My Beating Teenage Heart Page 6

  “If you don’t quit looking at me like that I’m going home,” I tell him as he gets in.

  Ty’s frown sinks deeper into his skin but he shakes his head to snap out of it. “Sorry, man. I suck at this. But hey, look, don’t go home. We’ll do something … I don’t know …” He stares out the passenger window and racks his brain. “Maybe … drive to that place with the awesome peppercorn burgers we found on the way to the Red Wings game. Remember that?” His eyes shoot over to my bandaged hand. “Can you drive like that?”

  “Yeah—with my right hand,” I joke. “And a morphine drip for the pain.”

  I didn’t think I was hungry but my stomach grumbles at the memory of that spicy-hot peppercorn burger, hands down the best hamburger I’ve ever tasted. Over a year ago Ty’s dad scored free Red Wings tickets through a friend and we stopped in London halfway to Detroit and discovered this place called QT-Burgoire. The bizarre decorating scheme uses only primary colors—it looks like it was inspired by Play-Doh—but I don’t think anyone cares what it looks like once they’ve tried the burgers.

  “So are you up for this thing?” Ty rubs his hands enthusiastically together. “We’ve been talking about going back for so long that it’s in danger of becoming one of those things people bring up all the time but never bother their asses trying to make actually happen.” Ty’s right—every couple months we mention it and then don’t do anything about it.

  “I hat [ mee those things,” I tell him and I know we’re both faking that the burgers actually matter, but that pretense is better than the look Ty was wearing when he stepped outside his front door.

  “Me too.” Ty takes another look at my amateur bandaging job. “I can take the wheel if you want, man. It sounds like your hand is crisp.”

  An hour ago I wanted my hand to hurt and now I just want it to stop. I’m happy to let Ty take the wheel. I change places with him and he drives us all the way from Strathedine to the QT-Burgoire in London two hours away. The city’s a snow trap in winter, and being the end of April the place is freshly naked, the recent thaw exposing scabby patches of grass and pieces of garbage—cigarette butts and crushed pop cans that’ll be in a Dumpster somewhere in a couple more weeks. I wolf down my QT-Burgoire burger and every last sweet potato fry that comes with it. The whole time we don’t say a word about Skylar. Ty fills me in on the highlights of the Toronto FC versus Seattle Sounders game and any school drama I’ve missed, which isn’t something we usually talk about much but I know he’s trying to carry the conversation, fill up all the spare air.

  Afterwards we walk around downtown until my hand starts to ache worse and we have to find an open Shoppers Drug Mart to buy more Advil. “Why didn’t you ask the pharmacist about that Valium drip?” Ty kids once we’re back on the street.

  “Morphine drip,” I correct. But a Valium drip would be better. What I need is a Valium drip permanently attached to my arm.

  We both get quiet when we’re back in the car and I realize that the closer we get to Strathedine the heavier I feel. If I could get away with never going home again, I think I’d do it. Just keep driving until, for all intents and purposes, I disappear. If I was someplace else—somewhere far away—I could almost pretend to myself that Skylar was back at home in Strathedine, waiting to grow up enough to be an astronaut.

  She wasn’t worried about not getting back and now she won’t. It feels like a sign—a sign that I missed.

  When we reach Ty’s house maybe he can see the weight back on my shoulders because he says, “So what’s up with tomorrow? Are you …” He waits for me to jump in.

  “Don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe if I wake up on time I’ll hit class.”

  Ty nods patiently. “Right.” He reaches between us and claps one hand on my shoulder for a second before throwing the door open. I watch him get out of the car, my signal to climb back behind the wheel and drive home.

  It’s started to rain again and that makes the night look darker than usual, but someone’s left the porch light on for me. Between that and the light seeping through the family room curtains, the house looks normal, complete. I dig my thumb into my hand as I walk up the driveway, feeling my world collapse a little with every step. Inside my father, mother and Lily are huddled together in front of the TV the same way they’ve been off and on for days. My stomach flips over at the sight of them, and my mom, with her bottomless p [ bonormal, coupils, is the first to look in my direction and mumble hello. Moose bounds across the room and jumps up on me like I’m back from World War II.

