“Quit it, Greg,” Serena says, shoving him away. “Maisie, are you okay?”
I don’t answer, but somehow Serena still knows.
“Greg can drive us home,” she says. “Come on.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to spoil your fun,” I say again. Bad enough that I’m spoiling Chirag’s.
Serena laughs. She leans in and whispers, “Do you really think I’d rather hang out with Greg Baker than with you? He’s my designated driver. Come on.”
Serena leads the way down the hall and out of the school. She holds my hand the entire time, and it doesn’t feel nearly as bad as I thought it would. Why can’t it be like this with Chirag? I drop her hand only once, to take off my matted, smelly mask and deposit it into a trash can.
Serena is lying on my bed beside me in borrowed pajamas. Greg seemed really disappointed when Serena got out of the car with me. He’d probably hoped that driving me home was Serena’s excuse for leaving the party to be alone with him.
My phone vibrates with a text from Chirag: Where are you?
I don’t want to write back, but I’m scared he’ll call my mom at best or send out a search party at worst, so I write: I went home. Got tired and didn’t want to ruin your night.
“Do you think Greg went back to the party?” I ask, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. I feel Serena shrug.
“Probably. Otherwise, he’d have to wait until Monday to start telling everyone what a frigid tease I am.”
“God, Greg is such a jerk.”
“I know,” Serena agrees, laughing. “Good thing I’m such a tease.”
“Serena!”
“What, you don’t think I was going to hook up with Greg Baker after what he said about you in Mr. Wolf’s class, do you?”
I release fists I didn’t even know I’d been clenching. Marnie would be so pleased; my left hand hurt so little that I didn’t even notice it until after the fact. “I figured you forgot about that.” Or you just didn’t care enough to let it stop you from kissing Greg.
“Of course I remembered.” Serena shifts, rolling onto her side so that she’s facing me. Unlike everyone else, we never really outgrew sleepovers. Even last year, whenever we had some big test to study for or a paper to finish, Serena would just set up camp in my room for days at a time. My mother never complained because she knew we really were studying.
But Serena doesn’t know that I’ve barely slept through the night since I got home from the hospital. She doesn’t know that in a few hours, I’ll probably wake up crying after one of my donor nightmares. Maybe I should warn her. A dry run for whoever might end up my freshman roommate next year.
Instead, I say, “Greg might be telling everyone that you’re a frigid tease right at this very moment.”
“I don’t care.”
“Come on, you care. Everyone cares.”
“Greg was going to talk about me no matter what I did tonight.” In the darkness, Serena can’t see more than my silhouette. Is she imagining that I still look the way I used to, that this is just another sleepover? Is she ignoring the fact that we wouldn’t be here at all—we’d still be at the school, or headed to an after-party at someone’s house—if I still looked the same?
“So why not avoid him altogether?”
Serena shrugs. “I guess I just don’t care that much about what jerks like Greg are saying about me.”
I used to think that Serena and I would never grow apart after high school the way so many girls do. We’ve been best friends since kindergarten; we made it through being put in different classes in fourth grade and middle-school cliques; we didn’t skip a beat even when I turned out to be an athlete and Serena someone who only pays attention to competitive sports when forced.
But now, I wonder if I’ll make a new best friend when I get to college—to Barnard. Someone who wouldn’t recognize my old face if she walked right into it. Someone who doesn’t know that I used to run track and mock yoga.
Whoever my new best friend is—this nameless girl who doesn’t know my old face—she won’t have Serena’s charisma, because no one does. She won’t be so confident that she doesn’t care what people say about her. And I won’t know that she can only fall asleep lying on her right side, her left arm above the covers. I won’t know that she wakes up with a smile on her face every morning, as though she’s just had the most amazing dream. I won’t have been there the day of her first kiss, and she won’t have sensed the instant I started falling for my first real boyfriend.
Whoever she is, and however close we become, my history will never be all twisted up with hers.
Serena asks, “Are you going to tell me what really happened tonight to make you leave the party?”
“I was tired. You know these meds make me tired.”
“If you were so tired, you’d be asleep by now instead of lying here staring at the ceiling like you’re waiting for some kind of message to appear.”
She’s right. I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because I keep hearing the words Chirag said over and over in my head, an endless repeat, a record skipping over a scratch.
“Chirag wants to break up with me,” I admit finally.
I feel Serena nodding. “I know,” she says.
“You know? Did he say something to you?”
“Of course not. He knows I would kick his butt if he even talked about hurting you.”
“Then what do you mean you know?”
“Listen, Maisie, don’t take this the wrong way, but of course Chirag wants to break up with you. He’s been more of a caretaker than a boyfriend to you since school started, and that’s not—”
“It’s not what?”
She shrugs. “It’s not fair,” she says finally.
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair that I have to walk around deformed for the rest of my life.”
“No,” Serena agrees. She doesn’t try to argue that I’m not deformed. “That’s not fair either. But two unfairs don’t make a—I don’t know, don’t make a right, I guess.”
“We never even got to tell each other I love you. Not officially, anyway.”
“There’s still time.”
