I'm Not Her (12 page)

“No. It’s true, Tess. You are pretty. You look great in that outfit. You should explore this side of you a little more. Try a little makeup. You could be even prettier if you tried a little.”

Familiar resentment crawls into my bones and I suddenly feel gawky. Pretty is her territory. Not mine. I don’t want to listen to it and long to flee but then she smiles, though her eyes have the saddest expression I’ve ever seen.

“Remember when I was pretty?” she says.

My anger disappears. I prod inside for strength. I pretend to contemplate her question.

“No,” I finally answer. “I can’t say that I do remember when you were pretty.” And then I grin at her and she gives me a fake death stare.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re still pretty,” I tell her. “Just more hard core. Like a punk rocker on crack except without rad clothes or good taste in music.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re the one who listens to bad music.”

I point at the posters on her wall and roll my eyes with exaggeration.

“You ever notice no one ever says I’m smart?” she asks.

“Totally.”

She sticks out her tongue and then runs her hand through her hair. Long strands of it come out. Bigger clumps than is normal. We both stare at it.

I reach out and take it from her hand. “It’s only hair,” I say. “It’ll grow back.”

I stand up, gripping her hair in my fist. It feels weird and my eyes fill with tears. I hurry for the wastebasket and throw it inside, and blink hard and fast before I turn around to head back to her bed.

I sit down again. “People like labels. You’re pretty, I’m smart. It doesn’t mean you aren’t smart too. Dad thinks you’re smart. I heard him.” I grin. “He told me you’re too lazy to use your brains, but smarter than you let on.”

She snorts. “Thanks a lot.” And then looks serious. “You’re okay, you know that. We’re just different.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m mute and you have verbal diarrhea.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be nicer to me when I’m sick?”

“Is that what you want?” I ask her.

She smiles again. “Not really, but yes. Besides, you’re not so mute anymore.”

I take a deep breath, trying to find courage. “I’m here for you,” I blurt out and then duck my head as shyness overcomes me.

She closes her eyes then and her breathing slows, as if our conversation exhausted her. “I know,” she says. Then she rolls over away from me, onto her side. Our conversation is obviously over. “Can you tell Mom I’m sleeping and I’ll eat something later?”

“Yeah, sure.” I push myself up from her bed and stare at her back. My heart aches but I stand straighter.

“Can you tell her Jeremy is coming over later?”

“Sure,” I say.

After I scarf back food with Mom, I head to my room. I pull out my sketch pad and my favorite pencil and examine my work in progress. I’ve shaded in explosions from the volcano but they’re not vivid enough. I’ve used shadows to show the lava running but the perspective isn’t working. My feelings aren’t spilling onto the page. I add a few lines and squint, trying to make the lava flowing from the image run right off the page.

It’s not working.

Nothing seems to be working. I feel completely and utterly useless and put my sketch pad down.

A few days later, clumps of Kristina’s hair continue to fall out. Huge clumps. Soon, there are only a few strands on her head. It would be almost comical if it weren’t so heartbreaking. Finally, one day I hear her in the bathroom. There’s buzzing. The razor. When Kristina comes out, her head is round and shiny and bare. She looks smaller. Mom follows behind her, wringing her hands in front of her, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Kristina doesn’t smile anymore when I go to her room to see her. She doesn’t get out of bed unless she has to. Her energy is low and her mood lower. She sleeps or stares at the wall, her back to the door. Sometimes I hear the TV that Mom went out and bought for her room, breaking her rule that TVs should never be allowed in bedrooms. There are exceptions.

She won’t answer the phone or talk to anyone who calls, yet it seems like the phone is constantly ringing for her. Mom talks to the mothers who call for their worried daughters and soon the daughters start calling for Mom to hear how Kristina is doing. Mom lies.

Jeremy pops over every day after school though and he’s pretty much the only person Kristina talks to.

When he leaves, she locks her bedroom door and only comes out when Mom forces her to eat. She refuses the laptop and all her friends at school keep telling me she hasn’t been online since she’s been home.

Mom is becoming more and more freaked, which makes for a very clean house and lots of running miles on her newest sneakers. The house overflows with freshly made healthy snacks but Kristina isn’t interested in food. Only enough to keep Mom off her back.

