Sage climbed up first, testing her footing. Although the trunk was thick—more than three feet in diameter—it was ancient, too, and covered in green lichen. The bark in a few places looked more like mulch.
Kayla let out a sigh. “We need to come here more often. There’s something about this place, you know?”
Sage did know, and she knew that’s why Kayla had brought her here. They’d discovered it by taking a wrong turn on a family hike a few years before, and as soon as they’d earned their licenses, it became their secret shared sanctuary: the place they came to when one of them needed to get away. She wasn’t sure how to explain why they kept returning, except that the place had an energizing feel about it, a way of reminding a person there was more than the small orb of existence they dwelled in. A way of helping them just be.
Sage glanced down. The ravine wasn’t extreme—maybe twenty-five or thirty feet—but the mossy boulders at the bottom would make a fall treacherous. Probably deadly. She suspected that’s part of why she and Kayla liked it—the risk entwined with beauty. It was a little twisted, now that she thought about it.
“Careful.” Kayla tapped a darkened piece of the trunk with her sneaker, and it broke away, revealing a stream of scurrying beetles. “Looks like it’s rotted some since we’ve been here. There might be other places.”
Sage nodded, bizarrely thankful for the possible threat, something else to focus on besides her heart. Stepping carefully, she found her way to her favorite perch, a nook between the main trunk and an offshoot that formed a surprisingly cozy seat. As soon as she took it, the tension around her heart released. Some of it, anyway. Out here, with the damp, earthy scents and the soothing swish of wind-blown leaves, she could almost pretend she’d entered another world—a world where her heart was normal and she’d play volleyball for as long as her legs would hold her.
Kayla sunk onto the trunk beside her, the crackling Arby’s bag dissolving Sage’s fantasy. “So.”
Sage couldn’t look at her. She was thankful Kayla had known to take her here, known she couldn’t possibly have fun at a restaurant with the team today, but she wasn’t sure she could answer Kayla’s unasked question.
“Thanks,” she said instead. “For this. I needed to get away.”
Kayla’s shoe nudged her leg. “What really happened yesterday,” she asked, “with those tests?”
Sage dug her nails into the tree bark. “They think”—game face, she told herself, game face—“that maybe my passing out has to do with my heart.” She hoped Kayla couldn’t hear the strain in her voice.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Kayla took a huge bite of her crispy chicken sandwich.
Somewhere, a woodpecker’s knocks echoed. Sage glanced up, pretending to try to locate the bird, but all she saw was a flash of blue. “I don’t really know. That’s why they’re doing the tests.”
Bullshit, she called on herself.
“Yeah, but, like, you’re gonna be okay, right?” Kayla took another bite of chicken. “It’s not, like, super serious or anything?”
Sage kept her eyes on the trees. “I mean, it’s my heart.”
“Right, but they would have told you if—”
“I’m fine,” Sage blurted, meeting Kayla’s eyes, because she couldn’t say otherwise. Her mouth literally could not form the words. Speaking it might somehow make it real, and she was still waiting for the second opinion. In this moment, there was still hope.
“Okay, good.” A small drop of dressing had caught in the corner of Kayla’s mouth. “You’ve just been, I don’t know, weird today. I thought it was something worse.”
Sage stared at her. Part of her wanted Kayla to guess it. Maybe more than part of her. She couldn’t say the words, but she could nod her head if Kayla said them for her. And why couldn’t she? They communicated with eyebrow jerks and the subtlest of body tells. They finished each other’s sentences. She’d noticed something was wrong enough to bring her here. Surely she’d figure it out. That was a best friend’s job, wasn’t it?
Kayla unwrapped the rest of her sandwich.
Sage turned toward her slightly. Notice! she willed Kayla. I need you to notice. If Kayla just prompted her a little, maybe she could force the words out.
“I have some news,” Kayla said.
Everything Sage hadn’t said gushed out of her. She pieced her game face back together. “Oh?”
