Alive

by Chandler Baker

  The zipper is in between my fingers. My head fills with cotton and my legs go numb. I slide the zipper down and muster my last bit of strength to wriggle my arms out of the jacket.

  Levi falls back bellowing. I rise to my feet and again I run.

  The sound of the tide crashes into the shore. Gusts of mist land on my face and I emerge from between the houses, staggering. On either side of me, expensive canal mansions loom like monsters, with their lavish balconies and extravagant outdoor living rooms. Every one as indifferent to me as the ocean.

  The salt-laced wind kicks up spray. My run has deteriorated into a lopsided limp. One long stride, one short. I cross the stately backyard of one of the channel homes with its hollow windows, sleepy and oblivious. A stepping-stone path leads out to an empty boat dock.

  The wood creaks underneath my weight. The boards of the dock vibrate. I feel Levi reach the small pier before I hear him. But I’m near the end of the runway. With my toes hanging off the ledge I take one final look back. His bottom teeth jut forward. He stares at me hard, daring me to jump, and I know that I’m right. He won’t follow me to the place where he met his watery end.

  I step off the ledge. And I fall.

  A mix of gravity and momentum plunge me far below the surface, where the water stabs at me with icy needles. I scream and the last of my air explodes into a thousand bubbles that I watch float up.

  My heart begins to pound and I roll over, belly down. I sweep my arms and kick my legs in large strokes. The ocean pours through my outstretched fingers.

  I fight the current to avoid being pulled into shore. All the while, I imagine Levi, waiting for me. Watching.

  My mind goes back to counting to ten. How long can I stay under? The farther I go, the more protected I’ll be by the night. Another push, I tell myself. Just one more.

  I keep lying to myself until my chest feels so tight and full I’m sure it’ll burst. I can’t swim anymore. I need air. I stare up. The moon is a round orb, wrinkled and dangling above. I kick my feet. The image of lane ropes. Chlorinated water. Gold medals.

  The surface shimmers and fractures light like glass. Clicks and sputters fill my body and I know, at once, that I’ve made a fatal mistake.

  Wet cement seeps into my arms and legs. I’m no longer kicking or flailing or moving. I’m only falling. Away from the air, sinking and watching the world fade away in slow motion. The moon grows smaller and fainter and soon, it’s blotted out.

  The first time, it’s like getting kicked in the chest by a horse.

  The second, like being struck by a stray firework.

  By the third, I swear I’ve been shot with a bullet.

  “Clear.” A voice I don’t recognize. My back twists off the rough surface. I slam back against it. “Clear.” Liquid squelches from my lungs. Coughing. Spluttering. Gasping for air.

  Someone pushes my shoulder and rolls me onto my side. More water spews out. Toward the end, I’m puking it in stringy ropes that stick to my chin. A hand strikes my back, thumping me over and over until I vomit whatever dregs are at the bottom of my stomach.

  My eyelids flutter open. Sirens. Flickering red lights that turn the waves scarlet. Salt burns my nose and throat and coats my lashes.

  “She’s conscious,” says another adult voice. Shadows swirl around me. So much movement and activity, I can’t keep up.

  At last I’m allowed to recline on my back again. Stars blanket the sky.

  “Can you state your name?” A woman in a navy-blue uniform enters my line of vision.

  “Stella Cross.” My voice comes out as no more than a murmur, but the effort feels as if it strips my throat of its pinkish tissue.

  She’s kneeling. One hand rests on my shoulder. “How old are you, Stella?”

  “Seventeen.” The salt water stings.

  “Do you know what happened?” The woman’s hair is pulled taut into a bun that stretches the skin near her temples. But her face is friendly and I have the urge to reach out and grasp the hand on my shoulder.

  Instead, I save my vocal cords and shake my head.

  “Stella, I don’t know what you were doing in the water, but you’re lucky your friend over there called when he did.” I have a brief flash of terror that I’ll look over and see Levi standing guard, but when I turn my chin, it’s Henry who’s lingering beside an ambulance and a police cruiser.

  Curly-haired, rail-thin Henry. My fingers fly to my lips and I let out a sob.

  “Your heart stopped,” she continues. “I understand that you’ve recently had a transplant. Your doctors should have told you that at least for the foreseeable future, strenuous activity of any kind is off limits. That includes swimming. Especially in water that has currents like that.” She looks out over the ocean. The world to me smells like seagulls and fish.

  “Wait, my heart stopped?” I return my gaze to her.

  “Yes. These”—she picks up two large paddles connected to a machine—“were able to bring you back, but that’s not always the case. Next time, you may not be so fortunate.”

  “So I was dead?”

  Her cool palm moves from my shoulder to my forehead. “Yes, Stella. But you’re not anymore.”

  Tears slide straight down to my ears and I begin to sob, and as I cry, it dawns on me that I’ve lost something in the water.

  The pain.

