BEEP…BEEP-BEEP… BEEP…MY vision is blurry.I hear voices murmuring next to me. A sheet.A white sheet.There’s a white sheet over my face. There’s a white sheet over my face?THERE’S A FUCKING WHITE SHEET OVER MY FACE! OH MY GOD!I’M DEAD!I scramble to get away from the light. No light! No tunnel! Fuck you, tunnel, I’m not coming in!“No!” I yell, fighting the gauze between the worlds. “I’m not dead! I’m not dead! I’m not dead yet, fuckers! I’m not going! I’m not ready! I’m too young! I haven’t even tried anal sex yet!”Strong hands grab my wrists and hold me still.Do angels wrestle? Am I about to be part of an otherworldly smack-down? “Quin, relax. You’re not dead. You’re just stupid.”I freeze, no longer fighting the archangel Gabriel or whoever it is that has me in an iron grip.Recognition dawns. “Who’s that? Teagan?”“Open your eyes, dipshit.” She’s laughing at me, I can tell by her tone. “They are open,” I say, squeezing my eyes tight together. “Oh.” My lidsare already toget
MY HEART IS BEATING SO hard it feels like it’s ready to leap out of my chest. Thank goodness I don’t have one of those bleeping monitors attached to me. Mick does, so I can tell he’s not as nervous as I am.“Hi,” I say, more eloquent words failing me at the moment. “Hi.”“How are you feeling?” I want to touch my hair again to try and gauge how awful it is, but I don’t dare call his attention to it. Instead, I take a piece of my sheet and start folding it into a tiny accordion. Keeping my fingers busy takes my mind off the mess I’ve made of my life recently.“Lighter,” he says.I pause in my folding and look over at him. “You feel lighter?” “Yeah. Seems like I left an organ behind in the operating room.”I smile a little. He’s making jokes. That has to be a good sign, right? “Does it hurt?” I ask. Guilt. Oh, the guilt!“Not as much as the car ride over did. I’ve got good drugs right now.” His words come out sounding tired, maybe a little bit slurred.“Sorry about that,” I say, my face
“SISTER? ARE YOU IN HERE?” the little head in the cracked-open door says.I narrow my eyes at Mick and whisper, “You got lucky.” He’s smiling when I call out to my brother. “In here, Jersey. Just open the door.”The door opens a little farther and his head comes in more. “Sister?” His face swivels around, taking in all the details. “This is a hospital room,” he says, talking to Mick.“Yep.”“You’re not Sister. You’re Mickey Mouse.”“Yes, I am. How’ve you been, J-Man?” Mick holds up a hand for a high-five.Jersey comes the rest of the way in, completely ignoring me. “I’m good. Igot to leave Saturday school early. This place smells funny. I saw a doctor and a nurse and a dead body.” He stops at the side of Mick’s bed and gives him a high five that makes Mick wince with pain.My mother comes in, her arms loaded down with flowers. She peeks through the colors and greenery and smiles tremulously. “Hi, baby. How are you feeling?”I don’t know what it is about seeing my mom when I’m sick,
Everyone freezes. You could hear a pin drop in the room. But since there are no pins, we listen to Jersey’s ragged breathing instead.My mom straightens up and glares at me, abandoning her efforts with Jersey.“What?!” I say, probably too loudly. “What’d I do?”She points at me. “You’re the one who taught him that filthy language.” “Bullshit. Dad did.”My father’s eyes bulge out of his head and his hands fly up in surrender when my mom twists around to give him the dagger-eyes. “Hey … he didn’t learn anything from any of us he hasn’t already seen on TV. You know that, Viv. Just relax.”She throws her hands up to rest on her hips.I roll my eyes, knowing the poodle is about to hit the fan. Cardinal Rule #1 with my mom: Never EVER tell her to relax.“Don’t you dare, George. You know very well that Quinlan runs around the house all day with asshole-this and asshole-that and fuck-a-box-of-fuck-this and fuck-a-box-of-fuck-that. Her mouth is pure gutter talk.”I’m laughing silently with my
THE SILENCE STRETCHES OUT LIKE a rubber band between Mick and me. The pressure is mounting to the point of being unbearable, but he seems untouched by it. The only sounds in the room are the beeps from the heart monitor over Mick’s bed, and it’s back to counting out a normal rhythm.I lie there staring at the ceiling, my mind rushing from memory to thought to memory and back again, a thousand miles an hour. Everything is a jumble and I have no idea where to go from here. Do I talk about our date? The weather? Colin? Teagan and Rebel? The court case? The price of tea in China? The eternal question of what exactly it is that the fox says? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘a-hee a-hee a-HEE’.Mick saves me from trying to figure it out by talking first. “Your family is awesome.”I look over to see if he’s joking, but he has an easy smile on his face. “Are you serious? They’re insane.”“They’re fun.”“Mick. My brother just tried to light your bed on fire.” “Nah, he was just playing.”“Kee
I’M SOBBING AND I CAN’T seem to stop. “I fucked up, Tea. I fucked up. I fucked up.”She’s driving and patting me on the leg, the shoulder, the head, the face. “Shhhhh, babe, just relax. You are so on your period right now.”“I’m not, I’m not … I fucked up. I said some seriously mean shit in there.” I keep replaying my own words in my head and I’m thoroughly disgusted with myself. My mouth just got away from me or something. I don’t know why I keep letting that happen. It’s like I’m in self-destruct mode or something.“I need you to get your butt together. Alissa’s at the apartment and she’s already freaking out about every little thing. I can’t have her freaking out over you too. Seriously. Get those lady-balls out of your purse and put them in your panties, just for a few hours.”“I can’t. I suck. I suck. Just bring me home.”“Really?” She stops the car at the traffic light and looks at me. “You want to go home now instead of my place?”“No. Yes. No. Take me home.” I breathe out heav
A LONG, HOT SHOWER DOES a little bit of good for my mood, although it doesn’t fully restore it. I don’t think that’s even possible at this point. There’s too much unresolved in my life and too many unanswered questions about my near future. But at least the horror that was my hair is now gone.I’m sporting long, smooth locks with a light curl to them instead of a helmet o’frizz. I use the straightening iron to get every last bit of crispiness out of my dark, kinky hair. As ridiculous as it sounds, I want to try and fix things that can be fixed. My life is a mess, but my hair? … Not so much. At least I have that going for me. I just wish I could care about my eyebrows too, but I don’t. I keep looking in the mirror and wondering what Mick sees when he looks at me. It makes me sad when I realize it’s probably nothing special.“Hey, ho,” says Teagan, walking up the hallway and stopping in my doorway.“Hey, ho,” I say back, pulling a cardigan over my arms. “Time to make like a baby and hea
“Hi, Quin. Thanks for coming over,” he says.My eyes narrow and some anger slips back into my heart. Mick is lying in a hospital room right now, lighter in the organ department because of him.“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks. His voice is cautious. Calm.Way cooler than mine.“No.” I grip my purse strap hard with both hands. Teagan warned me about making a scene with asking Alissa questions; I’m pretty sure making a scene includes causing one in her general vicinity too.“Quin, go talk to him. Please?” Teagan is not playing. She sounds tired and sad.I blow a gust of hot breath up onto my forehead. “Fine. Talk.” I stare at a spot over his head. I can’t look him in the eyes right now. I feel guilty for some stupid reason.“I’d rather do it at my place,” he says. “Bad idea,” I say. “Do it here.”“If you guys don’t mind, maybe it would be better if you did it over there,” says Alissa, suddenly coming out of her book stupor. Her face is all pinched and snooty-looking.My mouth d