Alive (21 page)

Kids come close to the end of the street, before parents quickly steer them clear. Past the last lamppost, this side of the road feels abandoned and unused.

“What did you have in mind?” Lydia asks with a nervous giggle.

“Just a little good clean fun.” Her blond wig has fallen a bit cockeyed and she looks more Creepy Cabbage Patch Doll than Zombie Barbie. “The dare is to take a lap around the
house, knock on the door, then meet back here.”

“Brynn!” Lydia yelps. “We
can’t
.”

“Says who?”

Lydia tugs her cowgirl hat down lower over her eyes. “Fine. I can’t, then. My mom would kill me if someone called the cops.”

“Okay, Lydia’s out. Everyone else? Who’s first?”

“How do we even know they’re home?” Brandon asks, edging farther down the street to crane for a look around the side.

I squirm in my knee-high laced boots. I take a deep breath and remember the moment I stood on the pier looking down at the water. I know what Old Stella would do. She’d back out. Levi
squeezes my hand as if reading my mind.

“We’ll do it,” he says. The corners of his mouth curl up like a snake into a wicked smile. My heart thumps. I eye the size of the house, judge the distance around it.

“We’ve got a live one here, folks,” says Brynn. “You in, Stel?”

Levi watches me expectantly. I crack my neck. “I’m in.”

I try to ignore Henry, who’s making a show of rubbing the back of his neck and shifting his weight.

Levi pokes me in the side, prodding me forward. “We’ve got this, Cross.” His grin charges me with energy. A familiar rush runs through my body. My heartbeat accelerates. Palms
sweat. I wish Levi had supplied me with a sound track for the moment, something to propel me forward.

“You owe me for this,” I tease. Gingerly, I tug at the base of my push-up bra, which feels as though it’s cutting off my oxygen supply. I couldn’t help but notice Levi
appreciating my enhanced bustline, but next time I go out for an evening of childish antics, I’m totally dressing as something other than a deranged dolly. With fabric that doesn’t make
me sweat rivulets.

My heeled boots click against the rain-soaked pavement and I force myself not to glance back. Levi’s hand is hot against mine.

The metal fence creaks open. I hike my shoulders up, afraid someone will hear. I slip in through the gate.

“Shhhhh.” I hold my finger up to my lips. Both of our eyes are dancing in the dark. The sidewalk leading up to the porch is cracked and uneven. There’s a rush of static
electricity between us.

Leaves rustle overhead. I tug him after me.
Let’s get this over with,
I think. We make our way around the side of the house. The tall grass itches my ankles. It’s a short
distance to the back, but even spookier. The yard is nearly pitch-black here. The roof blocks the moon and power lines sway ominously overhead.

Levi meanders, taking his sweet time. My heart, on the other hand, won’t relax. “Hurry up,” I tell him, then jump at the sound of a rustling bush. We edge around to the
opposite side of the house. The wood siding is peeling off in layers, the paint completely eaten away in places. When we reach the front again, I see our friends silently goading us on from outside
the fence. I shoot them the thumbs-up and peer sideways at the porch.

“Are you ready?” Levi asks in my ear.

I nod. “As I’ll ever be.”

“One…two…” On three, we trample up the short flight of stairs to the porch. Levi and I both knock three times on the door. A jolt of energy. The feeling of being
seventeen. Truly seventeen. I feel myself smiling stupidly. And then Levi’s pulling me in. He kisses me there on the porch in front of everyone and there’s a cheer from the street.
Levi’s fist shoots up and we’re smiling into each other. My insides buzz.

Then there are voices behind us screaming my name. Louder and louder. It’s only when I notice that the front door has cracked open and I hear the guttural rip of a dog’s growl that
something inside me jars awake. Shit.

“Hey!” an angry voice yells. I don’t see the face or size of the dog. I only hear the snarl and feel the puff of hot breath on my calves. I’ve already turned. I’m
sprinting in the opposite direction, barreling after Levi, out the gate, slamming it shut behind us, trailing a cheap blond wig, a man-size wad of toilet paper, and a billowing vampire cape.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I mutter. My feet fly across the road, leaping curbs and a fire hydrant. I catch up to the group and we veer right, winding our way around a sweeping corner
past little fairy princesses, Batmans, and goblins. There’s a clicking in my chest. A dying carburetor that turns over and over and over again.
Click-click-click
. I try to keep up, but
that’s when I start coughing.

My lungs are begging for air. It’s only when we’re on the next street that we let our pace lag. A few feet more and we come to a dead stop.

Brynn doubles over. “Oh my God, Stel! You should have seen your face.”

I clutch my side and walk in circles, breathing in and out. In and out. Henry looks hard at me. “You okay?”

I nod. Not ready for words. And also not really okay. Levi’s laugh sounds hollow in my ears.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to run,” Henry says.

“Helpful,” I gasp. I make a final effort to sound normal. Like everything is fine. Completely routine. “Who’s next?” I say, which elicits a couple laughs.

I place one hand on each knee. My hair cascades over my shoulders, covering my face like curtains. Every nerve teeters on a knife’s edge. In fact, my entire body shakes like I’m a
junkie in need of a hit.

“Stella.” It sounds as if someone is saying my name through a long tube. “Stella.”

Black spots creep into my vision. First my hands hit the ground. Followed by my side. I crumple, all the while choking as if someone’s shoving a length of drainpipe down my throat.

A blond wig hangs down over me. “Stella? Stella?” A cool hand is pressed to my cheek. Brynn’s pulling out her cell phone. She’s dialing.

