Positively Beautiful (18 page)

“How could you do this to me?” I say. “I know you're mad at me, and maybe I deserve it, but
how could you?
”

“Erin, I did it for you!” Trina says. “I know you didn't want anyone to know, but they were saying such awful things about you, and I wanted to … I don't know. Help you.”

“You think this is
helping
me?” I wave an arm out at the avid audience. “I
know
I'm a freak; does it help for everybody to know how
big
of one I actually am? Looking at me with
pity
? I didn't have much, Trina, but I had ME. And now I don't even have that.”

“Erin, I just wanted them to know, so they wouldn't be so mean …”

I get up real close to her face and someone says, “Twenty dollars, I'm going twenty dollars.”

“This is worse than anything Faith has done to me,” I say quietly. “By far worse.”

I leave after that and go to the lake, blowing off my physics final. I'm pretty sure I would have failed it anyway.

When I get home that afternoon, my genetic report is waiting for me.

I stare at the screen, my finger hovering over my mouse. All I have to do is click the mouse. The attachment will open and I will know.

Click the mouse.

My finger trembles. I can't do it. I just can't.

I move the mouse to the bottom of the screen and open an e-mail window. I take a deep breath and start writing to Ashley. She's the only one who will understand. She's the only real friend I have anymore.

The report is here and I can't bring myself to open it. I wanted to know, I thought I did, but now I … can't. What happens if I'm positive? Everything changes. Already I wake up, and even before I remember, I feel this cold, hard dread in my chest. Will I feel like that the rest of my life? I don't know if I can live like that. But I don't know if I can live like
this
either.

Ashley writes back almost immediately:

I got my results at a genetic counselor's office. It was a whole process, but I'm glad I did it that way. I had so many questions, I'm glad I had a real person to talk to. Anyway, the counselor and I talked a long time on the first visit about whether I even needed or
wanted
to get tested, and what it would mean if I was positive. She did charts, reports, the whole nine yards. I went back to get the results, and by then I guess I knew what it meant. It helped having someone there to talk to about it when I found out.

But even so, I never thought I would be positive. I never thought I could have it. Once I did know … I've had some time to come to terms with it. It takes a while. I spent a lot of time on my island afterward, thinking.

You'll get there.

But you don't have to open it. It will be there tomorrow or five years from now if you decide to wait.

I write back.

I wish I was on your island right now. I don't want to be here. I don't want my life.

I sit for a while staring at the screen. I want someone here with me. I want my mom, or Trina, to hold my hand when I click on the report. But my mom doesn't even know I took the test and Trina is … Trina might as well be on the moon.

Do I want to know? Do I really want to know I have up to an 80 percent chance of getting breast cancer? And a high risk of ovarian cancer as well? My breasts or my ovaries. Which would be worse? The visible part of me that shows everyone else I'm a woman? Or the secret part that makes
me
know I'm a woman?

How will it feel to know that my very femininity could kill me?

Terrible. It will feel terrible.

But what if I'm negative? What if I don't have it? What if it's a huge relief when I open it and see I'm negative? What if I put this report away for five years, worrying and stressing
about it, and come back and open it and I was negative all along?

I have to know. I have to know one way or another.

I'm doing it. I'm going to open it.

My fingers are shaking so much I have to use my other hand to push my finger down on the mouse.

The report takes forever to load. And when it does, I'm not sure what to think. There's no big flashing POSITIVE or NEGATIVE. There's a bunch of medical jargon and words like “deleterious mutation” and ominous statistics I know by heart.

Women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations have up to an 80 percent risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetimes. In women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, breast cancers tend to develop younger and occur more often in both breasts. The risk of developing ovarian, colon, pancreatic, melanoma, and thyroid cancers, as well as other cancers, are increased in women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.

But do I have it?

I feel like screaming.

I focus, and finally I see it. I'm positive for a deleterious mutation. I'm positive for the BRCA1 breast cancer mutation gene.

I'm positive.

Positive.

I sit and stare at the screen, willing it to change, willing myself to see the word “negative” somewhere. It's all medical gobbledygook. Maybe I misunderstood it.

I forward the report to Ashley. Am I positive?

Her answer is one word: Yes.

I press my hands against the edge of my desk, pushing my chair backward onto two legs. The pressure on my palms hurts but I don't care. I close my eyes.

I wanted to know.

I had to know.

And now I know.

Now I know what it feels like to know how I'll die.

Not only that, to know I will most probably be going through what my mom is going through.

I release my palms and my chair falls to the ground with a thud. My stomach lurches and I race for the bathroom. I
hang over the toilet, the spit thick in my mouth, but nothing comes up.

After a while I go back to my desk. Ashley has sent an e-mail asking how I'm doing.

I send her back an e-mail, typing quickly.