  “He missed you.” Lily smiles. “Your dad said you got a nasty burn from the kitchen tap.”

  I wave my bandaged hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.” Before she can pursue it further I yawn and motion to the door. “I’m completely wiped. I’m going to head up—see you in the morning.”

  I take the stairs two at a time and swallow a sleeping pill from my diminishing stash. It’s not the same as really getting away from here but it’s what I have and I wonder, as I begin to drift off, what Skylar would think if she’d seen what I did in the kitchen earlier today.

  I try to imagine her getting angry with me, yelling at me for even thinking of running away. It would make me feel better if I could picture her mad at me, but even in my head she’s not. I see her wide blue eyes pleading with me the way they did the last time I saw her. “But the boxes are so heavy, Breckon. You know I won’t be able to lift them.”

  “I said later, Skylar. You don’t need to find it right this second. What did I tell you about bugging me when I’m in the middle of something?”

  Skylar pouted in defeat; she knew better than to keep asking me. She was too many years younger than me for me to ever think of being downright mean to her but I know I didn’t always act like she mattered. Why didn’t you wait for me, Skylar? Why couldn’t you just have fucking waited an hour?

  This is one of two questions I’ll ask myself for the rest of my life.

  And the other is the reason that I need the pills.

  seven

  ashlyn

  I miss the beat of my heart.

  I miss the feel of my lungs expanding as they take in oxygen.

  I miss being able to swing my hips to the pounding beat of the latest chart-topping dance hit.

  I miss hearing someone say my name.

  I miss the feel of sunlight, warm on my face. I can see it when I’m outside with Breckon Cody, or watch it stream golden through his window, but I can no longer feel it. Three out of five of my senses are dead along with the rest of me.

  No one asks if you want to be born and no one tells you when you die either. If I’d wanted to learn the truth, I might have figured it out earlier. Now that I know, the knowledge burns me the same way Breckon’s skin began to melt under scalding-hot water.

  Everything I knew was wrenched away from me and I don’t even remember how. Did it happen in an instant or did I die a long, painful death? Did I fight until the end, clinging to life until I couldn’t hold on another moment or did I surrender quickly, seeking to escape the pain of some terrible disease?

  Memories are slowly returning to me, but not of that. My early memories—and the ones of my parents that precede my existence—are the ones that seem to be filtering back first.

  I was loved, I know my family must be inconsolable, the way Breckon’s family is. Why can’t I go to them? Why am I tethered here with Breckon instead and where is his sister? Why can’t I see her? Where is everyone else? All the other people who have died? There must be billions.

  An eternity of this is unthinkable. There has to be something I can do, a larger afterlife to move on to. I try again to break free, struggling in the only way open to me—thought. I meditate on the names of my family, over and over again. Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. The strength of my desire should fly me to them. It would be only fair. Only fair, I repeat. Only fair.

  Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. I’m here. I haven’t left this earth yet.

  But my s
oul, because I guess that’s what this remaining bit of me is, remains fixed firmly in Breckon Cody’s orbit. I’ve watched him lie sleeping next to his girlfriend, watched him hurt himself, watched him try to hide the pain of his awful loss … but what about my loss?

  And my family can’t be far. I spied Strathedine signs when Breckon was out driving with his friend and that made me remember something else—I lived in Strathedine, Ontario, population circa 140,000, before I died. My family lives at number thirty-seven Heathdown Crescent, in the southwest part of town. I chant the address in my head too, but my efforts come to nothing.

  Breckon rolls onto his side not seven feet beneath me. I feel sorry for him but I don’t understand what I’m doing here. I’m not anyone’s idea of a guardian angel. I wasn’t even sixteen years old yet when I died, I have no idea how to fix people (I’ve only just remembered my own address) and, even if I did, I’m powerless. Only an observer.

  Breckon opens his eyes and surveys his clock radio. It’s ten after eight. His eyelids are heavy and pull themselves abruptly shut, but only for a few seconds. His smoky blue eyes fight their way open again. He coughs as he rises and I try to feel shameless about watching him tug off his T-shirt. If I’m supposed to be here, why shouldn’t I see everything I possibly can?

