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Our Song

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by Fraiberg, Jordanna




  OUR SONG

  JORDANNA

  FRAIBERG

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins St., Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi–110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa

  Penguin China, B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright 2013 Jordanna Fraiberg

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60438-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Eva

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

  And what I assume you shall assume,

  For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

  —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

  CHAPTER 1

  “ALMOST HOME,”my father said, clearing his throat. His gray Buick Lucerne coasted down the freeway toward the exit ramp for Vista Boulevard. He said it like it was a good thing.

  They were the first words out of his mouth since we’d left the hospital, essentially doubling the number he had uttered since the night of the accident. At least now that he was driving, it wasn’t as obvious that he could barely look at me.

  You could tell we were practically home from the way the surrounding landscape suddenly transformed from a brown, blotchy mess into a sprawling green landscape, complete with a WELCOME TO VISTA VALLEY greeting emblazoned in pink and yellow tulips. As the founder and head of the Vista Valley Landscape Society, my mother was responsible for all such important decisions. The sign was composed of purple petunias the last time I drove down this stretch—with Derek—on our way back from a debate match. I had only been gone for two weeks, but it was long enough that the flowers had been replanted to welcome spring.

  My breath caught every time I saw a flash of red, imagining it was Derek’s Mini Cooper. It was his prized possession, a gift from his parents for leading the Vista Valley High Pioneers to victory at the San Fernando Valley regional debate championships last year. I kept hoping the bright fire-engine-red two-door would magically round the corner, proving nothing had really changed. I would have given everything to rewind time, would have done anything for some miracle that would erase the last two weeks. But that kind of miracle didn’t exist.

  Besides, I’d already used up my so-called miracle quota. That’s what Dr. Farmand had called it, anyway: a miracle. After the accident, my heart stopped beating for almost three full minutes before being restarted by a paramedic. They called it a “near-death experience,” but there was nothing near about it. I died. And was brought back to life.

  Dr. Farmand and everyone in the hospital kept telling me how lucky I was to be alive. But it didn’t feel like the same life I had left behind…the carefree one, with Derek.

  As we drove down Vista, every storefront reminded me of him, of some moment from our past: Maggiano’s, the site of our first date, Abe’s Coffee Shop, where we stopped for muffins on the way to school, the China Palace, where we got takeout for movie night every Friday. And Vista Valley Mart, where we shopped just two weeks ago, right before our two year anniversary.…

  Something snagged in my throat again. I closed my eyes and tried to inhale deeply but nothing flowed in or out.

  When I opened my eyes again, we were turning off Vista and nearing the entrance to the Vista Valley Country Club. The wound on the back of my head started to pulse, like a tiny heartbeat. The club was where Derek and I first met, after one of the weekly Sunday brunches my parents always dragged me to. I already knew him from school, of course. Everyone knew Derek O’Brien, captain of the Vista Valley Pioneers Debate Club, president of the student council, and future president of the United States. But I didn’t know that Derek knew who I was until he pulled up in his golf cart to talk with me while I waited for my father to finish up on the twelfth hole.

  Only a few weeks later, I stopped driving my father around the course on Sundays and began driving Derek instead. I could hardly believe my luck. I’d never kissed anyone before, much less had a boyfriend. I wasn’t like the other girls at the club, with their blond hair and their tans, with their cute, tiny bodies poking out of their cute, even tinier bikinis. But for some reason, out of all the girls in Vista Valley, I was the one Derek chose. And for the first time in my life, I felt special.

  As the car rounded the twelfth hole, a wave of nausea welled up inside me. It suddenly felt like the tinted glass was closing in on me. I wiped my sweaty palm on my jeans and fumbled around for the switch.

  “You all right?” My father pressed a button on the side of his steering wheel and the window silently slid open.

  I was so sick of that question. For the last two weeks, that’s all anyone could ask me, from my parents, to the endless parade of nurses and doctors, to the special counselor sent to assess my psychological “readiness” before releasing me this afternoon.

  “I’m fine,” I said. Maybe if I said it enough times, someone would eventually believe me. Maybe I would, too.

  I extended my arm out into the warm, still air, the car moving too slowly to create the illusion of wind. Staring up at the cobalt sky, I didn’t see a single cloud. The sun, a big yellow disc off to the right, looked two-dimensional, like it had been painted onto the sky. The weather was like this practically
every day in Vista Valley. Except for the rare time it rained. Like it had that night.

