by Sara Wolf
“That’s not how it works. Nobody has the right to be an asshole to people who care about them. And yet I keep doing it. I’m hooked up to a steady drip of pure morphine and I can still be an asshole. Because I choose to. Because even though the pain in my body is numbed, the pain in my head is still there. It’s always there. It infects every thought, everything that comes out of my mouth. And the harder I try to hide it, the worse it gets. The more it wants to come out and ruin everything.”
We eat our sandwiches in the long quiet. Sophia talks first.
“You know what’s the worst part?” She looks at her hands. “It’s not being stuck here. It’s not the pain. It’s the ‘why.’ It’s me asking why every day of my life. It’s me praying to every god we’ve invented, asking him or her or it ‘why.’ Why me? Why give me tumors? What’s so special about me? Does it like to watch me suffer? Did I do something awful in a previous life, and this is my punishment? Is this a test, to prove I’m worthy of its love?”
I’m struck silent, frozen and yet somehow also trembling. Sophia stares at the whitewashed ceiling like she’s looking beyond it, above it.
“And then I realized: there is no ‘why,’” she says. “Things just happen. That’s it. The gods have no plan. If they did, why would they make such a horrible one? If God really exists, the good and just God who rewards pious behavior and punishes the wicked, then why does pain exist at all? If he exists, that must mean I’m wicked. I must deserve this. Either that, or there is no God. There are only things, good and bad things, and they happen all the time, to everyone.”
She smiles at me, something about it sad.
“But no one wants to hear that. No one is brave enough to accept the universe is empty of meaning, or divine plan. We want to believe, so we make things up to believe in, because it’s easier. It’s less scary to think there’s a God out there, a sentient, omnipotent man watching over us, making everything happen for a reason. We want to believe, even if it isn’t true. So we make it true. We give it reason, when there is no reason. It’s as simple as that. If anything, we are the gods. We make things real by believing.”
Her laughter is faint, and she takes another bite of sandwich. I can’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. I’ve never thought about what I believe in. I’ve never given it much thought because I don’t have to. I’m not sick. Death doesn’t shadow me like it does Sophia. I’m lucky. Above all, I’m lucky I never had to think about it seriously.
“What do you believe in?” Sophia asks suddenly. “God? Buddha? Aliens? Or nothing at all?”
I’m quiet.
“Come on, there has to be something. Even people who don’t give it much thought have some belief in their hearts, buried deep down. Is your mom Christian? Do you—”
“Myself,” I say finally. Sophia closes her mouth, letting me continue. “I believe in myself.”
“That’s very magical-girl-anime of you.” She laughs.
“It’s not. At least, I don’t think it is. It’s just me. I don’t know anything about God, or gods, or aliens. I don’t know what happens in the afterlife or if there is one. I just know it’ll be a surprise. And until then, all I can do is be myself. All I can do is take care of myself. All I can do is live, until I can’t anymore.”
It’s Sophia’s turn to be quiet. She leans back and hoop-shots her sandwich paper into the trash can from across the room.
“Nice shot,” I say. She shrugs.
“It’s my grandmother’s birthday today. Or was, rather.”
“Happy birthday, Sophie’s g-ma.”
Sophia laughs. “She would’ve liked you. She liked Jack, so she’d definitely like you.”
“Here’s a bit of fun trivia: I’m nothing like Jack. I’m nothing like Jack!”
“Here’s a bit of fun trivia: just because you say things twice and louder doesn’t make it true.”
“Touché. But I’d at least like sourced footnotes on these accusations.”
Sophia counts down on her fingers. “You two never reveal how you really feel. You always try to make me feel better before making yourselves feel better. Both of you naively, masochistically insist on sticking around me, even if I’m terrible to you.”
She curls the last finger into her first. “And both of you can’t come to terms with my dying.”
“Soph—”
“But that’s all right,” she continues. “Since I haven’t come to terms with it, either.”
