“You said you wanted to be a doctor. Why didn’t you, then?”
She bites the inside of her cheek for a moment, leaning out the door to glance out into the hall. Once she’s sure we aren’t going to be overheard, she turns back to me.
“I used to say it’s because I didn’t get into med school. I didn’t have the credentials,” she says. “But now … I think it’s because I wasn’t brave enough.”
“Brave … enough?”
“I didn’t realize there was more than one way to fight back. Don’t let them scare you away, Alex. If this is what you want, don’t let anyone take it from you.”
Though she doesn’t say as much, the meaning in her words weighs heavy on me.
Fight back, she says.
And fight back I will.
Chapter Ten
I’m not as strong as them. I’m not as rich. Not as powerful.
In fact, my rich and powerful meters are practically in the negative currently.
But the nurse’s words run over in my head. After that one conversation, she doesn’t bring up the topic again. To the casual observer, I’m just another boy in the infirmary to her. Not the secret compatriot she just basically told to keep deceiving the school that employs
her.
Fight back.
What sticks with me the most, however, is how she worded it.
There’s more than one way to fight back.
I think I know what she means.
She doesn’t seem delusional enough to think I can somehow stand up to the boys in a literal sense. They’d beat the shit out of me. Even if they found out I was a girl, I don’t know if that would stop them.
Sure, I’m their target. They can’t be avoided. But I can fight back in my own way by just not giving up. I came here for a reason. I need this. I need the opportunity. I’ve always been smart, but never enough to get-into-Harvard-by-my-own-merit smart. Not with a full ride … which is what I’m going to need if I want to go anywhere.
At least anywhere that counts.
I’m not even sure what I want to go to college for, I just know whatever it is I don’t want to settle.
I don’t want second best.
Which is, after all, why I’m at Bleakwood in the first place, is it not?
So yes, I’ll fight back. But like the nurse suggested … I’ll do it in my own way. I’ll do it just by not dropping out. Like she said, I’m resilient. If I can survive falling down that many flights of stairs with nothing worse than a couple sprained ribs, I can handle anything.
Starting with a few days stuck here alone in the infirmary.
Staying here really isn’t so bad. Rafael drops by to give me my homework. He eats the food that’s too fatty for me to eat if I want to stay rail-thin and boyish. The nurse—Ms. Weber, I come to learn—can’t know that I’m not eating everything she gives me.
Though I think she suspects it.
During the day, I get to rest. It’s a short reprieve from the bullying, though one that grows boring with surprising speed. I find myself gazing out my tiny window most of the time, looking out onto a remote section of the grounds while I get lost in daydreams.
I’m staring out onto my little section of grounds on my last day, considering if it would be worth it to throw myself down some more stairs if need be if it means I’ll end up here again, when I see movement. Someone is out there, moving along the outside of my vision.
After a second, Heath enters my field of view.