Truth & Dare (6 page)

“It’s not about rules,” he said. “It’s just—I thought I knew you. Knew what you would and wouldn’t do. I never guessed you would cheat on a test.”

“I never did before.”

After a minute of silence, I said, “I thought I knew you and Annie, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t believe I never knew you two went out!”

He jerked the wheel to the right and shifted the car in to park. Turning to me, he said, “You never knew because I didn’t remember it. It wasn’t important. It’s not like she was ever my girlfriend, or …”

“I think she has a crush on you,” I said. “I think she has for a long time. And I didn’t even know that until last night.”

“Annie? No way.”

“You should’ve heard the way she talked about you. She does.”

He frowned as if trying to absorb that piece of information. “Well—but I’m with you.”

“Even though I’m a cheater?”

He laughed softly. “Yeah, even though.”

“And even though I’m dressed like the Pineapple Freak Queen of the Eastern Seaboard?”

“Well, that’s giving me second thoughts …”

I poked him in the shoulder.

He said, “We’re going to be late for this wedding.”

“I guess you’re right.”

He shifted back into drive and we rolled onward, toward the church. “Connor,” I said, “I’ve felt horrible ever since I finished that test. I didn’t know what else to do. I was desperate, and I was so sick of looking at those problems, and I knew your answers would be right, and …”

“School’s only going to get harder,” he said. “Wait until we hit med school.”

“Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

“No,” he said. “I’m just wondering what I’m going to do when things get tougher.”

“Well, if it’s calculus, I know you won’t be copying from me.”

Annie met us on the front steps of the church, her face reddening when she saw Connor with me. “Am I the only one with a hangover?” she said. “I don’t even know what I said last night. It seems like I was just blabbing on and on about all kinds of—”

I touched her arm. “It’s okay. Where do we get ready?”

She smiled with relief and led me up the stairs. I hung back, holding Connor’s hand until the last possible second, letting my palm, fingers, fingertips slide away from his.

“See you on the inside,” he said.

“I’m counting on it.” 

W
HEN SHE WAS
wheeled into the day room, attended by her IV drip, Jim thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She seemed absolutely pure, evacuated of all evil, honed to perfection. Her head was an imported melon covered by the finest filo pastry, stretched and rolled thin. Her cheeks were egg shells. Concave. The hair on her head was shredded coconut. The hair on her body was dark and fuzzy, like the mold on Gorgonzola. Her skin was the color of Dijon mustard—that wonderful brownish tinge that comes from lost vitamins and minerals. She was everything
gourmet
Jim had denied himself.

According to the nurse, her name was Iris and this was her eighth admission in three years—her parents checked her in, she put on some weight, she went home, she lost it. This time, she’d done a two-month fast and then eaten a carton of laxatives. Jim was impressed, he felt encouraged; apparently, it was possible to go through the program and not be totally brainwashed.

When Iris looked at Jim, she wondered what he was doing on the ward. Not exactly no-boys-allowed, but he was the first male anorexic she’d ever seen.

When Jim looked at Iris, he couldn’t help but imagine what life would be like in their own tenth-floor apartment, no
elevator. Living room with barbells, rubber balls, wrist weights with Velcro strips. Medicine cabinet with over-the-counter laxatives (chocolate squares, capsules, herbal mixtures). Diuretics in timed-release tablets. Digital scales, fine-tuned to a quarter-ounce. Disposable enema bags. No kitchen. Ultimate control over their bodies.

Iris smiled at him; her T-shirt said
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
.

“Everyone’s on a diet,” she said softly, “and all they do is gain weight.”

Jim nodded.

“The nurses are jealous of my figure,” she continued. “Most people are. Even Dr. Chu. Why do you think he started this program?”

Jim couldn’t think of any other reason.

“They won’t be happy until everyone on this unit looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.”

Jim sighed.

After dinner, Jim opened and closed the metal chairs 350 times before stacking them against the wall. Then he focused on questions to ask his nutritionist: how much does the average toenail clipping weigh? How many calories do you burn clipping them? What happens to the saliva I swallow?

Therapy filled the following days.

Occupational.

Individual.

Group.

Movement.

Art.

Plus lectures. “The issue isn’t food,” Dr. Chu droned on. “It’s about seeking perfection in an imperfect world.”

Dr. Chu gave Jim permission to join a few patients on
twenty-minute
walks around the hospital grounds. Monitored, of course, by the physical therapist who made sure no one jogged.