I can't talk to Mom, because how can I be selfish enough to even think about dumping this on her on top of everything else? But I want to talk to her about it more than about anything. But she'll feel bad for me, that I'm positive like her, especially because she gave it to me, and now I'll have to go through what she's going through. Or cut off my breasts. There's always that option. I've been having morbid dreams about doctors holding me down and chopping them off with a chain saw while I scream. I wake up in a cold sweat, my hands cupping my breasts as if to protect them. The problem is, I need someone to protect
me
from
them
. They're the ones that will kill me. Will my mom, the doctors let me chop them off at seventeen? I'm guessing not. I'm guessing everyone might start thinking little-padded-room thoughts if I even mention it.

How do I deal with this? Everything is so terrible, how do I deal with this on top of everything else?

The next night, my mom wants Dino's pizza. She's too tired to go out, she says, but she's craving pizza. She's not been
eating much, and anyway, I'm not too fond of Dino's anymore, but I say, “Absolutely, sounds great!”

I'm not telling her so many things. Failing physics and having to go to summer school is not even the top of my list. I find myself almost telling her about my gene test results again and again. But she doesn't even know I took the stupid test, so I'll have to confess to that.

Mom knows
something
is wrong with me (
Mom, EVERYTHING is wrong with me
) so she took off work for a first-day-of-summer-break celebration. I don't even want to think about what I've done: failing physics means I
have
no summer break. Failing physics means school will go on and on until graduation a year from now. I don't know if I can take it. I really don't.

Even if I get through it, then what happens? College, without Trina, and with no idea what I want to do?

The BRCA thing I've shoved down so deep inside of me, I wonder if it's going to come popping out like one of those springy snakes jammed into a can. But I've decided not to think about it.

I will not think about it. I'm not thinking about it.

So I don't tell Mom anything. We go and get manis and pedis in the morning, which wears Mom out enough that she has to come home and take a nap. Then we watch a Molly Ringwald marathon on cable and decide on take-out pizza.

Trina texts me as I pull into Dino's. She's been texting me roughly every five minutes. I can't talk to her. I can't deal with her right now.

I see them as soon as I go inside. Michael and Faith are in a booth in the back. They're sitting on the same side, close together. Faith sees me come in and she reaches up to give Michael a kiss. He kisses her back. No hesitation. His hands slide up her back and for a minute I think maybe they are going to go at it right there.

They break it off and Faith looks at me. Michael doesn't see me, but he whispers something in her ear and she laughs prettily.

She gets up and heads for the bathroom, which takes her right by me. Michael has seen me now, and the expression on his face is almost priceless if it all weren't so terrible.

The kid behind the counter puts my pizza down in front of me as Faith sashays by. She smirks at me and heads into the bathroom. She doesn't have to say anything. We both know she's won.

Michael starts toward me, and I throw my money at the counter guy and leave without waiting for my change. I'm almost running as I make for my car. I hear Michael call, “Erin! Wait up.”

I wave, trying to make it look all cheery and nonchalant. Then I drop my keys and I have to scrabble on the ground to find them and he catches up with me.

“Oh hey,” I say brightly, looking up at him. My voice sounds brittle.

“Erin,” Michael says and stops.

“What's up?” Like I don't know what the big deal is, like the sight of him kissing Faith didn't feel like someone stabbing me in the heart. I mean, I really didn't think … him and
me? … Not really. Okay, maybe. Maybe I let myself dream a little. And there's where I went wrong. I let myself hope, dream, and this is exactly why I shouldn't, because in the end, life just basically sucks.

“I, uh …” Michael doesn't seem to know what else to say.

I try to make it easy on him.

“I didn't know you and Faith were an item,” I say lightly, like
Isn't that just dandy, you two crazy kids!

I must not sound right because he looks at his feet. “Erin … I like you. I really do. You're different from most people, and I admire you for keeping your head up despite everything. Me, I'm not like that.”

Faith is standing in the doorway. She has her phone up, recording us.

“Michael, it's all good,” I say. “You don't have to say anything.”

“Faith needs me right now. I'm sorry if …” He doesn't finish, but instead steps forward and gives me an awkward one-armed hug. “You'll be fine, right? You're a pretty tough chick.”

Tough chick?
I think, and
Faith needs you? Really?

I look over toward Faith. She has stopped recording, but she's still watching us. The look on her face is bizarre: there's something like glee, but also … worry.

What is
she
worried about?

I look back at Michael. I'm trying to look casual but my face feels like it's about to break in a million pieces.
I need you
, I almost say, but don't.

“No worries, Michael,” I say. “Well, it was nice seeing you, but I have to get this pizza home before my mom starves
to death!” I hold up the pizza as a prop and walk swiftly away.

“Did you tell her?” I hear Faith ask as I get in my car. “Did you tell her what a loser she is?”

“Oh shut up, Faith,” Michael says tiredly, but he grabs her hand and pulls her close as they go inside.

“You got no one who wants to see you do this?” Stew asks, cranking on his gum like
he's
the one about to solo for the first time.