Everything That Makes You

by Moriah McStay

  An hour later, she was finally ready. Somehow Gwen managed to get most of her hair back, while long, loose curls hung in front of her scars. She looked polished, sure, but she didn’t want to give the impression she’d really tried.

  The doorbell rang before she could mess it all up.

  “David’s here.” Her mother came in, all smiles.

  Here’s where the mother gets teary-eyed and says “Oh, you’ve grown into such a young lady!”

  “You both look lovely,” her mom said, looking from Gwen to Fiona.

  Fiona muttered thanks. “Isn’t her hair pretty?” Gwen said, gesturing to Fiona.

  Her mom nodded. “It is.”

  Her eyes are glistening.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Fiona said, clomping down the stairs in as unladylike a manner as possible.

  It felt silly, how Ryan, David, and her father beamed up at her and Gwen as they came downstairs. Mr. Doyle kissed her head, his eyes glistening, too.

  “You look really pretty,” David said.

  Fiona picked at her dress. “You don’t have to say—Ow!”

  Lucy stood beside her, pinching her arm. “Just say thank you,” she hissed.

  “Thank you,” Fiona mumbled.

  Five painful minutes later, Fiona, David, Ryan, and Gwen left the house, blinking from the camera flashes. Fiona and David slid in the backseat, Ryan and Gwen up front. Her brother couldn’t keep his eyes off Gwen—or wipe that stupid grin off his face.

  “I like your dress,” David said.

  Fiona frowned down at herself. “It’s not too much?”

  He wrapped his hand in hers. “No. It’s nice.”

  Prom was at The Peabody, a fancy old hotel downtown—grand piano, enormous lobby fountain, gilded ceiling, the works. In the ballroom, Fiona and David caught up with friends, and she couldn’t help herself from taking part in the ritual she had dreaded. Yes, I love your dress. Your hair looks great like that. Your earrings are awesome. When David wanted to get pictures, she didn’t argue, just let him drag her around. When she wanted to dance, he did the same.

  Halfway in, when David pleaded for a break, they wandered to the refreshment table. David got her a drink and excused himself for the bathroom. Fiona waited for him, and someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Looking good, partner.”

  Oh, how easily the traitorous flutters returned. Trying to keep her cool, she gestured to Trent’s tux. “You too. Who knew a gentleman was hiding under that lacrosse uniform?”

  Trent laughed. “Don’t tell anybody.”

  “Secret’s safe with me,” she said. Where had she kept this easygoing banter hidden all these years? It could have come in handy.

  He took a sip of punch. “Heard you’re going to Northwestern.”

  His eyes should be illegal. She nodded. “You?”

  “Ole Miss. Not the greatest lacrosse team, but they gave me money, and it’s only an hour away.”

  And full of girls who will admire you from afar. “That’s cool,” she said.

  “I should get back. Just wanted to say hey.”

  “Hey.” She put forth her best smile.

  “Hey,” he repeated, smiling back. “By the way, your hair looks good like that.”

  Okay, Gwen is forgiven. David walked up, and Trent gave him a friendly nod. “Don’t lose touch with the soil, Doyle,” he said and walked away.

  “What did he want?” David asked.

  “To say hey,” Fiona answered. She cast a last look in Trent’s direction before finishing her drink and dragging David—your boyfriend, she reminded herself—back onto the dance floor.

  Juniors and seniors crammed the dance floor until the band left the stage. By the end of the night, nearly every one of them was a sweaty mess.

  When it was time to go, Ryan smirked at her. “Well, look who had fun.”

  She shoved him. “It wasn’t terrible.”

  David’s arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “What wasn’t terrible?”

  “I’ll get Gwen,” Ryan said. “Meet you at the car in ten minutes.”

  “What wasn’t terrible?” David repeated, spinning her around to face him.

  “Nothing. Brother-sister thing.”

  David eyed her for a moment before leaning in to kiss her.

  Fiona wasn’t an advocate of public kissing—unlike Ryan and Gwen—but she’d already thrown all her other rules out the window. So she wrapped her arms around David’s neck and kissed him back.

