by Jaime Reed
“I’ve got a chisel you can borrow if you need help getting that chip off your shoulder,” I told him.
He glared at me. “You don’t think I deserve to have one?”
“No. But no one deserves a whiff of your funky attitude. You’re not the only one who fell on hard times. Look around. This whole place is a hard time.”
Mateo regarded the debris and fallen wires with indifference. “Meh. I’ve seen worse.”
At the path’s end lay a wide patch of grass where the day’s activities would take place. A half-naked guy on a scooter came from that direction and was heading right for us.
“Block party! Woo! It’s about to be lit!” scooter guy hooted, and pumped his fist in the air, his shirt hanging around his neck like a scarf.
“Watch out!” Mateo pulled me out of the way at the last minute, then spat curses at the kid’s back. “You okay?” he asked me, and released his hold around my waist.
I didn’t get a chance to enjoy Mateo’s nearness or cop a quick feel of his biceps—I was too riled up. We were in a local park, so getting mowed down by skaters came with the territory. But after the third, fifth, and eighth scooter zipped by, I knew some foolery was in play.
“I’ll get back to you on that.” I quickened my steps toward the lawn.
My theory became fact on sight of the flash mob that covered the entire field. Kids from my school and a few other districts had arrived in full force. Some wore fatigue T-shirts with the words ACTIVE BEAUTY REPORTING FOR CIVIL DUTY spelled out in rhinestones. Other girls were dressed like it was the club and flirted with the male volunteers. One crying girl stormed off and begged her friend to take her home because she just couldn’t deal. It was basically every school football game I’d attended, minus the bleachers.
The Borg’s fingerprints were all over this crime scene, and the string of giggles and “omigods” told me that the suspects were still on the premises. I saw Joel Metcalf and two kids from media class filming the crowds entering through the wooded path.
I caught sight of Alyssa at one of the activity tables, taking group selfies with the student volunteers. I considered going over there, but that would just lead to a shouting match, wasted time, and a decline of IQ points.
“Janelle! Janelle!” Across the green, Sera jumped over heads to get my attention. Her waving hands and black ponytail flew in the air, then sank into the crowd. “Janelle! Janelle!”
“I’m coming, girl! Dang!” I scooted and slipped between bodies and met her halfway.
“Where did all these people come from?” she asked. “It was supposed to be twenty, thirty kids max.”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, feeling helpless and overwhelmed by the body count.
Devon Shapiro strolled past me with a guitar case strapped to his shoulder. Two band kids tagged along, carrying crates of equipment.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. “So tell me, Devon, at what point did you guys think turning a cleanup party into Project X was a good idea? What was that thought process like? Walk me through it.”
“Don’t look at me. You’ve got Active Beauty to thank for this.” He showed us his phone. “They’re livestreaming the event. There’s supposed to be some scavenger hunt. Whoever collects the most trash will get a prize or a guest spot on the vlog.”
“They’re gonna film us playing live.” A band kid pointed to the makeshift stage behind him. “Might turn it into a music video.”
Why was I not surprised? It wasn’t what you sold; it was how you sold it. That was Alyssa’s motto and the key to all our business endeavors in the past. But applying that tactic to a charity event didn’t sit well with me. Not even a little bit.
“The guys and I gotta set up, but Ryon wants us to meet in an hour. Keep your phones on.” Devon headed on through the crowd, and Sera tried to follow him toward the stage.
I pulled out my phone with one hand and yanked Sera by the collar with the other.
She stumbled back, then righted herself. “What? I just wanted to see if Devon needed help setting up.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. We still need to sign in. Focus, girl. This is a humanitarian project, not a dating app.”
“Have you told the rest of these people that?” She swept a hand toward the crowd.
Lord knows, somebody needed to. The park was turnt up and loaded with party-scene angst that I could’ve watched from the comfort of my living room.
I turned around and tore through the crowd, my need to do bodily harm unsatisfied. Sera kept pace alongside me.
