After I Wake (23 page)

“Those forms, the ones on your desk, let's look at those.” We go through them, and I tell them to get those signed and then we are left with about ten minutes of class.

“Question time,” I say, looking from the clock to the class. “You have ten minutes, and I will answer any question you ask. Go.” Hands shoot up, and I grin a little. “Try to be creative in how you ask them, guys, let's have fun with this.” I pick a boy in the back row; his name is Tyler.

“Did a shark eat your hand?”

I laugh.

“You certainly get points for being creative, but not quite, no. My hand was amputated because I had severe frostbite and infection was setting in. How gross does that sound?” The class makes a combination of grossed out and sympathetic noises.

“Any other questions?” There are only three hands now. “Aw, come on guys, you don't have any other questions? Or is the fact that I only have one hand fascinating?” I pick a girl in the front row. I believe her name is Alexandria.

“Why do you love poetry so much?”

“Now that is a good question. I grew up in the poetry world, reading and writing it, and I wrote poetry every day when I was little, and I've actually published poetry books, but we're not going to read my poetry. We're going to read other people's poetry. But poetry, like I said before, is life and emotion, and that's really cool to see how different writers captured these things. Alright, one more question, yes, you, Marla, right?”

She nods. “When did everything happen with your hand?”

“Well let's see. My junior year of high school, in February, when it's really cold and everything is frozen and stuff. But that was in Connecticut, across the country.” The bell rings suddenly, and everyone jumps up. Figures I'd end up far away from Connecticut. There's probably no snow here during the winter. And I bet the pizza isn't the same.

“Get those forms signed!” I yell to their retreating backs, “and think about what it is to be alive and human.”

I go back to my desk and kick off my heels, stretching my legs for a moment. When an elephant walks in the door, I wake up.

“Ah, to dream,” I say to myself, rolling over so I can stare out the window. I don't actually say it, but I think it because it's poetic and cliché and perfect for the moment. It's still dark, and there are stars out, so I watch them for a little while, mulling over the pieces of dream still stuck in my head.

I suppose it makes perfect sense, teaching. I could share my love of poetry with everyone and be there to support them through the weird time for everyone that is high school. I think I'd be a good teacher, maybe.

When the sun rises, I get up. It's Sunday, and I have college applications to finish filling out. I tell my mom about my dream, save the elephant, because I don't know what purpose it served.

My mom doesn't react other than to tilt her head and nod slowly and enigmatically because she can.

“I think that would work out well,” she says finally, after a long silence. “You know there's a great college in state that has a fabulous teaching program, and you can intern at schools if you wanted to, once you got your degree. But I think you'd be a good teacher.”

 

 

I
T
'
S
A
snow day, so I am reading and drinking hot cocoa underneath a large pile of blankets. That doesn't stop the mail, though, and today it comes with a letter from my top college.

It holds good news. I celebrate with Darcy and Harper. I invite them over for the afternoon, and we have a snowball fight. It takes a few minutes to get me outside because I'm kind of wary of the snow, but they get me out anyways, and we have a pathetic snowball fight. We end up hurling whatever snow is in our hands at each other.

Somehow Darcy ends up on the ground, and we start to cover her in snow while she protests and scoops the snow off of her and tries to throw it back at us. She's careful to avoid throwing it in our faces, mostly because she's doing her best to not get Harper's hearing aids wet, even though she has a hat pulled over her ears to keep them dry.

My mom watches from the window occasionally, and I assume she's on the Internet bragging about me because that's what she does. Or she's working because she does have a job besides mothering all over the place.

It's a lot of fun, and we end up piling back into my house, panting, out of breath from laughter, and covered in snow. We get yelled at for getting the carpet wet, but we're forgiven.

We all celebrate that night. Darcy got into her top school where she's going to major in English, like me, and Harper got into her second choice art school, where she's going to work with graphic design. Given that we all have sufficient cause to celebrate, which we do by making pasta together, the one that I love. My mom is surprised, to say the least, when she comes down to find that we've cooked dinner.

