All These Lives

by Wylie, Sarah

  I slip my arm around her. “I know.”

  My heart throbs and aches and, for once, it’s not for myself. It’s for all of us. It’s for everyone who knows what it’s like to be helpless, to have to watch on the sidelines, to be paralyzed, literally unable to do anything.

  It’s hard.

  “She’s doing good, though,” Mom says, brightening a little. “Really good.”

  “Yeah,” I agree.

  “She’s not like us, you know.”

  For a second, I think she means what I’ve always thought she meant—Jena wasn’t in the accident and we don’t know if she has nine lives. Most likely, she doesn’t.

  That’s always what I’ve thought it meant. We have more, she has less.

  Jena Baby’s not like us.

  But this time, it hits me that maybe that’s not what Mom means at all.

  Jena isn’t like us. She fights and she kicks and she won’t let you get away with anything. She’s weak, but not defeated. Small, but not invisible. Sick, but not dead.

  We’re not allowed to give up.

  Not yet.

  Mom dabs at her eyes. “Enough of this. Ready to watch your groundbreaking debut?”

  I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I’d hardly call it that.”

  She presses the remote, and it starts.

  A girl whose dragon breath socially annihilates her the first day of high school. But then, enter Whitaden. And her whole world is changed. Suddenly, she has friends, a hot boyfriend, and everything she ever wanted in life.

  Whitaden. Brighten your world.

  Mom claps and grins when it’s over, looking proud and excited, her eyes twinkling and the crinkles beside her eyes seeming less alien on her face and more like they belong there—they look like footprints from a journey.

  As Mom plays it “just one more time,” I stare at the screen. At the girl with the mahogany hair, the hazel eyes, the sparkling white smile, and the newly capped tooth.

  I don’t know the girl in the commercial. Not the way she cocks her head to the side and grins like her world isn’t in danger of falling off its axis, of tilting from right to wrong, from up to down.

  I don’t know how she gets up each day and lives it.

  For now, that sorry tooth is all we have in common, but I’m getting to know her.

  She seems friendly enough, like she brushes her teeth and like she also appreciates a good joke.

  I’m pretty sure I’ll like her.

  She looks a lot like my sister.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my agent, the indomitable Suzie Townsend, for your unwavering belief in this book and in my writing. You are the very best. Margaret Ferguson, your insight and attention to detail are unmatched. Thanks for your hard work and for transforming All These Lives from a manuscript into a real, live book.

  Thanks to Meredith Barnes, Sara Kendall, and Jacqueline Murphy. Thanks also to Susan Dobinick and the fabulous team at Farrar Straus Giroux.

  Dr. Golsteyn and Dr. Sheila Pritchard, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with me. Any mistakes are all mine.

  Many thanks to every one of my writing friends: Jeanette Schneider and Suzanne Hayze. Lisa and Laura Roecker, for braving through that early draft. Mariah Irvin, because who else would I talk misbehaving celeb assistants, good books, writing, and life with? Shannon Messenger, your enormous talent is matched only by your heart. Serenity Bohon, thank you for caring about the little and the big things, and for teaching me to do the same.

  Thank you to my blog readers, for finding my corner of the Web and coming back. I like you better than a million Twizzlers.

  I get to share 2012 with the über-talented Apocalypsies. The world doesn’t have my permission to end this year; I can’t wait to read all your books.

  Thanks to Ms. Eck and Mrs. Matteoti, who taught me to love words. Mrs. Enslin, thank you for everything, especially the butterfly clips.

  A big thank-you to all my family and friends. Bek, for realizing how long forever is. Kate, I’m blessed to know you.

  Thank you to my mom and dad. I’ll probably never know how much you’ve given. I love you, always.

  Thank you to my extraordinary sisters. The jury is still out on the whole multiple lives thing. But if, somehow, we got to do this whole thing again, I’d a) demand supreme cartwheeling abilities, and b) pick you and you and you. Every time. Not because we have the same (questionable) sense of humor. Not because you’re always game for a Twizzler run … or three. Not because you told me to keep going, to always keep going, and this book would still be five pages long without you. Not because—but that, too. I love you, you know. And I’m only slightly resentful that you’re all taller.

  God, thank You for blessing me beyond words. Thank You for never letting go.

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

  Text copyright © 2012 by Sarah Wylie

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2012

  eBook edition, June 2012

  macteenbooks.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Wylie, Sarah.

  All these lives / Sarah Wylie. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Convinced that she has nine lives after cheating death twice as a child, sixteen year-old Dani tries to forfeit her remaining lives in hopes of saving her twin sister, Jena, whose leukemia is consuming their family.

  ISBN 978-0-374-30208-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-5495-2 (e-book)

  [1. Near-death experiences—Fiction. 2. Sick—Fiction. 3. Cancer—Fiction. 4. Sisters—Fiction. 5. Twins—Fiction. 6. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W97765All 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011030779

  eISBN 9781429954952