I’m so relieved to see her that my eyes start leaking like mad, just pouring water down my face. I don’t make any noise, though. I don’t want to completely wake her up.
There’s a hideous pink chair beside her bed, and I sit in it and watch her sleep. Her face isn’t blown off. No limbs seem to be missing—no bruises at the neck, no slashes on the arms. She must have taken pills. I sit there, staring and thinking, for seventeen minutes before her breath catches and her eyes snap open. She sits straight up.
She looks around the room frantically, as if she has no idea where she is. Then her eyes land on me.
“Hi, Katie,” I say softly.
And then her face sort of collapses on itself and she falls back against the rumpled pillow.
Brainzilla is silent a long time, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m in a hospital,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And my mother isn’t here.”
Beyond the door, the floor is waking up. An orderly passes by with a cart. Two doctors are chatting at the nurses’ station. “She was here when they admitted you. Visiting hours just started. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”
My best friend doesn’t look at me. She just keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling tiles. “Dad is probably just getting home from his shift. Mom will have to open the day care in a few minutes. She can’t close down—the parents are counting on her. If they don’t have day care, they can’t work, and if they can’t work, they get fired.” Machinery hums all around us. “I’m sure she’ll come by afterward.”
“Your mom loves you.”
“I know that. It’s just life, you know? If she shuts the day care—even for a day—the families will go somewhere else. Then we’ll all suffer. I don’t even know how she’s going to pay for this.” She gestures to the hideous hospital room. “God, I wish I’d thought of that.”
“The government—”
“They still make you pay part of it.” Katie wraps the white sheet around her hand. “The Yale lady saw what they wrote, Kooks.”
“But it wasn’t true.”
“She doesn’t know that.” Her blue eyes lock on mine.
“Katie, the world won’t end if you don’t get into Yale.”
“I don’t want my parents’ life.”
“There are a thousand ways to have a different life. A million! Yale is just one. Just one.”
Brainzilla looks out the window. She’s in a semiprivate room, but there’s nobody in the other bed, so she has it all to herself. Outside, the sky is pale blue, and the sun shines on the icy white below, making the trees sparkle.
“I love you, Kooks,” she says. “I even love that you’re wearing the Snuggie I gave you.”
I reach for her hand. Her elegant manicured fingers intertwine with my ragged ones. “I love you, too,” I tell her.
Then we settle into the kind of silence that you can only share with a best friend.
Chapter 57
SICKOS
Flatso pokes her head in, takes one look at me and Brainzilla, and yells, “She’s sitting up!” over her shoulder.
“She is?” Eggy asks, pushing her way through the doorframe. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, and she beams when she sees Brainzilla. “You’re alive!”
Flatso, Zitsy, and Eggy pile onto Katie’s bed, hugging her and laughing. Tebow hovers awkwardly nearby, his eyes closed and his hand over his heart. I wonder if he’s praying, giving a little shout-out to the Lord or Baby Jesus for taking care of Brainzilla. It occurs to me that maybe I should say thank you, too.
Finally, Tebow steps forward and plants a delicate kiss on Brainzilla’s forehead. His lips linger a moment, and I see him breathe in once, twice. I can tell he’s just as relieved as I am.
“Who needs a doughnut?” Flatso asks, opening a huge box.
Zitsy reaches for three, and suddenly the hospital room is like a party. Eggy has brought along her trumpet, and she plays a very bouncy version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Brainzilla doesn’t have a doughnut, but she smiles and even manages to laugh when Zitsy gets a pink sprinkle stuck on the end of his nose. It’s kind of amazing how there can still be room in your heart to laugh, even when something really scary and sad has happened.
“I’d like to make an announcement,” Zitsy says, reaching into his pocket. “I have something I’d like to give you.” He holds out a fist and lets it hover there—right over Brainzilla’s lap for a dramatic moment. Then he uncurls his fingers, revealing a beautiful gold filigree ring. At the center is a large emerald-cut ruby.
Brainzilla creates a new vowel between O and U. She’s so shocked that she doesn’t even reach for it.
Eggy purses her lips. “Are you proposing to Brainzilla, Zitsy?”
“Where did you get that?” I ask.
“I found it in a clogged pipe,” he admits. “The lady who owned the house said it wasn’t hers, so I reported it to the police, but they just told me to keep it. Which is fair, I think, because I’m the one who dug it out of the sewage.”
Brainzilla blinks a little bit, like she isn’t sure whether to take it. But—after a minute—she takes the ring and puts it on. She never could resist anything sparkly.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathes.
“When you wear it, you should remember how much we all care about you,” Zitsy says.
“I’ll remember all the crap I have to put up with,” Brainzilla shoots back.
Which reminds me of a song.
“When the night has come,” I sing, “and the land is dark…” I feel everyone staring at me, and my voice trails off.
Note to self: Bursting into song does not go unnoticed.
I don’t know what made me start spewing that song. “Stand by Me” was one of Mrs. Morris’s favorites. It just popped into my head while I was standing here, feeling the love. Now I just feel my ears burning with embarrassment.
“Go on, Kooks,” Tebow says gently. Then he starts the next line, “And the moon…” He has a nice voice—a strong tenor. I hesitate a moment, looking at my friends.
And then Eggy puts her trumpet to her lips and plays along. Soon, the room is filled with our voices as we all join in.
We only get to sing for a few minutes before a nurse comes and tells us to shut up. But still, those moments are beautiful.
Beautiful.
I can’t explain why, but this is exactly what we all needed—just to be together.
We really are going to be okay.
All of us.
Chapter 58
SCHOOL DAZE
The next morning, I’m still feeling trashed. I skipped school to stay at the hospital with Brainzilla yesterday. But they’re releasing her today, and I can’t just avoid the world forever.
In homeroom, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope—one wrong step could send me plunging toward the hard ground. The school announcements do their fifteen minutes of blahblah, so I put my head down on my desk and close my eyes. The minute I do that, though, I hear the phone ringing in my mind—the same phone that kept ringing and ringing the night I tried to get in touch with Katie. And then something really scary happens.
I can’t find Laurence anywhere. I can’t remember his face. I can’t hear his voice—the phone in my brain is too loud.
And that’s the step—the step off the tightrope.