  “Don’t go this way,” I blurted just as my father was about to make a left onto Hyacinth Circle. It was the most direct route home, but he turned off his indicator and continued straight without saying a word.

  He didn’t need to ask why. It was obvious what I wanted to avoid.

  The Buick Lucerne made a right onto our street, Lily Lane. Even with the window down, it still felt like I was viewing the world through the filter of tinted glass. I stared out at the row of almost identical, freshly painted houses, all in matching hues of pastel and white, their perfectly maintained gardens spreading out before them. In the interest of “community harmony,” every public aesthetic decision in Vista Valley was planned by committee. I knew this because my mother served on practically every one of them. There wasn’t a paint job, holiday decoration, or address plaque that didn’t have her fingerprints all over it.

  It felt like I was looking at a tableau frozen in time before the accident. As if a thin layer of gauze had fallen over the entire neighborhood, enshrouding it from the rest of the world like a cocoon. This must be what a parallel universe is like, I thought. Everything looked the same, but I suddenly felt like it wasn’t. Like everything had been taken apart, brick by brick, flower bed by flower bed, and put back together in the wrong order. Just like me.

  Various neighbors appeared as we pulled into our driveway. Oscar Hodes from across the street came out to polish his car; Mrs. Nelson from three doors down decided to bring her trash bins out two days early (my mother would have something to say about that); and the Walton twins, Jasper and Jane, rode their bikes in circles in front of our house. I knew they were all really there to witness my return. There was no doubt that everyone knew what had happened. News always spiraled into gossip in Vista Valley. Especially news like mine.

  My mother stood in the open doorway, framed on either side by matching flower boxes displaying her prized orchids. Tugging at her gardening apron, she reminded me of a seventeenth-century Dutch oil painting we studied in art history freshman year, Portrait of a Mother in Grief. The only difference was that my mother wasn’t wearing black, but she didn’t have to. Squinting her eyes to hold back her tears, she acted like she was the one who died, the one who had lost everything. But if I wasn’t crying, she had no right to.

  “I’ve got your bag,” my dad said, popping the trunk open.

  Just then, Noah, my eight-year-old brother, came barreling through the door, practically knocking over my mother. “Ollie’s back!”

  “The grass, Noah! It’s just been fertilized,” my mother cried out, but it was too late. Noah was already clomping across, leaving small footprints on the new earth, before taking a running jump into my arms. The weight and force of his body made me stumble back against the car. But it felt good to be hugged, to be his big sister again. I’d been so focused on everything else, I didn’t realize how much I had missed him. My mother never brought him to the hospital, saying something about how the restricted visiting hours for children conflicted with his school schedule. But I knew it was really because she didn’t want him to know the truth.

  “Careful with your sister,” my mother warned. “Remember? She’s not feeling well. We discussed this.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I insisted as he slid off me.

  She quickly glanced back at the neighbors, all paused in their activities to stare at us. “Let’s get you inside.” She took my bag from my father. “There are so many germs in the hospital. Why don’t you go take a hot shower while I get this load of laundry started.”

  That’s when it hit me: I was the germ, the blight on her otherwise perfect home.

  I followed her inside.

  CHAPTER 2

  “DON’T YOU LOOK refreshed!” my mother announced as she barged into my room.

  “Mom, I’m not dressed!” I said, quickly slipping a shirt over my head. Since the accident, she’d been running on overdrive, checking on me every five minutes. I was hoping it would be different now that I was out of the hospital, that she’d go back to worrying about the trivial domestic things she normally obsessed over, like her orchids. “Can you please knock?”

  “Doesn’t a nice shower make you feel so much better?” she said, ignoring me. Maybe a shower was all it took for her, but everything was different now. She went over to the bed and held up a pair of pink pajamas. “Didn’t you see these adorable new pajamas I got you?”

  They were exactly the kind I usually loved, down to the floral embroidery around the collar and cuffs. But I couldn’t imagine wearing something so…cheerful. Not yet anyway.

  “I didn’t notice,” I said breezily, tightening the drawstring on the torn black sweats I’d opted for instead. “Where’s my computer?” I eyed the empty spot where it used to sit on my desk.

  “We thought it would be too much stimulation to have it here in your room,” she explained, removing a phantom hair from her face. That was my mother’s classic tell. The signal that she was uncomfortable, or covering up the truth.