  FI

  Ryan eyed his watch. “Fi, I gotta get Gwen.”

  Fi clenched her jaw and glared at the clock on the mantel. They’d planned this for a month. Prom would be huge and public, and it took Marcus weeks to convince his parents. After all that, he just forgot? “Where the hell is he?” she said.

  “Language, Fi.” Her mom sat beside her, realigning the pleats on her dress. “Are you sure he knew the right time?”

  Fi held up her phone, showing her mother the string of Prom Planning texts.

  From two days ago:

  Fi: Be here at six and the three of us will get Gwen.

  Marcus: K

  Fi: I plan on looking awesome.

  Marcus: I too shall look awesome.

  From yesterday:

  Marcus: Mom says I’m supposed to know the color of your dress?

  Fi: Pink, but not pink-pink, more like melon.

  Marcus: Cantaloupe?

  Fi: Is that the pink kind?

  Marcus: And the delicious kind.

  Fi: You can eat cantaloupe?

  Marcus: Can and do. See you tomorrow at six.

  From today:

  Fi: I was right. I look awesome.

  Fi: Forgot to tell you—there’s a party after. Think you can go?

  Fi: This isn’t like a wedding. We’re allowed to talk.

  Fi: Where are you?

  In addition to the texts, she’d called him five times. She never got an answer.

  Shaking his head, Ryan grabbed the keys from the table. “Sorry, Fi—I need to go.”

  “Go on. Have fun,” their dad said.

  Fi got up and paced the length of the living room, saying “Where is he?” over and over.

  “It’s certainly not like him,” said her mom. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

  Fi was about to say someone better have died when her phone rang. Glimpsing Marcus’s name on caller ID, she lunged for it. “Where are you?”

  “It’s Jackson.”

  “Jackson,” she snapped, furious. “This is my prom. Do you have to mess with it?”

  “Marcus asked me to call. He’s in the hospital.” He named the hospital and room number. “Visiting hours end in forty-five minutes, so if you want to see him, you better get down here.”

  He hung up. She stared blankly at her phone before relaying Jackson’s message to her parents. They assaulted her with questions—Why? What happened? Is he okay?

  Fi had no answers, so the three of them drove to the hospital to get some.

  Once at the hospital, her mom took over, and Fi said a rare prayer of thanks for her mother’s bossy streak. After getting directions to the room and leading the way, she paused in front of Marcus’s door and pointed to a seating area down the hall. “We’ll be down there,” her mom said. “Take your time.”

  Numbly, Fi pushed open the heavy wooden door, behind which a paler than normal Marcus lay on the bed. Tubes snaked between him and the three beeping machines at his side. He smiled sadly. “So that’s what a cantaloupe dress looks like.”

  She looked down at herself. She totally forgot she was dressed for prom.

  “I’m so sorry I messed up tonight.” He gestured for her to come closer. “You look beautiful.”

  A stupid dance was the least of her worries. “What’s going on? Why are you in here?”

  “It’s not a big deal. They just want to run some tests. I’d hoped to push it off. I mean, it’s your senior prom.
” He groaned this last bit, talking more to the ceiling than her. Then he frowned at his tubes. “I was overruled.”

  “Did you eat something you’re not supposed to?”

  “Uh, not exactly,” he muttered.

  Okay, somewhere, she’d missed a critical piece of information. “Why do you need tests?”

  Just then, the door swung open, and Jackson walked in. He gave the briefest of nods in her direction before turning to Marcus. “Results won’t come till Monday. You have to stay.”

  Marcus groaned. “That’s two nights. Seriously?”

  “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be two nights,” Jackson barked, “if you mentioned feeling like crap a little earlier.”

  Marcus held up a hand to interrupt him, then winced.

  Fi jumped. “Are you okay?”

  Marcus held out both hands, slowly, as if to say Stay calm. “I’m fine. It’s just the IV. It tugged on my skin.”

  Fi tracked the line of the tube dangling from his skin to the clear plastic bag suspended over his head. “Why do you have an IV?”

  “Standard procedure, I think.”

