Echoes Between Us

by Katie McGarry

  I run a hand through my hair, pulling at the strands to create pain, and force myself away from the edge. Safe. There’s nothing safe about this. It’s stupid. That’s what it is. It’s how I broke my arm. I did a bad dive. I jumped at another quarry that was too high and into water that was too shallow. I almost drowned. I almost died.

  “Dammit!” I yell, and my voice echoes along the walls of the empty quarry.

  But I need this high. I want this high. I want to feel the surge of adrenaline in my veins as I step off the ledge. I love the way my stomach rises, how the wind rushes over my body, and the complete feeling of freedom as, for a few seconds, I’m flying. And then there’s the hit. The pain of my body coming in contact with the water. The shock of the cold locking up my muscles. My lungs burning as I go deeper and then the panic as I fight for the surface. The moment of terror when I think I’m never going to taste air again and then the overwhelming feeling of triumph as I break through to the surface.

  But I almost died.

  Died.

  But that was a higher jump. A more dangerous jump.

  This jump isn’t as high. It’s safer.

  Safer.

  Mom’s voice plays in my brain,

  I’m sorry, Sawyer. I’m sorry.

  The sound of Lucy’s screams.

  The pure hate in Veronica’s eyes.

  How I fail.

  At school.

  At home.

  How I never meet expectations.

  With friends.

  With family.

  With …

  Swim, Math

  English, Projects, Papers

  Moving …

  Bounced checks.

  My father.

  No control.

  Out of control.

  Spinning.

  My muscles lock.

  My head swims.

  My blood runs hot.

  Runs fast.

  I’m boiling alive.

  I need to cool off.

  I need a release.

  I need it.

  I need.

  Need.

  I’m addicted.

  Addicted.

  And I hate myself for it.

  Loathe.

  I’m running. Toward the cliff and all the voices screaming in my head go silent as I take one step too many and jump feet-first into the abyss.

  VERONICA

  My body hums with nervous energy. Leo is close, so close tonight. Maybe that means something. Maybe that means he’s also feeling the weight of our time running short. Maybe he doesn’t want to leave without saying and doing all the things that need to be said and done.

  A few feet from us, Jesse’s red hair sticks out from his sleeping bag and the rest of him is buried deep within the material. Nazareth, on the other hand, the guy who runs forever hot, is stretched out on top of his sleeping bag. His arms and legs tossed about during a restless sleep. The bonfire that was raging hours before has tapered off to a slow, glowing burn.

  We’re on Jesse’s land, acres and acres from civilization. This place is like a second home to me. The stars above me, a blanket. The thick grass beneath me, pillows. Every inch of me smells of burning wood and of Leo. Tiny thrills run through me as I never want to smell of anyone else ever again.

  It’s very late at night. So late that I can almost taste the dew of dawn on the tip of my tongue. I typically love sunrises, but I never want this sun to rise. This is the night that needs to last forever. Tomorrow, today, Leo leaves.

  Leo and I sit on his open and laid-flat sleeping bag, watching the dying fire. We sit tight, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. The air is heavy with moisture, warm from the summer, yet has the coolness of night. On our legs is the thin blanket I brought. My eyes are heavy from exhaustion, but there’s no way I’m giving in to my body’s urge for sleep. My desire to be with Leo is much stronger.

  The only other downfall of the evening is my headache. It’s an ache that keeps growing in intensity, but I do my best to ignore it. My brain is not going to ruin my last moments with Leo. But for the first time tonight, a spike of pain blasts through my skull. My hands shoot up, and I cradle my head.

  “You okay?” Leo asks.

  I force my hands down. “Yes.”

  Leo pops his knuckles, inches away from me and won’t look me in the eye. My stomach sinks. Leo’s nervous and it’s over my pain. That’s the one thing I would change about Leo if I could—he gets awkward whenever anything with my head is brought to attention.

  I watch the fire and give Leo time to get over whatever goes on in his mind whenever my head aches. Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long for Leo to reclaim his spot. When his bare skin touches mine, I close my eyes as I shiver with happiness.