I don’t know how Dad feels about the dark cloud hanging over our house, because he’s usually gone to work when I get up in the morning and isn’t home until after supper or even later if he’s golfing. He’s avoiding Kristina, which makes me furious, but I don’t have an outlet for my anger.

Hiding in my own room pretending to be busy with studying, it’s all about trying to draw, fiddling with the volcano, trying to complete the image that is trapped in my brain. It’s like there’s a fly buzzing in my head. I reach for it, flail at it, try to trap it, but can’t quite capture it. When I’m not failing at sketching, I’m book binging. I’ve read a full fantasy trilogy since Kristina came home and Melissa stopped being my best friend.

Strangely, I’m also the one becoming a computer addict now. I have more friends on Facebook than Kristina does. Almost every person at school has added me. My notoriety has more to do with Kristina than me, but it still blows me away how everyone is writing things on my wall, asking me questions, and sending me virtual flowers and funny questionnaires.

It’s a weird mix of intimacy and anonymity, having virtual friends. I finally get the whole attraction to the Internet thing. Having conversations online is easier; so is hiding behind a mouse and the keys on my keyboard.

One morning when I’m online, my chat window opens and pings.
Nick E
wants to chat. I hold in a scream and turn the computer off, my heart racing as if I’ve been caught unwrapping all the gifts under the Christmas tree on December 24.

When I get to school, I keep my head down in real time, but people I hardly recognize call my name and say hi, like I’m a friggin’ celebrity because my sister has cancer. Kristina’s friends hunt me down for daily updates and I grit my teeth and lie. Tell them she’s fine.

I’m standing at my locker feeling all alone and missing the idea of Melissa being there waiting for me like she used to, wishing for a real live friend, when Clark walks up to my side.

“Hey,” he says.

My hero.

“Superman.” I greet him with a smile.

He grins and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “At your service, Lois Lane.”

He waits for me and then we walk down the hallway together as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Melissa is nowhere in sight, but the ghost of her presence weighs on my mind. I wonder if she’s watching from a distance. What she thinks about me and Clark hanging out. If she knows that some guys aren’t scary. Some guys make really good friends.

I wonder if she hates me.

We pass Nick in the hall and I wave, determined to pretend it wasn’t me who shut off the computer when his name came up on chat. Nick lifts his hand, but turns and leans down and says something into the ear of a blond standing beside him. Bree Silver.

When Clark and I enter Mr. Meekers’s room, he eyeballs me and calls me to his desk where he’s sitting, reading a book. He stands and speaks down to me in a quiet voice, presumably so the other kids rolling into class or already seated can’t hear our conversation.

“We need to have a serious talk, Miss Smith. I heard you’ve been skipping classes?” He gives me an evil stare but doesn’t crack me. “I’ve been pulling for you to become an esteemed member of the Honor Society, but the selection committee is very strict. We can’t make exceptions for you if you’re not meeting the requirements.” He clears his throat and stands taller. “And I haven’t seen you up on any of the volunteer lists.”

My heart skips a beat. I want to defend myself. I want to give him the full, lengthy explanation. Bullet-point my excuses. It’s not my fault. It’s Kristina’s fault. Her and her stupid cancer. My parents don’t care. No one is worried about me. Or what I want. It’s all
her
. I want to tell him I’d join the committees and volunteer, but between trying to cram in school work, dealing with my sister, my Mom, and my absentee father, I don’t have time.

I open my mouth to defend myself but close it.

Images play in my head. Kristina throwing up on the first day of chemo. Her heartbreaking face, trying to be brave, but so afraid. I see her bald head and hear her tell me how she liked being pretty. As if pretty is forever a past tense for her. I hear her ask if I think she’s smart. I’ve always had smart. I own it. Even if Mr. Meekers won’t see it.

I stand tall and almost look him directly in the eye. He’s only got an inch or two on me. I still have smarts. I know that. Even if the Honor Society faculty advisor doesn’t. I take a deep breath and make a final deal with God.

I give up the Honor Society. Just please let my sister be okay.

I guess my priorities decided to shift without my even wanting them too.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Meekers,” I tell him. “But my sister is sick. And right now, that’s the most important thing.”

Well, that and the Oswald Drawing Prize, but I can’t even talk to him about it or consult him about my problems with the sketch because he sucks as an art teacher. And a faculty advisor.