She pulls out the black notebook I saw her writing in.
“My grandmother left me enough money to get treatment,” she says. “She willed everything to me, to be signed over to me when I turned eighteen. But then they found the tumors, and her lawyer got a special exception for me to use the funds for my treatment. After four years, it’s nearly run out. Jack’s been picking up the slack, but I worry. I don’t know where he gets that much money or how. I know it’s not from his mom—he’s too proud. He wants to take care of me on his own. I’m terrified he’s doing something illegal for me. And that just makes me feel horrible.”
I knit my lips shut. I don’t know what he’s doing. What memories I’ve regained tell me it’s something people normally think is shady. If Jack hasn’t told her, it’s for a reason. He’s protecting her from the truth. If I told her what little I think I know, he’d hate me even more. But why do I care? So what if he hates me? I hate him. I hate his face and his eyes and his voice—
“You’d tell me, right?” Sophia looks at me, her deep blue irises more vast than the ocean. “If you knew, Isis, you’d tell me. Because we’re friends. Because I deserve to know the truth, even if Jack thinks he’s doing the right thing by not telling me.”
I hesitate, and Sophia pounces on it like a lion on a baby gazelle.
“Is it drugs? Please tell me it isn’t drugs.”
I struggle with words, my thoughts a jumble of torn morality.
“It’s not fighting,” she presses. “He’s always been good at fighting, but please, please tell me it isn’t that. Please tell me he’s not beating people up just for me.”
The pain on her face is obvious. How could Jack be so cruel as to keep this from her? It’s obviously causing her massive amounts of anxiety and guilt.
“I can’t—I can’t remember.” I make a half truth. “Everything about him is so fuzzy.”
“You’re lying,” she says instantly. “You know exactly what he’s doing.”
“I don’t, Sophia,” I insist. “Or maybe I do, but I can’t remember.”
She pauses, and then, “If you remember, will you promise to tell me? Right away?”
“Of course.”
She stares at me, judging my honesty. Finally she nods.
“It’s a promise.”
She scribbles in her black book while I think everything over. My eyes catch a line—it’s a list. Eat cupcakes from that fancy place in New York. The list is long, with scribbled-out lines and doodles. She sees me staring.
“It’s a bucket list,” Sophia says finally. “It’s cheesy, I know. People only make bucket lists in movies, but Dr. Mernich said it would help. Not that anything can help anymore. But it does make me feel better, planning stuff to do. I can’t travel, not for long, anyway. Even if none of this stuff happens, I can at least dream about it.”
She yawns, blinking sleepily.
“You can do more than that,” I say. “You can do all those things you want to.”
“Oh shut up with the hopeful stuff already.” She sighs.
She falls asleep so quickly after that I don’t have time to apologize. Feeling ashamed, I make for the exit. I open the door only to come face to face with Jack. I close it behind me quickly. The tension is instant, my neck hair prickling and my heart racing like I’ve seen a shark while diving underwater. My motormouth saves me.
“Why are you always here when I am? Let me guess—social media stalking??”
“No,” he says flatly.
“GPS chip in my tooth?”
“I’d never spend that much money on you.”
“I told you to stay away from me.”
“I’m not staying away from Sophia,” he asserts. “And apparently neither are you. So never being near each other again is statistically improbable.”
“Statistically, when someone asks someone else to leave them alone, they don’t talk to said person.”
“You’re the one who spoke to me first.”
“Why haven’t you told her about what you do?” I demand. “She’s torn up over it.”
His subzero eyes narrow. “I can’t tell her. She’d be disappointed in me. She’d hate me. She’d think I was disgusting.”
“You’re a lot of infuriating things, Jack Hunter,” I say. “But you’re not disgusting.”
“Really?” He laughs bitterly. “What world do you live in? Everyone thinks sleeping with other people for money is base. Dirty. Don’t pretend not to be one of them.”
My breath hitches. “Is that— Is that what you do?”