“I can’t say I love you to a boy I just heard tell a roomful of people he wants to dump me.”
“Sure you can.”
“Maybe you could.” Serena is brave like that.
Serena shakes her head. “I’ve never been in love, Maisie.”
“You have a new boyfriend every semester.”
“What, and you think that means I fall in love every few months? No one’s ever told me he loved me and I’ve never said it, either. Your relationship with Chirag was never perfect, but you two loved each other. We could all see that.”
I shake my head. That’s not how I remember it. Imperfect, I mean.
Serena continues, “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
“Not another person telling me I’m lucky,” I groan. Slowly, I add, “He won’t, though.”
“Who won’t what?”
“Chirag won’t break up with me. He’s too worried about me. What does he think, if he dumps me I’ll jump out the window or something?”
“No,” Serena says. “He knows you’re stronger than that.” I smile. “I think he just doesn’t want to add to the things that are hurting you.”
I close my eyes. “I just wish it could be the way it was between the two of us. Before.” When I was the old Maisie. The girl who was fun at parties. The girl who didn’t have to worry that she might overhear someone saying that the boy who was supposed to be her date was really just her nurse. Now I decide that I am officially never going to a school party again. Maybe not even once I get to Barnard. If I get to Barnard.
“I know,” Serena agrees gently. She puts an arm around me in the darkness. “But I don’t think it can be.”
I lean against my friend. I should nod. I should say you’re right. Chirag would say so. Chirag did say so. Why can’t I?
Instead of saying anything
, I cry quietly until I fall asleep.
The next day, when Serena is in the shower, I sit at my desk with my laptop and look up that surfer who lost her arm, the one who was on the news the other night. She was eighteen when the shark attacked her, one of the most promising female surfers in years. Now she’s a motivational speaker. She travels the world telling people that even when life is at its darkest, there’s still hope. Her website is scattered with pictures of her recent wedding; her new husband stands beside her, handsome and tan, a surfer like her, except he has all of his limbs.
I read her bio twice, but it doesn’t say whether she was dating her husband before the accident. It doesn’t say whether he fell in love with her before she became a broken-down freak, or whether she was a virgin when that shark took her arm, or whether she’s planning on having kids even though she might not be able to hold them by herself. And it doesn’t say how long after the attack she was able to sleep through the night.
I’m still searching for more information when my mother comes into my room to watch me take my pills. I slam the computer shut so hard that the pill bottles on my desk rattle.
My god, I hate these stupid pills. I don’t care if they’re keeping me alive. Without these pills, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep in class and Greg Baker wouldn’t have laughed at me and Nurse Culligan wouldn’t have called and my mother wouldn’t be looking at me like this, still so disappointed that I don’t want to be an example for my classmates to admire. Without these pills, my grades wouldn’t be slipping and I wouldn’t have to copy Serena’s homework. Midterms are coming up and I can’t even muster the energy to stay awake when I study. These pills are going to keep me from getting into Barnard. From getting out of here and away from these people.
These pills have made me different. Like Chirag said, I don’t just look different. I’m a perfect stranger sitting in the car next to him.
The solution is so obvious that I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before: I have to stop taking them.
My face won’t, like, fall off, right? It’s not like I’d be going off of them for the fun of it, like to stay up late at some other school party. I’ve already decided that I’m never going to a Highlands party again. But plenty of kids take Ritalin and Adderall to stay up and cram for tests. I wouldn’t even be doing anything that bad. It’s actually the complete opposite.
So I do something I’ve seen countless patients do in the movies. I pretend to swallow my pills, then hide them under my tongue. I hold my breath waiting for Mom to leave the room. Part of me doesn’t believe she’ll actually walk away without discovering what I’ve done. There are so many pills in my mouth that I can’t speak. My heart is pounding by the time she turns on her heel for the door, and I wait, listening to the sound of her footsteps as she walks down the hall and into her own room. Serena is still in the shower, but I run into the bathroom and spit the pills into the toilet, gagging. Butterflies dance in my stomach as I hold down the lever to flush, the same way they did before the SATs, before a big track meet, before my first kiss with Chirag.
This is the answer. This is how I make sure that what happened with Greg Baker never happens again, so that Mom and Nurse Culligan don’t get to force me to stand up in front of the entire school and tell my story. This is how I concentrate in class and get good grades again. This is how I stay awake to study. This is how I get into Barnard.
And maybe, just maybe, this is how I go back to being the girl that Chirag loved.
At school on Monday—day two off the pills—it’s even easier with Nurse Culligan. Instead of hiding my midday dose beneath my tongue, I take a handful of vitamins I swiped from Mom’s bathroom. I even swallow a white Tic Tac for good measure.
Today, I stay awake in class. I raise my hand and participate in history, throwing in my two cents about Henry VIII and the Protestant Reformation. My history teacher looks so pleased I can practically hear her thinking that the girl I used to be—star pupil, teacher’s pet—is back.
Later, during sixth period, instead of lying down in the nurse’s office when everyone else is in gym class, I do my calculus homework. I slip a copy of it into Serena’s locker. We’ll cheat with my answers this time.
