It's My Life

by Stacie Ramey

  His eyes twinkle as he meets my gaze. “I’ll never tell.” I laugh, and we keep skating.

  “You’re a pretty good skater, Jenna. Must be in your blood.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it. You want to go a little faster?”

  Of course I don’t. I can barely keep my legs under me as it is. But he says it with that same little-boy fierceness, with the look that he wore when he said he wanted to marry me on the playground. It’s hard to say no to that face.

  Up close like this, his jaw looks so strong that I want to trace the line of it, feel the tension there. I analyze every single thing he does. I wonder if he ever thinks of me the same way.

  Chip and David skate by us really fast, then circle back and come straight at us, stopping just short, throwing shaved ice everywhere.

  “Hey, take it easy. Idiots.” Julian wipes a piece of frost from my face. “It’s fine. We can go slow.”

  “I just…”

  “You want to go back?”

  I shake my head, a vigorous no. I don’t want this perfect moment to end. “Do you want to go skate with the guys? I mean, you don’t have to keep skating with me.”

  “I skate with the guys all the time.”

  I blush. “Um, maybe we could go a little faster.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Uh huh.”

  His arms reach around me, his hands clasped behind my back. My hands go on top of his arms. His body is so different from when we were kids. He’s all muscles and bulk now. A firm place to land. His face is close to mine, but I’ve still got my coat as a layer. He’s just in his jersey. So when he stops us, my body bumps into his.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “No worries,” Julian smiles, but his eyes stare into mine, all hazel with earthy brown flecks—the kind that feels most at home on the ice or in the woods.

  Eric skates by us, pulling Rena behind him. “No slow dancing, Van Beck. Not with my sister.”

  Julian chuckles then starts us skating again, medium fast.

  “It’s okay. I trust you,” I say. “We can go faster.”

  “You’re sure?” he asks.

  I can scarcely breathe, but I say, “Yes.”

  “Okay. Hold on tight.” He reaches down to straighten my legs like he’s seen Eric do. His hands, even through my many layers, light a fire in me. “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  I close my eyes, and Julian pulls us faster and faster.

  I’m loving it, and I hear myself laugh. I feel myself fall forward and Julian catches me, straightens my legs, and pulls me right up against him. Right up against. And we are flying and the lights are blinking and I’m so happy. So completely happy. I want him to twirl me like in one of those dorky musicals that Rena and her friends love. I want him to do that. I want him to do more. And then it happens.

  My hamstring spasms.

  My body jerks.

  I pull him down with me.

  Eric screams, “Jenna!”

  I fall forever, in slow motion. Julian tries to adjust us, tries to lift us, but I go into a full-blown hands-over-head extension pattern, and I’m like a rubber band that’s been pulled taut and then released, and there’s no amount of force that can stop that. Julian lands on top of me. Hard. His body on top of mine. My leg scissors behind me.

  And I hear a snap.

  Seventeen

  Red and white lights flash outside, and there’s the sound of people walking on the ice. A gurney appears, pushing through the crowd around me. Eric. Rena. Julian. The pain is as real as a person sitting in front of me. More real than I am. The ice is cold under me, and my body is drifting, pulling me down and into the ocean. I’m swimming, and Dad is holding me above the waves.

  That Jennifer voice finds me and whispers, “Stay up here with me. The pain doesn’t need you.” I believe that voice. I throw myself into that voice. “We are in the library studying,” Jennifer says. “In college. There are a group of cute guys at a table across the room.” As she talks, I can feel myself leaving my body, feel the wooden library chair underneath me.

  The sound of a scissor. Cutting. They are cutting my sleeve and I should care about that, only I really don’t. A blood pressure cuff snaps around my arm and I don’t feel it. I don’t feel much of anything. Numbers are called out. A needle goes in my arm. A person I don’t know talks to me like I should know them. Like I should care. “Come on, Jenna, stay with us, sweetheart.”