He doesn’t answer, looking at the floor instead. I study his face, and the memories come trickling in like water through a clogged sieve. A red and black card with the name Jaden on it, eating frosting as I watched him walk arm in arm with a girl in town… I paid him to take Kayla out at one point. His escorting was for Sophia—I remember finding that out, too. He’s paying her hospital bills with the money he makes, and he keeps it a secret from everyone—his mom, Sophia, everyone. Everyone except me.
“Part of me wished you wouldn’t remember,” Jack says softly.
“Why?”
“Because.” He sighs. “I told you. People are disgusted by it. You were, too, and now you are again.”
I set my jaw. “I used to be. I used to think it was gross and wrong. But then I realized I only thought that way because I hated you. Because anything you did was disgusting to me, back when we first met.”
“And now?” he snarls.
“Now I— It’s—” It’s my turn to be unable to look him in the eye. “Now I realize it’s your choice. And as long as you’re all right with it, as long as it isn’t hurting you or making you hate yourself, it’s fine. It’s what you want to do for Sophia. It’s what you want to do, period. So who am I to say it’s wrong, or bad? Only bigots think like that.”
“So you’re fine with it? You’re fine with me sleeping with people for money?”
“Trust me when I say I know sex isn’t anything special.”
His eyebrows knit, the wrinkle between them intense. “It can be, if it’s with someone you love.”
My face heats, my stomach burbling uneasily. “Then why do you do it with people you don’t love?”
“Because it’s not—” He exhales. “It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have experience.”
The burbling in my stomach becomes a roiling. “Right. So I’m too inexperienced to bother with.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Jack’s voice lowers, still even and patient. “Listen, do you kiss your mother?”
“What? What kind of question is that?”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, duh. On the cheek. Or the top of her head, sometimes.”
“I kissed you,” he says without missing a beat. “And that was different, wasn’t it? It felt different. Right?”
It’s hard to hear through his careful control, but I swear his last word sounds unsure, anxious.
“Y-Yeah,” I admit. “It felt—”
I brave a glance at his face, and my skin prickles as I realize he’s looking at me. Not staring, not glaring, just looking at me; me, everything about me, and it feels like not a single thing in my heart is hidden from his gaze. The word I’m searching for is something I don’t know. It’s undefined, a blank where a definition should be. It’s elusive, just on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say it. Frustration builds in me, exploding all at once.
“What’s the point of asking me this?” I demand. His ice-blue eyes dim, but don’t waver.
“I’m trying to explain to you there’s a difference. There’s routine affection, and then there’s something…something more. Something much more.”
The wildfire on my face burns hotter, a third of it shame, a third of it curiosity, and a third of it some deep, instinctual longing; a longing to know what he means, a longing to have him show me what it means.
I manage to douse myself in seven tons of imaginary frigid water and refocus.
“Even if you’re just…giving routine affection, it’s only okay as long as you aren’t hurting yourself by doing it.”
“Physically?”
“Or emotionally,” I add.
His eyes grow hard. “Why would you care about me? You told me to stay out of your life. You don’t get to pretend to care about me.”
I freeze. He’s right. Why do I care?
“It’s not pretending,” I grit out.
“You hate me,” he says flatly.
“You infuriate me,” I say. “You confuse me. Every time I talk to you, my feelings turn into a tornado, my stomach twists up. I don’t know how to feel about you, okay? I need space. I need time. I need to think without you fucking up my head.”
His angry expression cools to an impassive, deathly void. He moves behind me, opening Sophia’s door and closing it evenly in my face. Somehow the tornado inside me gets worse. Through the gaps in the blinds of Sophia’s window, I can see Jack sitting on the bed next to her, grasping her hand and smoothing away the hair from her forehead tenderly.
Something clicks into place. That’s where he belongs. I can feel it, see it, sense it. Holding her hand is what he should be doing, always, forever. They fit like pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know we were putting back together.
There’s no place for me.
