Chapter Eight
The Vicodin didn’t like me. I spent the entire night and morning after surgery throwing up every hour. Nothing like having your mom wipe vomit off your face and dress you to make you feel mature and ready to be an adult.
College, here I come.
The slightest movement caused a deep ache in my thigh. Who knew an inch slice from skin to bone could cause so much trouble? As soon as the doctor’s office opened on Saturday, Mom ran out to get a different painkiller prescription and medicine to ease my nausea, plus she promised to bring back ginger ale and animal crackers. Before she left, she set me up on the floor with cushions, a stack of books, and the remote at the ready. Moms are the best.
Jason called one of the times I was in the bathroom. Even in my hideous state, his voicemail caused a brief moment of excitement. “Hey, Ellie. You’re probably resting. How’d it go? Hope you’re healing up.”
He was so sweet, and I missed his voice. But what if I called him and had to throw up mid-sentence? That would not be romantic.
I texted.
Everything is fine. Except on crutches for a few weeks. Tragic. Pain meds making me feel kinda ick. But let’s talk soon.
And then I immediately threw up again. Sexxxxy.
At six p.m. on the Monday after my biopsy, I woke from a second nap to my phone vibrating. It was hard to believe it had only been nine days since Jason’s party. I carefully shifted to sitting up on my raft of cushions on the living room floor, where’d I’d spent the day elevating my still-swollen leg, doing homework and watching romantic comedies.
There was a text from Quinn:
Finished Spontaneous Combustion practice. Wasn’t right without you. XOXO.
I’d missed a text from Hana a couple hours ago, too.
How am I supposed to co-captain without my co? This is a bucket of turds, I tell you.
I laughed, and then cried. Hana was kidding, but I should be there, helping the newbies, supporting my team. And what about our sketch for the contest? How would I rehearse? I prayed that it would be benign. It had to be.
I’m healthy and seventeen.
“Aw hell, no, sis. Don’t start crying on me when I’m on babysitting duty.”
“Craig? Jesus.” I practically jumped off the cushions, which caused a huge jolt of pain in my leg, telling me it was time for another dose of the new painkillers. I wiped at my eyes and pulled my blanket higher, wishing I could hide under it completely. Craig stood there in sweatpants and no shirt.
“I get that comparison a lot, but you’re too kind.” Craig shrugged.
“What?”
“How much I’m like Jesus. Is it the hair? Time for a cut?” He swished his longish hair back and forth.
“When did you get here? And why don’t you have a shirt on?”
“Because it’s hotter than Satan’s balls in here.”
“I was cold. Bring me another blanket and you can crack the slider. Where’s Mom?”
He threw a blanket at me, and walked over to open the sliding-glass door. “Fresh air. I thought I’d never breathe you again.” He stuck his head out the window and inhaled exaggeratedly. “Your mom’s picking up Thai food, should be home in a minute. I’m your knight in zero armor.”
My stomach growled in response, knowing she was getting my favorite post-sick meal of coconut lemongrass soup.
Craig slid the door closed all but a sliver and walked over to adjust the thermostat. “Want to watch some Ranma? I witnessed your collection of movies, and I have to tell you, that line of DumbCom is not going to continue while I’m here.”
“Okaaay—maybe, what’s a ‘Ranma?’”
“Ridiculous Japanese Anime from the nineties.”
“Oddly, I do want to watch that. Must be the drugs messing with my mind. But you have to put on a shirt.”
“There’s a reason God gifted me with great muscles, babe. You don’t want to cover up God’s gift.” He gave me a flex show.
And with that, the pity-fest faded into the background of my mind. “Yes. Yes, I do. Now, go put on some clothes.”
He nodded, grabbing his T-shirt. It was weird how in the last three years we’d orbited around the same giant school, in the same grade with six hundred other students, but never been in the same classes. Craig, perpetually huddled in the music hall being all musicy, and me, always backstage or onstage doing my theater thing, our lives never intertwining, until—bam—our parents fell in love and got married, pairing us up as brother and sister.
