“Now, Isis, if you could just lie back –”
I slump on the CAT scan bed and huff. “I’ve done this before, doc! I’ve done lie backs every freaking day since I’ve been here! At least seventy billion lie backs!”
Fenwall’s eyes crinkle and his white mustache curls with his smile. “You should be a little used to it.”
“You never get used to being slotted into a giant doughnut’s vagina.” I motion at the CAT machine. It beeps excitedly. I plot its demise.
“Well, this is your last time doing it. Come on now, lie back.”
I shout UGH and flop back and bang my head.
“And be careful, will you? We spent a lot of hours sewing that cranium back together.” Fenwall chides. He presses a button and the CAT bed slides in, a tunnel engulfing me in dimness.
“You okay in there?” He asks.
“Everything’s cramped and smells like cotton balls.”
“Perfectly fine, then. Start it up, Cleo!”
A woman at the control panel in the next room waves through the window and the machine starts to whirr. I hear Fenwall leave, and then it’s just me and Big Bertha. And her vagina.
“How’s…how’s the weather up there in…robot land?” I try. The machine gurgles.
“Good. That’s good. And the kids?”
Big Bertha bleeps enthusiastically and a blue light blinds me.
“Ahh!” I shield my eyes. “Th-They must going through teenage rebellion!”
The machine blips sadly and the light goes out.
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “When they’re in their twenties they’ll think you’re smart and worth listening to again.”
“Tilt your head to the left, Isis.” Fenwall’s intercom blasts in my ear.
“Rude! I’m having! A discussion! Here!”
“Are you talking to inanimate objects again? Mernich would love to hear about that.” I can hear his grin.
“No! No, I’m not talking to anything! Nothing at all! Just…myself! Which is basically nothing. Nothing special. Except my butt. My butt is definitely something hells special –”
“Left, Isis.” Fenwall doesn’t take my shit. In a friendly grandpa-y way. I tilt my head and Bertha beeps once, twice, and there’s a pause. The regular white lights come back on and the bed slides out slowly.
“Phew!” I leap up and shake off the claustrophobia. I hate small spaces. Almost as much as I hate soy milk. And furbies. Fenwall comes in.
“Feeling alright?” He asks.
“Well, I need to spend five therapeutic years on the open plains of Mongolia, but other than I’m good.”
“Fantastic. Your results will be done in just a second. Let’s go get your mother.”
I follow him out to the hall. It feels so good to walk around in my real clothes, not a hospital gown anymore. And the absence of a stinky bandage turban clinging to my head is a mild plus. I practice shaking my hair out like a majestic lion but almost hit an intern and stop. They have enough problems without fabulous hair in their eyes. Mom’s waiting in the lobby. She smiles and gets up and hugs me.
“So? What are the results?”
Fenwall looks at the papers in his hands. “Everything looks fine. The hemorrhaged tissue has cleared up remarkably well.”
“What about this?” I point at the scar just to the side of my hairline, and above my forehead. “The hair isn’t growing back. I’ll never get married!”
“The scar will shrink and fade, but that will take time. Years,” Fenwall says.
Mom pats my head. “It’s not too big, sweetie. Unless they’re seven feet tall and can look straight down on your head, no one will ever see it.”
She’s right. What’s one more scar on an ugly girl, anyway?
“Do I get any meds?” I ask. Fenwall smiles.
“Nope. You’re free to go. We’d like to set up a check-up appointment in a few weeks –”
He motions to Mom, and the two of them go to the counter and speak to the nurse. There isn’t a big crowd, but there’s more people than normal on a Saturday. But that doesn’t stop me from noticing the bright red hair walking through the lobby.
“Avery-bobavery!”
The flame-haired girl turns, perfect porcelain skin freckled as ever. But her eyes are all wrong – tired, bloodshot. Her clothes are perilously unfashionable. And the way her expression stays the same instead of a grimace or sneer forming when she recognizes me? Something is really off.
“You,” Her voice is tinny.
“Yes, me! I am alive! But that can be easily fixed.”