I take my seat as he glares at me, but eventually his eyes glaze over. He ignores me and instructs the entire class to get to work on our clay projects. He doesn’t leave his seat once to offer anyone advice or assistance on their work. He ignores the buzz of conversation as long as it stays at a reasonable volume. Mr. Meekers doesn’t bother with dirty details like involvement with his students. He’s an ass. An ass who is not on my side.

I wonder if the lines are dividing everywhere.

After school when I walk in the house, Mom runs straight for me at the front door. Babbling.

“I got back from my run a few minutes ago. She’s in her bedroom. Burning up. I called Dr. Turner but she hasn’t called me back.”

We both run to Kristina’s room. Kristina has a washcloth draped over her forehead. She’s lying still and she’s so pale and thin, she looks almost dead.

“Kristina,” I shout, but she doesn’t respond.

I rush to her bed and put my hand on her forehead. She’s hotter than desert sand at high noon. “Did you give her Tylenol? What’s her temperature?”

Mom’s face blanks and then she turns and runs for her bathroom, rattling around in the medicine cabinet.

“Kristina?” I say. My heart beats triple time.

She opens her eyes slowly, but they’re glassy and her pupils roll around as if her eyeballs might slide right out of the sockets.

Mom returns holding a thermometer and sticks it under Kristina’s tongue. When it beeps, she pulls it out.

“105,” she says.

Kristina groans. “My mouth hurts,” she croaks. “It’s full of little lumps.”

“It’s got to be neutropenia,” I say.

Mom stares at me.

“Low white blood cell count,” I tell her. “I read about it in the brochure the doctor gave us. A possible complication of chemo.”

“Shit,” Mom says. “Why didn’t I read that? I’m a horrible mother.”

I want to agree with her but refrain. I don’t point out she’s been too busy living in a pretend land where Kristina is fine, and her marriage is fine, and her life is still perfect to read about the cancer.

“I looked it up on the Internet.” I don’t mention how much time I’ve been spending online. My new computer addiction will only add to her newly emerging bad parenting guilt.

Mom stands and steps back from the bed. “We have to get her back to the hospital. I have no idea what else to do.”

I nod my agreement. Kristina doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are closed and she looks like a deflating balloon losing all its air.

“Help her up. I’ll go get my purse and keys,” Mom commands.

I rush to Kristina’s closet and grab her fuzzy pink robe and run back to her side. I slide my arm under hers and help her to sit up as she groans about her headache.

She weighs almost nothing, but it takes a moment before I can get her in a standing position.

Mom rushes back and each of us takes an arm and we walk Kristina out to the car, tuck her in the back seat, and fasten her seat belt. I climb in beside her and Mom drives us to the hospital, taxi-style and in record time. On the way, she calls Kristina’s doctor and as soon as we walk into Emergency, one of the nurses from the oncology unit meets us and expedites Kristina’s re-entrance to the hospital.

In what seems like one big flash, Kristina is back in a hospital room, wearing her gown and sleeping on the uncomfortable-looking bed with steel guards, but no one complains. Doctors and nurses run in and out of the room, sticking her with needles and stuffing her with meds. They’re fast to see her, and before we know it, she’s been seen by a specialty team and she’s hooked up to IVs. Mom and I do what we’re told. We leave the room and go to waiting rooms and to the cafeteria and back and forth, until hours later, they’ve got her stabilized and we’re all alone in the room with Kristina.

She sleeps while Mom slumps over in a chair beside the bed, looking like she’s about to collapse. I close my eyes and lean back in my own hard chair, finally able to take a moment to breathe.

“Jesus Christ,” a voice calls and my eyes pop open. Dad charges into the room, wearing his golf clothes—beige slacks and a white golf shirt. His eyes are bloodshot and frantic.

Mom jumps to her feet, looking a little frightened, and then her features harden and she looks more frightening than afraid. “Glad you could join us,” she says, her voice edgy and raw.

“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” he demands in a harsh whisper. “I got home from golf and no one was home.”

“We were a little occupied. Kristina was suffering from neutropenia.”

“For God’s sake, Lisa. I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead.” He rushes to Kristina’s side and picks up her limp hand. She murmurs and stirs but doesn’t wake.

Mom sits down and slides her chair closer to Kristina, her lips pressed tight.

I stare at both of them and then I can’t take it anymore. The stupid games they’ve been playing. Accusation ignites and burns inside me. “You thought she was dead? Try being the ones who have to haul her body out of bed when she is on the brink of it. She’s very, very sick.”