At first, I blamed him for all that was wrong with my parents. But it was my dad who screwed up. I’d never wanted a brother before, but right now I felt lucky.
By the time Mom got home, Craig had laid out a second sea of pillows and blankets for himself next to mine. Ranma was paused and ready to play.
“What’s this?” Mom asked.
“Japanese anime. Want to join us, Mom?”
Mom glanced at the image of a cartoon boy and panda on the screen, flared her nostrils and bugged her eyes. “Too bizarre for me. I’m glad to see a smile back on your face, so I think I’ll go watch some normal TV in my room. Love you, sweetie. Thank you for coming over and helping out, Craig.” She kissed us both on our heads, took her meal out of the bag and left us the rest.
Craig pressed play.
“Whoa. Giant karate-chopping pandas? I think I’m going to love this.”
Craig nodded, his cheeks full of pad thai.
I gulped down the soup and rice as we watched the magic of Ranma unfold before us. At the end of the first episode, I announced with a pout, “I’m still hungry.”
“Well, as it turns out, I’m competing for best stepbrother of the year, and knowing the pathetic state of your snack cabinet, I came prepared.”
Craig headed to the kitchen. When he returned, he threw me a bag of cereal labeled Marshmallow Mateys, which were exactly like Lucky Charms, but more generic and with treasure-themed marshmallows instead of charms. Also, packaged in a gigantic bag. Score.
“Hey.” I held up the bag of cereal dramatically. “Is this what you mean when you always say ‘eat a bag’?”
“Yes, yes, Ellie, that is exactly what I mean. Also, you’re hilarious.”
“I know. Right? It’s my special skill.” I gave a toothy grin as he handed me two cereal bowls. “Yeah, those aren’t going to cut it. Could you grab the green and orange mixing bowls, pleeease?”
He made a face like he was impressed. “I truly appreciate a woman who isn’t going to pretend we’re not about to stuff our faces.”
“Yep.”
When he settled back in, I poured cereal and milk into the two gigantic mixing bowls he’d grabbed for us, and he pressed play.
Between drippy mouthfuls, I asked questions. “So, like, what’s with the water changing them? Why does Ranma turn into a girl, and the father into a Panda?”
“Because of the cursed springs.”
I raised an eyebrow. He pressed pause and turned to look at me seriously.
“See, when someone falls into a cursed spring, they take the physical form of whatever drowned there years ago. So, Ranma fell into the Spring of the Drowned Girl, so he turns into a girl. And his dad fell into the Spring of the Drowned Panda.”
“Sure, of course.”
He pressed play.
By the end of the third episode, my body fought with itself: the sugar crash making my eyelids droopy, but everything else in me wanting to keep watching and laughing.
“Do you want to sleep, or are you up for another?” Craig asked, holding up the remote.
“Press play, and we’ll see what happens.”
“Can we take bets?”
“Absolutely not.” Episode four began, and I gave in to the sleepiness, sinking lower onto the floor, adjusting the pillow under my head and pulling the blankets up to my chin. When my eyes fluttered open again, Craig was still awake. He was sitting upright and laughing.
“Craig?” I was trying so hard to get my eyelids to open all the way.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever think about your dad?”
“My dad? Dude, go for the jugular much?”
“Sorry, never mind.”
“No, it’s okay. I used to. I asked Mom about him when I was younger. But now I don’t. There’s no point. He was a one-night stand, and she never even knew his last name. Only that he was, in her words, ‘A tall, dark, handsome, guitar-playing heartbreaker.’”
I shuddered. “Bet you were sorry you even asked.”
“Big time.”
“Are you mad at Barb and my dad for leaving you here all alone?”
Craig didn’t answer.
“Tell me.”
“Shh, go to sleep, Ellie.”
I tried to rally myself and sat up a bit more. “You can tell me. Is it lonely?”
“Nah. I can stay up as late as I want and eat Marshmallow Mateys for every meal.” He held up his empty bowl and grinned too big.