Jim stared at his lunch: a sandwich (with crust), an apple (with skin), and a lettuce salad with a little packet of oily dressing. He portioned his sandwich with a knife and fork, careful not to touch the bread in case calories could be absorbed through his skin—the reason he’d never used shaving cream or aftershave.

He tried not to look surprised when Iris asked the nurse for a bullion cube. “This potato doesn’t have any flavor,” she said. “May I have a cup of hot water, too, please?”

Bullion sloshed over the potato melting the excess butter. Iris ate the potato and left her floating butter. The nurse didn’t make her drink the bullion because it wasn’t on her menu.

At dinner, Iris used her finger to wipe a pat of butter on an asparagus spear, then sucked an adjacent finger, pretending to remove the excess butter. The buttered finger scratched an ankle, and the calories were absorbed by a yellow sock.

Iris gave up her wheelchair on the eleventh day.

Iris and Jim shared secrets. Jim told her how he’d stayed up the night before the weekly weigh-in, drinking gallons of water so the scales would show an increase in weight, which he’d pee away later. Iris told how she’d smuggled fishing weights on to the ward and sewn them into the hem of her hospital gown. “As long as the scales show a weight gain,” she said, “we have an argument against the doctor raising our calories.”

After lights out, sometimes at two, sometimes three or four, depending on the schedule of the night nurse, Jim sat on Iris’s hummingbird feet while she did sit-ups. She rode his bony spine while he sweated out push-ups.

“Was it good for you?” he’d ask afterwards, collapsing from exhaustion.

The next weigh-in showed that Jim had not put on the required weight. Dr. Chu summoned Jim into his office “to chew the fat.”

“We monitor your weight very carefully,” he said. (It’s our job to make sure you gain as much weight as possible while you’re here.)

“Did you hear me, son?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We can’t let you go home until your weight stabilizes.” (You’re a prisoner until you gain a thousand pounds.)

“Do you understand, son?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Since your chart indicates no weight gain, even after we’ve raised your calories another 200 per day, the staff can only conclude you’ve been exercising after hours.” (We have closed-circuit cameras and hidden microphones in your bedroom.)

“Are you listening to me, son?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jim found Iris in the day room playing solo Scrabble. Four Ss spelled
slim, slender
,
slight
and
svelte
.

Iris smiled at him. “I got
emaciated
on a triple-word score!”

“They’re on to us,” Jim said, sitting beside her. “Guess all that water before weigh-in didn’t make up for exercising.”

“Salt pills. Then we’ll retain more water.”

“Tomorrow’s my mom’s birthday and I have a two-hour pass,” he said. “I’ll buy some.”

“Wrap them in a tissue,” Iris said, “and put it under your arm. Nurses never check armpits.”

Jim savored these conversations with Iris; he relished them.

Sandy and another bulimic strolled by sucking orange wedges.

“Quitters,” Jim murmured.

“No willpower,” Iris whispered back.

Before visiting his family, Jim stopped at a drugstore and bought a packet of salt tablets.

A display of boxed chocolates by the register gave him an idea. He headed to the Home Remedy aisle and grabbed a carton of laxatives, then paid for a small paintbrush and the latest copy of
Weight Watchers
.

He set the laxatives on his dashboard during his mom’s birthday party. They were a melted mess by the time he returned to the hospital. In the parking lot, he used the brush to paint the pages of the magazine with laxative. Then he checked in at the front desk. Pockets were turned inside out. Shoes shaken. Cuffs unrolled. Frisked, like a felon. Thankfully, the salt tablets didn’t drop. Sweat kept the tissue in place. No one questioned the magazine.

“Have you seen Iris?” he asked the nurse.

“Took her to ICU an hour ago.”

His heart slipped. “Is she okay?”

“Her resting pulse shot up to 250 beats per minute,” the nurse said. “That girl’s a cardiac arrest looking for a place to happen.”

Jim didn’t bother to ask if Iris could have visitors. He knew the answer. He also knew the hospital layout better than most of the staff since he used to jog the halls late at night.

He found her in Room 602. She wasn’t under an oxygen tent. Good sign. She had an IV drip and a heart monitor. Her eyelids fluttered lightly.

“Iris?” he whispered, moving closer.

“Jim?” Her voice was thin as angel-hair pasta.

He held a limp hand. “How’re you feeling?”

“How do I look?” she asked, eyes still closed.

“Like a delicately carved skeleton,” he said.

She smiled. “Come closer.”