“No!” My words are strangled by gags. I don’t want an ambulance. I don’t want the hospital. “No, please,” I groan.

The vision of my life as normal cracks over me, shattering like crystals on the concrete. I sob and gasp for air while directly overhead, the moon closes in on me, a giant hanging orb. The
coppery smell of blood taints every lungful of air.

If I should die before I wake…

My eyelids grow heavy and then…and then, the light’s gone.

The back of my throat is raw. My nose is dry. A cold compress clings to my forehead and there’s a tug from inside my skin when I try to move my arm. I can hardly move my
limbs anyway, let alone speak. I’m surrounded by a heavy, warm darkness that feels stuffy and difficult to breathe in without wheezing. I let my head loll to the side and fall still. When
opening my eyes is too hard, I give that up, too.

The next time I wake, I can just peek through my eyelashes. My breaths are cooler and full. I wonder if anyone’s here, but when I notice movement, I’m too tired to
investigate. I seal my eyelids shut and doze off instead.

“Stella? Hello? Stella?” I wake up abruptly to a hand holding mine. It’s Mom’s. She’s here, smiling.

I nod, groggy. “Where’s Levi?”

Her smile falters. “Levi?” I nod. “He’s not here. Your doctors aren’t letting in any visitors.” She moves her hand to my shoulder. I don’t find this
comforting.

“But you’re here,” I say.

Ropy lines strain in her throat as she swallows. “Yes, but I’m your mother, Stella.”

Through whatever pain meds they have me on, an aching starts to radiate from my back through to my sternum. I recognize the pain instantly and feel my eyes widen. I stare around the room,
unseeing. The anxiety only heightens the agony. My fingers claw at the hospital bedsheets. “Where’s Levi?” I repeat, my voice unrecognizable even to me.

“Stella, stop it.” My mother hushes me.

“Where is he?” Pain trumpets out of me. I kick my legs. “Where
is
he?” I’m yelling now. I thrash my back against the mattress. My paper gown tears.

Mom jumps to her feet. “What’s gotten into you? What is the matter?”

I pound my fists into the bed and the machines attached to my veins crash toward me. “I need Levi. I
need
him. Where is he?” Tears slide down my nose. “I’m not
joking.” This time it comes out as a scream. White pain goes off inside me like flashing bulbs.

My teeth rattle, clacking against each other. With effort, I lever my weight up in bed. But Mom pushes me back down, this time not so gently. I glare at her. An open wound howls in my chest. I
snarl for Levi again. My mother freezes, and then I start to scream.

The shrill pitch of my shriek reaches the nurses’ station first, and three women rush in. Hands force me down. Hands brace my legs. A white coat appears with a syringe. I flail against
them. My mom’s fingers are pressed against her lips. She diverts her eyes, staring at the far wall. I don’t stop screaming until the needle plunges into my thigh and the sound withers
in my mouth.

It’s time to go home, Mom says in that flower-petal voice reserved for patients. It makes me want to break things. “They have you sedated.” That’s not
what she says, but it’s something like that and I understand her meaning even though my head is filled with cotton balls. I don’t mention Levi or the cramping between my rib bones. I
want to go home. Anywhere but here, where it smells of burned coffee and disinfectant.

I find myself wrapped in clean sheets and a lavender down comforter, but the pain is already busy driving up through me. How long has it been? Either way, it’s managed to
catch me off guard again, which makes me angry. Like my body forgot to play fair.

Blurry numbers on the alarm clock read
5:08
. No one’s around. Definitely not Levi. There’s no point in even saying his name. I pull the covers over my head and breathe in
short sips. My arms are weak as I clutch the blanket around me like a fort. One by one, each bony knob of my back pushes pain through to my stomach. The aching rips a hole through the fog of
medicine and my eyes spring open. A thick sweat springs from my upper lip. When I can’t sit still any longer I screech and when I do I sound like something wild. An animal. No one approaches
my room, and as the hurt unhooks its raking claws from my body, I begin to slip back under the fog of unconsciousness.

Eventually, I’m able to sit upright in bed. There’s an inky speck on the white underbelly of my forearm that someone might mistake for a freckle. The skin around it
is a yellowing bruise where the nurse inserted the IV. Inside my room, I notice that the box of swim trophies stashed in the corner is gone. I guess even my parents realized I won’t be
needing those anymore. Better to forget.

12:25.
I stare at the glowing red numbers of my alarm clock until they smear.

If I fall asleep now, I can still get at least six hours of sleep. I flip onto my back and push the comforter down to my waist. I’ve been playing this game for an hour and a half and
I’m no closer to nodding off than I was at eleven.

Three days I’ve been a prisoner in my room. My legs are limp and my arms feel wilted, like cooked spaghetti. My entire body’s dwindling. Pretty soon, I think, I’ll be a pile of
skin sagging off the bone. I can feel pain and sickness hanging around me like a phantom and yet somehow, in the span of these few days spent completely sedentary, marinating in my own overused bed
sheets, my mind has sharpened. My thoughts ring clearer than they have in months. A side effect of this is that I can’t sleep. Another is embarrassment. I am suddenly all too aware that I was
screaming my boyfriend’s name in a public space. While there are about a dozen signs that I’m not healthy, this is one of them.

I sigh into the dark. Giving in at last, I prop myself up with two pillows and fumble for my phone on the nightstand. The screen casts a ghostly pallor over my blankets as I navigate to my
various social media forums and then to my e-mail account. The Internet’s quiet at this hour. Levi isn’t on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, a fact that I’d found cool, mature,
and a tad edgy, but now, while I’m bored and, despite myself, wanting to poke around, it’s just aggravating.