  It was like she’d walked out of a movie and come back ten minutes after the good guy figured out who the bad guy was. “Standard procedure for what?”

  “For heart failure,” Jackson answered.

  She shrieked “What?” as Marcus snapped, “Leave it alone, Jackson.”

  Jackson ignored his brother and spoke directly to Fi. “There’s this little thing Marcus hasn’t told you. He’s dying.”

  Fi fell back in her chair, looking at Marcus. “You’re—”

  “Jackson’s just being dramatic. As usual,” he sighed. “I’m not dying.”

  Jackson flopped into the chair on the other side of the bed. Casually, he propped his feet on the bed frame and tipped himself backward. “Whatever gets you through the night, brother.”

  If Jackson would just leave, Marcus could explain everything. Trying to ignore him, she asked Marcus, “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  Marcus reached for her hand. She leaned closer and gave it to him. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. I just—I didn’t want to worry you and there’s nothing we can do until—well, until we can do something. So I, uh, left it out of our conversations.”

  “You left it out?” she whispered back.

  He gave the same apologetic shrug he used when he ate the last piece of vegan, gluten-free pizza without asking, like these two things were similar. “About four years ago, I got an infection. It was a fluke thing, probably from food.”

  “Like food you weren’t supposed to eat?”

  “No, like food poisoning. I didn’t have the food stuff till after I got sick. The infection kind of wrecked my immune system.”

  “Food poisoning gave you allergies?”

  “They aren’t allergies. It’s intolerance.”

  Fi waved away the distinction, since it just didn’t matter anymore. “What’s this got to do with your heart?”

  “Well, the infection didn’t just wreck my immune system. It weakened my heart, too. The muscle. It’s called cardiomyopathy.”

  “But—you’re eighteen.”

  “It happens,” he said, shrugging. “And it makes me short of breath. Tired. Not very hungry. The food intolerance just seemed like an easier way to explain it.” He said this last bit with guilty, puppy-dog eyes.

  “Easier?” Fi asked.

  “Yeah,” Jackson said. “I have a heart condition is really tricky.”

  Fi glanced to Jackson, too stunned to glare. She shook her head slowly back and forth. “I had no idea.”

  “Not very observant, are you?”

  “Shut up, Jackson,” Marcus said. He looked at Fi. “Don’t listen to him. It’s my fault. I should have told you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked, quietly this time, regretting bringing Jackson into the conversation.

  Marcus took a deep breath, his eyes on their hands. “When I got sick—I mean, when it progressed to my heart and the doctors figured it out—my parents flipped out. When the doctors said this all might have started from food, Mom became Queen of All Things Organic. When they said my immune system was weak, Mom and Dad pulled me out of school to reduce exposure. You’ve seen how everyone reacts about hands and germs.”

  He pointed to Jackson, who maintained his cool expression during Marcus’s speech. “Even Jackson dropped out of school, so he wouldn’t rub up against any sick people.”

  “I didn’t drop out,” Jackson replied.

  “Fine. He joined me in homeschool,” he said.

  “It wasn’t just because of exposure.”

  Marcus took another long breath before looking back to Fi. His smile looked falsely reassuring. “The past four years—before I met you—my life was about avoiding. Avoiding certain foods. Avoiding overexertion. Avoiding anything that could get me sick.”

  “But—” Fi paused, thinking through the information. “You don’t avoid me. And I go everywhere.”

  “Yes, you do,” Jackson answered.

  “Can’t you find somewhere else to be?” Marcus growled.

  “Mom told me to wait here.”

  Fi noticed the IV tugging at Marcus’s skin as he rubbed his temples, so she gently pulled his hands back down. “It’s fine. Just talk to me.”

  He smiled weakly, his thumb circling around the back of Fi’s hand. “That day at the coffee shop—I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Mom sure as hell was against it, but Jackson had been to their open mic night, and it sounded fun. I’d been feeling good for a few weeks, so I just left with Jackson before she could really get into arguing. And, well, you know the rest.”