Jim lowered the rail and slipped under the sheet. He was about to give her the magazine when the bouncing ball on the screen went flat and a siren sounded. Nurses stormed the room screaming medical stuff Jim didn’t understand, although, “Get the hell out of that bed!” seemed clear enough.

A nurse slapped at Iris’s arm and jabbed it with a needle.

Jim watched from the foot of the bed and stuffed pages of
Weight Watchers
into his mouth. He choked down the table of contents. He finished off a laxative-lathered essay, “Hunger Pains.”

The bouncing ball reappeared on the monitor, slowly at first, just a simmer, then full boil.

While Iris began to breath comfortably, he finished off “Feed My Lips” and “Food for Thought.”

His darling had pulled off another near-death experience; Jim had never hungered for her more.

FADE IN:

ESTABLISHING

Here’s the thing.

I’m trying to compose my first shot.

It needs to be memorable, which makes me want to go static. But static is … well, static. People like to start a story right in the middle. I like it, too.

But this time it’s my story. I have one chance to get it right.

If I had my camera, I’d cut this whole voiceover. Sure, yes, some of the greatest movies ever let the narrator VO all over the place. Still, it’s out of style.

But I don’t, so …

For establishing, I could start at the hospital. Lots of lights, lots of unfamiliar sounds.

A doctor leans over and slaps my cheeks—not hard. It’s kind of weird. Pat-pat-pat, and then she peels open my eyelids.

“Fixed,” she says.

Another doctor, or maybe he’s a nurse—his scrubs are sea green instead of blue, whatever that means—unfolds a cotton blanket. It steams when he spreads it over my waxy feet.

I’m naked, completely naked. They brush my penis aside like a lank rope of seaweed, scrubbing my thigh with bloody
iodine. There’s a cut, and they slide a thick tube under my skin. They slide another into the thickest part of my arm.

Someone sighs and says, “Sixty-six degrees. His lungs are probably shot.”

“We could try ECMO,” one of the yellow-scrubbed doctors says. She sounds young, like she could be in my class.

“Jesus, Hernandez, I hope he’s insured,” the blue doctor says, and laughs.

He snaps open a silvery blanket—it cracks and flashes like lightning, obscuring everything. That’s the transition.

Or I could start with the nightmare, which isn’t really a nightmare. I don’t jerk up, or gasp. I’m not even sweating.

I sigh, I roll over in my bed and I look at the clock. It’s three in the morning, and tomorrow is my first day back since I fell through the ice.

And what pulls me from dreams to waking is this hook in my skin. It tugs, drawing me toward something I should know but I don’t.

It’s that sensation—like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, or you almost remembered the capital of Hungary. It’s just that, and the blue glow from my clock reflecting on my face.

See? Static—so if I’m going static, if that’s how I’m establishing the first scene for the last year of my life, then let’s go.

Let’s melt that digital glow to an unearthly blue, one that’s dark, one that shimmers with imperfect light. We’ll see a silver bubble. One, then two, like pearls rolling up from the shadows.

And we’ll sink down and see long fronds of seaweed waving in the blue, then focus on a silkier patch of it. It’s golden instead of black-gray; down a little more and you’ll see it’s my hair. It waves in the water as another pearl drifts from the underside of my chin.

This is me, Evan Todd, dead, drowned under the ice at Miller’s Pond.

And let’s pull back, until you see my bare shoulder. Until you see my back. Until you see me looking in the mirror—it flashes like the silver blanket at the hospital did.

My clock glows in the reflection: 3:47—I have school in three hours.

I wash my face and raise my head again and I need to make this really clear.

Maybe you see me, winter-gold and brown-eyed, and taking breaths and splashing myself with cold, clear water from the tap.

Maybe that’s what everyone sees.

But let’s establish it right here: when I look in the mirror, I see Evan Todd, blue and pearled and drifting, drowned at Miller’s Pond.

I did not survive.

FADE OUT

FADE IN:

Chelsea Bennett leans against my locker. A green balloon bobs above her head, suspiciously similar to the silver and blue balloons I saw stuck in the hawthorn tree outside.

“I thought to myself,” Chelsea says, winding ribbon around her hand, “Evan’s not going to get enough attention when he comes back to school so let’s draw some more!”

Even though she sounds sarcastic, she hugs me hard enough to make herself squeak. Chelsea’s body isn’t slight; everywhere she presses against me is lush. Her flyaway curls tickle my chin; she smells like star anise and sugar.

“Thanks,” I say when she finally lets me go.

“How was the bus?”

“It reminded me why I quit riding the bus.”