  Breckon’s chest is slightly paler than his face. He’s not super ripped like someone who haunts the gym but not skinny or flabby either, an almost perfect in-between—the kind of hairless lean body that no doubt many girls would want to run up to on the beach and throw their arms skittishly around. It would look better still with a tan but …

  I glance away as he drops the green boxers he slept in last night. So much for feeling shameless. I can’t take advantage of the view this way when I know what Breckon’s been going th cbeef I didrough. Do you see that? I ask the universe. Do you see how I shouldn’t be here?

  And then again, would peeking at his penis be more personal than watching him burn himself on purpose? I shouldn’t be here, I repeat. I don’t know what you want me to do.

  No one answers me.

  It’s not fair, I say. Not fair. NOT FAIR.

  My eyes snap back to Breckon, who has put on a fresh pair of boxer shorts. He digs into his closet and continues getting dressed. Then we—me trailing him by a couple of feet—go down to the kitchen. I cringe as he eyes the tap.

  NO! I lecture. YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT AGAIN.

  Breckon shakes his head like he’s disagreeing with me. He pours himself a glass of orange juice and has just begun putting together a breakfast for himself when his mother wanders into the room in loungewear and fuzzy beige slippers.

  Her breath catches at the flash of red she’s spotted on the knuckles of his left hand. The bandage shifted a little during the night and the part of the wound she can see is far from the worst of it, but it would shock me too if I were seeing it for the first time.

  “Let me see that,” she insists, walking swiftly towards him.

  “Mom.” Breckon hides his hand behind his back. “It’s fine. It hurt worse yesterday—it just needs a chance to heal.”

  “Show it to me,” she demands.

  Breckon holds out his hand and, with that moody teenager look from yesterday morning, starts unspooling the bandage for his mother.

  She stares, horrified, at his lobster claw. “Breckon,” she murmurs, her head tilted to one side and her eyes lit up with alarm. “I’m calling Dr. Siddiqui and taking you in to get that looked at.”

  Breckon rolls his eyes a little but he really can’t protest much. There’s no denying that his hand looks like it was lowered into a deep-fat fryer.

  His mother’s already grabbing the cordless and punching in a quick succession of digits. Two minutes later Breckon has a confirmed appointment with his doctor. “They’re squeezing you in,” she tells him. “We need to get there as soon as possible.”

  “We?” Breckon’s head snaps forward. “Don’t you mean me?”

  I don’t know what Breckon’s mother looked like before she lost Skylar but what I’ve seen in her face during the past few days are layers of grief that flatten her every expression. The final layer—the one she wears closest to the surface—is the one that reminds her she still has to care about something. While the bottom layers are tangled and heavy, rooted to her bones, the top one lies lightly on her form, like a loose strip of gauze apt to blow away in the face of even moderate opposition.

  cposx20

  I’m not sure whether this is something I could’ve seen with my regular old eyes if I’d looked closely enough or whether it’s a new talent, like the ability to pick up on the sound of sorrow in Breckon’s breath. All I know is that in Mrs. Cody’s eyes, I spy a moment where she could give up and back down, simply cease caring and let Breckon have his way—and somehow I sense that Breckon catches sight of the moment too. His entire being pauses, waiting for the outcome of that moment. For several seconds there is only blinking and breathing between them.

  Then Mrs. Cody decides to hold fast to that delicate outer layer. Her previously blank expression morphs into irritation. “We,” she repeats. “That looks pretty serious, Breckon. I want to hear what Dr. Siddiqui has to say.”

  “Suit yourself.” Breckon shrugs, the challenge gone from his voice. “But I was thinking of going back to school this morning.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Mrs. Cody leans back against the kitchen counter. “Are you sure you want to go in today?”

  Breckon shrugs again, and as much as I understand that he doesn’t want to talk I feel frustrated on his mother’s behalf. How can she help him if she doesn’t know how he feels? How can anyone? “I don’t know …,” Breckon says, letting his words hang. “I thought it might be good to try to get back to things.”