  Rena scoots past the medical personnel somehow and wedges herself into the tiniest spot, which is one of Rena’s many gifts. She can make herself fit. She holds my head, her tiny icy hands around my head, and puts her face by mine. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m so sorry.”

  I want to talk to my sister. I want to tell how incredible it was to dance with Julian, even for just a minute. How it felt to press my body against his. To twirl. I was moving free and easy, just like that voice promised. But if I want to speak to my sister, I’ve got to leave Jennifer and my place in the library. I’d have to float down into the mess of my body on the ice right now, lying there, splayed like a bug that went splat on a windshield.

  Hands go under me and I’m lifted. Lowered. Placed. Lifted again. Wheeled. We go over a bump. My body jumps. I hear myself cry out, the burst of air from my lungs more a result of the abrupt jostling than my desire to scream.

  “Hey, take it easy with her.” Eric’s voice is laced with tears and anger. It’s a weird kind of voice from my brother, and for a second that makes me shift back into my body. What a stupid idea. As soon as I am able, I rise into the mental library again.

  My body bumps up and down again, this time with hands on me, holding me still. I am the center of this drama, but I’m so removed from it. I’m loaded into the back of an ambulance. It speeds up, and I close my eyes harder. So hard that I am not sure I’ll ever be able to open them again. I don’t. Not for days and weeks and months and years, because sleeping makes me not feel the pain.

  * * *

  Before I open my eyes, the sound of a monitor greets me.

  “I think she’s waking up.” Mom.

  I blink, trying to be the dutiful daughter, trying to make up for what went down last night. Last night, right? “Hey,” I manage.

  Mom’s face is tired and worn, but her eyes shine when I speak, and her lips turn upward. “Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling?”

  “Thirsty.” Just saying that word makes my mouth go dry. “I’m thirsty.” It’s an easy feeling to figure out, and gives Mom something to do while I try to piece together everything that happened.

  “Let’s raise her a little,” Dad says as he mans the control that lifts the head of my bed.

  Mom’s got a straw sticking out of a cup and aims it at my face. I grab it before it can stab me or try to shove its way into my lips. I hold it still and take a drink. Choke. Mom pats me on the back while Dad shifts me forward.

  They’re making me feel like a porcelain doll, and not in a good way. More in a “OHMYGOD, I’m such a freak” kind of way. I feel like I’m going to choke again, this time on my parents’ good intentions. It’s like they are sucking the air out of the room. I hold my hands up. “Please,” I say. “I can’t breathe.”

  “You can’t what?” Mom sounds panicked.

  Dad laughs. Pulls on Mom’s shoulders. “She needs room. Give her some space.” The truth is, Mom handled all of our daily issues, but Dad was the one who took care of us when we were really sick or hurt. The time Eric broke his leg, the time Rena had pneumonia. Dad had a way of understanding what we needed and calming us down, just by being there. I’m busy waxing nostalgic when I notice the trapeze over the bed. And my leg stuck in it.

  “No,” I say.

  Before anyone can respond, the door opens, and a woman dressed in scrubs walks in. Her hair is dark brown with grays layer
ed through, and she’s got it in a high ponytail. “Hello, Jenna,” she says. “I’m Dr. Lukowski.”

  “What happened?” I ask. “I mean, obviously I broke my leg and all, and I remember it happening, but then…”

  “You were pretty out of it when they got you here,” Mom says.

  “Pain will do that.” The doctor stops to take my pulse. “You have a broken tibia. No major complications, I’m happy to say. Just your garden-variety leg break.”

  “Did I have surgery?”

  “No. It was pretty simple. We did a ton of X-rays, and we put you in a cast, obviously, which you’ll stay in for six to eight weeks, depending on how your body heals.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Today is Friday. You got here last night. Not so bad. One full day with drug-induced sleep. I’m afraid you’ll be enjoying our lovely accommodations for a few days, at least. Luckily there are a ton of movies at your disposal.” She hands me a remote. “Try to relax and enjoy a few days off.”

  “When can I go back to school?”

  “Next week. Why? You have a big project?”