“Get out of my way.”
“How’ve you been? Busy? Beautiful bitch duties as usual?”
Avery’s mouth remains straight, not even the faintest of frowns appearing. “If you don’t move, I’ll make you move.”
“You can try! Push me a little, maybe? Throw me around? Don’t get too drastic, though. If you cut me in half, nothing but rainbow sparkles and Bacardi would spill out. Also you would be a murderer.”
“I should cut you in half,” Avery finally snarls, her emotionless mask breaking. “You fucked her over.”
“What?”
“You,” Avery jabs her finger at my chest. “Sophia finally started talking to me, and then you ruined everything.”
“How did I ruin it?”
Avery’s expression is a cruel, twisted thing. “How fucking fair is it? I was her friend for years. And then you come, for two weeks, and she likes you already? And now you’re leaving her. And she won’t talk to anyone. Not the nurses. Not me.”
“I’m – I’m not leaving forever –”
“It doesn’t matter. She thinks you are. She thinks everyone leaves her.”
There’s a long pause. I nervously pick at my sweatshirt. Avery scoffs.
“But I can’t be all mad at you. When you came, she told me I could visit for once. So I did. And I got to tell her I was sorry.”
She looks off into the distance wistfully.
“I got to apologize. So. Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome? But also I’m going to see her before I leave? And I’ll come visit her? So I’m not actually, uh, leaving.”
“She’s having her surgery soon.” Avery doesn’t seem to hear me. “And now I can’t even say goodbye to her.”
“You can. I mean, you can say it. She might not be talking to you, but she’s listening. I’m sure of it.”
Avery shrugs, her face becoming blank and despondent again as she shoves past me.
That’s not Avery. That’s a shell of the glorious bitch she used to be.
Mom and Fenwall come back, talking amicably. Mom says something about my check-up in February, but I barely hear her.
“When is Sophia’s operation, doc?” I ask. Fenwall looks alarmed.
“She told you about that? It’s in April. April 20th.”
“Can I come see her before it?”
“Of course. You’re always welcome to visit. Sophia needs more visitors, in my opinion.”
She needs more friends. Not visitors. But I don’t say that. People always complain about me saying things. I say too much. Too fast. Too loud. But not anymore. I hold things back, now. Does that mean I’m getting smarter? More mature?
No.
It just means I’m getting stupider. Quieter. Older. Old and stupid like every other person who doesn’t say what they feel, who stays quiet when they’re angry or sad.
I’m getting older. And it’s terrifying.
Sophia’s room and the hall leading to it look different in the day. Less The Ring and more Scrubs. Naomi came and said goodbye earlier, and took me to say ‘goodbye’ to Mira and James for the last time. But somehow, this goodbye is the hardest. Standing outside this door and trying to knock is the hardest thing I’ve done in a while. What I saw last night, her screaming – the way Jack looked when I mentioned her – all of it is confusing and stops my throat up like a shitty cork. How am I supposed to look her in the eyes and say goodbye w
hen I heard her screaming that she hates me just a few hours ago?
How do I say goodbye to Sophia when she isn’t the Sophia I thought I knew? It’s hard.
But I’m Isis Blake. I’ve done harder things. Like live.
I knock twice, and Sophia’s voice emanates faintly.
“Come in.”
She’s sitting up in bed. Her platinum hair fans all around her on the pillow, her skin milk-white and glowing. She looks like a princess of starlight and snow. She smiles.
“Hey. You’re leaving, huh?”
Her voice is so soft, so Soapy-like. Normal. She’s normal right now, not the screaming girl I heard last night. This is the real Sophia.
Before I can open my mouth, Sophia motions for me to come over.
“Come here. I have something I wanna show you before you go.”
I inch over, and sit on the chair by her bed. She pulls open a drawer and brings out a stack of letters bound with pink ribbon. She unties it slowly, and rifles through them before settling on a single letter and handing it to me.
“Read that, will you?”
“Out-Outloud?”
“If you want.”
