LITMIR.BIZ

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a seat in the lounge while I chat with your father,” he said. I’d been seeing him for years and he always ended my examinations with a private talk with my father, but something felt different this time. Daddy held the door open for me and as I walked past him, his face looked a hundred years old. He hadn’t quite closed the door behind me when I heard Dr. McIntyre say, “I believe her condition’s significantly worse than your wife’s was at this age.” The door closed before I could hear my father’s response, but it would have been lost on me anyway. I was shocked. I walked down the hall to the lounge, my legs feeling like they were moving through mud. I’d known, hadn’t I? Deep down inside, wasn’t I worried that my mother’s fate—death at twenty-five—would be my own? I knew I was worse off than I’d been even six months ago. I’d never been able to run as fast as my friends or ride my bike for miles like they could. But now, any teensy little bit of exertion left me winded and dizzy. Just the day before, my friends and I were dancing around my bedroom and after two seconds, I had to sit down. From my seat on the bed, I watched them laugh together as they perfected their moves and it was like I could actually feel them drifting away from me.

      Now I sank into one of the leather chairs in the lounge and waited. Even if I hadn’t heard what Dr. McIntyre said, I would have figured it out because by the time my father walked into the lounge, his eyes were red. He motioned for me to walk with him and he held my hand tightly as we headed through the double doors and out to the parking lot. Neither one of us said a word until we reached our car. I don’t think either of us could speak.

      “I love you so much, Robin,” he said finally, as he opened the car door for me. “I want everything good for you.”

      “I heard what Dr. McIntyre said,” I admitted, “about my heart being worse than Mom’s. Does that mean I won’t live as long as she did?” I’d just turned fifteen. That gave me ten years, max.

      “You’ll live longer,” my father said quickly. “Probably even a normal lifespan, because the doctors know more about your condition now than they did ten years ago, and more people are signing those donor cards, so when you need a heart, you’ll get a heart.”

      I wasn’t stupid. I knew it wasn’t that easy. I slid into the passenger seat and my father shut the door and walked around the rear of the car while I stared at the dashboard.

      “I want you out of PE altogether,” he said once he was back in the car and turning the key in the ignition.

      I was already sitting on the sidelines for just about every activity we did in Phys Ed anyhow, but I hated one more thing that was going to set me apart from my friends.

      “It’s not like I’m exactly straining myself in there,” I said.

      “And I’m going to drive you to school from now on.”

      “Dad,” I said. “You have to get to the university early.”

      “I’ll rearrange my schedule.”

      “What’s the difference if you drive me or I ride the bus?” I felt him chipping away at my freedom. He’d always been super overprotective. I had the feeling it was going to get a lot worse.

      “You have to walk to the bus stop and there’s just too much … excitement on the bus.”

      “No, there’s not! What are you talking about?”

      “Just … humor me, okay? I want your life to be as easy and peaceful as possible.”

      What he wanted was to be with me every minute. Protecting me. Suffocating me. Soon, he’d have me chained to his side.

      For the first time that night, I understood real fear. In bed, I felt my heart pounding against my ribs and heard the blood whooshing through my head, and I was afraid to go to sleep. My mother had died in her sleep, her heart stopping without warning. So I stayed awake for hours listening to every echoey thump, like I could somehow keep my heart going if I just paid attention to it.

      My father drove me to school the next morning. I caught up with my friends as they got off the bus and they were all talking about a boy my best friend, Sherry, liked and a party they all wanted to go to and how Sherry hoped the boy would kiss her there and how maybe there’d be beer and weed. I couldn’t find a way into their conversation and they forgot to slow down for me as we walked into the school. Sherry and I broke away from the rest of them as we headed for our science class, and we didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. I could hardly keep my eyes open, worn out from a nearly sleepless night. While my friends had been dreaming about boys and parties and getting drunk, I’d been doing my best to stay alive.

      There was a new boy in our science class. We sat at two-person tables, and since the boy who usually sat next to me was absent, Miss Merrill stuck Travis Brown in his place. He looked more like he belonged in the sixth grade than the eighth. Short and skinny. When I handed him the stack of papers Miss Merrill wanted us to pass around, he didn’t look me in the eye. He had these really long eyelashes and thick hair that hung over his forehead. He looked like a girl and he seemed really sad. He was the kind of boy who’d be a target for some of the idiot bullies at my school.

      “Robin,” Miss Merrill said from the front of the classroom, “after class, please share the assignments from the last few weeks with Travis so he can get caught up to the rest of us.”

      “Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t really say I didn’t want to. From a few rows in front of me, Sherry turned to give me an I’m glad she asked you and not me kind of grin.

      The last thing I wanted to do after class was hang out with this weird new kid, so I told him I’d email him the assignments that night. As I was walking out of class, though, Miss Merrill called me to her desk.

      “I picked you to help Travis for a reason,” she said to me. “His father died recently. I thought you might be able to understand what he’s going through.”

      “My mother died a long time ago,” I said. “It’s not really the same.”

      “Isn’t it?” She raised her eyebrows.

      “Not really,” I said again, but as I walked to my next class, Travis’s email address and phone number in my pocket, I knew she had a point. We were both half-orphans. You never got over that.

      I emailed him the assignments that night, but when he didn’t understand something I’d typed, I impulsively decided to call him.

      “Miss Merrill told me your father died,” I said, after explaining the assignment to him. “My mother died when I was four. So I think that’s why she picked me to help you.”

      “Not really the same,” he said.

      “That’s what I told her.”

      “You’ve had your whole life to get used to it.”

      “It’s still terrible,” I said. “I don’t remember her very well, but I still miss her. Miss having a mother.”

      He was quiet. “My father was so cool,” he said after a minute.

      “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

      “No. You?”

      “No.” I felt the loneliness suddenly. Mine. His. “It’s hard.”

      “Yeah, it sucks. And then we had to move on top of it. We couldn’t afford our house in Hampstead anymore and my mother has friends at the church here, but I hate it. We’re renting this old dump. I hate your stupid school, too. The beach is the only good thing about living here. My father always took me to Topsail and we’d hang out on the beach.” It was like I’d plugged him in and suddenly all these words were spilling out of him.

      “Where do you live?” I asked.

      “Carolina Beach.”

      “Oh.” I never hung out with the Carolina Beach kids at school. My father had always seemed to look down on them, an attitude I guessed I’d picked up without meaning to.

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