  “Can I ask you something?” Leo says.

  Anything. “Sure.”

  “What’s it like to have a brain tumor?”

  My eyes snap open. Anything. He could have asked me anything, but he had to ask me that? Disappointment feels a lot like anger as I fall back onto the sleeping bag. I rub my eyes as they’re watering. I could say it’s from the bonfire smoke, but it’s not. Leo, like always, breaks my heart.

  I clear my throat, and when I finally peel my hands off my face, I find Leo lying on his side watching me. I don’t know what it is Leo wants me to say. Besides doctors, he’s one of the few people who know about my tumor and he knows all that anyone needs to know. Like bullet points, if I were to write about my tumor in my English journal:

  • I have a brain tumor.

  • It’s small and, since finding it, it has never grown.

  • According to the doctors it’s “harmless.”

  • It does give me migraines, but due to the location of the tumor, the doctors feel that surgery or any other course of treatment is a risk they aren’t willing to take at the moment.

  • Our course of treatment is called “watchful waiting,” which means annual MRI scans.

  “My head hurts at times,” I finally answer and do my best to sound lighthearted, “but other than that, I don’t know it’s there.”

  Leo looks past me and into the night. His eyes are red, remnants of the many beers he had earlier this evening. “That’s not what I mean. Do you wonder if what happened to your mom will happen to…”

  Me.

  Leo trails off and it’s like he stabbed me with a knife. The pain in my chest is worse than the one in my head.

  “Yes,” I say as a hoarse whisper. “I wonder.”

  My mother’s tumor was malignant. Mine is benign. My mother died, and I’m still alive. The wound of her loss is still fresh, and I don’t like discussing her tumor or how she died. I swallow to help the tightening of my throat. “But I also know that what happened to Mom won’t happen to me.”

  I won’t allow it.

  “Because your tumor is different?” Leo asks.

  Is mine different? “Yes.” Is that why it won’t happen to me? No.

  Before Mom died we had very long talks. Deep discussions about her choices, my choices and how I was free to choose the same path or a different path from hers if my tumor changed from something benign to something disastrous.

  My mom’s demise was long and torturous. In return for more time, she gave in to a life stuck in bed in the hospital. It’s what my dad wanted. It’s what he begged her to do. It’s what he would expect me to do, and I don’t want it. Not now. Not ever.

  I’m not an idiot. I’m quite aware that seeing my mother’s ghost may signal a change in my tumor, but then again, does it? Our house is haunted. Like Lucy, when I was younger, I also saw a child in the first-floor bedroom. For years, I’ve heard the footsteps, the cries, and the laughter.

  My mother loved me, and she loved my dad. Is it too much of a stretch to think she’d stick around to make sure that the loves of her life are okay?

  Besides seeing Mom, there have been no other changes. My headaches and migraines are the same. There have been no other physical signs or symptoms from
the telltale list I memorized since being diagnosed at eleven: dizziness, tingling, problems with sight, numbness or seizures.

  If I tell Dad about Mom, I’ll be in a hospital so fast I’ll suffer from whiplash. Dad will quit his job, he’ll watch me twenty-four/seven and he’ll ruin both of our lives. And then I’ll be just like Mom—I’ll die in a hospital, filled with every possible poison to fight the cancer.

  My next MRI is in June. If my tumor has grown, Dad will find out then, but I have almost a year between now and then to live life completely.

  “The only reason this world has anything redeemable in it is because of you,” Leo says. “Promise you’ll never stop being you, V.”

  “As long as you promise to not forget me while you’re away.”

  “I could never forget you.” But his eyes are sad, as if he’s already grieving me—because he’s leaving, because when he looks at me he only sees my tumor and my impending death.

  “I don’t care for a lot of people,” Leo says softly, with an expression that I must misread. One that suggests, as his eyes linger on my lips, that he’d like to kiss me. I’d love for him to kiss me, but what I’d really love is for him to love me. “But I care for you.”