She watches me spin the combination lock, leaning her head against the metal. It’s like my hands are the most fascinating things she’s ever seen. Her eyes cross slightly when I start again. “When can you drive again?”

“Not sure,” I say, hesitating, then spinning the combination to the beginning once more. “It’s not a rule, exactly. More like a guideline.”

Chelsea says, “Move,” and pushes me out of the way. With three quick twists, she opens my locker, presenting it to me with a flourish. “Your books, sir.”

When she bows, I catch a glimpse of myself in the smooth, silver pendant around her neck. I’m still and blue there, too. So much for the hope that my bathroom mirror at home was broken. Yeah, that common reflective malady, the one that shows you things that aren’t there—happens to everybody.

Too roughly, I duck past her and claim my books. “Thanks.”

Chelsea catches my hand. She flattens it between both of hers. Her green eyes are so wide, I see the shadow of myself in them. She asks, “Evan, are you okay?”

“I’m good, I’m great,” I say, threading my fingers through hers.

“If you’re not ready,” she says. She steps closer, and she is heat. I swear, I see it coming off her. She’s a desert mirage, shimmering, beckoning. “People will understand.”

This is when I do something I shouldn’t. I smile—not a sin—and then I kiss her forehead—which is. Burning up on her, it’s the first time I realize how deep the cold reaches beneath my skin.

“Evan,” she says. Her breath is a caress against my throat.

Breaking away with a smile, I squeeze her hand, and stroke her chin. I back against my locker to close it, then shoulder Chelsea. My sleeve pops when it rubs against hers. “Really. I am so good.”

I feel her sink down. Fuck, I hate myself.

“All right,” she finally says, forcing summertime into her voice. “Let’s go, Living Dead Boy. Your adoring masses await.”

I wish she were kidding.

The locker room opens on to the common area in our school. It has too many jutting walls and angles to be called a diamond, but you get the idea. We walk past the Wall of Fame, a grid of eight by tens that start out black and white, and end in color.

Notable Alumni, the wall brags—we have an Olympic gymnast from the seventies, and a NASCAR driver from last year. Stonard’s not a huge school; it takes fifty-seven years to fill three rows of four.

The white, high pitch of lilies overwhelms me. When Chelsea spins me toward the trophy cases, I see why.

“Are you for real?”

“So real,” Chelsea said, pushing me along. “You’re not getting the full effect, though. Mrs. Cross banned the candles after the first day.”

Let me frame this:

The trophy case is the center of the common area and baseball is its centerpiece. Gold and green banners hang on either side of it; bronzed baseballs stud the lowest shelf like footlights. The rest is pictures and trophies—a metric ass-load of trophies.

We can’t compete in basketball, even though that’s Indiana’s state religion. There’s just something inherently short here; we’re a compact people in Stonard. The tallest guy in school is an underfed six footer who plays percussion in our marching band.

But we can play some baseball, damn it. The Stonard Vipers have gone Semi-State or State every year for twelve years
running. I’ve been on the team since my freshman year. Allegedly, maybe, I’m supposed to be team captain next year.

And there’s a shrine to me in front of our State trophy.

A shrine.

My stomach turns. Plastic-clad bouquets, teddy bears with bats, cards, notes, somebody’s letter jacket—that’s just crazy. And right there along the edge, proving Chelsea honest, a few wax crescents cling to the tile.

I can’t bring myself to pick up even one of the cards with my name inked there in bubble letters. This is some kind of a theater—a show I’ve never seen.

“I can’t confirm it,” Chelsea says, releasing her helium balloons to hover over the pile. “But Seb Mancuso says you appeared to him in a slice of Friday Pizza.”

“Very funny.”

“Oh, Evan.” Chelsea throws her arms around me, pretending to be playful. “When are you going to give it up and just walk on water?”

It’s when she touches me that I realize the ache of cold again. She bands me with fire; I want to push my hands up the back of her shirt and pull her into my lap.

I turn—maybe my body has decided for me, but the trophy case catches the light. Its transparency clouds, clear to silver; it becomes a mirror for the hollow, dead weight of my eyes.

Yes, I stole a kiss, but I manage to peel Chelsea off before I molest her in the hallway. She’s almost my best friend, so I feel her deflate. I know the shadows that catch in the corners of her smile.

No matter how warm she is, no matter how alive, I have to stop getting her hopes up. It’s never going to happen; we’re never going to happen. I love her like crazy.