Kayla nodded, radiant. “You had a rough day yesterday, and I didn’t want to tell you until I found out more about your test.” Her eyes narrowed, a question.
“I told you I’m okay,” Sage snapped. “What is it?”
Kayla’s smile cracked her face wide open. “Coach called me last night.” She clapped her hands together, little-kid excited. “UNC called about me. Chapel Hill!”
Sage’s hand reached out, faltering as she felt for the tree trunk.
“Whoa!” Kayla grabbed her other arm. “Careful, girl.”
Sage righted herself, blinking. “That’s… wow.” Her mouth closed. Opened again. “Kayla, that’s…” She went light-headed and for a moment couldn’t think of a word that applied. Then it came to her. “Wonderful.” She forced the edges of her mouth upward. This was her best friend. She would smile for her. “It’s really wonderful.”
Kayla put her hands up, trying to temper the celebration. “I know you might go someplace better, but if you decide not to and my offer comes through… I mean, it’s no guarantee, just because they’re interested, but Coach says they’ll be scouting me pretty heavy. And I’m sure you’ll get one, since they’ve been talking to you since last spring.” The cords in her neck tightened. “Sage, we could play for the same school! Maybe start together one day!”
She doesn’t know, Sage told herself, because you didn’t tell her. But another part of her whispered, She should have known anyway.
“I couldn’t tell anyone else, because jealousy and stuff, you know? It sucks.”
Sage’s forehead went sticky with sweat. You can’t tell her now. You can’t make this moment about you. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Sucks.”
“And I still have to get the offer, of course, but the fact that they called Coach—”
“It’s awesome,” Sage said, wondering how it had gotten so hot in the shade. “Really. And you just keep doing what you do. I’m sure you’ll get an offer.” Her fingers clenched, breaking off bits of bark. “I know it.”
I hope you don’t. Sage jolted at the thought, repulsed by it. But it was true, she realized. She put her hands to her head.
“What’s wrong?” Kayla asked.
“Nothing.” Sage forced a laugh, but it sounded semi-hysterical. She shut it down instantly and reached for her phone. “What time is it? Ian’s game.”
“Oh, right!” Kayla crinkled the empty sandwich wrapper and stuffed it into the paper bag. “We should go.” She stood up, offering her hand to Sage.
“Kayla? I—”
“Yeah?” She pulled Sage up so they were face-to-face. Look at me, Sage thought. How can you not see it?
Kayla raised her eyebrows.
“I’m really proud of you,” Sage said. And she was. She was. Just because she might never play again, that didn’t mean she couldn’t—shouldn’t—be proud of Kayla. “Congratulations.”
The branches quivered above them, sending a ray that brightened Kayla’s smile even more. It was odd, Sage thought, how Kayla’s news ripped her heart, but the condition that could potentially kill her—she couldn’t feel that at all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LEN
LEN DIDN’T REMEMBER DRIVING HOME. SHE SORT OF remembered unlocking the truck and unsticking the brake, but then she was parking Nonni’s pickup in the carport behind her house. The not remembering might have been concerning if she hadn’t been struggling to breathe.
She unclipped her seatbelt and tried to fill her lungs, which weren’t cooperating. Her fingers tingled, like she’d submerged them deep into icy water. Her heart slammed at an unna
tural rate.
I’m dying.
Len jammed her eyes shut and shoved her foot against the brake, like that might slow the terror and give back control of her body. But it was pointless. Her hands shook, and she was sweating everywhere. She was coming undone.
This is it, Len thought. Mom and Dad would come home and find her slumped over the steering wheel, her mouth hanging open, wide and ungainly, because she was probably about to have a seizure.
A high-pitched moan scraped her throat, because what if they didn’t find her? Why would they think to look in Nonni’s pickup, after all? She might stay slumped in there for days, bleary eyed and steeped in her own vomit, before the smell caught someone’s attention.