I glance down at it and clear my throat.
“Dear Sophia - ”
It suddenly hits me – these are the letters she and Jack send each other. This is Jack’s wide, impeccably even handwriting. I glance up at her nervously, but she just smiles and waves me on. Is this some kind of sick trick? Why does she want me to read her boyfriend’s letters to her? I search for any resentment in her eyes, but there is none, just a cool, sweet passivity.
Does she really hate me?
I only knew her for two weeks. And we were only ‘friends’ because we were the only teenagers in the hospital. We hung out – texted each other and showed each other stupid cat pictures from the internet and talked about music but do I really know her? I don’t. I don’t know who Tallie is. I don’t know why she screamed like that last night. I don’t know what her disease is. I don’t know anything about her.
I look back down at the letter.
“I’m sorry I haven’t written to you in a week. There is no excuse, and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope this longer letter gives you more comfort than two shorter ones would’ve.
I’m doing well. Mom has been painting again – horses, mostly. She loves them. She said she was painting one for you, for your birthday. July is so far. But she says a masterpiece will take time. I can only hope she doesn’t paint you an entire hospital wall worth of ponies.
I snort, and instantly regret it. Sophia’s eyes are locked on me, and the pressure they exert is crushing. Gently crushing. Crushing like a quaint spring breeze. From a typhoon. I read again.
“By then, you’ll be done with your surgery. You can choose – I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. The sea? My grandfather’s beach house in California is empty for most of the year. We could go there for the summer. Just you and I. The warmth would be good for you, I think.”
It’s so bizarre – this isn’t the Jack I know. I mean, I barely know him, but a cold, sneering douchebag with a savior complex and a penchant for cheating on his girlfriend shouldn’t sound this…gentle. This kind. It doesn’t make any sense. It does, though, because he loves Sophia, but if he loved her this much, why would he kiss me?
“There’s a new student in my class; an annoying gnat that constantly buzzes around my skull. Can’t keep her mouth shut. She annoys the teachers, the principal, practically everyone with functioning eardrums finds themselves instantly repelled by her idiocy. I’d tell you her name, but it’s a plant - Ivy or Iris or some nonsense like that. I can’t be bothered to remember. She spread some stupid rumor because I politely let her friend know I wasn’t interested at a party last week. She punched me. It didn’t hurt. Much. Anyway, she spread the rumor we kissed in juvenile retaliation.”
My voice wavers. I did? I don’t even remember –
The party. The smell of spilled pepsi and the sound of drunken laughter. Avery’s house. A grand chandelier with cocktail wieners stuck in it. Kayla. Kayla and I talking for the first time, Jack walking in for the first time and the crowd parting around him and Kayla working up all her meager courage to talk to him, his jaded, bored words as he ripped into her, and my punch – straight, true, blood coming from his nose –
The memories dart up like sprouts after a long winter. I read frantically. This is my past. These are the things I can’t remember, here, in this letter.
“It was so annoying, Sophia. God, I wanted to strangle every idiot that kept asking me about it. Finally I debunked it. I had to kiss her in front of the entire school. I’m sorry. You understand, I hope. It was disgusting and sloppy and she’s –”
My voice catches as I process what the next words are. They don’t sting. They just ache. Ache like everything does when I see people who are better than me at love, who know more, who’ve had more real, soft, true experiences.
“- inexperienced to the extreme.”
I look up, and Sophia smiles wanly and rubs my back.
“I’m sorry he’s so mean about this, Isis. I just wanted you to know the truth.”
“Like I care what he thinks,” I scoff. “This is the truth. I gotta know it. Let me keep reading.”
Sophia nods. “If you’re sure.”
“I nearly threw up in my mouth. No more rumors about kissing though. I’m telling you this for honesty’s sake – I apologize. It won’t happen again. Some idiots just need to be silenced before they become worse.”
I snort. He’s the idiot. The king of ‘em, actually. Someone should inform him he’s won the crown. I read the next few lines to myself and feel my cheeks start to warm.