“Yeah, right.” I don’t know if it was the sleepiness factor or what, but I snuggled up against him, and he put his arm gently around me.
“It must be lonely,” I said as I fell asleep, thankful that while we were both down a parent, we at least had each other.
After I’d spent another painkiller-hazy day at home, Craig came over again in the evening with more Marshmallow Mateys and Ranma.
Hero.
A few episodes in, the throbbing in my leg kicked back in so I took another pill and fell asleep on our raft of cushions. A little after eight p.m., Craig stirred, and I opened my eyes to see him getting up.
“Where’re you going?”
“If you must know, I’m going to drop a deuce.”
“Gross.”
“You asked.” He strutted away and a minute later our intercom buzzed.
Mom shuffled to the buzzer, confirmed it was Hana and Quinn, and pressed the button to let in my friends.
I brushed back my hair, hoping I didn’t look like a murder of crows had attacked me.
Mom opened the door to our apartment, and Quinn and Hana came in, followed by Jason.
I’d have to kill my best friends for not warning me.
“Hey, Ellie,” they chirped.
“Hi,” I said with my best cheery grin.
Mom said her hellos and went back to her room.
“I can’t shower, and I’m on drugs. Fair warning. How was sketch rehearsal?”
They formed a semi-circle around me in our cramped living room.
“It was…okay,” Quinn said, clearly not wanting me to feel like I’d missed too much, but too bad, I already did.
“We were definitely missing a backup dove,” Jason said. “These are for you.” He handed me a mason jar with three paperboard flowers painted with bright swirls of color.
“These are so beautiful. Did you make them?” He nodded shyly. “Wow, improv, singing, and painting? A real Renaissance man.”
He gave me a somber smile. “My mom used to say that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”
“No,” he stopped me. “It’s okay, I like hearing it.”
Talking to someone who’d lost a parent was like a word minefield. It had to be hard for him—there must be something every day that reminded him of her. Not that he’d want to forget her, it just seemed that kind of grief must always be in reach, a constant shadow.
Quinn ran to where they had dropped their stuff by the front door, and then walked backward toward me until she got to my sea of cushions and turned around to reveal a fishbowl in her hands. “Ta da!”
“Aw, thanks, you guys.” I could’ve hugged the bowl. I don’t know why seeing Harold comforted me, but it did.
Hana handed me a small box. “This is from Quinn and me.”
“Open it,” Quinn demanded.
I unwrapped the box and lifted off the lid. Inside was a silver necklace with a pendant shaped like a bull’s head, its eyes made of tiny green jewels. “I love it, thank you. You two really shouldn’t have. Why a bull’s head?”
“For one, we know you’re all into Colorado and the West and we couldn’t find a pendant of horses or mountains last minute, and figured there’re probably bulls there, too,” Hana said.
Quinn took the necklace and clasped it around my neck. “More importantly, the bull stands for cosmic order and strength. Things you could use in life, no matter what this turns out to be.”
I liked the feel of the cool silver and the weight of the pendant against my chest. It did seem like it could bring strength and cosmic goodness.
“It also stands for stubbornness and male virility, but we chose to focus on the other stuff,” Hana added.
I laughed. “It’s perfect.”
They gave me the play-by-play of rehearsal, which included Hana reenacting the dove flying choreography they decided on. She loped around our living room and flapped her arms.
“No. You’re forgetting. We decided on this move,” Quinn protested, flapping her arms with an exaggerated shoulder roll. “And this part.” She did a funny shimmy-kick with her feet and bobbled her head every time she moved.
“Oh, you’re right.” Hana flapped again and added the little kick and headshake. Now there were two arm-flapping, head-waggling birds hopping around the living room making the most obnoxious noises. Jason stood with his hands in his pockets, a stiff smile on his face. What is he thinking?
Mom came out of her room, looking bewildered at Hana and Quinn.
“You two are too much.” She laughed until she glanced at me and stopped, her expression changing as if she could see I was getting tired. “Thank you, our dear court jesters, for coming over, but I think the queen needs her rest now.”