After school, Chirag drives me to PT. I greet Marnie with a smile. It’s not just that I have more energy without the drugs in my system. I also just really like having a secret. It makes me feel powerful.
Today, the ball Marnie brings out is not a rubber one for squeezing but a tennis ball.
“We’re playing catch,” she informs me, tossing the ball in my direction. I catch it with my right hand and Marnie shakes her head.
“Left-handed catch,” she says. “Don’t act like you didn’t know that.”
“I’m a righty,” I protest.
“Right-handed baseball players catch with their left hands,” she answers.
“I wasn’t planning on pitching for the Yankees,” I counter, tossing the ball back to her. “No rigorous exercise, remember?”
“Oh, Maisie,” Marnie sighs, throwing the ball so far to my left that my only choice is to try to catch it with my left hand or just let it sail by. “If only all my patients were as funny as you are.”
An hour later, my left hand feels like it’s on fire all over again, but I’m still in a good mood. I’m smiling as I walk out to the waiting room to discover Chirag standing there, not my mother. Even on the days when Chirag drops me off, it’s always Mom who picks me up and takes me home.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your mom called. Said she has to work late tonight.”
Late. Like after eight o’clock. I won’t even have to pretend to take my pills later.
Chirag continues, “I thought we could grab some dinner or something. But don’t worry,” he adds quickly. “I’ll get you home before eight.”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about that,” I say, the lie slipping out easily. “I’m actually on a different regimen now. In fact, let’s drive to Sausalito for dinner. How about that seafood place?”
Chirag took me there for Valentine’s Day last year. It was a surprise: He literally blindfolded me before letting me get in his car.
“No peeking,” he said as we stood in my driveway. “Promise?”
“I promise,” I said, bouncing up and down to keep warm. I’d bought a new dress for the occasion and I wanted Chirag to see it so much that I hadn’t bothered putting my coat on when I walked out the front door.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“If I didn’t want you to know I could see I would just lie, silly.”
“Good point,” he agreed. “This is an honor thing.”
I banged my head as I lowered myself into his car. “Maybe you should have waited to blindfold me until I was inside the car,” I suggested.
“Small price to pay for romance,” he said.
Now if I banged my head he’d probably insist on rushing me to the hospital just to make sure I was okay.
But that night, I rolled down my window and felt the fog on my face and smelled the salty air off the bay. I guessed we were going to Sausalito about ten minutes before we pulled into the restaurant parking lot.
“Can’t get much past you, huh, May?”
I grinned, but I didn’t take the blindfold off. When we got to the restaurant, Chirag leaned over; I thought he was going to take off the blindfold but instead he kissed me. I gasped in surprise and then pressed my face against his, returning the kiss. His cheekbones and jawline were more defined than my own. Sometimes, when he hugged me tight, the bones of his face pressed into mine sharply, as though they had pointed edges. Next, he slipped the blindfold over my head slowly, his fingers lingering above my eyebrows. I kept my eyes closed as he smoothed back my hair and then kissed me again.
I’d never been to such a romantic, grown-up sort of restaurant. There were candles everywhere, and our table was right by the window, the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge just barely visible through t
he fog. Chirag made me try oysters for the first time. He said I wasn’t anything like other girls, who squirmed and squealed at the thought of pouring raw shellfish down their throats.
“How many other girls have you taken here?” I joked, but Chirag shook his head.
“No other girls,” he answered seriously. “Just you.” He gave me an old edition of one of my favorite books, and I gave him an old edition of one of his.
“Great minds think alike,” I said, reaching my hand across the table and placing it on top of his. His palm was warm and he leaned down to kiss the freckle on my left knuckle that isn’t there anymore.
Tonight, Chirag looks surprised at my suggestion. “You’re not too tired?” he asks, and I shake my head. I know that technically, I’m off drugs right now, but it feels like I may as well be on them. A different kind of drugs, I mean. The kind that make you feel good.
Now, as Chirag opens the passenger side door for me, I say, “Remember what I said last time we ate there? That oysters were my new favorite food?”
Chirag nods. He looks positively nostalgic, and I don’t blame him. We had so much fun that night. After dinner, Chirag gave me his jacket and we sat outside looking at the bay and kissing until our lips were sore. I bring my fingers to my lips now, remembering, fingering the scar just to the left of my cupid’s bow, the result of one of the milder burns around my mouth.
Maybe tonight, off my medication, I won’t shy away if Chirag gets close.
Maybe, after the waiter takes our order, I’ll even be able to look Chirag in the eye, so that when he leans in to hold me, he won’t end up pressing his lips to the top of my head.
Maybe by the time they serve dessert, the old Maisie will emerge like magic, and Chirag will see the girl he used to know. Then he’ll fall in love with me all over again, and tomorrow morning we’ll walk into school hand in hand just like we used to.
On Wednesday morning—day four off the pills—I sneak out of the house at dawn, tiptoeing just as carefully as I did when I’d sneak out to meet Chirag while my parents slept. A taxi waits for me on the corner, right by the old tree stump. I ask the driver to take me to Highlands High.
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