‘I want to kiss you, Sophia. Every day. You and only you.
I’ll come visit soon.
Yours,
Jack.’
“Uh, nevermind. I think I got the gist. That last part is, uh, private.”
Sophia giggles and takes the letter back. “He is quite the silly romantic.”
“Yeah. So. Thanks. Now I know.”
“Now you know,” she agrees.
“He kissed me to get me to shut up.” I nod. “Not bad. It’s the one thing that would probably shock me into silence.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, you know. Guy like that kissing a girl like me. Unnatural. Not right. Unequal, really. Hell, any guy standing my close-up face long enough to kiss me just plain goes against the laws of nature. I mean, there are lots of other girls out there. Like you! And Kayla! And like, everyone! Choosing me to mack on? That’s like choosing plain yogurt over a bunch of awesome cakes for dessert!”
I laugh. Sophia is quiet, her hair shading half her face. I can’t see the other half. She doesn’t speak for a good minute, and I nervously shuffle. Me? Nervous? I shake it off and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, Soapy, are you –”
“You’re disgusting.”
The contempt in her voice freezes my insides. It’s the voice I heard last night. The other Sophia. She tilts her head, the hair sliding off her face and her eyes heavy-lidded.
“Do you really think anyone is falling for that?”
“What do you –”
“Those depressive little comparisons you make. The way you pan off any worth of yours. You’re a sick, masochistic bitch who likes playing ‘modest’ to make people like her. To make people feel sorry for her.”
The words hit hard. Harder than the impact when Leo threw me against the wall.
“Is that what you really think of me?” I ask. “You think I – you think I say these things so people will like me?”
Sophia laughs, full and rich and downright dark.
“Don’t play innocent. I’ve done the same thing countless times. You and I are exactly alike, Isis. That’s why I understand you. Neither of us are our real selves around other people. Because that would scare them. So we pretend. We don’t say what we mean. We don’t sa
y what we really think, and everyone else believes us normal. Harmless. But that’s far from the truth.”
She seems so different – her posture is totally relaxed in a luxurious, satisfied way. Her eyes are slits and her lips form a savage, subtle smile.
“I get it, now. That’s why Jack is so fascinated with you. That’s why he kissed you. That’s why he even bothered getting to know you. Because you’re exactly like me. Hopeless like me.”
“Sophia, this is crazy –”
“Is it? Am I crazy? Am I just an insane girl cooped up in a hospital, taking my frustrations out on you? Am I seeing things that aren’t really there? How can I know what’s going on, when I’m trapped in here?”
She throws her head back and laughs that intimidating laugh again. Her head snaps down all of a sudden and her eyes blaze, two stony sapphires exerting their full pressure on me.
“You and I are alike, Isis. But you and I are also different. You get to leave. You’re healthy. You get to be normal, to run and jump and have sleepovers and have dreams and go to school, and go to college, and all the things normal girls get to do, you do. Because you’re normal. Or are you special? Do only special girls get to do those things, and I’m the normal one? No. Don’t answer that. I’m not normal at all. I’m defective. You pretend to be defective, but I really am. So go ahead. Give me your fake-modest bullshit one more time. Do it.”
For once, I’m silent. No comebacks run through my head. No quips. All I can do is ball my fists and tremble. Sophia smiles.
“That’s what I thought. Now leave. Before I throw up on you.”
I get to the door before I turn. Sophia’s watching my every step, her sickening smile never fading. But I can’t just leave it like this. I liked her. Like her. Genuinely.
“When the surgery is over, you’ll be normal, too. And we should…if you don’t hate me still, we should go…shopping. Drinking. Or something. Something normal girls do. Because I think…I think we could be friends.”
“I don’t,” Sophia says lightly. “Now get out, and never come back here.”
“This is what you always do,” I say, my voice getting stronger. “You push people away first before they can leave you. You did it to Avery, and with good reason, probably. But you still did it. And now you’re doing it to me. And that’s fine, but I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to be lonely, and scared. I know what it’s like to not want someone to leave you.”