I want to keep her in my pocket; I love setting up stupid jokes so she can knock them down. We have the best time, as
long as I ignore the crush, and she tries to hide it. We were a lot better at this before I died.

“Oh my god, Evan’s back!” Shelby Howard cries from across the room.

And in an instant, I don’t have to be good at pushing Chelsea away; a weirdly adoring crowd does it for her. I mean, these are my friends, or really good acquaintances—anyway, they come to my parties. I go to theirs. I have no idea who they are.

I try to catch Chelsea’s gaze. Over Shelby’s head, I mouth, “Save me.”

Chelsea presses a hand to her chest, echoing infatuated delight when she mouths back, “Oooh, Evan Todd!”

I’m on my own.

CUT TO:

“Hey,” Tyler says. Hunched over his trig book, he inhabits his desk like he might ask for a toll to cross his bridge.

I spill into the seat beside him; instead of answering, I stare at the board. In the milky cloud of dust that remains, I can see the ghosts of equations past—all stuff I missed while I was in the hospital.

Tyler hooks his fingers under his book, raising one edge of it. He hesitates, then drops it, turning to me. “Hey.”

“Oh, hey,” I say. I roll my eyes up like I’m thinking, like I’m trying to remember. “Oh yeah, Tyler. Tyler Ross, right?”

The dark mass of his hair wavers when he ducks. His fingers twitch on the edge of his book; I want to angle on his pinkie—the one I broke in freshman year with a wild pitch. It bobs, flickering, like a spider sounding the lines in its web.

“Sorry I didn’t come to the hospital,” he finally says.

“Me too,” I say. I have no grace.

Tyler sprawls back. With a monumental effort, he raises his
head. “Olivia’s having a party at her dad’s cabin Friday, you in?”

“Fuck no.”

“Fuck you, then.”

“That’s what I told your mother,” I say, and I can’t help it. I crack the ice of a smile first.

“Your mother didn’t say anything,” he answers. “I pay her to shut up.”

We both smile, but we’re almost feral. Everything’s tight in Tyler’s jaw; my spine is steel.

Yeah, I’ll go to his girlfriend’s party, and he’ll clap me on the back and throw me another beer—we’re friends. Best friends.

He was there when I fell through the ice.

DISSOLVE TO:

FLASHBACK—MILLER’S POND

All I remember is burning.

My lungs burn. My thoughts burn.

Scalding, I think I know that this is down, not up.

I exhale silver, not breath.

Where is up?

Where the hell is Tyler?

CUT TO:

“Welcome back Evan,” Mrs. Golini says and jerks me back, to trig. Trig, on the first day back, one seat away from the Vipers’ star third baseman.

“Thank you,” I say. I stretch out on my desk, sprawling elbows and knees and smile. Brightly, even.

She slips a folder onto my desk, patting the top of it. “The lessons you missed; if you need help just let me know.”

I nod and look at Tyler. “Ross can catch me up.”

“Wonderful,” she says.

Her voice melts into the background, something about haversines or tangents, but it’s all just noise. My gaze drifts from the board to the windows. Outside, winter rises in a silver haze. Snow swirls through the air; when it touches the pavement, it dies.

My bones ache. They splinter at the joints so ice can slip into the marrow; nothing melts there. Mrs. Golini’s voice warps, a slow wave that comes around me and I drown again. Down deep, there’s a pressure that slips hard fingers into my ears, and wraps around my heart—it doesn’t beat, it quivers.

The gasping stops. Sometimes frigid is fire; as soon as I burn inside and out, I stop struggling. Up or down, doesn’t matter … there’s an awareness of drowning, but no urgency. It’s quiet, down deep. Still.

The hook in my chest yanks me to the surface again. The deep, secret green of the water spills out of me, and suddenly, I smell—coffee?

“Evan!”

Waters clear, and I blink to see Mrs. Golini’s hazel eyes far too close to mine. Startled, I jerk away. Metal screeches in the distance as I scramble to my feet. “Get off! Get off!”

Clawed fingers reach for me. “Evan!”

“Don’t touch me!” I draw back, then my shoulders crack. My sternum splits. Some fire-hot grasp wrestles me down, but down is tile instead of a weedy sea of blue. My knees crack against tile and that pain wakes me.

Twisted in their desks, everyone watches.

“Shut up.” Tyler’s voice is behind my ear. His breath spills across my skin, and just for the heat of it, I do exactly what he says.

Mrs. Golini trembles, but her back is straight. Her voice is firm. “Tyler, help Evan to the nurse’s office.”