  Cares. Not loves, but the way he looks at me, as if I’m the most desirable girl in the world, softens the blow.

  We’ve done it—kissed before. It’s a game Leo and I have played many times over the years, and each time the rules keep changing. He leans in, kisses me, my heart explodes and then he runs. Far and fast. Making us friends again until he, once more, takes a risk on me.

  Leo reaches over and his fingers graze my cheek. Just a whisper of a movement that causes my heart to stutter. Kiss me, Leo. Please, kiss me.

  But he rips his gaze away, sits back up again and his face hardens as he stares at the fire. I’m left cold and empty.

  “Maybe, next year, when you leave town and go to college,” he sputters out, and while his words don’t make sense, I understand what’s happening. He’s running again. “… maybe you’ll go to my college … maybe…”

  “Maybe,” I whisper.

  “I hate that you’re sick.”

  He had given me the gift of his touch then snatched it back so quickly that he left an emotional scrape. “I’m not sick.” Not as long as I don’t tell Dad and end up weak and puking in a hospital bed.

  “You know what I mean. I hate your tumor.”

  Me, too, and I hate that it keeps him from loving me. I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t have a tumor or if I had the presence of mind in middle school, way before I fell for Leo, to never have told him about the foreign entity in my brain. Would we be kissing right now? Would I have lost my virginity to him? Would we have gone to dances together and have pictures of each other up on our bedroom walls of us locked in an embrace? Would he be currently holding my hand, holding me close, whispering that he loves me?

  But I did tell him and that was the right thing to do. It would be unfair and selfish of me to allow someone to fall in love with me when my forever won’t last nearly as long as theirs. And once they know the truth, no one in their right mind would fall in love with someone like me, and I don’t blame them.

  I force myself to sit up next to Leo, and this time, I’m the one who makes sure there’s distance between us. Leo’s still stewing, but then he brightens as if he found the answer to our problem. Unless he’s figured out how to wrangle a miracle, there’s no solution.

  “In a few weeks, you, Jesse and Nazareth should visit me. I’ll want everyone to meet my best friends.”

  Best friends is all I can ask for from him, and that hurts. “That’d be great.”

  “It will be epic.”

  But I’m not holding on to the epic visit as a friend. I’m holding desperately on to his faint promises of maybe.

  SAWYER

  Thursday Jan. 10: Weight 118 lb. Cured 4 hours today. Isn’t that great?

  I’m starting to drink milk again, because I lost this week. That will never do.

  Wrote to Maidy today. Hope somebody hurries up and writes to me. I’d like to get some mail.

  Had cocoa this afternoon, but ate a big supper anyway.

  Frank came over tonight, and played cards with Sadie, Carolyn and myself. I s’pose he’ll ask me to sit with him at the movies. I wish he wouldn’t, then maybe I’d get a chance to sit with Mr. K. Wish I could.

  Reading comes slow for me so I don’t read unless forced, but something about this diary has drawn me in. Each entry is short, simple, but says so much. What Evelyn often wished for and her reality were two different things.

  That I get.

  So much was happening to her—sixteen, diagnosed with TB, sent to live in a sanatarium to “cure,” which meant lying outside in a bed for hours. She tried to create a life there—friends, boyfriends, jobs … But I can’t help but wonder, did she feel trapped?

  I do.

  Often.

  Most of the time, my life makes me feel as if I’m trapped inside a nailed-shut coffin that’s already been buried six feet deep, and I’m running out of air. I’m not trapped in the ground, but I am in the school library with my headphones in so I can block out the world. Though I shouldn’t feel like I’m suffocating, when I suck in a deep breath, my lungs don’t inflate all the way.

  Today is the first day of school, and after picking up my schedule, I discovered I’m in AP English. I can’t read worth a damn, and I’m in AP English. When I tried talking to my counselor, she told me to talk to my mom. That answer was the equivalent of someone taking a chainsaw to my leg.