  I’ve been carrying it for so long, I feel like a person who’s lost fifty pounds and doesn’t know what to do with her new body. A wound inside me closes, stitched tight at the seams.

  “Can I see Henry now?” I point.

  The paramedic lifts her chin and she nods to Henry, standing at the sidelines. He doesn’t jog, he runs, and, thankfully, the woman pats my arm and gives us our space.

  I’m so overjoyed to see him. I have a thousand things to say but can’t seem to choose one.

  “Where…did it work?” My smile crackles over my teeth.

  A damp lock of hair falls over his forehead. Behind him, the first hint of sunlight is smudging silver along the horizon.

  “He’s gone.” He takes my cheeks in both hands and we’re both grinning like we drank too much champagne. “I saw it happen. He just crumbled into the ocean. You did it.”

  For the first time in a long time, I know that even if I let myself feel all the emotions the universe has to offer, I won’t break. My heart will keep on beating.

  “I thought you were dead,” he says.

  I reach up. I touch the dark freckle on the side of his face and beam until the corners of my mouth tire and I can’t hold it anymore. “Nope,” I say. “Definitely alive.”

  The heart, I learned, no matter what we’re told in fairy tales, doesn’t work off love or affection or fondness or devotion. It essentially works off of electricity. When an electrical shock was sent through my heart six months earlier, it was as though it was given a jump start, just like someone would a car, and now here I am, up and running—only not literally.

  My feet are planted firmly on the ground, right where they belong.

  A black tank top sticks to my ribs. The sun beats down on the Walmart parking lot where we’re making our final run for supplies.

  The entire city of Seattle has become one big steam room in what’s being called the hottest summer ever, and I’m looking forward to spending most of it holed up on an air-conditioned bus.

  I carry two armfuls of plastic bags and stash them in the compartments underneath the bus. Batteries, potato chips, liters of soda—I check each item off of the list on my clipboard. The last thing I need is to forget someone’s favorite brand of cereal or whatever. I lift a heavy crate of bottled water and shove it into the underbelly of the bus, too.

  “You need a hand with that?”

  I spin around to see Henry cutting across the parking lot, still in slacks and a tie and sporting his graduation robe.

  “You made it!” I squeal, closing the distance between us. He picks me up and spins me around. I can’t believe I had to miss every
one’s graduation. When he sets me down, he takes off his tasseled cap and puts in on my head.

  “Not so fast,” I say, sliding it off and replacing it over his curls. “Next year. I’ll do it on my own. Promise.”

  I hadn’t graduated with my class after all. My parents, as much as I hated to admit it, were right. I needed more time off to let my body catch up and recover. Years of stress had eaten away at me and it was time for a real break. I’d go back to Duwamish in the fall and finish then, graduating with the lowly juniors below me, just like I’d vowed not to do.

  But life has a way of changing plans on you.

  I move Henry’s tassel over to the left side. “You make a very handsome graduate, you know.” I rise to my tippy-toes and kiss the freckle underneath his left eye. “Will you still remember me when you’re a big shot at UDub?”

  He absentmindedly touches the spot where my lips had been. “It’s right here in Seattle.” He rolls his eyes. “I’ll be here all the time. You on the other hand…” He pinches my nose playfully.

  With my hands on my hips, I turn back to admire the bus. It’s not big, but it feels like a big adventure. “I know, right? I can’t believe my parents are letting me go.” I twirl around to model my tank top with the words TOUR CREW written in bold white letters. “How do I look? Official?” It’s not as if I’ll be doing anything fancy, unless it’s considered fancy to be doing glorified gofer work and selling merchandise, but it still feels grown up.

  He catches me by the waist of my jean shorts. “Just don’t go off and become a groupie,” he says, eyeing Danny Marino, the band’s drummer, as he climbs the steps onto the bus.

  “Please, that’s so seventies.”

  Just then an SUV pulls up. A car door slams. Out of the backseat jumps another swirling gown, sprinting at me so that it flutters in her wake. My parents trail behind Brynn at a more reasonable pace, but I can barely see them, because Brynn’s hair is currently suffocating me.

  “You brat.” She pulls away. “You were going to leave without saying good-bye.”

  I pull a clump of auburn curls out of my mouth. “The tour manager set the time. Nothing I can do about it. I’m just a lowly peon here to cart around boxes and equipment and stuff.”

  “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” She stomps her foot, but she’s smiling.

  I wave to Mom, Dad, and Elsie, who’s half-asleep with her thumb in her mouth.

  “Well, will this make it up to you?” I ask, pulling out three tickets to Action Hero Disco’s show from my pocket. “It’s for Portland. Can you guys meet me there? The band’s in town for a couple days and I thought maybe we could at least get a sliver of our last summer together. One’s for Lydia.”

  Brynn snatches them from my hand. “Backstage?” She dances around. “I am totally going to make out with a rock star. You know that, right?”

  My dad clears his throat. Brynn, on the other hand, doesn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed. “We have a little going-away gift for you,” he says. He steps forward and presents me with a black guitar case.

