I am scared.
I want to go home.
I want to get better.
Or maybe just, I want to tell everyone whose fault this really is.
No way was I drawing that.
* * *
It was my fault—100 percent my fault.
On that night before Coney Island, before the Cyclone, before everything, when I got back from my very last run before all this, Riley had let me borrow her phone to text with Marisol.
I wrote: CYCLONE COUNTDOWN!
Mari: RU NERVOUS?
Me: YAAASSSSS!
Mari: TEXT ME WHEN IT’S OVER!!
I had just texted a thumbs-up back to her, when the phone rang. This came up:
GEORGINA
I had the phone in my hand, so I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, beautiful!” a man’s voice said.
“Uhhhh . . . ,” I’d said. Beautiful? I’d thought.
“Riley?” His voice was deep. Like, not a thirteen-year-old-boy deep. And not even a fifteen-year-old deep. And definitely not like girl-friend-from-school deep.
“Um, no.” I’d pulled the phone away from my ear to double-check the screen name, and by the time I was back listening, the Beautiful Guy had hung up. And Riley was lunging at me for her phone.
I held it away from her. “Who was that?”
“Nobody. It’s nobody,” she said in a voice that sure didn’t sound like it was nobody. “Give me my damn phone.” She grabbed for it again. I held it farther away. “Give. It. To. Me!” she said, her voice getting sharper. And sounding nervous.
And then I got it.
“Are you kidding? You have a boyfriend! He—he sounds like he’s twenty-one!” I said. I stared at her. “What is wrong with you?”
“No, I absolutely do not! Give me my phone!” She lunged for it again, and now we both had our hands around it. My mind was racing. Riley had a boyfriend who called her beautiful, who was a man. That was so . . . so . . . wrong. And it was stupid! And, and . . . dangerous! We even had classes about this!!
“I’m calling him back right now and telling him how old you are!”
“Nora!! I swear, I’m gonna kill you. Just shut up!” I’d never seen her so mad.
“You didn’t meet him on the Internet, did you?” I asked, still gaping.
“No!” Now she was yelling. “Just give me the freakin’ phone!”
“What’s going on up there, girls?” Aunt Mo shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
“Nothing, Mom!” said Riley, her voice suddenly sweet and easy.
“I can’t even believe you!” I said, keeping my voice as low as I could without sounding like I was backing down. Archie growled at me.
“Just leave it alone,” Riley was saying. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Now I was glaring. “So why did you give him a fake name in your phone? Why would you do that if you weren’t trying to hide him? I’m not an idiot!” My heart was pounding. Riley’d never done anything so stupid before. So, so stupid.
“You don’t understand,” she said, tugging again at the phone. “You’re too young to understand, Nora. Just drop it!”
“Drop it?” I said. “How can I drop it? I already know. You could get hurt. You could . . . you could disappear! It happens all the time!”
“It does not happen all the time.”
The phone lit up in our hands.
GEORGINA
“Just give me the phone,” Riley said, suddenly, oddly calm. “I’m sorry I yelled. I just got freaked out.”
I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Riley pulled back hard on the phone, but I did too, pulling us even closer together. Then she did something I never thought she would do: she hit me. She took one hand off the phone and hit me square in the shoulder and knocked me off my feet. I fell back and hit the dresser so hard it tipped and almost everything on it—a lamp, her jewelry box, a makeup tray—crashed to the floor. Archie went wild, jumping between us. He towered over me, barking at me, baring his teeth.
Aunt Maureen came bounding up the stairs. “Is everybody okay?”
Riley was breathing hard but held out her hand to help me. I didn’t take it. Archie was now standing guard halfway between Riley and me.
“What is going on up here?” Aunt Mo demanded suspiciously, eyeing the stuff all over the floor.
“Nothing, Mom,” Riley said quickly. “We were goofing around. We just fell. Over the dog. I tripped over Archie.” Her hand was still out to me. I still ignored it. “Nora got tangled up in my feet. . . .”