“C’mon, Mrs. Hartwood, get your dancin’ disco dove on,” Hana said, putting her hands under her armpits and flapping right over to Mom. Mom was considering it, a glimmer of a smile on her face. Hana had that effect on parents, having some sixth sense of how to push them enough to budge, but not so far they would get all parental.
Mom paused for a second and then said, “Well, okay,” as she started lunging around the room, waving her arms and doing some odd elbow-jerk thing all her own. I hated to not be part of the game, but I loved having my friends come over and laughing together. Even if they were making so much noise I was sure the neighbors would knock and complain.
Jason sat next to me on the floor. “It looks even better with the music.”
I tilted my head, doubtful. “That’s the beauty of comedy. Even if it doesn’t look good, it still works.”
He gave a weak laugh. “Yeah.” He scraped at nothing on the knee of his jeans. “So, you had a biopsy?”
My chest deflated. Oh God. I sucked in air, scrambling for an explanation that didn’t sound pathetic. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I had to get a biopsy, that I said it was nothing. I still think it will be nothing, but until then, it’s obviously kinda something. Anyway, they’re being overly cautious. Doctors.”
He clamped his lips and nodded, his focus still on anything but me. “I get it…I—”
Not sure if it was how badly this conversation was going, or all the spinning and jumping happening around us, or the medication, but I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence because the room swayed.
Mom immediately stopped her shenanigans. The others got the hint too and—poof—no more disco doves.
“Ellie, are you okay?” Jason steadied me by the shoulders and handed me my glass of water. I took a sip and a deep breath. “Thank you.” The room evened out, but the loopiness ramped up a notch.
There was a flush from down the hall and everyone turned to watch Craig walk out of the bathroom. “I don’t know what was going on out here while I was laying some pipe, but I feel like I should either clap or bow.” He bowed.
“Gross.” I stuck out my tongue. I took another sip of water and tried to keep my eyelids from drooping.
“Hi, Craig,” Hana said. Her eyes bugged out at his bare chest.
Without meaning to, I laughed and said, “Hana, your face. You got it bad.” Then I clapped a hand over my mouth.
Hana shot me death glares.
I scrambled to get up on my crutches and try to stand, which was painful and awkward and slow and not worth it. Jason stood with me, arms at the ready like he might have to catch me, which wasn’t a bad idea. When I finally got my balance, I said, “Hana, I…I’m sorry, it just came out.”
“What?” Craig asked. “What’s she got b—?” Then he looked at Hana, realization dawning.
“I gotta go.” Hana fled our apartment.
When the door shut behind her, Craig stammered then said, “Should I go after her?” He paused for a moment. “Yeah, I’m gonna go talk to her.”
He put his shirt on and left, the door slamming for a second time.
Quinn hugged me close, as close as she could around two crutches. “It’s okay, I’ll talk to her. We shouldn’t have surprised you like this.” Quinn headed out, too. Slam. Can’t anyone gently close the door as they run away from my horrible company?
Now I was even more embarrassed about my mental and hygienic state as I faced Jason, who was playing the part of a mannequin with his eyes wide and arms stiff by his sides.
“Sorry for all that,” I said. “And I’m sorry again about not telling you everything earlier.”
Shut up.
“Seriously, I get it. Don’t worry about it. I’m really sorry you’re going through all this. Can I help? My family has made a lot of connections since…” He trailed off.
“No, no. Thank you. Like I said, they’re just being annoyingly thorough. I’ll be fine.”
He nodded. “Of course, yeah. Well, I’ll call you, okay? I should get going, too.” He gave a wave of his hand and moved to leave, as I stepped forward like we were going to hug. We did this shuffle hug that was all elbows and crutches and obligation.
That was the triple threat of terrible.
The door shut behind him. A punch of silence. Mom patted my shoulder as I hobbled past her to my room. I threw the crutches on the floor and flopped on the bed, my head spinning with painkillers, ways to apologize to Hana, and tremors of panic that I’d scared Jason away forever.