“Come on, don’t let it get to you, Janelle. The Borg’s just trying to create drama wherever they can.” Sera tried to console me, but I paid it dust.
I couldn’t believe it. All my efforts to organize an act of charity had failed. To top it off, there was more trash lying around now than when the storm hit. And … I seemed to have lost track of Mateo. He didn’t need a babysitter, but I wanted him to meet with the rest of the crew before he went ghost. It was just as well. My attitude was on ten right now, which meant no one was safe from getting told off. No need to harm the innocent when my real target was—
“Alyssa? Alyssa!”
The scream had me spinning around. I recognized that voice. It was Ryon.
“Alyssa!” he was shouting. “Come on, wake up! Alyssa!”
So many questions popped in my head. Where was everyone going? Why was Ryon yelling? The urgency in his tone propelled me forward, while the demand for reason slowed my pace.
“She’s not waking up!” one kid yelled. “Someone call an ambulance.”
“An ambulance? What’s wrong with her?” asked someone behind me.
Nothing about what was going on made sense. Every forward motion was met with resistance, every inch of room challenged by a nosy bystander. As I got closer, I saw Ryon kneeling on the ground, bent over someone lying at his knees. His wide back blocked the face, but his cries and the reddish-blond hair strewn across the grass made it clear who it was.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked everyone and no one.
And everyone and no one replied:
“She said that she wasn’t feeling well—”
“… She looked dizzy, she kept swaying a lot, right?”
“Yeah, she said something about being tired—”
“… She just collapsed, man. She was staring off into space for a second and then boom! It was lights out.”
“Stand back. Give her some air!” one of the first-aid workers bellowed, parting the crowd with his arms. More EMTs ripped through the growing mob, medical bags in hand.
Ryon kept yelling her name, even as the medic knelt by Alyssa’s side.
“It’s all right, son. We need to look at her,” the man said.
They checked her pulse and listened to her chest for signs of life. Another teacher pulled Ryon back to make room for the stretcher.
I called Ryon’s name, but he couldn’t hear me. His stare remained glued to the medics working on Alyssa. More kids huddled around her, obstructing my view even more. I craned my neck and hopped over shoulders to gain a decent view while listening to Ryon’s desperate pleas for her to wake up.
From what I could see, the medical team had deposited Alyssa onto the stretcher. The crowd watched on and whispered nonsense.
“We need to get her to the hospital now! She’s in cardiac arrest.” At the announcement, the kids backed away as if whatever caused her condition was now airborne. Panic locked me in place, yet the world began a rapid spin, smudging everything in my periphery. It was a clear indication that I was about to cry, go ape, or both, but I needed some answers first.
Ryon beat me to the punch and yelled, “What’s going on? Someone tell me what’s wrong with her!”
If hearing Ryon was this painful, then I was glad I couldn’t see his face. The rapid motion around me blurred my vision, but Alyssa’s limp body lying on the stretcher had my full attention. Her pale coloring, the oxygen mask on her face, the way h
er head lolled back and forth—it all proved that a crisis was happening in front of me. It was real.
My brain ran at high speed, and my thoughts veered off in eight different directions, an incoherent blob of images and emotions. I couldn’t click away from the scene. It had no PAUSE button, no X in the top right-hand corner of the screen. There was no ESC or CTRL + ALT + DELETE keys to close the program. This clip, this corrupted file, kept playing, and I couldn’t make it stop. All I could do was watch.
Ryon wiped the tears from his sleeve and yelled after them. “Which hospital? Just tell me which hospital!”
“Mount Sinai!” one of the medics called back. “It’s closer.”
And with that, Ryon took off. I watched his shoulders tear through the crowd as he headed toward the end of the park, no doubt to his car to meet them in the emergency room.
“Someone needs to call her mom. Does anyone know how to find her mom?” a kid asked in the crowd.
The question gave me purpose. I pulled out my phone and dialed Alyssa’s house phone. I’d deleted the number ages ago, a redundant act of defiance since I knew it by heart.
The call went to voice mail. “Hello. You have reached the Weaver residence. At the tone, please leave a message.”