Aunt Maureen narrowed her eyes as if she didn’t quite believe her, but nodded. “Time to cool off—and relax. Okay, guys?”
The phone lay facedown between us, six inches from Aunt Maureen’s feet. Archie hadn’t relaxed a muscle; he looked ready to go for my jugular.
The phone rang once more, and this time I literally jumped. Startled, Archie lunged at me, his teeth inches from my face. I kicked at him to protect myself.
“NO!” Aunt Maureen shouted, Archie yelping as she violently yanked him back. “DOWN!” Aunt Maureen was in his face now.
The phone was still ringing. Riley reached over, but Aunt Maureen was quicker. As she picked the phone up, I could see the screen. I swallowed hard and stared at Riley, but she was staring at her mother, wide-eyed with panic.
GEORGINA
Please answer it. Please answer it. Did I want her to answer it???
“You broke your phone?” Aunt Maureen cried out. She turned the front of the phone outward, furious. A crack zigzagged from the top of the screen to the bottom.
GEORGINA
“I’m sorry, Mom—” Riley gulped.
GEORGINA
Please answer it. I wanted someone else to know. Please.
“This is the second one you’ve broken! I am not getting you a new one.
GEORGINA
“You’re just going to have to save up until you can fix it yourself,” Aunt Mo went on, thrusting the phone back at Riley.
GEORGINA
I locked eyes with my cousin. She had gone completely white. Her hand holding the phone was shaking.
Don’t answer it.
It stopped mid-ring.
Aunt Maureen was not done with Archie, either. “Bad dog!” she told him. He looked at Riley for help, but all she cared about was the phone. “He wouldn’t have hurt you, honey,” Aunt Maureen said to me. “I promise.”
“I know,” I said, not believing her, but wanting her to feel okay enough to leave.
My aunt took Archie by the collar and led him away like a prisoner. Once they disappeared down the stairs, I picked myself up.
“Listen, I swear to you, I’m not doing anything stupid,” Riley whispered when her mother was out of earshot. “I’m not sneaking out to see anyone. I gave him a fake phone name so I could have some privacy. That’s all. My mom doesn’t like when I talk to boys, but I’m almost fourteen!” Privacy. All of a sudden she needed privacy.
“Whatever,” I said. What dawned on me in that last long minute was that when the dog went for me, Riley had gone for the phone. “You know what? You can have all the stupid boyfriends you want.”
“He’s not my boyfriend! I swear! Nora, promise me. Promise you won’t tell. . . .”
“Do what you want.” If she didn’t care that her dog tried to bite me in the face, I wasn’t going to care what she did either.
“I pinkie promise you on my father’s grave, it’s not like that. It’s just a friend of a friend. It’s nothing.”
“What?” I gasped. “Is your father dead?”
“He is to me,” she said. She plopped down on her bed and piled her hair up on her head, cinching it with a band. I was tired of her surprises—and her drama. I was seeing her in a different way in that moment—and not a good one.
“Fine, whatever,” I said. “Nice code name.”
“It’s not a code name. It’s just that, you know my mom; she’ll get
the wrong idea and then she’ll totally freak out and take away my phone. You know she will.”
Riley was right about that. If she was talking to a man on the phone, Aunt Maureen wouldn’t just take the phone away, she might smash it to pieces, and Riley would be grounded until college.
“I’m sorry about the dog.” So she did know. “The fight just scared him, that’s all.” Scared me, too, I wanted to say. But now I wanted this fight to be over, so I got over it.
“Who is he, anyway?” I asked, finally making eye contact with her.
“He’s just someone from school,” she said, holding my gaze. “He sounds older than he is.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” she said, stepping closer to me. “And you have to promise me you won’t tell.”
“I already did.”
“Promise again.”
“I promise.”
And I felt so awful making that promise that I wasn’t torn anymore. I really wished Aunt Maureen had answered that phone.
* * *
So here it is in a nutshell: A phone, a fight, the dog.