Her eyes flew open. Why would she think that, something so grotesque? That wasn’t like her; it had never been like her. Not before. Her fingers dug into the wheel, desperate to hold something. Because it was true, her worst fear, the one she kept pushing to the deepest part of herself. She couldn’t deny it any longer: she was losing her goddamned mind.
Her body convulsed, cold suddenly, and she curled against the seat, aching to temper the bitterness in her stomach. It was fitting, though, wasn’t it? She would suffer while dying—painfully and alone—because poetic justice was a bitch. She deserved this. Maybe some part of her even wanted it. We call our destinies to ourselves, Dad always said.
“No!” Len screamed, arching suddenly and slamming her head back against the headrest. She did not want to die—was terrified of dying, actually. Whatever was happening, whatever was trying to take over her, she would battle it. She would tear out its heart and throat.
She clamped her gloved hands over her ears and screamed again. It was a horrible sound, horrible to know it came from her. But it seemed to break something, too—something she couldn’t name but knew instinctively needed to be shattered.
And then, as fast as it had descended, the terror abated. Her heart still thudded, but there was feeling in her hands again. Her brain cleared, her jumbled thoughts burning up like the last shreds of fog at sunrise. She took a long gasp, air finally sinking deep into her grateful lungs.
When she could think again, when she was sure she could stand, Len scrambled out of the truck, slipping on the long grass as she made her way to the house and her room. She flipped open her school-issued laptop and threw a few search words into Google.
It took about three seconds to discover she’d had a panic attack. There were all the symptoms, lined up on the screen.
Shortness of breath. Sweating. Chills. Overwhelming feelings of doom and despair. Certainty that life will end.
Her eyes scanned more hits. Possible causes: severe stress, health conditions.
She cleared the search bar and forced herself, hands shaking, to type three more words: dementia in teenagers.
There it was, in stark black letters on the white screen: Frontotemporal dementia. Frequent causes of childhood dementia. She skimmed the rest of the hits, the words slamming into her like punches, again and again. Her eyes kept losing focus.
It was real. Of course it was—why would Jamie lie?
Len widened her eyes, forcing them to refocus and concentrate. She read just enough to learn that it was incurable and often genetic, then snapped the laptop shut.
But Jamie had said it was rare. So rare.
Doesn’t matter, her brain spat back. This explained everything, and she knew it was true. The blue jay had been a sign, leading her to the interaction with Jamie. She clenched her hands into fists, thudded them against her forehead.
She’d kept asking what was wrong with her. The universe had given her an answer.
The landline rang in the kitchen. Mom, probably. A new wave of nausea struck her. How would she tell Mom?
Len thought about Mom’s expression when she’d returned from Nonni’s the night before, tired and hollow, but how she’d talked to Fauna for a whole hour anyway. And last week, how Len had woken at 4 a.m. to discover Mom making Nonni’s favorite molasses candy because that was the only time she could find to do it.
She never visits me, Nonni had said.
The phone rang again. Len steadied herself against the desk, trying to lasso her mind under control. Her thoughts seemed outside of her somehow, descending into a spiral that was spinning faster than she could understand. A tiny part of her wondered if maybe her thinking wasn’t completely adding up, but that didn’t matter. Probably her uncertainty was just a symptom of the disease.
She pushed herself to standing. The phone had stopped. The emptiness of the house clawed into her, pricked the back of her neck, and for a fuzzy second, she forgot. She looked at the space beneath the window.
“No,” Len said, but she was too weak; she’d let her guard slip. The memories spilled into her consciousness, dragged her down to their depths.
Blue lights whirling, reflecting in her bedroom window. Another reflection, blue. Everything so very, very blue.
