In a Heartbeat (11 page)

22

Amelia

“Here,” Ari said, handing me a sheet of paper with a phone number printed in big letters. “If you’re anything like Tomas, the first month is a big pain in the ass. You can’t go anywhere except the doctor’s office. You drive everyone crazy because you want to get out. So, if you need someone to talk to . . .”

“Hey,” Tomas objected. “I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were worse.”

“Thanks.”

I took the paper and tucked it inside my drawing book. I folded a strand of hair behind my right ear, thankful that Mom had decided to run errands when they arrived. Ari had come three times now. He didn’t have to come three times. And now he was giving me his phone number. He didn’t have to do that, either.

“You promised me food,” Tomas said, punching his brother on the arm.

Ari handed his brother a five-dollar bill. “I know how much you miss the cafeteria food. Have at it.”

Tomas bent over and clutched his stomach. “Are you serious? You want me to barf?”

“Relax. I saw a sign on the way up here. They’re having an ice cream bar today.”

Tomas immediately straightened up. “That’s different.” He took the money and headed toward the door. “You coming?”

“Nah,” Ari said. “I’m going to hang here awhile.”

“See you later, bro,” Tomas said. “Bye, Amelia.”

“It’s okay if you want to go with him,” I assured Ari.

“I’d rather spend time with you.” He walked over to the window and picked up the stuffed toy horse Grandma had sent me. “Why don’t you have to wear a mask? Tomas had to wear one the whole time he was hospitalized.”

“Everyone wore masks the first few days. But now that I’m in a private room with its own air purifier system, they’re not as strict. Whenever I leave this room, I have to wear one, though. And no one is permitted to touch me unless they’re wearing gloves. Not even my own family can kiss me.”

I felt my face grow warm. “Not that anyone else would kiss me . . .” My voice trailed off and I looked down at the covers.

Ari’s lips curved upward. “All right, then.” He squeezed the horse and tried to make it sit on the end of my bed instead of posed in a standing position. “Why are girls so into stuffed animals?”

“You look like you’re having fun with one.”

He waved a hoof at me. “I’m horsing around.”

“You’re really dumb.” I laughed and put my hand on my chest. It felt weird to laugh, as if my heart wasn’t used to it.

I never thought I’d be able to do this: think about a boy. No. More than that. Think about flirting with that boy. I always thought about boys. Guys I saw in movies. And cute men like Dr. Michael. But I never imagined I’d get to do anything more. Who’d want a girl with a bad heart?

So I never learned any of that stuff—flirting, kissing. I didn’t even know how to kiss. Or fool around—I’d only seen it in movies. It was scary to think about, but when Ari wasn’t looking, I stared at his lips and wondered what they’d feel like on mine.

“Hey, don’t pull your stitches,” Ari warned, but he was smiling.

“No chance of that. All I’ve done for the last six years is sit around. I can’t remember what it’s like to do sports or run up a flight of stairs. I don’t even remember what it’s like to stand in the rain.”

Ari shrugged. “It’s a lot like standing in the shower. But colder.”

“Sounds great to me. Except . . .”

“What?”

“I feel guilty being happy. Like I’m betraying her somehow.”

“Her?”

“My donor.”

“How do you know your heart didn’t come from a guy?”

I pulled on the bedcovers. “Don’t laugh, okay? I just know. I feel her inside me. I’m Ameliastein.”

“Ameliastein?”

“Part me and part gross experiment. Okay, you can laugh at the Ameliastein reference,” I said when I saw him smile.

“So do you have any other borrowed body parts besides the heart?”

I peeked under the blanket. “Nope. Not yet.”

“Then you’re not Ameliastein.”

“But I’m different. The same way you said Tomas was different. I mean, this isn’t me. The old me.”

Ari nodded. “It was hard to get used to Tomas’s new personality. We didn’t know what to think at first. And he felt guilty too. That’s pretty normal.”

“My old self was more like Tomas now. I would never, ever talk back to Mom and Dad. They’re probably freaking out, wondering what’s going to come out of my mouth next.”

Ari smirked. “You gotta keep the parents guessing.”

“Sometimes I get really mouthy. I feel like swearing. I never swore once in my entire life.”