I don’t know how to draw a promise. But that’s okay, because as it turns out, I don’t know how to keep one either. Did I break the promise? Technically . . . no. But I used it to my tactical advantage. I abused it, stomped on it, destroyed it, and ran it over and left it for dead. Let’s just call it “broken” because it sure as heck wasn’t in one piece anymore.
So, here’s the truth about what happened right before Riley and I got on the Cyclone in Coney Island—a truth I can’t seem to tell if Riley remembers. Riley had been twelve steps behind me at the Cyclone when I broke that promise. And breaking that promise (in less than twenty-four hours, that’s how horrible a cousin I am!) led to everything that happened next. On the way up the ramp to the roller coaster, Riley had let go of my hand. “I can’t do it,” she’d cried, turning around and walking away. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I can’t!”
What? She couldn’t ditch me now! We were so close! “You have to!” I had cried out. “Please! I can’t go by myself!” I stomped my foot like a little kid. I grabbed ahold of her shirt. It was covered in sweat, so I let go fast and ran to stand in front of her.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I’m too scared.” Tears had sprung to her eyes. “You don’t need me. You’ll be fine. I’ll wave to you from the ground. I can take your picture, for your essay!” She shoved me to the side to walk by me.
“I do so need you!” I called after her. “You promised you would come with me, and you have to!” Riley kept walking. The line for the roller coaster continued to build. I was running out of time.
“Riley!” Now she wouldn’t even turn around. “Fine!” I screeched. “If you break your promise to me, then I will break my promise to you!” I had to cross my arms over my chest to calm myself.
She whirled around. “What promise?”
Riley was blocking most of the line now, glaring at me with her hands on her hips. People started squeezing past us to get to the roller coaster, muttering under their breath, clearly annoyed. Riley didn’t care. No surprise. Please, I had thought, please don’t. I don’t really want to break this promise. “What promise?” she demanded.
I didn’t want to break it. I really didn’t. Or did I? The other part of me from last night, torn again, wanted her to keep walking so I could tell Aunt Mo. So I had a reason to tell her. She kept walking. Then I knew. I wasn’t torn.
“Georgina!”
Riley froze.
“Georgina!” I yelled again, even louder.
I was getting on that roller coaster.
So was she.
My chest was tight and my hands were in fists at my side. I was scared either way. Scared she would walk away from me and scared she would come toward me. If she walked away, would I actually tell her mother about her boyfriend? Wasn’t that the right thing to do anyway? Riley was staring daggers at me, but at least she turned around. I guess choosing between walking toward me or walking away from me depended on which thing scared her more—the shakiest, oldest Abraham Lincoln roller coaster in the world or her mother finding out the truth about Georgina.
Well, now we all know the answer to that one.
* * *
30 These charts can be extremely helpful, and I am not trying to make anyone feel bad about the drawings! I am sure it is also way better to use one with a professional speech therapist than with two tired, snarky kids in the PICU family room.
DAY 5
The next morning was off to a bad start before we even stepped foot in the hospital. The parking was so bad that after half an hour, Dad gave up and dropped us off so he could continue driving around the neighborhood. I knew it was about to get worse as soon as the elevator doors opened on the PICU. It was just a flash at first, that something, somehow, was different. The normal buzz of the PICU was there . . . but off a beat. A nurse in rocket-ship scrubs looked up at us from a computer at the nurses’ station for a moment and quickly glanced away. I exchanged a tense look with my mother as something seemed to register with her, too, because then she sprinted down the hall at her ER speed. I was right behind her and barely past the first two rooms in the hall when I realized what was different. Riley’s cube—normally a constant hive of activity—was dark. That was the beat, the difference. A pattern of light you don’t know you’re expecting, until it changes. I flashed back to Monica’s warning, Be prepared for uncertainty.
Mom and I stood confused in the middle of an empty cube. No Riley. No bed. No Aunt Maureen. The computer monitors were dark. The black oxygen ball lay flat in its outlet. I stared at my mother, terrified, and watched the color drain out of her face. “What’s happened? Where’s Riley?” Her voice cracked. An orderly walked by, pushing a patient in a wheelchair. “Please, where is Riley? Is she okay?” Please. Please. Please.