“Mrs. Weaver? This is Janelle Pruitt. You need to get to Mount Sinai Hospital. Alyssa collapsed in Aberdeen Park. She’s on her way to the hospital. Please hurry.” I hung up and fought the urge to chuck the device toward a nearby tree. Someone needed to tell Mrs. Weaver what was going on. Was she at work? If so, which job?
“Think. Think. Think.” I beat my temple with the phone. Maybe I could go to her house.
My legs felt weightless and heavy at the same time as I dashed through the park. Craning necks and bobbing heads kept me from seeing the grass. My body twisted and contorted, and I willed myself smaller to squeeze through the gaps between trees and people.
I tore across the street and ran three blocks to my car, where a battle of keys took place. They fumbled in my shaky hands and kept missing the lock and scraping the door’s paint. When I finally got inside the car, they refused to slip into the ignition. In a final act of rebellion, the keys fell to the floor under my seat. There was no time for this! While one hand patted for my wayward keys, the other scrolled through my phone for something, anything that could help.
“Janelle!” A boy called my name. “It’s me, Mateo. Janelle, open the door. I’ll drive you home.” The voice grew louder, followed by soft tapping on the glass.
I ignored him. “I need to call Alyssa’s mom. She’s not at home and I don’t have her cell number.”
“It’s okay. The teachers will contact her.”
“They can’t help her! I need to call her mom!” I hadn’t meant to yell, but he wasn’t helping. “Her insulin is at home. She can bring it to the hospital. She’ll know what to do. She always knows what to do.” I kept scrolling, though I couldn’t see the numbers anymore.
“Okay. Just calm down. Did you call her?” The soothing voice he was using was bugging the crap out of me.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” I yelled. “I can’t find her number!”
My lungs couldn’t capture air fast enough, and the lack of oxygen made spots appear before my eyes. A wave of terror hit me so strong that I couldn’t move.
Then I heard Mateo again, but his voice sounded garbled, as if he were in another room. “Hello, Mrs. Trina? It’s Mateo. Do you know a girl named Alyssa Weaver? Yeah. Do you know how to reach her mom?”
I looked up and saw him pacing outside the car with his phone to his ear. “Do you have her cell phone number? Her daughter had an accident and is on her way to the hospital. Yeah, it’s bad. They mentioned some sort of shock. Okay. Thanks.” He snuck a glance at me, then said, “Not so good. I will. No problem.” Ending the call, he stooped down to look me in the eye. “Your abuela is calling her now. Can you open the door? Please?”
It took a lot of coaxing on his part to get me moving again, but I managed to unlock the door and slide into the passenger seat. I expected him to climb in and start the car. Instead, he reached between us and pulled me into his arms.
I understood the action, but I couldn’t register the sensations that went with touch and condolence. A black cloud framed my vision, growing larger until all that was left was a pinpoint where I saw his hands hold mine.
“See? Problem solved. Mrs. Trina knows everyone’s mom, right? You said so yourself, remember? It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. “You want to go home or to the hospital?”
“I don’t know.” I could’ve sworn I’d spoken the answer out loud. Maybe I’d heard the question wrong, because he kept calling my name over and over.
“Janelle? Can you hear me? Janelle? Janelle?”
My blackout only lasted for a few minutes, and that was enough to spook out Mateo during the drive home. Luckily, I’d had other panic attacks like that in my life. The first one happened when I was eight while on a shaky flight to the Philippines in monsoon season. Another had occurred after Pop-Pop’s funeral.
When I arrived home, my grandma already knew the drill and told me to sleep it off; this was the Pruitt go-to remedy for fried brain.
That’s how I spent the rest of the weekend—phone off, curtains drawn, cocooned inside a blanket until my eyes opened Monday afternoon.
