LITMIR.BIZ

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block me.

      ‘I’m Dr Griffith.’ He took a step closer. I could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. ‘Will you come with me?’

      ‘Why?’ My voice sounded too high, the words crushed on my tongue. ‘Where’s Olivia?’

      ‘I’m going to take you to her, but first we need to talk. Perhaps somewhere a bit more private.’ The doctor’s tone conveyed the gravity of what he had to say. The weight of it kept the frantic questions in my throat from vomiting out.

      I looked around at the busy waiting room. A handful of people openly stared at us, while the rest fiddled with cell phones or pretended to read newspapers.

      I nodded, a small jerk of my chin.

      Dr Griffith led me through the swinging doors and down a brightly lit corridor to a private meeting room. The room smelled of floral potpourri and was decorated in pale pastels. The floor was shiny, the color of cinnamon, the walls a washed-out cream.

      ‘Please. Sit.’ Dr Griffith motioned toward a cushioned taupe chair. I sat stiffly on the edge.

      He crossed to a water cooler in the corner of the room. A hulking tower of plastic cups, white, like vertebrae, leaned on a low black table next to it. He swiped one and filled it with water. The cooler gurgled and belched as air drifted to the top.

      He thrust the cup toward me, but I just stared at it. I couldn’t seem to get my hand to take it. Eventually he set it on the table.

      Dr Griffith dragged a plastic chair from the wall and placed it across from me. The scraping of its feet against the floor set my teeth on edge. He sat, planted both feet on the ground, pressed his elbows against his knees, and steepled his fingers, as if in prayer.

      ‘There’s been an accident –’ he said, repeating his earlier words.

      ‘Is Olivia okay?’ I interrupted.

      But the way he was looking at me. With pity. I knew.

      An intense desire to run hit me. My shins still burned from my run yesterday morning, my thigh muscles ached, but I felt the pang hit my body hard.

      I jumped up, looking around wildly. The doctor stood, eyeing me as if I were a wild animal. But the urge to know kept me rooted to my spot.

      ‘Tell me. . .’ I rasped.

      ‘Your daughter . . .’ Dr Griffith touched my forearm. His hand was heavy, cool against my clammy skin.

      He said something about an accident.

      Somebody finding Olivia at the bottom of an embankment near the ZigZag Bridge.

      Something about a grand mal seizure, corneal reflexes, and a Glasgow score of four.

      He said something about a head wound, about fixed and dilated pupils and a CAT scan.

      That they’d taken her in for surgery as soon as she’d arrived.

      I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

      I collapsed on the chair, bending forward until my head was between my knees, as if preparing for a crash landing. I could hear my heart throbbing in my chest, the blood roaring in my ears, the harsh hiss of my breath as it rushed in and out of me in sharp, hollow gasps. My elbow throbbed painfully where I’d banged it.

      ‘No . . . no . . .’ I pleaded over and over, clenching and unclenching my sweat-soaked hands.

      The doctor sat next to me, his voice breaking through the heavy, viscous bubble surrounding me.

      ‘–sustained severe head trauma. I’m really sorry, Mrs Knight, but your daughter has suffered permanent and irreversible brain damage.’

      My mind reeled, trying to assimilate these facts into something that made sense. Shards of his words assaulted me through a roar of panic.

      ‘Is there someone we can call . . . ?’

      Who was there? My mom was dead. I never knew my dad. There was no husband, no boyfriend. I was too busy being a mother to date, too busy to have friends. There was only . . .

      ‘My sister.’ My voice sounded very far away, as if it came from down the hall rather than my own mouth.

      I wrote Sarah’s number on a scrap of paper. He took it and opened the door, handed it to somebody, then sat back down across from me.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Knight, we did everything we could to save her, but Olivia won’t wake up. Right now she’s attached to life support that’s keeping her body alive.’ He licked his lips, on the verge of saying something else. ‘But she . . .’

      ‘She’s an organ donor,’ I whispered numbly.

      It was what they wanted, wasn’t it? The day she got her driver’s license Olivia had signed up to save another’s life. ‘You know,’ she’d said, shrugging with the confidence the young have that they’re impervious to death. ‘If it ever came to that.’ My kind, gentle girl.

      ‘No, that’s not – What I mean to say is, we can’t legally turn Olivia’s life support off in her condition.’

      I didn’t understand. It was as if he had suddenly started speaking Urdu. A throb began pulsing under my eyes.

      He cleared his throat, his eyes scurrying momentarily away from mine. ‘We can’t turn life support off from a pregnant woman. Not in Washington State.’

      ‘Wh –?’ I breathed. My body went limp, boneless, my head spinning.

      ‘Olivia was – is – Olivia’s pregnant.’

2

       OLIVIA

      april, 6 months earlier

      The yellow school bus swayed slowly past the glimmering sea that fringed Portage Point and headed toward Seattle: our day-trip destination.

      ‘Ughh, the bus is so bo-o-oring.’ My best friend, Madison, flopped back in her seat next to me. She took a compact from her purse and started sweeping powder across her already-matte nose.

      We were heading to the University of Washington for the start of our two-day college tour. I didn’t know why she was complaining. Being away from school was like a vacation.

      Madison tossed her long dark hair and peeked over her shoulder. I knew she was looking at Peter and barely resisted rolling my eyes. Madison could be totally ADD when it came to guys.

      I slid the cool metal of my charm bracelet through my fingers. ‘At least we’re out of school,’ I said.

      ‘Too bad we can’t do something fun.’ She applied a shiny layer of cotton-candy-pink gloss to her lips and smacked them loudly. ‘Filling out college applications is totally lame.’

      I bit my cheeks so I wouldn’t say anything. Madison’s parents were rich. She didn’t really feel the same pressure I did about college.

      My mom, on the other hand, scrimped and saved every penny so I could go to college after I graduated next year. Four years of tuition was totally going to break her. I kept offering to get a part-time job, but she’d just say my job was to study hard and do well in school.

      I stared past Madison out the bus window and chewed a lock of hair. Sunlight slid through the window, interrupted every so often by the shade of passing trees.

      ‘Did you see Zitty Zara’s new zit this morning?’ Madison stage-whispered. ‘I think there’s a science experiment happening on her forehead.’

      ‘Don’t be mean!’ I smacked her softly, trying not to laugh. Zara did have gross skin, but I felt bad for her.

      ‘Don’t they have Accutane now?’ Madison continued. ‘Why doesn’t she take it?’

      She’d dropped

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