His shoulders slump and his face crumples but it doesn’t stop me.

“And where the hell were you? Golfing? Because God only knows how important those rounds of golf are.”

“Tess,” my mom warns. She strokes Kristina’s bare head and closes her eyes. Her breathing is slow, steady, as if she doesn’t have energy for my dad and his brand of coping.

“What? He has the nerve to yell at
us
because he doesn’t know where she is, but, meanwhile, he can’t be bothered to come home on time and find out? Get your ass home and start dealing with what is going on in our house. Mom is freaking out trying to cope with it, and all you’re doing is avoiding being around and avoiding that it’s happening to all of us.”

He stares at me. My mom stares at me.

Their eyes are mirrors of each other. Wide. Confused. They look like they’re waiting for me to tell them what to do.

“I’m not going to make the Honor Society. I lost my best friend. I’m also only freaking fifteen years old, but somehow I’m the one dealing with Kristina?”

Disgusted with both of them, I stomp past them out of the hospital room.

I take the elevator downstairs, too mad to even cry, and stomp out on the main floor and almost collide with another body. Jeremy. His face changes from a polite look of apology to panic when he realizes it’s me.

“What are you doing here? I thought Kristina was at home. Is everything okay? Is Kristina okay?” he asks.

Tears spill down my face and, just like that, my anger vanishes. I shake my head, trying not to hyperventilate, trying to stay in control. I nod and then shake my head and then just stare at Jeremy, silently pleading for help. He grabs me by the shoulder. Hard.

“What happened?” he demands.

“No. No. She’s okay. She had neutropenia. She’s back in the hospital again. They got her stabilized. They said she’s going to be fine.”

I snort out a laugh and a stream of snot escapes my nose. Horrified, I wipe it off with my hand, and start walking away from Jeremy, not sure where I’m heading but needing to escape. “Relatively speaking.”

“Hey, Tess, wait up.”

I keep my legs moving to get away but he catches up and walks beside me.

“It’s okay to be upset,” he says. “Mad, afraid, whatever. I get it, you know. I’ve felt all those things about my mom too.”

I glare at him. “Don’t you know boys are supposed to keep their feelings bottled up inside of them?”

He gives me a dirty look but it quickly disappears, and then he shakes his head and laughs. “You really are funny.”

It loosens up the knots in my stomach somehow. I slow down a little, stop racing to get away. My legs ache anyway. I’m still a wimp.

“Cancer kind of has a way of stripping away pretenses,” he says.

I glance sideways at him and ask the question I’ve been dying to ask him. “Is that why you and Kristina have become such good friends? No pretenses?”

He shrugs his shoulders up and then they fall. “I don’t know, Tess. I really like her. Is it bothering you?”

“Not really.” My jealousy is stupid. We walk in silence for a minute. Around us, people rush about.

“I was terrified,” he says in a quiet voice. “I thought my mom was going to die when we found out about her cancer. But I was mad too, for her getting cancer. She smoked when she was younger; I thought maybe that’s why she got sick. I blamed her for her body getting sick.”

I don’t respond.

“Want to go outside for a walk?” he asks.

I wonder if my parents will worry about where I’ve gone, but right then I don’t care, so I nod and he pushes the front door of the hospital open and we step outside into the crisp fall air. I shiver and wish I had brought my coat, but I’m not going to complain about the cold.

“You like my sister, don’t you?” I say.

His cheeks turn red.

“No. It’s okay. I’m not calling you a stalker or anything. But you do, right?”

He doesn’t answer.

“She needs you as a friend,” I tell him. “You’re the only person she can talk to.”

He smiles and it changes his face. He looks more grown-up and mature and something else shines in his eyes. A secret, maybe. “I know.”

“I’m glad you’re her friend,” I tell him.

“Me too,” he says. “She’s a great person, you know. Cancer isn’t going to take that away from her. I think she just needs to find out who she is. She’s going to have to adjust to a new life. But she will, I think. She just doesn’t believe it yet.”

My turn for my cheeks to warm. “I don’t think I’ve been a very good sister.”

“I think both of you maybe have let other people decide who you are. She’s struggling, Tess, but you can help. She’ll come up with new goals and dreams; she’s just mourning her old ones. You know? She has to. It’s normal. Anyhow, she said you’re handling her cancer better than your parents.”

