Chapter Thirteen
“Jessa.”
I’m hunched over the lab table in fourth period, attempting to burn magnesium in dry ice. I wasn’t even sure my chemistry teacher knew my name, but he’s calling it out now, no doubt because I’m doing this wrong. My mind is everywhere but here.
I look up. “Yes?”
“You have a call in the front office.”
I blink. “A phone call?”
My chemistry teacher looks at the girl standing next to his desk. She has an orange office aide sticker on her sweater, a slip of white paper in her hand. The girl nods. “On the main line,” she says.
“Who is it?” I ask, fear pinning me in my seat.
something happened something happened that’s the only reason someone would call
The girl shrugs. “I didn’t answer it. They just sent me to get you. Do you want to take it or not?”
no
“Yes.” I force myself to stand up.
“Take your bag,” my teacher calls. “The bell’s about to ring.”
The girl walks with me to the office but we don’t speak. She’s on her phone and I’m on a loop, here i go down circle road strong and hopeful hearted through the dust and wind up just exactly where i started, back on the merry-go-round so I don’t spin out, convinced that something awful has happened and I’m fifteen seconds away from finding out.
My hand is shaking as I pick up the phone. The receiver is cold and filmy and smells like perfume.
“Hello?” I say finally, dread ballooning in my chest.
“You have no phone,” the voice on the other end says. “I had to resort to desperate measures.”
The dread balloon deflates. “Where are you?”
“Still at the doctor,” Marshall says. “Wanna come hang out?”
“At a doctor’s office?”
“Well, technically it’s the hospital, but yes. And I know you hate hospitals, so I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to come.”
“Wait, why are you at the hospital? Are you okay?”
“They’re running some tests on my leg. So are you coming? I’m getting you an Uber. It’s coming to the gas station on the corner.”
“Right now?”
“Uber says six minutes.”
“You want me to leave school to come see you at the hospital.” My mind goes to my own hospital room, that cold, suffocating cube. No image comes to mind, just a sinking sensation, a heaviness, a dread.
“Only if you want to,” Marshall is saying. “But if you don’t you have to tell me now because I just hit request. Aaron double A is on his way.”
“So I’m just walking out the front door.” I flick my eyes around the office to see if anyone is listening to me. Nobody is.
“Sign out first. The sheet’s on the counter. That way no one will call your dad. When you get here, take the elevators to the 3rd floor and turn right. You’ll see signs for the Heart Institute. I’m in room 312.”
“Why are you at the Heart Institute?”
“Because they have the nicest rooms. Hang up the phone now. Aaron is four minutes out and I can’t risk my five star rating with a no-show.”
“Okay. I’m doing it.”
His voice gets quieter. “I’m really glad.” Then I hear a click and he’s gone.
The Uber pulls up at the hospital’s front entrance. I can’t go in. I can’t even get out of the car.
“Take as much time as you need,” the driver says helpfully. Aaron double A.
“Thanks,” I say hoarsely. “I don’t like hospitals.”
“No one likes hospitals,” he says. “Except doctors. I drive a lot of doctors. Mostly medical students, actually. The doctors take Uber Black.”
“Uh huh.” I’m watching the automatic door open and close as people come in and out.
“I could park if you want,” Aaron says. “I’ve done that for someone before. I can park and walk you in. I’ll end the ride now so it won’t be extra.” He taps his screen.
“No, that’s okay,” I say, forcing myself to unbuckle my seatbelt. your being with me won’t help. My hand is shaking as I fumble for the door handle, eyes locked on the building, my head a cacophony of hospital noises. It’s as if my brain is making up for the missing images with an overload of remembered sound. The constant hum, the incessant beeping, voices through walls and through speakers, the squeak and jerk of wheels.
“Good luck,” Aaron says as I climb out of the car.
i will walk in, i will go to his room, i will be fine
but what if he isn’t fine
he isn’t fine
he wouldn’t be in the hospital if he were fine
something’s wrong something’s wrong something’s wrong
The lobby is quiet and calm. Nobody pays any attention to me as I pass the information desk and move toward the elevator bank, press the up button, wait for the ding. Room 312 is easy to find once I get to the third floor. I linger outside his room for a few minutes, losing my nerve, until a nurse passes and gives me a funny look and I dart in.
“My day improves,” Marshall says, and smiles. He’s in bed with his leg propped up on pillows, watching TV. There’s a needle in his arm, an IV bag hanging from a metal rack by his bed. And a bruise by his left temple that wasn’t there before, it isn’t really there now. A woman in a fuzzy sweater and horn-rimmed glasses sits in a chair by the window, working a crossword puzzle. Auburn hair like Hannah’s, Marshall’s ivory skin. A bruise in the exact same spot as his on her check.
am i seeing bruises on everyone now???