It's unanimous, though; we are mighty fine chefs. Especially me, I boiled the water after almost setting the pasta on fire because I am the antithesis of a great cook. Harper did most of the cooking and yelled at me every time I got too close to the stove, for fear of me nearly incinerating something else.

While we're eating, we get a call from the high school and find that school is canceled for the next day. I immediately invite Harper and Darcy to sleep over, and they accept, leaving to go back to their respective houses and get everything they need.

We take over the living room because my bedroom is too small. Darcy claims the couch, making excuses about not being able to sleep properly on the floor. Harper helps me drag my mattress downstairs, and we set that up next to the couch in retaliation, and we both spend a few minutes laughing at Darcy's jealous face. I offer to take the couch now that there is room for Darcy and Harper to cuddle and do that annoying couple stuff in front of me, and Darcy sheepishly accepts, claiming part of the mattress for herself.

After my mom goes to bed, we stay up talking for a little while. I begin to doze from my place on the couch when Darcy giggles. I lift my head and glare at her, but it's lost in the darkness. The giggles stop after a moment before resuming again.

“What is so funny?” I ask blearily.

“I just remembered this really funny joke,” she replies. I throw a pillow at her, but miss and hit Harper, who sits up.

“If you two asshats are going to talk about the universe instead of sleeping, I'm putting my hearing aids back in.” Darcy and I burst into laughter, and Harper grumpily restores her hearing aids.

“So talk to me about the universe,” Harper demands.

“Darcy was giggling at some joke so I threw a pillow at her,” I fill her in, and Harper groans.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me, that joke about the duck?” Darcy giggles again in response. Harper hits her in the arm.

“Why in the world did I fall in love with you, I'll never know. I'm going back to sleep.” With an air of finality Harper takes out her hearing aids and flops dramatically onto her pillow, the flopping noise echoing in the room. Darcy giggles again, and I stare at the ceiling, listening as the couple on my mattress slowly falls asleep. I think about how nice it is to have awesome friends before I fall asleep.

We make pancakes in the morning, which Darcy handles. She takes after Harper in yelling at me every time I go near the stove, so I alternate between supplying and eating chocolate chips instead. It's nice.

 

 

I
AM
at Emmett's house, and we are baking cookies. I've slept over because school was canceled last night in anticipation of snow again, and it is indeed snowing out, so cookie making is the only logical thing to do. I let him handle most of it, because I burn myself every time I go near an oven. I really shouldn't be allowed near food until it's cooked.

I settle for eating dough when Emmett's not looking, and scooping it onto the cookie sheet so that we have actual cookies, eventually.

When the cookies go into the oven, I pull out two cans of root beer and hand one to Emmett in celebration.

“What's the occasion?” he asks, popping the tab. I shrug.

“I've had these sitting on my desk for a while, but they don't need to be there anymore.” I made sure to check the expiration dates on the bottom and wipe the small amount of dust off the cans before I packed them. I don't need them anymore.

“Alright, I'm not complaining,” he says, smiling a little as he takes a sip.

“I'm also celebrating being here.”

“At my house? Yours is nicer.” I roll my eyes.

“No, you asshole, being
here
. Alive. Everything got better. I'm glad.”

“Oh.” Emmett is quiet for a moment, and I can feel tension beginning to build in the room. Thankfully, Emmett takes the dramatic way out, putting a hand on his chest. “Don't go getting sentimental on me, I can hardly bear it.” He hugs me a moment later.

“I'm glad you're still here too,” he whispers into my ear.

It's February 27th, one year to the day I woke up without a hand. Emmett made me sleep over, and we spent all night talking about who we were a year ago. It's funny how much can change in a year.