“Really?” I ask. Because I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job either.

“Really,” he says.

I hide a smile with my hand and then tell Jeremy I’m cold, and we turn to go back inside.

Dad isn’t in the hospital room when I get back. Mom doesn’t explain but tells me we’re leaving. We drive home and when we return, Dad is already there. They tiptoe around each other as if they’re strangers. I head straight for my room.

We all sleep for a few hours and then pile back in the car and return to the hospital in the morning. I don’t even ask about going to school.

Kristina is awake when we get to her room.

“We have a meeting with the doctor tomorrow at ten thirty,” Mom says, and smoothes her hand across Kristina’s bald head.

“I want Tess here,” Kristina says.

I nod, but all I can think about is that I’ll be missing an important lecture in science. Our midterm exam is going to be based on the lecture. There goes my GPA.

She wins hands down, but a part of me longs for the right to mourn my own losses too.

No matter how insignificant they are compared to cancer.

***

The next day, I skip another class to get to the hospital on time. Dad is supposed to pick me up on his way from the university, but at the last minute he calls to say he’s still rushing around and asks me to hop a cab to the hospital and he’ll pay me back.

I hang up on him without saying good-bye.

I end up making it to the hospital before both of them and sit in the room with my sister, not really knowing what to say. Minutes after Mom and Dad rush into the room, clearly angry with each other, the doctor from the clinic walks in. Dr. Turner. She looks different in the hospital setting. More formal somehow. She has a file folder tucked under her arm. She greets us all by name and then clears her throat. The expression on her face drains all the blood out of my body. I look at Kristina who is sitting up on the bed, hugging her knees.

“I’m afraid the tumor didn’t respond to the chemo treatment,” the doctor says.

My head starts spinning in dizzy circles. The room is moving; everyone is completely still. “Actually, the tumor enlarged during the initial treatment.” She opens the file and consults her notes but doesn’t look up at any of us. “At this point, limb-saving surgery is impossible. We’ll have to do above-knee amputation.”

I hear shuffling feet from the hallway behind us. There’s a low mumbling of voices, people going on with their lives, but the words are indistinguishable. The doctor keeps talking. I hear words but don’t register what she’s saying. I stare at my feet. My two feet. Two legs and two feet, both planted firmly on the floor. I can’t look at my sister’s face. I can’t bear to see her expression.

The doctor is still speaking and when I hear her say Tuesday, I tune in. “The surgery will be this Tuesday.”

Today is Thursday. My mind slowly does the math as if I’m in first grade and have to count by ticking off the days on my fingers.

Five days.

In five days they’ll chop off Kristina’s leg.

Kristina moans and it’s not a sound I’ve heard before. The anguish in her vocal cords crushes me. My mom goes to her and squeezes her tight, but she’s crying too and their noises meld together in stereo.

Dad is in the corner. Expressionless. He isn’t looking at Kristina.

I can’t bear to think. I don’t want to make myself imagine what her leg will look like when the operation is done.

It’s worst-case scenario. I swallow and imagine a revving chain saw coming down on her knee. Bone flying in the air. The stump that she’ll have instead of a calf and a foot. But then it gets even worse.

“It’s unfortunate there wasn’t time for a fertility treatment to save some of your eggs. It would have safeguarded your chances of having children in the future.”

I’d like to hand her an award for bad timing, but I guess she’s emotionally distanced herself and is doing her job, covering all the bases. Kristina and Mom cling to each other as Dr. Turner mumbles more meaningless words about the surgery, but I’m too stunned to speak and from the looks of it the rest of my family is shell-shocked as well. After a moment the doctor stands. She hands Kristina a brochure about the operation and Kristina grips it in her hand, crumples it.

The doctor walks to the door and then turns, staring at us, her hand on the door.

She reaches into her pocket and hands me a card. I presume it’s because I’m standing closest to her.

“This is the card for the American Cancer Society,” she says. She turns to Kristina. “If any questions come up, call me.”

She walks out, treading softly; her white sneakers make hardly any noise on the floor. The door clicks behind her.

Kristina sobs louder. Her eyes are frantic, not seeing anything. Kristina pushes my Mom away but Mom holds on tighter. Kristina whines and cries and fights her off, but Mom holds on, wrapping her arms around her. Eventually Kristina falls against her, her face buried in Mom’s shirt.