My Beating Teenage Heart Read online

  “I know.” I nod again. The next forty-eight minutes will be lots of nodding and I knows. I want to sound reasonable but the room feels so wrong. She’s tried to decorate it sort of like a living room but you know that no one ever hangs out here for fun. There’s a small wooden desk pushed against one of the walls—an office chair in front of it—but Eva and I are sitting in high-backed leather armchairs with a coffee table separating us. I could’ve sat on the couch, which looks more comfortable, but that’s marginally closer to her and I want to keep my distance. My eyes land on the globe in front of the bookshelves. If it was nearer I could have a look at it without making it seem as if I’m avoiding the subject.

  “I’m very sorry to hear about your sister,” Eva continues.

  “Everyone says that.” Damn. Two {mn

  “Would you rather they didn’t?” Eva asks.

  “It doesn’t matter what they say or don’t say.” Is she going to dissect every sentence that comes out of my mouth and throw it back at me in the form of a question?

  Eva gazes at me, expecting me to explain my answer, but I only stare back, focusing on her dangling earrings. “I realize that it wasn’t your idea to see me.” Eva leans back in her chair. “But this time really is for you. Not for your parents or anyone else. I want you to think of it like that if you can—you can say whatever you want here.”

  I fold my arms in front of my stomach and grip firmly. “Did my mother tell you what happened?” I ask.

  Eva nods, her eyes calm but not unsympathetic. “She told me you were the one to find your sister.”

  If I hold any tighter I’ll crush internal organs. “I was the only one home.” The vacant expression on Skylar’s face is burned into my brain forever. The moment’s never far from my thoughts, but this is worse because we’re shining a spotlight on it.

  “You were the one who called emergency services,” Eva says, and I don’t know if it’s a question or not.

  “It was too late.” My eyes burn. Pressure builds in my ears and forehead, making them ache. The tears sting as they well up from that place inside me that never stops screaming Skylar’s name.

  But when I made the call, the world seemed infinitely quiet. Like time had stopped. The house was soaked in silence. I couldn’t turn up my voice. The woman on the other end of the 911 line kept making me repeat myself and saying she was having trouble hearing me. But inside I was wailing.

  Even when the ambulance arrived with its siren blaring, I couldn’t hear it in the same way that I would’ve before. It seemed muted the way everything does now—everyone I know and everything I do. And I kept thinking, even as I was screaming inside, even when my parents showed up and an investigator from the medical examiner’s office came to look at my sister and said that they’d be taking her to the morgue, that I could somehow change what had happened.

  The cops came next. They asked my parents questions, but mostly me. An investigator took pictures of the scene. The police made me describe what I’d witnessed, and the male cop looked away when I lost it and broke down. It didn’t take long for the medical examiner to rule accidental death.

  Putting the words accident and death together seems ridiculous. Spilt milk is an accident. Breaking your arm and needing stitches are accidents.

  What happened to Skylar is so much more than an accident and I still can’t accept that there’s nothing I can do to reverse the past few weeks and bring her back. If I told my parents I couldn’t watch her that night. BAM. If I changed my mind and went after her when she asked me about the boxes. BAM. If I d {. BI tied that night on my bike a year and a half ago …

  “I can’t do this,” I croak, looking away from Eva. I can’t.

  I blink back the tears so that they don’t spill over.

  She’s gone. She’s gone.

  “Do you want to take a break?” Eva asks. Her voice sounds piercing but I know it’s not. It’s just that my brain can’t cope with the intrusion into my thoughts. A whisper from my own voice would sound like a shriek right now.

  I can’t. We’ve only just started and I need more than a break. I need for this to be over. But opening my mouth and forming the words to get that across is more than I can do right now. I nod mutely and Eva uncrosses her legs, gets up and heads for the watercooler in the corner. Several tall clear glasses balance on a tray atop a small circular table next to it and she takes one, fills it and sets it in front of me on the coffee table. Everyone’s getting me water lately and all the things I can’t say—about the sleeping pills, stealing from Mr. Pacquette, hurting myself—weigh so heavily on me that it’s a wonder I can get out of my seat.