Emmett's mom came back for a little while in October, about three weeks after she left. She told Emmett she loved him, but she needed time to process everything. She left because she didn't want to be with his father anymore. She promised that it wasn't Emmett's fault, and she really doesn't care who he likes as long as he's happy and that she left because she wasn't. She acknowledged she shouldn't have left the way she did, but she was sorry.

She left again and lives one town over now. Emmett goes there occasionally and always comes back with fresh pumpkin bread that he shares with me. Their relationship is strained, but he thinks it's getting better. He forgave her. He doesn't talk about it much, but he goes to a therapist now. I think Emmett will be okay. He can do it; he's resilient. And he wants to get better.

When I was depressed, I didn't want to get better, and it didn't seem possible. But Emmett's always been a happy dude. Even under stress, he's pretty happy. Not like my guidance counselor happy, because that's not natural, but still happy. I wish I could be more like Emmett. I think the world would be a happier place if we were all like Emmett. But then it'd be boring because there wouldn't be any variety.

The cookies look like they're coming along nicely, but I've put the dough globs too close together, and now they're all going to run together and bake into a monster cookie mutant. Emmett thinks it looks awesome, and we high-five. I get distracted and look away for a second and he misses my hand, awkwardly hitting my forearm.

“How hard is it to miss my only hand, Emmett? You had
one job
.” He laughs in response, and we try again, but I miss his hand this time, and he rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath.

“
One job
, Carter, come on.”

 

 

I'
M
GRADUATING
high school. Or at least, I'm about halfway through the process of doing so. I'm still seated toward the back, with the rest of the R last names. Darcy's sitting next to me, and she keeps looking at me and smiling. Harper is seated a couple rows in front of us in the Ms. She keeps looking back at Darcy and waving, while Darcy tells her to turn around in sign language and adds something nasty to the end because we all love swearing too much. We've all gotten better at sign language, although we had to come up with a shorthand that I could use with one hand. Most of it is creative swearing. Harper's hearing is getting worse, and signing is becoming a necessity, but that hasn't stopped her from being overexcited about most things and getting distracted too easily, especially when superheroes come up.

Emmett is in the L section, and I lost him because he's the same height as everyone else and the shaggy hair that makes him distinctive is hidden by his cap. He's in celebration mode too; we're going to the same college, me for teaching and him for social work. It's hilarious to think we thought we'd be award winners at the beginning of the year. Well, I'm already an award winner, but we thought we could subsist on it.

I think, that in the past months, I've become a good person. I mean, other than grades and poetry, I've surrounded myself with good people, and they've helped me. I'm comfortable to be in public, to be myself. I still wear longer sleeves, because my skin is puckered all over with scar tissue, and they have faded as much as they're going to, decorating my arms with pale raised lines that won't go away. They're really ugly and shouldn't be there because they're stupid, but now the scars are just kind of there and a part of me, and I've moved on. I try to think of them as battle scars. It half works, but I can't put any positive spin on them. They're just stupid, and I'm stuck with them.

I haven't cut since March. I had one really bad day, and I slipped up, but I regret it. I stopped cutting in October after I started again in September. I fell back into cutting a little bit in January, but I told my mom; I told her about the little slipups. She forgave me, and we talked to Jordan, my therapist. The man's really good at giving advice. But he knows that, because it's part of his job. We've established a list of positive things to do whenever I feel the urge. It's cheesy as hell but helpful. And everything works. So there's that.

As the crazy smart valedictorian I didn't even know went to the school gives his speech, I think about where I am now. Two years ago, I was a total asshole. Fast-forward a bit, I wasn't sure who I was. I was broken, and it seemed like my entire future was stripped away. Then about a year ago, I wanted to be dead. I wasn't even a person then, I was just something inhabiting a body that seemed like it was always on the verge of collapse. To get better was like finding a balloon and blowing it back up, making me normal and human again. Or like climbing out of the pool of depression. Or something, I don't know. There's an accurate shitty metaphor for my life out there somewhere. I'll figure it out. The point is there's something weirdly normal to my life.