There’s no place for a girl who doesn’t think about death. A girl who isn’t serious or deep or mature. There’s no place for a girl who only believes in herself.
Mira and James are a lot easier to be with. I don’t have to be serious or deep—on the contrary, they want nothing less than total lighthearted fun. God knows they’re bored as hell spending all their time in this hospital. A place for the sick and old is no place for kids to grow up. They deserve other kids their age, candy, school, and zoos and playgrounds and Disneyworld.
“Isis.” James’s voice brings me out of my thoughts. “Why do you look so sad?”
I smile. “Oh, it’s just teenage hormones. Don’t worry about it.”
“Teenagers sound extremely gross,” Mira says sagely.
“We are the grossest,” I assure her. “Have you seen a teenager lately? They’re absolutely covered in grease and sarcasm.”
“Like you.” James giggles.
“I’m negative seven grease, at least.”
“And plus a million sarcasm,” Mira says.
“Who gave you permission to be so sassy?” I pretend to look offended. They both point at me instantly, and I burst into laughter. James, sitting by the window, points out of it to the parking lot.
“Hey! Isn’t that Jack?”
Mira and I crowd the window beside him. Jack’s walking to his car. James pulls out a Nerf gun from under his pillow and aims at Jack.
“Do it, do it, do it,” Mira and I chant. He squeezes the trigger, and the little foam bullet goes flying. There’s no way it reached him, but at that same moment Jack stops and looks back up at the hospital. James and Mira and I duck under the windowsill.
“Did it actually hit him?” James hisses.
“No way,” Mira whispers. “He’s just staring and being a weirdo like he always is.”
“Weirdo is a really good name for him,” I agree. We poke our heads over the sill and see that Jack’s walking away again.
“Phew!” James wipes his forehead. “I thought I killed him.”
“You can’t kill people with Nerf guns,” Mira snaps.
“Unfortunately,” I say. “Also, if you killed him, you’d be the world’s youngest assa
ssin.”
“Aw, I wanna be that! That sounds awesome!” James pouts. Mira flicks him on the head.
“Nuh-uh. You wanna go to space when you grow up, remember?”
“So?”
“There aren’t any people in space for assassining!”
I laugh so hard I surprise myself. Mira and James laugh, too, just looking a little more confused. I sit up and wipe my eyes.
“I s-swear.” I gulp air. “You two are going to end up assassining me someday.”
“But I don’t wanna assassin you!” James argues.
“Too bad. The wheels are already in motion.”
“Man, that sucks,” he grumbles. “You’re the only cool teenager I’ve ever met.”
“False,” I say. “You clearly haven’t met the Breakfast Club.”
“Who’s that?” He frowns. Mira’s eyes light up.
“There’s a whole club for breakfast?”
“Yup. It’s only for teenagers, though.”
Mira considers this, then frowns very seriously at me. “I’ve changed my mind. Teenagers are okay.”
I start laughing again, and James rolls his eyes and fires his Nerf gun at the ceiling.
I, Isis Blake, think Principal Evans is a nice guy.
By Disney villain standards.
By every other standard, he’s more or less a horrible jerk. And I know this, but I’ve spent so much time with him now I barely see it anymore. It just is, like the stupid watercolor of the school’s main building on his wall, or the fluorescent light above his desk that flickers sometimes, because, hello, public school funding. Summer is hot and I am hot and the sky is blue and Evans is just a straight-up jerk with a continual midlife crisis he likes to take out on me.
I put my feet up on his desk anyway.
“What’s up, man?” I ask. I know exactly what’s up. But I’m gonna make him beg for it. Evans runs his hand over his balding head.
“I was concerned about my favorite student.”
“Oh, you’ve gotten so much better at lying!” I clap my hands. “You could just say you wanna know what was in Stanford’s envelope. You know, be a little more honest with your feelings. I’m sure it’d save you in the long run from buying that inevitable red convertible or a couple years of therapy.”