  “Then where is it?” Without Internet access in the hospital, it had been a full two weeks since I’d been online. I was desperate to log on to Facebook, to study Derek’s page, even though I knew it probably hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw it. Like a true politician-in-training, he never posted anything personal.

  “Your computer is in the sunroom.”

  The sunroom wasn’t technically a room but a small nook off the kitchen that overlooked the greenhouse. Given that my mother basically lived in exactly one of those two places, it meant that I would have zero privacy. “How am I supposed to get my homework done there?”

  “Don’t worry about that now. What’s important is that you rest.”

  I gripped my head as a sudden explosion of sound erupted in my brain, like the volume had been cranked up. But I wasn’t just hearing my mother’s voice. A cacophony of discordant noises ran through my head. Flapping, clapping, crunching: an avalanche of overlapping, jarring sounds, with the almost imperceptible hint of a melody beneath it all, like a ghost. The music was so faint I couldn’t even be sure what it was or if it was really there, as if a radio had been possessed, urgently flipping between stations, each one more chaotic than the last, searching, searching, for calm.

  “Are you in pain?” my mother asked, rushing toward me.

  “I’m fine,” I said, reaching for the armchair to steady myself. With the noises ricocheting in my head, I felt off-kilter, like I’d just stepped off a speeding merry-go-round, like I might faint. But no matter how much it was freaking me out, there was no way I could let on what was happening.

  A buzzer went off in the kitchen.

  “That’s the oven,” she said, glancing toward the door. “Maybe a good, home-cooked meal will help.”

  I pushed the noises back until they reduced to a ringing in my ears and followed her downstairs and into the kitchen. A fresh round of nausea washed over me as my mother removed a steaming dish from the oven. I’d barely been able to eat for the last two weeks. The smell and sight of food—even my mother’s cooking, which I used to love—turned my stomach.

  “Ah, perfect!” she said, testing her recipe. Everything needed to be perfect in my mother’s world. Her cooking, her orchids, her house, her family. And now here I was, throwing it all out of balance.

  “We’re eating in the dining room tonight,” she said as I slumped into my usual spot at the kitchen table.

  “Why?” The dining room was usually off-limits, reserved for special occasions or when my mother hosted her fellow committee members for luncheons. Or when my father needed to impress some clients.

  “Because you’re home.” I couldn’t remember the last time we’d eaten in there together as a family. She reached for a crystal bowl from the shelf where she kept all her fancy dinnerware. “I thought it would be nice to celebrate the occasion.”

  “There’s nothing to celebrate.” I pul
led my hair out from under my shirt and fanned it over my shoulders. It helped to relieve the pressure from my long, wet strands tugging down on the scar at the base of my skull. Another unpleasant reminder.

  “Well of course there is.” She whipped around, clutching the bowl in her hands. “It’s a miracle you’re…back.”

  I bristled at that word. For you maybe, I wanted to say. Because as much as I wanted to feel grateful, I wasn’t really back. Not in the way I wanted to be.

  I went over to the fridge, where my school calendar was tacked to the door next to Noah’s. It listed all the things that happened in the past two weeks, the things that went on without me. The senior talent show, Derek’s debate against Paso Verdes High. Our second anniversary…

  I ran through the events in my head, imagining I had been there, that nothing had changed, that I had spent the last two weeks by Derek’s side, the same as the last two years. Love like ours couldn’t just vanish into thin air, no matter what happened. And when he saw me at school again tomorrow, I knew that he would realize it, too.

  My mother came up behind me and adjusted my hair so that it fell straight down my back. “It’ll grow back soon.” I nodded silently. She was referring to the square bald patch they had shaved to make room for the stitches. She followed my gaze to the fridge. “I know this breakup has been especially hard on you, but—”

  “We didn’t break up,” I snapped, pulling away. Those words were never uttered. There was still a chance that things could go back to the way they were before the accident. All my hopes were pinned on that chance.

  It was true that I still hadn’t heard from him since that night. But Derek wasn’t the best with the phone. And I knew how focused he got in the middle of debate season. He always told me not to take it personally. But each day without him felt like an eternity, and it had already been fourteen. Fourteen days that had been more painful than the bruises across my body and the stitched gash on my head.

  “Maybe it would be better if you stayed home for a few more days, to readjust before going back to school.” She scrutinized my face as if she could read my mind before reaching for the phone. “I’m calling Principal Kingston.”

 

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