Ari set the horse down. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I kind of like the new you.”

I wondered whether Ari would have liked the old me too. Either way, I loved talking to him. He was easy to talk to. I wasn’t as shy around him. Not now, anyway. And he made me feel normal.

Once, when I was seven, just after Kyle was born, I picked him up out of his bassinet and carried him to my bed in the middle of the night because he was crying. Mom freaked when she woke and couldn’t find him. She yelled at me like a regular mom, one who didn’t act as if she had to tiptoe around a sick kid. I think that was the last time she ever yelled at me. The last time I felt normal. I got sick after that.

Ari put the horse back on the ledge. “Okay. So what’s the one food you’ve missed the most since you got sick?”

“I’ve been sick for six years. I have a long list.”

“You can only pick one.”

That could be tough. I twisted my mouth, a habit I had when I was concentrating. “Extra chunky peanut butter,” I announced.

He wrinkled his nose. “Peanut butter? I was expecting pepperoni pizza or ice cream.”

“That was the first food I had to give up. It was my favorite when I was little.”

“You’re right,” he said, “about one thing.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.” His brown eyes turned mischievous. “You are Ameliastein.”

23

EAGAN

If Miki is here to help, I’ll let her, not that it isn’t hard. I like being in control, the way I am on the ice. Which makes me wonder: am I that much like Mom?

No, I’m just stressed. I have to relax. I close my eyes and take a long, deep yoga breath, contracting my abdominal muscles. Then I hold the breath and count. Finally, I relax and breathe out through my mouth. Miki is leaning forward, her head cocked, staring at me.

“If there are other people here, why can’t I talk to them?” I ask her in a nicer voice.

Miki hovers around me like a firefly. She seems bewildered by everything I do. Her yellow dress stands out like a starburst against the drab gray. The short sleeves puff out against her skinny arms.

“You can. You just don’t know how,” she says.

She has eyes that remind me of Dad’s. They’re the same powder blue shade.

“I know how to talk to
you
.”

“That’s different,” Miki says, then puts a finger to her lips. “Shh. Listen.”

I don’t hear anything except that annoying blur of voices, which could be background noise at any restaurant. I can’t make out any words.

“They’re praying for you. Here, and on Earth. Do you feel it?”

A sudden glow radiates from inside me. “Is that what this feeling is? I thought it was gas.”

She giggles. “Didn’t you ever feel that on Earth?”

“Sometimes.” I think of gliding around the rink, of doing a perfect sit spin. I think of flushed cheeks and the spray of ice shards. Getting goose bumps, only not from the cold ice. Those thoughts spark something inside me, something warm and substantial, like the girl beside me.

But the competitions don’t seem as important now. Maybe it’s Miki’s carefree attitude rubbing off on me. All that stress over my long program? Wasted energy. Still, I want to go back and do that triple lutz again. Only this time I’d get it right.

That thought sends me back to the ice rink, and the memory wraps around me.

“Double salchows are my nemesis,” Kelly said as she laced her skates.

“What’s a nemesis?” Jasmine hopped from one skate to the other behind Kelly, her dark pigtails flying. She’d just turned ten, the only ten-year-old at our club who’d passed up to intermediate level. Her favorite jump was the double salchow.

“That means it’s her hardest move,” I said.

“Oh,” Jasmine said. “Mine’s the double axel.”

“Mine’s the triple lutz.” I played it over in my head, saw myself landing, the edge of my skate gripping the ice. I’d been landing the triple lutz since novice level, but lately I’d started falling, as though I’d forgotten how to do them. The jump that’s hardest for a skater fluctuates week by week and sometimes day by day.

“Where’s Bailey?” Jasmine asked.

Kelly and I exchanged looks. “She’s taking some time off,” I said.

“Because she doesn’t eat?”

Nothing got past Jasmine. “Yeah, even though she’s not a peanut like you, Bailey needs to eat healthier and not get too skinny.” Bailey’s metabolism would never be like Jasmine’s, a little twig of a girl. Jasmine wouldn’t have much to worry about when she hit puberty, when most of us found it harder to make those jumps because our bodies were changing and we suddenly had hips and breasts.

