Pieces of Me (17 page)

Colors that coordinated, or clashed, with team colors became facial hair, sunglasses, Zorro masks, bandanas, leis, and hats. Within an hour, they’d turned the mass of top athletes, winners by the Leolin standard, from a weird, staring chess set to a traveling concert crowd.

Vivian dumped her bag out, looking for paper scraps to re-mascot the uniforms.

“Do you have the entire art supply store in there?” Leif leaned down. “What are we looking for?”

He reached forward, accidentally drawing a line across her hand.

She gasped. “You did that on purpose.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Mischief bubbled up in Vivian and she giggled through the stern face. She slashed red across his cheekbone. “Oops.”

Leif’s eye bugged; he grabbed a second pen while Vivian scrambled backward. “You don’t know what you started.”

“I didn’t start it, you did!” she squealed, trying to put Larry Bird between them.

Leif caught and held Vivian, but he let her slip away and hide behind RG3 as if the quarterback came with an Invisibility Cloak.

They stumbled up and over the bed, tagging each other with colors until the laughter and the paint blended seamlessly.

My lungs filled and expanded to an insane capacity. As if all the tributaries and branches of my oxygen trees felt the breeze of this exertion for the first time.

“Mercy!” Vivian cried, collapsing into a baseball-shaped bean bag.

With a badly hidden wince, Leif threw himself down next to her. They panted and chuckled. Just the sides of their forearms touched, but it was enough to zing them both with skin-on-skin sensations.

“Oh no.” Vivian gasped.

“What?” Leif shifted to look at her, his hand easily gliding over her waist until his arm draped across her.

She pretended the cuddling was ordinary when it felt anything but. “Don’t tell your parents.”

“Don’t tell them what?”

“They missed a spot. Your ceiling is bare.” She pointed up.

Leif followed her finger. “Oh, damn. You’re right, but then I really
would
have people staring at me while I slept.”

You have me
.

Vivian asked quietly, “God does, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, but his face isn’t painted on the ceiling.” Leif smiled.

“We could paint it.” She turned her head slightly toward him.

And I haven’t seen God around here. Or anywhere
.

“I’d rather not. It would make it harder to do what I want to
do if he was watching.” He leaned up onto his hand and stared down at her.

“What do you want to do?” Vivian’s words whispered across his cheek, but she froze as if afraid to break the moment.

Vivian didn’t break eye contact. My heart thumped. We were going to kiss. For the first time. Love with its vitality and promise bloomed deep within Vivian (Pantone 19-2025).

Leif licked his lips. “I read this thing about CF. Are you really extra salty?”

She nodded, holding her breath.

Leif dipped his head and laid his lips featherlight against hers.

The barest hint of dawn awakening colored that kiss (Pantone 11-4804).

Misty logged back in
.

Misty quick searched for images of Krispin. The actor was ripped, tall, tan, and Hollywood elite. There were images of him with a girl, Calliope Dane. She was exotic, petite, and perky. Everything Misty knew she wasn’t anymore.

Like a Skirt? Not likely, thanks
.

Samuel stuttered and couldn’t make his fingers move. I chuckled. My thoughts exactly.

They traded questions and revelations, quotes, and favorite things. It was easy to open up logged in. There was safety. Anonymity. A quick escape route if things got too personal.

Sam looked out his window and spied his neighbors’ tire swing in a big old tree.

Misty didn’t glance around, didn’t move. She was sure there were plenty of swings mentioned in the tomes around her. Photographs and people, real and imagined, who were sitting on swings right this minute.

Sam grabbed his tablet and wandered outside in the dark. A flashlight app showed light on tree roots and discarded toys. He sat, digging into the earth with his toes and heels.

She. She. She
.

No, like to the night they saved her life. She wishes they hadn’t. I don’t know how to feel about that at all
.

She didn’t mention the weight loss, the pain, the headaches, and bloating. She didn’t tell him that she would have never gone to the hospital except for George’s phone call to 911.

Misty thought perhaps her parents hated her too. Life was hard enough before that night, before the doctors and the surgery and the bills.

Go on, Sam. She doesn’t know any such thing. Tell her she doesn’t deserve this
.

I watched her struggle how to answer. How did she explain that this was all her fault?

You can’t. Because it’s not
.

She typed, deleted, typed again and watched the cursor blink at her.

Misty withered. The doctors spent five minutes with her, less if they figured out she was uninsured. The social worker called in the beginning, but who was she anyway? And Misty’s parents? Her parents didn’t talk, they yelled, and were always about blame.

Misty hated her family’s rented apartment, but she needed food and to change her clothes. She worried a librarian might start to notice if she left clean laundry and a pillow near her cubbyhole. She wanted someone, anyone, to notice her, like at the hospital. But if they did, then she’d lose her sanctuary.

There wasn’t a good way to be at home with her family. Misty missed the hospital. Not the being sick part. The having people care about whether she was in pain, or feeling nauseous, or sleeping part.

She watched a new mom finish making copies of a college textbook while burping a sleeping baby. A young man came over, gently took the baby, and kissed the mother on the lips with an expression full of love.

The hospital was full of families who helped each other, touched, and hugged. The parents she watched sleeping in chairs, in the tiny spaces between walls and beds just to be close, in case the child had a nightmare in the middle of the night. Misty slept alone with the monsters for company instead.

The families who showed up every day with a new treat, with balloons and stuffed animals, and lots of handmade cards from classmates, or siblings. Misty’s parents didn’t spend nights with
her because they worked multiple shifts. The only card she got was from her brother. She wasn’t imagining it. They glared instead of hugged. They blamed her for getting sick. They blamed him for calling the hospital. Grandmother blamed them all for bringing her to this godless place. No wonder the demons found a home.

George rolled over when she crept in. “Where have you been?”

“Studying.”

“I saved you chicken. It’s behind the moldy cheese.”

“Thanks.” Her stomach turned. “I ate. You take it for lunch tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, then dropped his voice another notch toward silence. “The school called twice and left messages. I deleted them.”

“Did they hear?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Grandmother’s snores whistled, paused, hiccupped, then began again. Misty rubbed her legs, it felt as though a million ants trekked in circles up and down her limbs.

George whispered, “Don’t you have to see the doctor soon for checkups?”

Misty turned away from her brother, relieved that the darkness hid her. He saw more than anyone else, and she didn’t want him to see the lie in her face. “Last week.” She’d canceled. She couldn’t afford the five minutes because she knew they’d want tests and more tests and new drugs. Enough already.

You didn’t go because you don’t feel good and you’re afraid
.

“Oh, how’d it go? They have to do a biopsy?” George sat up
and scooted over so she had room next to him on the pallet.
He’s too little to have to understand words like
biopsy.

“Fine. Good. No, next time,” Misty mumbled, and felt his expectation like the weight of a million rotting livers suffocating her. Why did he care so much? Why did he ask?