  Fi pointed at the bed. “Clearly I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I should have told you, but it was so, I don’t know, refreshing being around people who just knew me as Marcus King, Fi’s boyfriend, rather than Marcus King, sick kid. It was like having a different life.” Looking straight at Jackson, he snarled, “It gets exhausting, being surrounded by people who constantly remind me how freaking fragile I am.”

  “Fragile’s better than dead,” Jackson said. He turned hard eyes on Fi. “All that time he spent with you and your family. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

  Fi blanched. “I didn’t know. He never told me.”

  “I’m right here, y’all,” Marcus said.

  Fi looked back at him and, knowing she probably sounded like an idiot, asked, “So, what’s heart failure exactly? What’s that mean?”

  “It means his doesn’t work anymore,” Jackson answered. “He needs somebody else’s.”

  “And then he’ll be better?”

  Jackson let his chair fall back forward. The wood legs made a crack against the tile floor. He leaned over, his forehead in his elbows, and spoke facing the ground. All the sarcasm left him. “That’s the theory.”

  “Again, right here,” Marcus said.

  “Yes,” Fi snapped, suddenly furious at her perfect boyfriend. “But you don’t tell me anything!”

  Jackson looked up at her. His green eyes were bloodshot and shadowed. For once, he looked more exhausted than annoyed.

  He was right, she’d been clueless. All the signs! How Marcus couldn’t walk far without getting out of breath, how thin he was—and getting thinner, she hadn’t failed to notice. How much he slept.

  Someone grunted from the other side of the heavy door, which jerked forward once then fell back closed. On the other side, Mrs. King snapped, “Jackson, help me!”

  Jackson opened the door, and Mrs. King walked in, her arms full of books and magazines. Nudging most of these into Jackson’s arms, she turned to the bed. Once she noticed Fi, a slow, creeping smile appeared from sheer will. It was like an approximation of happiness.

  Mrs. King’s eyes darted toward Fi’s and Marcus’s hands entwined together across Marcus’s chest, and the smile faltered. Fi wondered if, over the years, Mrs. King had learned how to see harmful microbes wit
h the naked eye.

  “Fi, good to see you,” she said. Sad eyes traveled down Fi ever so briefly. “Your dress is lovely. We’re so sorry about your prom.”

  Fi looked down at the bright, melon-colored dress. She felt ridiculous. “It’s fine.”

  The door swung open yet again, this time pushed by Marcus’s father. At the sight of Fi, he stopped short, as his wife had. “Well, Fi, you look beautiful.”

  Jackson looked just like his father—tall, dark, and broad-shouldered. Marcus was so thin compared to them.

  Suddenly, Fi’s hands started shaking, and her voice left her.

  He was sick. But surely . . . was he really dying? Her entire body shaking now, she sank into the chair.

  “Um.” Marcus gave her a worried look before looking at his family. “Secret’s out.”

  “We wanted him to tell you, sweetheart,” Mrs. King said. “But he didn’t want to—”

  “Can I just go home now?” Marcus asked as Fi wiped tears from her cheeks.

  “No, you cannot,” snapped his mother. “You have to wait until Dr. Frank releases you, which he will not do until the results come back on Monday.”

  “I already told him that,” Jackson said.

  “If you would have mentioned something last week,” Mr. King added. “When you started feeling off—”

  “I told him that, too.”

  “Shush,” Mrs. King said, smacking Jackson on the shoulder. Then she gave Fi a worried look—and another forced smile. “Fi, I passed your parents in the hall just now, and didn’t so much as nod. Let Mr. King, Jackson, and I go say hello.”

  She threw her purse back over her shoulder, grabbed her husband with one hand and Jackson with another, and left the room.

  Fi stared at the closed door. She’d always assumed Marcus’s family was just over-the-top crazy. Turned out they were normal, and she was under-a-rock clueless.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said.

  The anger snuck up on her. “For what?” she snapped. “Being bedridden? Or lying to me?”

  He clenched his jaw. “I’m not an invalid.”

  She pointed at the tubes surrounding him. “That’s debatable.”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I eat some bad chicken when I’m fourteen, and everything goes into lockdown. All these rules and precautions—what I can eat, where I can go, how to wash. I’m being slowly strangled by good intentions.”