One breath. Then another.
I press my hand to my chest and quietly scream when Marcie refuses to wake up.
One breath. Then two.
I slide along the wall until my butt touches the floor and my knees bend. My hand remains on my chest, my phone in my hand. In my brain, I scream and scream and scream until my voice is hoarse, then I scream a lot more, until I want to vomit.
Because Marcie is only seventeen, and she should be awake by now.
“She turns eighteen soon.” It’s a quiet murmur. Barely more than a whisper past moving lips. “She turns eighteen soon. She turns eighteen soon.” Salty tears dribble onto my lips, then onto my tongue. “It’s not time.”
My phone vibrates in my hand, but when I look and find Nix’s name, I push him away and shake my head.
“It’s not time. She’s only seventeen.”
I shouldn’t be in this room. I should not be watching this, and I especially should say something when blackness creeps along the outside of my vision. The waves in my ears grow louder, but nothing is as loud as when the screams in my head make everyone in the room turn.
Because the screams escape my chest when Doctor Rhett stops his compressions and shakes his head.
Because Marcie’s body stops moving completely, except for when her nurse, our favorite nurse, Gloria, buries her face against my friend’s chest and howls painful, wracking sobs.
“I’m so sorry!” she cries. “I’m so sorry, baby!”
Rhett backs away from her pain, from the dead girl in my old bed, in my old room, the dead girl who couldn’t survive the same sickness I had. He backs away from the one he lost, and almost trips when his shoe catches mine. What is only a bump for him, is an excruciating kick for me. I cry out, clutch at my face as I try to reel in the screams that won’t shut off, and clutch at my leg as shooting pain rockets through my shin and into my knee.
His job, the oath he swore, is to never cause harm, but he can’t stop to help me as he stumbles away. As he leaves the room and escapes the girl he couldn’t save, her pale, pasty skin barely discernible from the white sheets beneath her. Her bald head, void of the hair she so desperately wanted to regrow and show those stupid boys at school what they were missing out on.
“Oh god!” Stumbling, I climb to my feet and think of that stupid boy that dumped her because she wasn’t his definition of pretty anymore.What a coward! He was weak and stupid, and he hurt her when she didn’t need more hurt in her life.
I’m blinded by tears as I think of the date Spencer promised her. It was in jest, all of us knew that, but now all I can think about is the fact she’ll never know that date. She’ll never meet the eighteen-year-old boy Spencer promised her. The man that would take care of her like a man should. She’ll never finish her fried chicken, or the biscuit that currently sits in the gravy container, soaking up the brown liquid. That refreshing sip of soda she took an hour ago will never be replicated, that weak smile she gave because the cold bubbles sliding along her abused throat felt so damn good, even while so truly sick…
Rhett stumbles through the door and leaves a room full of broken people, but I run second, because I can’t stand to see another drop of crimson blood drip to the speckled gray floor.
I clutch the stupid phone to my chest, and blindly run into the hall and past the stunned staff. A child just died, so there is nobusiness as usual. The desk phones ring out for a minute, and the printers stop spitting out sheets of paper, as though in respect for the fallen.
Rhett moves to the left, perhaps to the bathroom to be sick like I want to be, but I move to the right and sprint toward the staircase. I should wait for the elevator, but I don’t want to wait for anything. I don’t want to stand alone while everyone watches on in shock, I don’t want to cry in front of a crowd.
I’d much rather do that in private.
I swing the emergency door open and stumble onto the first flight of stairs. My leg aches because of Rhett’s clumsiness, but I can’t let it slow me as I move. Concrete steps, concrete walls, freezing cold metal banisters, concrete everywhere I look.
My cries are sobs, my sobs are howls. My ankles twist as I run, and the phantom pain in my chest stings like tiny hornets that refuse to let me become complacent in my recovery.
My blood tests are scheduled for the day after tomorrow, because Marcie made me bring them forward. The day after tomorrow, I’ll make sure I live, because she insisted like she knew what tonight would bring.
My phone vibrates again and again, my brothers sensing my pain and demanding to know where I am, but I ignore their calls and slam the door open on the second floor. I dash into a hallway thatisbusiness as usual. Patients move about freely down here, in wheelchairs, on crutches, in gowns that expose more than the majority of us want to see in a cafeteria.
But I dash past and into the next hall, then around a bend and into another. I sprint and refuse to release my phone, my lifeline, and when I explode into the hospital chapel, and Jesus’ statue stares down at me, I shakily unlock my phone and dial the one person I can bear to speak to in this moment.
I need him. I need his protective hug, his gentle kisses on my forehead, his whispered words that promise everything will be okay.
My hands shake so violently, I have to stop and start numerous times. My tears blind me so I struggle to see, my legs ache, from standing, from holding my own weight, from Doctor Rhett’s accidental kick.
I hit dial and stumble forward until I drop into the pew closest to the back.
“Hey, Priss.” His voice is a smile. A cold bucket of water on my reality. “You have no clue how glad I am to hear your voice right now.”
“Spencer!” My cry comes out as a scream. A sob that genuinely brings fear that my heart might give out just like Marcie’s did. “Oh god, Spencer.”