  Mom is like a snowball that’s thrown at a mountain teetering on an avalanche. She tries to “fix” my life, without my consent, and ends up burying me in more problems. I’m terrified to ask her what she’s done now. My fingers tap against the table, my knee starts to bounce. The muscles in my neck tighten, and I’m swamped with the need to jump.

  My cell pings and Coach’s words are read to me through the text-to-talk app: Great job at practice yesterday! Keep up the good work! Make school a priority this year. Remember the state title is the goal!

  Since breaking my arm, I had been doing physical therapy to keep in shape. Yesterday was my first day in the pool. I didn’t clock my best time, but I did beat some guys on my team. Swimming is natural for me, just like breathing and jumping off cliffs.

  Another ping. Mom: Are you sure our landlord is okay with the bounced check? People usually aren’t that nice.

  Yeah, I agree, but the girl who thinks I’m trash is that nice. Me: AP English?

  Mom: Sylvia and Miguel agreed to work together so you can join their group. This way you’ll get a good grade in the class.

  Agreed … so you can join … like I’m a charity case. I roll my neck to help ease the tension, but it doesn’t work. The same thought circles my brain—jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.

  But I don’t want to jump. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. Not after this weekend. But then the idea of feeling that rush again …

  God, I’ve got to stop. But how do I?

  A slamming of a hand on the table, and I flinch. My right earbud falls out of my ear, and I press pause on the music I had been trying to lose myself in.

  “I saw your schedule and you and I are in the same English class. Because of that, you’re going to be my partner for the senior thesis paper.” Veronica stands in front of me, glaring. If I hadn’t seen her smile with her friends, I’d think her expression was set on permanently pissed. Evidently, that look is reserved for me.

  A quick scan of the mostly empty room, and no one is paying attention to us. The few other people in here are lost on their phones or asleep. The bell to head to first period won’t ring for another five minutes. Most of my friends are hanging out in the cafeteria, but I wasn’t in the mood to pretend I’m in a good mood when I’m not.

  Veronica is in blue jeans that are more tears than material and layered underneath are black lace tights. Her black T-shir
t with the name of a death metal band on the front has been cut so that it hangs precariously off one shoulder. Beneath her shirt is a spaghetti-strapped, black lace tank top. It’s a sexy look not one other girl at this school would dare to rock.

  “How did you see my schedule?”

  “I rooted through the stack on the secretary’s desk until I found it. She was making copies at the time.”

  Wow.

  She plops down in the seat in front of me and tilts her head as if she’s waiting for me to speak, which I guess she is, but I’m not sure what to say. My family and I currently have a roof over our heads because of her, and the last thing I want to say is no. But what she doesn’t understand is that my life is complicated. “I don’t think you want to work with me.”

  She bobs her head like she agrees, and I don’t know why, but I find her honesty amusing. I take out my other earbud and slide back in my seat.

  “You’re right, I don’t. I don’t like you, you don’t like me, but since I’m not allowed to work by myself, I figured we should work together.”

  This I have to hear. “Why me?”

  “One, we live in the same house so it will be easy to meet up. Two, you have a car and I don’t. This paper requires a lot of research and personal interviews, which means travel.”

  “You can do research online and the interviews over the phone.”

  For the first time, at least in my direction, Veronica’s eyes spark with joy and that draws me in. “Not for what we’re doing our paper on. We’ll need firsthand experience.”

  “Yeah? What’s the topic?”

  Veronica leans forward, and she’s absolutely hypnotizing. “Ghosts. Do they exist?”

  Is she kidding? “Ghosts?”

  “Ghosts.”

  Damn. She’s serious. “Why ghosts?”

  She falls back in her chair. “For starters, the house we live in is haunted.”

  “There’s no such things as ghosts.”

  Veronica offers me a slow daring grin like she knows secrets I don’t. “You’ll change your mind after living there a few weeks.”

  Sure. As much as I’ve enjoyed this conversation, there’s still a reality to this situation. “While that sounds interesting, I meant what I said before. You don’t want to work with me.”