  But I do. I ignore the offered glass of water, lope over to the globe in front of her bookshelf and spin it, my eyes still on fire. The sphere part has a bronze metallic sheen to it, and beneath it a Greek-style statue of a man on his knees balances the weight of the world between his shoulders. With the way his arm and leg muscles are bulging, the weight appears to be a strain but he’s still succeeding, and I wonder if there’s some kind of shrink message built into Eva’s choice of this particular globe—some rah, rah you can do it message.

  I suddenly remember the guy’s name. Atlas. We did Greek mythology in English last year and Zeus punished him for siding with the Titans in their war against the Olympians by making him hold the sky on his shoulders. So not only is the base of this globe not the most fitting message for a shrink’s office, it’s also incorrect. Atlas should be holding up sky, not the world.

  “I always wanted one of those,” Eva says from across the room. “It was the first thing I bought for the office when I started decorating years ago.”

  I swallow to clear my throat. “I had one when I was younger.” I stare down at the vastness of Asia on the globe. “Not an antique-style one like this. Just the regular kind you buy a kid to put on their desk.”

  We talk about kid things for a while—bunk beds, board games, color markers—and when I do sit down again, minutes later, and take a sip of water, we don’t discuss Skylar directly—we talk around her, about the concentration problems I’m having at school and about staying in communication with my parents about what I need from them. Eva thinks I should speak to my teachers and that they’d understand and give me more time to work on things—or even extra help when I need it. She says it’s natural that I might want to withdraw from people, like my parents, but that I should try to stay connected to them and my friends.

  I’m relieved when I notice that the appointment’s almost over and that there won’t be enough time to get back to Skylar. At eleven minutes to five Eva, without checking her watch or anything, asks: “Would you like to come back next week?”

  I was never going to come back—the near meltdown I had at the beginning of the session just proves that was the right decision. But I pretend to consider her question before replying, “I don’t think so.”

  “I wish you would,” Eva says. “But you can think about it and call me. Even months down the road, if you want to. I’ll be here.” Eva glides over to the desk, picks up one of her cards and hands it to me. “Hold on to it in case you change your mind.”

  “All right.” I slide her card into one of my back pockets. “Thanks.”

  I’m not going to walk through this door again. I don’t need to come here to feel bad about Skylar. That happens everywhere I am anyway. Maybe therapy works for some things, like eating disorders, but how can it be better to scratch at wounds that will never heal?

  Eva has done something for me today, though. She’s given me a clearer idea of what going through the motions should look like. It’s not enough to show up for classes. I need to go to my teachers and ask for extensions on assignments or makeup tests for the ones I’ll fail in the near future. Like the math test next Monday, which I’m guaranteed to flunk because the probability that I’ll be able to solve problems involving quadratic functions or wrap my head around the sine and cosine laws is less than zero.

  When I think of all th
e energy it will take to try like that—or even look like I’m trying—a wave of exhaustion slams into me. It was hard enough getting through this week when I was cutting class—sitting through endless hours of math, English, econ and social science while I feel like this is unimaginable. I unlock my car, climb in, push the seat as far back as it will go and shut my eyes. Only for a second because then I realize Eva Kannan might look down from her window, see me napping in the parking lot and call my folks to confirm that Breckon is on his way to cracking up.

  Then it comes to me. There’s one other thing I can do that doesn’t depend on being able to concentrate but that might still show my parents that I’m settling back in and get them off my back. I cradle my cell in my palm, flip up the lid and dial Zavi’s.

  eleven

  ashlyn

  When Breckon was at the therapist’s office I thought there was a chance he’d tell her the truth. I knew he wouldn’t really want to, that he’d try to fight it, but when I saw his eyes fill with tears and say he couldn’t do this I thought there’d be an avalanche inside him that he couldn’t contain and that it would all come spilling out.

  The sleeping pills.

  The burn.

  The scissors.

  Tell her, I urged in the tone I’m still borrowing from my mother when I speak to him. You can trust her. She won’t judge you. She’ll listen. She’ll help.