  I think of Elsa. And Julian. And the Hockey Homecoming dance. That’s just weeks away, after the second game with Danbury. It’s not like I thought I’d out myself to Julian at that dance. Or that if I did, Julian would be happy and embrace me and we’d be a thing. It’s not that I think that. I don’t. I swear. But…if I’m holed up and in a cast, then there’s no possible way that could happen. And that sucks.

  “Whatever the project is, it’ll have to wait a bit,” Dr. Lukowski says.

  There’s a knock on the door, and then Eric and Rena come in, both of them quiet, eyes on the floor. Rena pushes her way past the doctor and grabs my hand. “Oh my God, Jenna, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Her eyes are shiny and wet and I say, “I’m fine. Don’t.”

  But it’s too late, she’s crying and Eric is also. “Sorry, sis,” his eyes are hooded. “I…it was…”

  “We’ll talk about this later, Eric,” Mom snaps.

  “It’s going to be a dark one,” I say.

  “What?” Mom demands.

  “Your mom-ologue. I’m thinking dark. Like Carrie-the-musical dark,” I say, knowing the reference will simultaneously make Mom irritated and Rena happy. Two birds, one stone sort of thing.

  “Or Repo! dark!” Eric adds. Repo! is the musical Mom hates the most.

  Dad is a fan, which makes him pump his fist. “Yes!”

  “David, don’t start…”

  “Sweeney Todd dark,” Eric adds, which makes Rena squeal like a little girl.

  The doctor smiles and says, “I’ll see you in the morning. No dancing tonight.”

  Such a funny exit line, but my smirk disappears.

  “Jenna?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine, Mom. I mean, I’m okay, considering.”

  “Okay.”

  I half expect her to start on her usual deal that this is a good thing. A perspective-building thing. Mom loves some perspective building. But she doesn’t. She cups my chin in her hands and smiles a very Mom-like smile at me. “You rest now. Anything I can bring you?”

  “My iPad. My computer.” I think of Julian. “My phone!”

  Eric slides a messenger bag toward me, and I grab for it, and he looks puzzled. “You seem pretty excited about your electronics all of a sudden.”

  “Yeah. Don’t want to get behind in classes.”

  This time Dad scoffs. Mom smacks him. Rena laughs. “What?”

  Mom grabs Dad’s arm. “Nothing, sweetie, we just need to get home and let you rest. The nurse will be in soon with more pain meds. Take them, okay?”

  Eric kisses me on the forehead. Dad on my cheek. Rena leans down and hugs me. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  I grab her shoulders, make her stay close. “I’m sorry. But, Rena did I…did anyone see me…”

  “No. Nobody knows anything. I mean if you even… It wasn’t like that,” she whispers.

  Relief and embarrassment compete for equal attention inside me.

  “You went down. We all jumped up. You sort of passed out. But nothing else, I swear. We called the ambulance, and Julian and I waited with you while we let them in.”

  “Was I talking?”

  “No. You were just lying there, being brave. So it was all fine. Promise.” Rena moves a piece of my hair behind my ear, like I used to do for her when she was little and climbed in my bed and asked me to read her a fairy tale.

  “Thanks.”

  Mom leans in to kiss me, and as soon as she does, a nurse pushes open the door. Not my usual nurse, Gary, but a stranger with a needle full of pain meds for my IV. And a sour look on her face. Perfect. “Best let her rest,” she tells Mom.

  “We’re just leaving,” Mom answers, and pushes the rest of my family toward the door.

  Eric is the last to go. “Wait,” I call.

  He stops, his foot in midair. He keeps it dangling there for laughs.

  My nurse is not amused. “Just for a minute. I need to grab a thermometer anyway. When I get back, you all go,” she says, pushing back out through the door.

  I have a hard time holding in my laughter until the door closes, and Eric lets his out at the exact moment I release mine.

  He points toward the door. “She seems nice.”

  “I just wanted to thank you and Rena. Last night was magic.”

  “Until you broke your leg.”