  I look at him in disbelief. “Seriously?” I take it in my arms and kneel down, unhooking the clasps of the lid. Inside is a brand new Epiphone Les Paul edition. I run my hands over the cherry-red wood.

  I scoop it into my lap, cradling it on one thigh. My fingers find the strings at the neck of the guitar and I strum the opening notes to “Lithium” without a sheet of music in front of me.

  “How do you do that?” Brynn shakes her head.

  Grinning, I replace the guitar in its case. I shrug. “Don’t know.” Which is the truth, kind of. “Thank you.” I wrap my parents and Elsie in a group hug. A lump forms in my throat.

  Maybe I’ll go to Stanford one day, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll figure it out on the road this summer, when there’s nothing but miles of time to plan my next dive into the deep end.

  “Stella, the train’s rolling out.” Joe, the tour manager stands tapping his watch.

  My stomach tightens and I press my lips together to keep from tearing up. “I’ll call you.” I hug my parents again and then Brynn.

  Last there’s Henry. My cheeks get hot when he plants a kiss on my lips right in full view of my parents, but I get over it and wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, drinking in the scent of Dove soap and Ralph Lauren cologne until I hope I have enough to hold me over for the next month. He tousles my hair, which has grown out to shoulder length.

  When I turn to leave, there’s no raging pain that scrapes through my chest, but a pleasant ballooning of my heart that makes me feel complete and full.

  I climb the steps onto the bus and find a seat on a bench, where I put my headphones in and stare out the window at the world cast in the sun’s golden net.

  Two months ago, I tried to look into what St. David’s did with my old heart, to make sure it’d been destroyed. The best guess they could give me was that it’d been sent to a medical school in California for teaching purposes. Someday I’ll work on figuring out exactly which one, and I’ll make sure that the end for me will be the end.

  Because even though hearts don’t run on love or affection or fondness or devotion, I’ve found that they’re more than just a compilation of veins and arteries. Researchers have discovered that a human’s DNA is actually capable of passing down learned information from traumatic or stressful experiences that take the form of fears and phobias, and as I rub the scar that splits my rib cage in half, I wonder what else it can pass down.

  I sway in my seat as the wheels of the bus veer out of the city and the coastline passes out of view. A pinch of worry hits me. This is the farthest I’ve been from the water since my surgery. I don’t know why I survived when the odds were against me. I don’t know why I made it off the list when so many others have died waiting for the gift that could save them. And I don’t know how one girl and her friend could defeat the thing that was determined to take it away.

  What I know is that the universe is not a Rubik’s Cube, and I’m glad I’ll never be able to figure it all out.

  This book would not exist without the help and support of countless friends along the way, so with all my heart, I extend these thanks…

  To my agent, Dan Lazar, for sticking with me through thick and thin, and to Torie Doherty Munro at Writers House, for many hours of behind-the-scenes work.

  To my amazingly talented and insightful editor, Laura Schreiber, who has helped to shape and improve every aspect of this manuscript; to Emily Meehan for giving me my first “yes”; and to the rest of the unparalleled team at Hyperion, along with my copy editor Polly Watson, publicist Jamie Baker and cover designer Tyler Nevins, for turning this story into a book.

  To Nick Harris, for your creative partnership and unwavering belief in Stella since the beginning.

  To Dr. Arielle Lutterman, for acting as my medical consultant when needed.

  To my YA author debut groups, the Class of 2k15, the Fearless Fifteeners, and especially my beloved Freshman Fifteens, your friendship and humor have been invaluable this year; to my trusted confidantes Lee Kelly and Virginia Boecker; to my smart and supportive writing buddies Kim Liggett, Lori Goldstein and Jen Brooks; to Shana Silver, who has listened patiently to every plot problem I’ve ever had; to Charlotte Huang, for endless emails of encouragement and for acting as my daily sounding board; to Kelly Loy Gilbert, for sharing the journey; and to Jen Hayley, Emily O’Brien, Christine Bassham and Kelley Flores, for listening.

  To my colleagues, who granted me the generous gift of time and space to write, with special thanks to Dee Kelly, Jr., David Cook, Cal Jackson, and Mike Moan.

  To my parents, for instilling in me a love of books that has lasted a lifetime and for always being my biggest fans.

  And lastly, to my husband Rob: For taking on more than your fair share of our daily challenges so that I can pursue my dream, but also for always being the one to pry my fingers from the keyboard when I’m clearly in need of a break. You are my
favorite person in the world and I couldn’t accomplish anything without you.

  CHANDLER BAKER got her start ghostwriting novels for teens and tweens before turning to her own stories. She grew up in Florida, went to college in Pennsylvania, and studied law in Texas, where she now lives with her husband. Although she loves spinning tales with a touch of horror, she is a much bigger scaredy-cat than her stories would lead you to believe. You can visit her online at www.chandlerbaker.com.