs her name.

Celina jumps then looks down, studying the tabletop as if it’s the Rosetta Stone. Out of sight below the table, her hand taps out a manic jungle beat against her thigh.

“Why don’t you tell us all about the chemistry quiz you failed last week? How did you explain that to your mother?”

Silence. Celina swallows so hard her head bobs.

Nessa comes to her rescue. “You know how we were talking about a memorial for my sister, Mr. Thorne? Well, I’m having a hard time processing that. I mean, how do we celebrate her life without glamorizing her death?”

She kicks Jordan beneath the table and he picks up the ball. “Yeah, last thing we want is more kids thinking about jumping off the roof.”

All three look up at the ceiling. But not Thorne. He pins Celina in his sights as if reluctant to release his prey.

“What was she like? Your sister?” I leap in without any idea of what I’m getting myself into. It’s liberating. Thorne’s gaze jumps from Celina to me. “If it’s okay to ask.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Thorne says. “This is a safety zone where we can discuss anything.” Again with the smile that creeps me out. Like I’m not really human, just a thing labeled “troubled teen,” a specimen for him to dissect. A few of my surgeons looked at me that way. Right before they cut me open. “Vanessa, would you like to tell Scarlet about Yvonne?”

Pain twists Nessa’s face. Jordan’s expression reflects it as well. Clearly, despite her bluster, this is a raw wound. Now I’m sorry about asking—although it got Celina off the hook. Who knew meeting with your guidance counselor involved juggling emotional chainsaws?

“Yvonne was a sophomore. Top of her class.” Nessa’s face blanks into a mask. But she doesn’t look away, stares right at me. “She died the week before school ended last year. Fell off the roof of the gym.”

“We’ve discussed how important honesty is, Vanessa.”

“Sorry.” Nessa’s tone loses all inflection, matching her expression. Flat affect, the doctors call it. “My sister, Yvonne, committed suicide by jumping off the roof.” Her words fire in a clipped staccato, aimed at Mr. Thorne. None of them hit their target. He steeples his fingers and nods in approval.

Then Mr. Thorne talks about the stages of grief and he seems genuinely to care about helping Nessa heal. A lot of what he says seems aimed at Jordan and Celina as well. Maybe he’s not heartless, just clueless?

By the time the bell rings, I’m totally confused. I don’t feel very mentored, much less guided or oriented.

Mr. Thorne leaves first, bounding out of the room like a St. Bernard who’s just rescued an entire ski club, leaving the rest of us gathering our things. Jordan touches Nessa’s shoulder without saying anything, nods to Celina and me, then he’s gone as well. Nessa links her arm with mine. Suddenly she’s swung back to smiling and chipper, like the whole past hour was just an act.