  If the fact that I’m not in a hurry to remember certain parts of my life makes me a hypocrite, so be it. Breckon doesn’t have to know that. Skylar would tell you exactly what I’m telling you if she could, I said too.

  If she were with him instead of me I bet he’d be able to hear her. I wonder, because I have all the time in the world to wonder, if his sister was supposed to be the one glued to him in this way and there’s been a cosmic mistake.

  I wonder so, so many things and if there are answers on the wind I can’t hear them, only Breckon’s ragged, pained breath. There’s life after death but I don’t understand it. I don’t remember a tunnel or a white light. I don’t remember seeing my body and I don’t remember being eight years old.

  I just watch. And listen. And whisper to somebody who can’t hear me.

  When Mr. Cody arrives home from work, for instance, I listen to Breckon tell him that the therapist seemed okay and he’ll call her if he needs to but for the time being he wants to see how things go. “I’m going back to work tomorrow,” Breckon adds. “I called Mr. Baldassarre and he said he didn’t want to bother me but that it’d be great if I could make it because they’re expecting it to be busy—you know, because of that new time-travel movie opening at the theater next door. They’ve got it playing nearly every hour.”

  Mr. Cody appears to accept this, but over dinner Mrs. Cody makes a point of saying, “We can find someone else for you to talk to if you didn’t feel comfortable with Eva.”

  Breckon’s in the middle of slicing into his ham and he stops, with his elbows in midair and the sliver of meat under his fork not yet fully severed. “Mom, please,” he says in a voice like a rusty nail. “I tried it and I don’t want to go back. Let it go.”

  Mr. Cody reaches for his wife’s hand under the table, to stop her from repeating herself more insistently. “He has her number,” Mr. Cody says to his wife. “And she’s not going anywhere. She’s still a future option.”

  I can see that they’re trying to be understanding and do the best thing for him, but that they can’t see what that is in the same way that I can. I have the world’s best view of Breckon Cody and I know without a shadow of a doubt that his parents should force him to go back to therapy. He hasn’t hurt himself lately and I wish I could believe that’s over with but his breath sounds the same as ever and now he’s lied to Jules by stealing from her parents’ medicine cabinet.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cody do as Breckon asks and drop the subject, though, at l, tseast for the moment. After dinner Jules comes over and she and Breckon watch a horror movie where every last person is viciously slaughtered, even the psycho killer. Some of the scenes are vaguely familiar and I wonder if I saw the movie in my own teenage life. Breckon’s parents disappear, giving him and Jules some privacy, and during an axe attack on one of the main characters Jules nudges her face into Breckon’s collar to kiss his neck.

  He kisses her back a little, but not much, before easing his face away. Jules seems to get the same idea that I do, which is that Breckon isn’t interested in getting physical right now, and stops attempting anything beyond cuddling. When she leaves, their good-night kiss at the door is brief but Breckon runs his fingers through her hair and holds her close.

  Watching him do it, I get an idea of what they were like together before Skylar died and I can see why Jules fell for him and why he fell for her. I bet they were a couple who made other people want to be part of a couple too. But I shouldn’t think that as though it’s in the past. People get through hard times by leaning on each other, and Breckon’s lucky to have Jules. He should lean more.

  I feel instinctively that I never got to have that with a guy, and that makes watching them feel bittersweet. I must have missed out on a lot of things, dying at fifteen, but that’s a big one. I would’ve wanted that kind of love, even if I couldn’t remember it.

  Once Jules has gone Breckon pops a pill and slips into dreamland, the only part of his life that I can’t see. He remains there until early afternoon, almost as though he’s relishing his time away from my prying eyes. Just before five he drives over to the Cherrywood Empire outlet mall, which is actually closer to my house than it is to his. There I learn that his work place is called Zavi’s Subs & More. Though I remember the basic layout of the outdoor mall I don’t specifically remember the submarine shop. It looks like a small business rather than a franchise and it’s sandwiched between a tattoo studio and photography store and across from a gym on one side and movie theater on the other.