“I’m sorry,” he answered, rolling right past us and shrugging. I felt my own heart pumping faster. Everything had been good last night! How fast could things change? The speed of a roller coaster, I reminded myself.
My mother pulled us into the hallway. “Nora, just wait here.” She parked me beside the door to the women’s restroom, the same way she had parked me outside the emergency room curtain almost a week earlier. “Let me get some . . . information. Stay . . . right . . . here.”
“I want to come with you!” But she was gone already, heading to the nurses’ station. I closed my eyes and held my breath, trying to imagine the oxygen traveling through my bloodstream and wondering what my P-SOCKS reading would be. Riley’s quiet, empty room had left me dizzy. No words, no questions, no grunting, no parents, no small talk, no wolves. I was scared out of my mind. Rocket-ship-scrub nurse looked up when my mother reached her.
“Please, I’m looking for my niece. She’s been here for days and now she’s not and I don’t—”
“PEDIATRIC CODE BLUE, SEVEN SOUTH. PEDIATRIC CODE BLUE.” The announcement was broadcast to the entire floor.
Code Blue?
Every available person on the floor seemed to run past us, heading toward the end of the hallway. Doctors and nurses streamed into the cube at the end of the hall, including the nurse in rocket-ship scrubs, her swivel chair still spinning at the nurses’ station, she had jumped up so fast.
“PEDIATRIC ICU CODE BLUE. SEVEN SOUTH. PEDIATRIC ICU CODE BLUE.”
A nurse escorted a sobbing woman out of the Code Blue room, an arm draped over her shoulder. I stood gaping at her. The mother? Moved out of the room for her own good? Mom gently turned me to face the other way, toward the elevator. Then I had a horrifying thought. I snapped my head back. Is that Colin’s room? Where the hell was his room? Frozen, here I go, felt it. Always my legs first. Instincts are supposed to be fight or flight, right? I always got stuck somewhere right in between.
“Come on,” my mother urged, back to being frantic about Riley, pulling me away. “Let’s . . . go.” I searched for Jack in the crowd, but there was so much movement and
so many people—running in and out—that it was impossible. Dr. Mejia arrived, people cleared the way.
My mother was still pulling me. “Come on.”
Worried faces emerged from the other cubes but quickly retreated. Too personal. Too private. Too close.
“Paige! What are you doing up here?” An oddly familiar voice from the elevator end of the hallway. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
“Oh no, not now,” groaned my mother. “I can’t do this now. . . .” In the middle of the deserted end of the hallway was my aunt Elayne, all the way from California.
Aunt Elayne was all smiles as she strode toward us. “Maureen has been trying to text you.”
“Text me? Why?” asked Mom, her voice tinged with panic. “Where is she?”
“Hello, Nora.” Aunt Elayne gave me a peck on the cheek. “It’s good to see you.” I stared at her like she had just dropped out of the sky. When did she get here?
“Maureen’s on another floor with Riley,” Aunt Elayne offered nonchalantly. “Or at least, that’s where she told me she was, but I can’t find her.”
“What?” My mother looked visibly annoyed. “What floor? What are you talking about, Elayne?” I thought Mom was going to shake her.
Some of the staff who had responded to the Code Blue began to empty out of the Code Blue room.31 Some paired off and left the floor, a few huddled outside the cube, the shades now drawn. The door of the cube closed. Code Blue over. But . . . good over? Or bad over?
“Is Riley okay, do you know?” I asked my aunt Elayne the question that never gets a straight answer.
“Of course,” she answered, without giving it much thought. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Where is she?” my mother demanded, this time inches from her sister’s face. Aunt Elayne pulled away.
“She’s on the pediatric floor.”32 Again, cool and casual, like Riley was exactly where we should expect her to be. “Mo said her cardiologist33 cleared her. I swear, it’s been a game of cat and mouse since I got here! I came up here, nobody. I tracked her down to the eighth floor, but nobody was in the room. I texted you three times. . . .”