Kelly had been a promising skater until she hit puberty early, had a big growth spurt, and never seemed to recover. She was the same level as Jasmine, and really hadn’t progressed in the last three years.

I could tell this was Kelly’s last year. She had skating goals, but the intensity was gone. The Olympic dream was still intact for the rest of us. We all knew when and where the next winter Olympics would take place and how old we’d be then. We knew who was up and coming in the field, who was injured, and who was retiring.

“I’m not a peanut,” Jasmine protested.

“Yeah, you are.”

Kelly leaned over and whispered to me, “Did you know Bailey’s been anorexic for three years?”

I mouthed a big “no.”

“Hey,” Jasmine said, grabbing my arm. “I hate when you tell secrets.”

Kelly rolled her eyes at me. She didn’t like kids much, particularly Jasmine. “It’s big-girl talk,” she told Jasmine.

“Sorry, peanut,” I said. “I hate secrets too.”

Especially family secrets. The secret life my parents were living, saying I was an only child when I wasn’t, or at least I wasn’t supposed to be. There had been a brother or sister once, who’d either died before birth or shortly afterward.

I couldn’t remember Mom going to the hospital, but I was only two or three. What happened then, and why didn’t they ever tell me about it? Why did they keep it a secret from me all these years?

“Come on, girls,” Coach Brian called. “On the ice. Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect.”

“Perfect practice makes perfect,” the six of us replied in unison.

We hurried onto the ice for our group edge class, which focused on our turns and movements and control of our edges. Edge class was the only group activity we had on the ice. The rest of the time we worked with individual coaches.

This was so much better than being home on a Saturday morning. I was never allowed to sleep in, anyway. I loved this place, the smell of the ice, my eyes watering from the cold, the feel of my toes in my skates. I loved grabbing at a mist of cold dust in a beam of light. Jasmine said we were catching stardust. Such a little-girl thing to say, but it made me smile.

This place was my home away from home, and with Grandpa stuck in a nursing home on the other side of town, the people here felt like my closest family now.

Coach Brian worked us hard for almost an hour. Afterward we took a break while Kelly worked with her coach on her short program. She breathed deeply and skated out to the middle, where she took her pose and waited for the music to start. It was a ballad, slow and graceful, like Kelly. Her first jump was a double combination. She made it perfectly.

Sometimes it’s the simple moves that you fall on. Kelly did just that. In the middle of one of her backward crossovers, her feet collided with each other, and she tripped and fell forward.

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I fell on
that
. Let me start over.”

“Come on, Kelly. You can do it,” I cheered her on. “Just pretend you’re competing.” “Keep your head up,” I thought. “Arms out straight. Look back during the crossover. Relax, but focus. Oh, and keep smiling, even if you fall. The judges like that.”

Kelly struggled with her routine, falling two more times before she made it through. Once we’d tried to count how many times we’d each fallen in one week. It was over forty.

Jasmine pulled on my arm.

“What?”

She waved me down. “Come here.”

She cupped her hand close to my ear and whispered, “Kelly has a pimple on her back. But don’t tell. It’s a secret.”

I stood up. “I thought you hated secrets.”

“I do. But you tell secrets about
me
all the time.”

“We weren’t talking about you. We were talking about someone else.”

Jasmine folded her arms. “Yeah, right.”

“No, really. We were talking about Bailey. About her anorexia.”

“Then why were you whispering?”

“Well . . .” I paused. “Because we didn’t want anyone else to hear us,” I thought to myself. “Because we were gossiping and we knew that Jasmine was a motormouth who repeated everything we said.”

“Because we were being diplomatic,” I finally said.

“What’s diplomatic?”

“Jasmine,” her mom called. “I was waiting for you out front.”

“Go. I’ll explain later,” I told her. As I watched Jasmine leave, I imagined what it would have been like to have had a little sister, how my life would have been different. Would I still have felt this desire to succeed? Would Mom have acted differently?

The secret they kept from me wasn’t so terrible. The keeping of the secret bothered me more. Why hadn’t they ever told me? Or had it slipped out when they were fighting, and I missed it?

Maybe this was like Bailey’s secret anorexia that she’d hidden for three years. Maybe some secrets are buried so deep that people forget they’re even there.