  Mrs. Cody stares down at Breckon’s bandaged hand, nodding slowly. “I can drop you off at school after you see the doctor. The plumber’s not coming until this afternoon.”

  For the second time since my dramatic arrival here I’m able to leave the confines of the Cody property. I sit in the backseat of Mrs. Cody’s car, an invisible third passenger, and stare out the window for however long the laws governing my current existence allow. Inevitably my eyes drift continually back to Breckon, whether I want them to or not, but in between times I’m able to survey Strathedine as we travel along Highway 11 and turn onto Richmond Road. The journey allows me to pinpoint precisely where the Codys live, which is an area those of us in the Cherrywood part of town usually refer to as New Strathedine.

  The Cherrywood subdivision my own family lives in has more tall trees, big lawns with mature gardens and historical homes. My house is only forty years old but starting three blocks away, plaques from the local historical society become plentiful—hanging on several of the doorways, detailing the date the house was built and the occupation of the owner: shipbuilder, saddler, apothecary, millwright, mariner, bricklayer. Twenty-five years before my parents moved there, Cherrywood was its own separate town, but even the newer residents tend to differentiate between Cherrywood (an old port town) and New Strathedine.

  Why can I remember so many unimportant details about this place while I still don’t know everything about myself? Yet the pointless facts just keep on coming.

  The mall, Strathedine Town Center, is literally situated in the middle of town and halfway between our two addresses. The names of the stores that populate it run through my mind as if on a ti cas t startingcker tape: American Eagle Outfitters. The Body Shop. Guess. H&M. Lucky Brand Jeans. Mexx. Nine West. Old Navy. Pink. Sephora. Sony Style. Etc., etc. For the most part they’re the same chain stores you’d see anywhere. Not information that could possibly do me any good, but as we approach the Strathedine mall, a more productive idea somersaults into my mind. I find myself trying to sway Mrs. Cody with the power of thought, at first subtly. When subtle doesn’t work, I swoop in front of her to stare her in the face from above the steering wheel and think my address with such passion that no one would be able to
resist the desire to steer in the direction of the Baptiste house.

  Thirty-seven Heathdown Crescent, Cherrywood.

  What I wouldn’t give to see my parents in the flesh. To look them in the eyes even though they wouldn’t be able to look back into mine.

  Thirty-seven Heathdown Crescent, Cherrywood.

  Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. I miss you all so much.

  Thirty-seven Heathdown Crescent, Cherrywood, Strathedine.

  I think with such keen focus, such dizzying energy, that I could collapse a brain cell or two if I still had any. Listen to me, Mrs. Cody. Just for a minute, hear me and take us to Heathdown …

  But she doesn’t listen, doesn’t hear. As usual, my mental efforts yield no results. Mrs. Cody makes a left turn away from the mall and pulls into a squat medical building’s parking lot. Soon we’re squeezing into a tiny elevator that takes us to the third floor. There’s a fourth passenger with us, a bald woman about the same age as Mrs. Cody. I see Breckon notice her but pretend that he hasn’t. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am: she’s sick. Will she survive whatever’s the matter with her and live to an old age or is she doomed? Was I doomed? Was Skylar?

  Do any of us have a choice or are we just playing out destiny?

  I stream along behind Breckon and his mother as they exit the elevator and tread along a nondescript hallway and into a medical waiting room. Breckon’s mother gives his name to the secretary, who shows them both promptly into the doctor’s office and closes the door behind them.

  Not five minutes later I’m watching Dr. Siddiqui examine Breckon’s hand. The doctor’s professional expression makes it impossible to tell what he’s thinking, but he says, “It looks sore.”

  “It is,” Breckon admits, glancing from his damaged hand to the doctor.

  “He can take some acetaminophen for the pain,” the doctor advises, looking from Breckon to his mother. “But there’s no infection.” He smooths a burn cream carefully onto Breckon’s lobster hand, lays a dressing on top of that and rolls a bandage around it with infinitely more expertise than Breckon did himself. In the end only the tips of Breckon’s fingers are showing. “The dressing will need to be changed every day, and if it’s not beginning to look any better in a week or so—or if there are any signs of oozing or a strange c ore cha odor—he should come back to the office.”