Connecticut
Winter, Sophomore Year
I didn’t go to the Winter Swirl.
I never stood a chance. Not that I was even sure why I wanted to, when my former best friend had turned on me and my current best friend was taking a girl who’d gladly string me up in a tree by my toenails.
I was being a good daughter that afternoon, helping my mother chop vegetables for dinner when disaster struck.
Miranda came into the room and peered over my shoulder. “Let me do some!” she whined.
“No way. Last time you mangled the zucchini beyond recognition.” Hand-eye coordination and my sister were not the best of friends.
But she had already gone to the butcher block and grabbed herself a knife, and was now trying to elbow her way next to me at the cutting board. Slamming mine down, I reached for her wrist to take the knife out of her hand, but she pulled away. The blade sliced into my palm and wrist, sending such sharp, hot pain through me that I barely noticed the similar sensation on my leg before the knife clattered to floor.
“Kelse!” Miranda gasped. “I’m sorry!”
I cried out as the wound opened up and dark red blood spilled out. My mother appeared out of nowhere and ran over, grabbing a dishcloth on the way, and pressed it against my hand.
“Kelsey, you need to be careful!”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I whimpered as Miranda stood watching with horrified eyes. Why it was my mother’s first instinct to reprimand me for an accident, I’d never understand. But that was Mom.
We both looked down to where the bloody knife lay, looking like it needed to be bagged and tagged by a forensics crew.
“How is there so much blood on the floor?” my mother murmured. She took a step away from me, still holding the towel against my hand. I looked down in time to hear her say, “Oh my God, your leg!”
The knife had grazed my calf on the way down, ripping right through the leg of my yoga pants. The pants, my shoe, and the floor were covered in blood.
“Hold this!” my mother demanded, indicating the dish towel on my hand. She scrambled to the drawer for another one and pressed it against my leg. I held my hand over the sink and attempted to adjust the already-drenched cloth so I could put more pressure on the cut. But as my shaking hands fumbled with the towel, I saw how quickly the blood poured out and I started to feel light-headed.
My limbs felt as limp as noodles, and I started to see black dots dancing in front of my eyes. I leaned against the counter. “Mom.” My jaw felt like deadweight as I tried to say more. “I don’t feel good.”
Then I collapsed.
The next time I opened my eyes, my eyelids felt like iron curtains. I was lying in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV. The bright lights blurred my vision as I turned my head in the direction of my mother’s hushed voice. She stood a few feet away, talking with a man I assumed to be a doctor. She ran her fingertips over her bottom lip as he responded, which meant she was worried. Which automatically made me worry.
“Mom?” I tried to sit up, swallowing over my parched throat. “What happened?” Even as the question left my lips, it all came back to me. I groaned.
“Stay still, sweetie,” my mother said as she rushed over to my side. “They’re prepping you for a blood transfusion.”
“What?” I immediately felt like crying. “Blood transfusion” sounded so serious, so foreboding. So not what I wanted to be doing on the night of the Winter Swirl. “What’s wrong with me?”
Mom took my hand and squeezed it, which only succeeded in making me more nervous. “We’re not sure. You lost a lot of blood today, and they need to figure out why.”
The man, who introduced himself as Dr. Delano, cleared his throat and walked to my mother’s side. “Kelsey,” he said, adjusting his thick black glasses, “I was just telling your mother that I believe you may have a blood disorder. We’ll need to run some tests, of course, but it could be something as simple as a severe vitamin deficiency.”
“Simple” and “severe” didn’t seem to belong in the same sentence. As I recounted my symptoms in my head—everything from the bloodshed event nosebleed to the times my skin had bruised like overripe fruit, even if I couldn’t remember hurting myself—fear turned what was left of my blood into ice. “Or it could be something serious, like cancer, right?”
I’d seen one of those awful Lifetime movies about a girl with leukemia, and they’d given her the blood disorder line at first too. My mind reeled. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now.
Dr. Delano looked rattled, like he hadn’t expected me to have half a brain and put him on the spot. “We’ll have to rule it out,” he said cautiously. “But understand that serious blood disorders don’t have to be cancer. Either way, we’ll get to the bottom of it.” He gave a curt nod and left the room.
“Mom, he said ‘serious.’ ” My voice cracked and my lip trembled. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Honey, don’t listen to a word he says,” my mother said through gritted teeth. “He knows nothing, do you understand me? When the tests come back, we’ll figure out how to make you better. Until then, the transfusion will help.” She looked behind her, at the door where Dr. Delano had exited, and spat the word “douche bag” under her breath.
In spite of myself, laughter bubbled up in my throat. “Mom, did you just say ‘douche bag’?”
Her lips floated into a tired smile, and I huddled closer to her.
“Do I have to stay here tonight?”
My mother sighed. “You probably won’t have to, but they did say they might keep you for observation. If I can help it, you’re sleeping in your own bed.” She smoothed my hair away from my face. “And if you can’t, I’ll stay right here with you.”
I nodded, swallowing the lump that formed in my throat as I thought of everyone else getting their hair done, their nails painted, their makeup applied. Even though I’d told David I wasn’t going to the dance, I wanted to. I’d actually been fantasizing about shedding my usual jeans and ponytail to try out a different look, to wear a dress that made me feel pretty.
A hospital gown wasn’t quite the gown I’d had in mind.
My disappointment must have been obvious, because my mother left and returned a little while later with Miranda in tow—and a bottle of red nail polish from the hospital gift shop.