  I peruse the menu as Breckon slips in behind the counter—most of it’s composed of various submarine sandwiches but I noticed that there are also an assortment of salads and flat-bread pizzas. I miss the sensation of being hungry, and the act of satisfying it, more than I would’ve thought possible. Flavor memories—sweet, salty, bitter, spicy—are stored somewhere other than merely your brain cells and mouth. I know that because I can still remember what it’s like to taste, although my taste buds must be six feet under.

  My focus on Breckon begins to loosen as I slip into a fantasy about devouring a foot-long submarine sandwich piled high with roast beef, bacon, mushrooms and red onions. Drowning in barbecue sauce, it would trickle down the length of the bread and splash to the floor beneath me. I’d make a mess like I used to so often when I was a child and I wouldn’t feel embarrassed about it—only revel in the thrill of tasting again. And if, when I was done, that still wasn’t enough, I’d order a veggie flat-bread pizza chaser and finish that off good and slow, savoring every bite.

  Even to smell again would be ecstasy. Garlic bread baking in the oven. Warm chocolate chip cookies. Ribs sizzling on the barbecue. Corn on tcuechehe cob directly under my nose as I chomp through a column of kernels like a beaver.

  If I had a beating heart I’d be drooling now. Who knew that a type of hunger that has nothing to do with your stomach being full or empty survives the grave? Do sex addicts still crave flesh? Do alcoholics remain thirsty?

  Breckon, why couldn’t you have worked in a clothing store at the mall? Why did it have to be food?

  “Good to have you back, Breckon,” an older man with a potbelly and pencil-thin eyebrows says, lumbering over to him. “Zavi sends her thanks too.” The man, who I assume to be Mr. Baldassarre, smiles briefly at Breckon. “She’s out with her sister tonight instead of here, thanks to you, but she says anything you or your family need, you let us know.”

  “Thanks.” Breckon’s eyes shift to the teenage girl standing next to the man. “Hi, Georgia.”

  “Breckon, I couldn’t believe it,” the girl replies in a wobbly voice. Her bro
wn hair’s barely long enough to pull into a ponytail but she’s done it anyway, and having her hair back like that makes her face look chubbier. “Your beautiful little sister,” she murmurs. “She was like an angel.”

  Breckon’s head dips in recognition of her remarks. Meanwhile a mother and twin boys, about ten or eleven years old, are sidling up to the counter to ogle the menu. “Can I help you?” Breckon asks, moving quickly towards them.

  Georgia’s eyes widen, surprised to see him leap into action.

  “I know we want one six-inch tuna,” the customer says, looking searchingly at her boys. “What else are we going with, guys?”

  “I want the meatball sub,” one of the boys pipes up.

  “That made you burp for an hour last time,” his mother reminds him. “Why don’t you get something like turkey or tuna?”

  “I want meatballs,” the boy repeats. “They were good. It doesn’t matter if I burp.”

  His mother rolls her eyes, smiling in resignation as she faces Breckon. “Whatever he wants. He’ll be the one burping later, not me.” Her other son orders pepperoni flat-bread pizza, and when the order’s ready he snatches his pizza out of the bag and has it half-finished before they leave the store.

  “Do you hear that, Uncle Dom?” Georgia kids after they’ve gone. “She said your meatballs made her son burpy.”

  Mr. Baldassarre swats the air. “Eat too fast and anything will make you burp.”

  “Anyway, the kid seemed to think it was worth the belching,” Breckon says. “That’s practically a recommendation. You should put the quote on a sign. You know: ‘I want meatballs—it doesn’t matter if I burp.’ Under that you have printed ‘Customer, age ten.er,ld put thex2019; ”

  “That would be hilarious!” Georgia cries. “We could make up the sickest quotes about this place and hang them on the wall as publicity.”

  Breckon’s eyes glimmer with a playfulness I haven’t seen in them before. “The barbecue chicken sub gave me salmonella … but if that’s what salmonella tastes like, I’m ready to have it again.”