  “I mean it. It was perfect, the best.”

  “Good because Mom is so pissed about the sneaking-out thing. Man, you’d think she wanted you to actually break your neck, the number of times she said you could’ve.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry to disappoint. When do you go to school?” I ask.

  “Sunday. But the semester is almost over. So.”

  Sadness seeps in. I’ve messed up my weekend with my brother. Awesome.

  “Okay. Going to sleep now.” I close my eyes, even though I have no intention of sleeping. I need to check my phone. I need to speak to Julian. But not as me. Obviously.

  His texts are so sad.

  Thursday, 10:07 P.M.

  Are you there? I’m sort of freaking out.

  10:15 P.M.

  I did something terrible. Hurt someone. Didn’t mean to. But.

  10:22 P.M.

  I wish you were here so I could talk to you.

  Friday, 9:43 A.M.

  Maybe you’ve heard. And hate me.

  11:05 A.M.

  Hey. Sorry. I dropped my cell in a puddle and it stopped working. Just got a new phone. What’s going on?

  Hey. I thought maybe you were over me.

  No. Of course not. What happened?

  It was awful.

  What?

  I was skating with a girl and she fell and broke her leg. She’s in the hospital now. Bc of me.

  I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.

  It was. I talked her into skating and now she’s hurt. What can I do?

  Just be sweet. I’m sure she doesn’t blame you anyway.

  Should I go see her?

  Not in the hospital. No one wants to be seen in the hospital. No girl anyway. Wait till she gets home.

  She doesn’t hate me, right?

  Not a chance.

  I hope so. Better go to sleep. Gnite, Elsa.

  Gnite, Julian.

  Eighteen

  It’s Saturday morning, and I’ve been up since six. So fun. It’s now nine o’clock. My phone buzzes, and I grab for it, hoping for messages from Julian, but instead I get birthday messages from Eric, Rena, and Uncle Steve. All with balloons flying around and that confetti thing the phone does. I’m busy feeling sorry for myself, because no text from Julian, but it’s not like he knows that I’m his secret texter. I
’m not even sure he knows it’s my birthday, anyway.

  We are on our way. From Eric.

  Before I can message him back, my door bursts inward and my family crowds in. Not just Mom, Dad, Eric, Rena, and Uncle Steve, but also Mom’s sister, Aunt Betty, and Uncle Bobby and my little cousins, Kevin and Whitney. Mom carries a big cake plate with what is no doubt my chocolate torte cake, the one Uncle Steve and I love.

  Kevin and Whitney bounce on my bed, which makes me groan and Eric grabs them by the waists and lifts them off. “Settle down, you two, or no cake.”

  Rena opens her arms for Eric to place them in her lap. She starts whispering things in their ears that make them laugh and cry at the same time. I know my family is filled with dorks, and I realize we are not normal, that we are close and annoying and all too much, but I wouldn’t trade us. Not for the world.

  Mom pulls the tray table in front of me, and Dad helps me shift up in the bed, plumping the pillows behind me. Then, with a big flourish, Mom uncovers the cake and puts two candles in: a one and a six. She takes a lighter out of her purse.

  Dad says, “You can’t have candles in the hospital, it’s dangerous.”

  She waves him off and lights each candle. Just as the singing is about to start, there’s a knock on the door.

  “Ruh roh,” Eric says. “We’re caught!”

  The door opens. I don’t look. I just keep staring at the light, until I hear, “Hey, man.”

  And then Rena says, “Julian! How nice.”

  My eyes shoot to the door as I wonder what kind of fresh hell this is, having him here, seeing me like this. What will Mom and Dad say? They can’t be too happy with the boy.

  Julian’s carrying one of those flower arrangements with a get-well balloon floating above it. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

  Mom steps forward. “How nice.”

  I’m praying for him to stay across the room. Far from me and my hospital funk. I pull my covers up over my chest. It’s then I remember I’m not wearing a bra. I’m not even wearing proper clothes, just a horrible hospital nightgown.