My mom painted my nails and Miranda curled up next to me and brushed my hair, while I tried not to think about the plastic bags suspended from a metal pole next to my bed, feeding disgusting things into my body for reasons I didn’t understand.
I’d sent David a text message to let him know where I was and why I wouldn’t be at the dance, but then had to shut my cell phone off following a look of death from one of the nurses. I knew he’d be worried, but I also knew he had Isabel to think of. So when a soft knock sounded at the door to my room, the last person I expected to see was David—standing there in a tuxedo, holding a plastic corsage box.
My mouth dropped open, and not only because I was shocked to see him.
He looked amazing.
His hair was freshly cut, and for once the short black spikes were more carefree than unruly. The cut of the tux showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist, and the color complemented his dark eyes. The more tentative steps he took toward the bed, the more I realized he smelled as good as he looked. Nothing that gorgeous belonged amidst the fluorescent lights and dull tile floors of the hospital room.
I burst into tears on the spot.
“David!” I cried as he closed the distance between us and folded me into a hug. “You look so handsome!”
He pressed his nose against my neck as I wept into the shoulder of his tuxedo jacket. Low enough so only I could hear, he asked, “Are you okay?”
I nodded and started to wipe my eyes but froze when I saw he hadn’t come alone. Standing in the door frame, fidgeting with the wrist strap of a corsage identical to the one David had carried in—and looking beyond beautiful—was Isabel Rose.
Her sapphire-blue halter dress hugged her curves, and her hair cascaded down her back in flowing dark curls.
The dress I’d wanted to wear was so similar. I’d eyed it on the rack in the department store but left it there when I saw the price tag—and when I pictured Isabel and Maddie dousing me with a bucket of red paint, Carrie-style, and making me the laughingstock of the dance. I was glad now that I hadn’t bought it. I couldn’t imagine ever looking that flawless in it. In fact, even with my painted nails and my brushed hair, at that moment I could not have felt more hideous or inadequate.
Isabel picked at the lacy band of the corsage around her wrist and twisted it around her finger as she shot me a tight smile. I scooted back on the bed, putting some space between David and me.
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.
“Your dad was getting coffee in the lobby.” David turned to look at my father, who handed a steaming cup to my mother and a Snapple to Miranda. “We followed him up. By the way, everyone, this is Isabel.”
Isabel looked mortified at the mention of her name, as if saying it out loud had stripped her of an invisibility cloak. The tight smile stretched even tighter, and this time an equally tight wave accompanied it. My parents must have sensed the discomfort in the room, because they promptly ushered Miranda out and made an excuse about needing to stretch their legs.
“This is for you,” David said with a grin as he held out the corsage box he’d placed on the bed.
I fought back the lump in my throat. “David. That is so sweet of you.”
He shrugged and his expression turned sheepish. “I was gonna get you one anyway.” Behind him, Isabel’s lips pressed into a line. “Seriously though, are you okay? Do they know what’s going on yet?”
I shook my head and dropped my voice to a whisper. “It could be a few different things. They’re really making me nervous.”
David’s brow puckered and he squeezed my hand. “Don’t be nervous. You’ll be fine, I know it.” The corners of his mouth turned up again and mischief lit his eyes. “You just did this so I wouldn’t embarrass you on the dance floor tonight.”
I had to smile. “If you dance as badly as you spell, then maybe I should be glad I’m not going.”
He squeezed my hand again and leaned a little closer. “I really wanted you to go,” he said quietly. “I would’ve come alone, but by the time you texted me, I was already on my way to her house.” I knew he didn’t want Isabel to hear, and if she felt like a third wheel, I didn’t care. I hoped she did, actually.
David spoke in his regular voice as he told me to call him if I heard anything, and to let him know when I went home. But then as he stood, he leaned in again so only I could hear him. “Save me a dance for another time, okay?”
I nodded, feeling sad and alone the moment his weight lifted from the mattress.
“Feel better, Kelsey,” Isabel said as David walked toward her. Her relief couldn’t have been more obvious. From the way she’d been eyeing the room and shifting on her silver-heeled feet, you would have thought a fleet of cockroaches were closing in and David had rescued her in the nick of time.
They left the room and I sank into my pillow, ready to give in to my overwhelming urge to cry. I turned on my side, the IV needle pinching me in protest. That was all it took to push me over the edge, and I buried my sobs in the stiff linen.
As I repositioned my hand, trying to avoid the niggling stabs, the bloodstained gauze around my wrist caught my attention. Red seeping through white, the same as it had been in the snow. Seeing it made the image of Maddie mimicking me and Isabel glaring at me after the sledding incident loop through my mind. Embarrassment flooded over me just as powerfully as it had that day.
I’d always sort of blended into the woodwork at Norwood High—not exceedingly popular, but not invisible, either. Lately, though, the only person who looked at me like I was worth anything was David.
I buried my hand beneath the blanket as I thought about how illness was the last thing I wanted to put me in the spotlight. It already devastated me to know that I was the brunt of jokes. That people were laughing at me. I didn’t want to be the subject of more whispered conversations, or worse, the recipient of anyone’s pity. Suddenly what I did want—more than anything—was to be out at my high school dance like a normal, healthy sixteen-year-old, instead of stuck in a hospital bed with someone else’s blood dripping into my body.
Please, I thought. Don’t let this be my future.