“You must be Jessa,” the woman says warmly, rising to her feet. “I have heard so much about you. I’m Marianne.”
“Hi,” I say. “Nice to meet you.” I fiddle with the strap of my bag. i wasn’t expecting his mom. Her warmth is palpable and completely unnerving, like a heat lamp. My mom is nothing like this.
“Well,” she says after a minute. “I think I’ll go find something eat. Will you two be okay for a half hour or so?”
“So smooth,” Marshall says.
His mom swats him with her crossword book. “Would you have preferred: ‘Please excuse me, Jessa, my son has ordered me to leave the room as soon as you arrive’?”
“I didn’t say you had to immediately bolt.”
“Jessa does have to get back to school eventually,” his mom says, bending over to kiss him on the forehead. “For the record,” she adds, “I was not made aware of this plan until Uber was en route. If asked I will deny all knowledge.” But I can tell she’s not mad.
“Tell me,” I demand when she’s gone.
“I was in the mood for some jello,” he says, and tries to smile, but it’s so painfully fake.
“Marshall.”
“The pain in my leg is a clot,” he says.
“A clot,” I repeat. “Like a blood clot.”
He nods. “Deep vein thrombosis is the medical name. Mine’s not that big, but it’s pretty much the worst type of clot.”
“But they can remove or something, right?”
He shakes his head. “There are medicines which they could put directly in that vein to break up the clot, but it’s too risky for me because if a piece of the clot breaks off in the process, it could go through the hole in my heart to my brain. So for now I’m on blood thinners, which should keep it from getting bigger or breaking off.”
I stare at him. Very little of this is making sense. “So they’re just leaving it there?”
“Well, my body should dissolve it eventually. The problem is the hole. For most people a clot like that would get caught in their lungs. But what they’re telling me is that mine could take the shortcut through my heart to my brain and if it did, I could have a stroke or . . . die.” He takes a quick breath. “The odds of that happening on this one are small, I think, since we know about it, and they’re gonna monitor it pretty close.”
“So that’s good news, then,” I say, still confused. “Right?”
“Yeah, for sure. It’s great that we caught it.” His face isn’t a good news face.
“But?”
He hesitates. “They also tested me for this gene mutation, called Factor V Leiden, which it turns out I have. Basically, my body clots way more than it should, which is why I got the clot to begin with. Because there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll develop another one, even if I’m on blood thinners long term, my cardiologist now wants to close my ASD. That’s the medical name for my hole.”
“You’re having heart surgery?”
“Not surgery. They’ll go up through a vein in my thigh. I’ll only be in the hospital a couple days.”
I drop into the chair by the window. My face hurts and feels numb at the same time, like there’s no blood in it anymore.
“The procedure is really safe,” Marshall is saying, “and quick, and long term it’ll just be better because I won’t have to think about it anymore. They’ll put this little device with two mesh disks inside the hole and then—”
He keeps talking, but I can no longer hear him. Won’t let myself hear him, won’t let these words sink in because if they do they will lodge themselves in my brain like shrapnel and torture me. Details do that. They give my panic a foothold.
Eventually, his mouth stops moving.
“When are they doing it?” I hear myself ask.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “I should be back at school next week, assuming they feel good about how the clot looks.”
“Does Hannah know?”
“Yeah. Mom texted her. She’s coming later with my dad. After she finishes practicing, obvi. We can’t let my heart condition interfere with that.”
“Seriously? She’s practicing first?”
“Well, to be fair, it’s not like the situation is currently an emergency. I get it if she doesn’t want to give up rehearsal time to come sit in a hospital room.”
I nod but don’t say anything.
“What?” he asks finally.
“I don’t see how it isn’t an emergency,” I say. “You’re telling me you have a blood clot in your leg that could break off and kill you, and that tomorrow you’re having a procedure done on your heart that obviously has to have some risks or else they would’ve done it already. What am I missing?”
“Nothing. All of that is true.”
“So why are you being so calm?” I ask suspiciously.
“I dunno. Maybe you have a calming effect on me.” He smiles a little. “I apparently have the opposite effect on people. Hannah told me yesterday that my looking at her was stressing her out.”
“You do have a fairly stress-inducing gaze.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Little bit.”
Marshall tiptoes his fingers up my arm. “So you’re basically telling me that I make your pulse race.”
I punch him in the shoulder. He catches my fist in his hand and his eyes go serious for a sec. “Hey, I know this was hard for you — is hard for you. The hospital thing. But I’m really glad you’re here.”
It takes everything I have not to pull my hand away. Not because I want to, but because what I do want terrifies me. I can’t let myself acknowledge how much I want him, want this, a relationship that has shape and weight and depth, not a boyfriend who lets me hide in his shadow but a boy who sometimes makes my pulse race and always is my friend.
“Me, too,” I say finally, and open my fist.