Len bent over, dry heaving. She reached for her camera, the weight of it bringing a small drop of calm to her center, then bolted for the kitchen and scribbled a quick note. It was Friday, wasn’t it? Maybe there was a home game. She had to get out of here, lose herself in a crowd of people. She had to escape all the blue.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SAGE
SAGE SAT WITH KAYLA IN THE STUDENT SECTION OF THE concrete bleachers, crammed between friends of the varsity volleyball team and the screams of fanatical parents. Everyone was so focused on the rivalry game that no one noticed how little she spoke or how she only clapped when Southview intercepted the ball, instead of yelling her heart out every play like she usually did.
Southview came up short on third down, so the field-goal kicking team took the field, led by Ian. Sage’s chest twinged as she remembered his knock on her door last night. How he’d told her, in his endearingly awkward sophomore-boy way, that he was sorry and that it was okay if she didn’t want to come to his game; he understood.
Of course she would come, she’d said. Why wouldn’t she?
Ian had fidgeted and shrugged, his pity obvious and horrible as a real-life monster. And Sage had known in that moment that once her secret spilled out nothing could ever be right again. People would treat her as weak, would think she couldn’t handle the most ordinary things. That her own brother had already started.
“I’ll be there,” she’d said, and slammed the door.
It could still be okay, Sage told herself. The second opinion doctor hadn’t called yet. They’d thought they’d hear today, but maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t.
A kid from Sage’s class spun the football laces out, and Ian nailed it through the uprights.
“Thatta boy!” Dad yelled, calling Sage’s attention to where he stood with other team parents, above and to the left of the students. Mom was standing there, too, clasping another mom’s hand and jumping along with the rest of the crowd.
“Damn,” Kayla said, elbowing Sage. “Ian’s a powerhouse. We might actually pull it off.”
Sage glanced at the scoreboard. Southview was down 12–14, but there were still three minutes on the clock. Everyone around her was jumping and pointing, screaming about defense. Southview hadn’t defeated Asheville in six seasons, which made this much more than a game for her school. It was a matter of pride. Of identity and worth.
Sage loved that about sports. How games were always about so much more than the actual physical process of scoring more points than the other team.
“Asheville’s fumbled!” the announcer boomed. “The ball is out!”
Whistles trilled as bodies piled on the ball. Dad yelled louder, his voice scraping hoarse, like he could make the ball Southview’s by sheer force of will. Sage turned again, ready to smile at him, when she noticed: Mom was gone.
She strained her neck, squinting up the long rows and then down to the people milling and crowding along the sidelines. Mom would never leave at the apex of a game like this, never. Not when Ian could be up any minut
e. Unless…
“Go Rams!” Ella screamed. “Go Blue!”
A steady chant of “Asheville sucks!” grew louder and louder as the band played a short riff. Noise squeezed itself into every corner.
“Southview has it!” the announcer roared, just as Sage spotted her mom behind the far end zone, close to the entrance gate, her white sweatshirt bright against the graveled entrance. Both her hands pressed against her ears.
She’s on the phone.
Sage almost leapt from the bleacher. “Excuse me!” she said, sliding between the press of bodies and down the steps. “Coming through. Sorry.”
“Where are you going?” Kayla called after her. “There’s only fifty more seconds!”
Sage waved her hand, almost tripping over an empty soda cup. She didn’t slow until she reached the entrance.
Mom stood with her back to the field, hugging herself. One of her hands still clutched her phone.
Sage walked up behind her. “That was them, wasn’t it?” Sage asked. “The Charlotte office?” Her throat tightened. “The results?”
Cheers went up from the bleachers as the announcer reported a long pass, a Southview first down. Mom looked at her, and Sage knew what the specialist had said. “Tell me,” she whispered anyway.
Mom’s face was red and streaked, but Sage needed her to say it. It was her life about to be ruined, and Sage needed to know it was real. Mom could at least say the words.
“Sage, baby.” Mom’s head gave the tiniest shake. “I’m so sorry.”
Sage hadn’t known how much hope she’d harbored until that instant. She’d thought she’d prepared herself, but no. Deep down, in her heart of hearts, she’d really thought she’d be cleared.
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