By then, my phone had lit up with so many notifications, it drained my newly charged battery. Grandma Trina had spared me the usual lecture about missing school, but she’d kept insisting I eat something. Even through a closed bedroom door, she could somehow tell I looked hungry. I did finally emerge from my room to have the dinner Mateo had prepared. We didn’t speak, other than grunts from my end whenever he asked if I was okay. He knew what despair looked like and how it didn’t allow for deep conversation. It didn’t allow for personal hygiene, either, but I rallied enough strength to shower and then crawl back into bed with my phone.
Word of Alyssa’s collapse had gone viral in a matter of hours and had the whole school shook. Kids who’d attended the cleanup party posted clips online. Total strangers were encouraged to view a girl’s violent descent into toxic shock and to click the LIKE button. Friends crammed her Instagram and Facebook with inspirational memes, while others hyped up the incident like the latest blockbuster. The extras in the background had embellished their roles and tried to win the award for Best Supporting Actor.
Dude, I’m telling you, I was right there when it happened. Watch the video again. The black jeans and the Converse—that’s me! It was so trippy, bro. I thought she was dead.
My dad knows a guy who works at the hospital. He said that she’s got like maybe a month or so to live.
I never knew she was sick. I thought she was on that gluten-free diet. I stopped eating carbs and everything.
I heard she has stomach cancer and has to get a bunch of chemo. That sucks. She has really nice hair.
There was always someone who had a friend who dated a guy related to someone who had dirt on Alyssa, when in truth they didn’t know her at all. And what wasn’t known was invented on the spot to stay relevant. Compassion? Loyalty? Privacy? What dat do?
On Tuesday morning, Mateo drove us to school. The thought of interacting with people had me ready to transfer, but I needed to make an appearance at the student council meeting today.
Mateo parked the car and cut off the engine. “I can take you home if you want.”
My eyes rolled from the parking lot to his face. “You say that after we get to school?”
“There’s still time. You’re not gonna faint again, are you? Kinda freaked me out last time.” When I shook my head, he said, “Last chance to call in a sick day.”
“I would need a sick month. But thanks, though,” I told him, and reached for my backpack. “You can be really nice when you wanna be.”
“No point in both of us being uptight. Need to find some balance in the universe.” He graced me with a quick smile, then climbed out of the car.
Was he sympathy flirting with me? I didn’t have the energy to decipher hidden signals today, so I followed him to the school’s rear entrance.
The senior class officers sat in the history classroom, awaiting news and encouraging words from our leader. I’d heard Ryon was absent yesterday and I’d expected him to be a no-show again, but duty called to us all. I could respect that, though why Joel Metcalf was filming the meeting remained a mystery. He stood two rows behind me and adjusted the camera’s position on the tripod.
“Hey, Spielberg! Could you put that away and join the meeting?” I called over my shoulder.
Joel poked his head from behind the camera. Oily black hair flopped around his eyes. “Can’t. It’s for the vlog.”
“What?” I turned completely in my seat to rail at him. “We’re in the middle of a crisis and you’re talking about a stupid vlog? Are you mental?”
“Ryon told me it was okay. Said he didn’t want to repeat himself,” Joel explained, then kept filming.
I turned to the front of the class, where Ryon held a white-knuckled grip on the podium’s edge. Gone was the put-together overachiever we were used to and in his place stood a burnt-out star who’d hit rock bottom. His eyes, dark and red-rimmed from crying, stared at his notes. Watching him fight for composure held all the nerve-racking suspense of a Jenga game. Pull one block from the stack, say one wrong word, and the entire tower fell apart. Would he or wouldn’t he burst into tears? Would I?
“Um, you are all probably aware of what happened at Aberdeen Park on Saturday,” Ryon began. “I’m sure you all have a lot of questions. I was able to speak with Alyssa’s mother at the hospital. She sends her thanks to all who offer their prayers and condolences.”
When the murmurs died down, he continued.
“Alyssa had been battling with health issues for a few years now. They were able to keep it under control, but …” He cleared his throat and tried again. “An infection caused her kidneys to shut down, which led to toxic shock and cardiac arrest. Alyssa’s been in a coma for three days, but the doctors are confident she’ll come out of it soon. The main concern is to get her kidneys back online before the damage is permanent.”