Chapter Seven

Jake

I feel the panic coming on. It’s happened since the accident. I’ll be fine, then it hits me. I feel this pressure in my chest pulling at me, waiting for me to let my guard down. I can’t let go, not now and not ever, really. If I do, the pieces may never get put back together.

I shove it all back with a gulp and walk toward the kid sitting alone. I plop down beside him. “You don’t like to play?”

“I like it. I’m not as good as the others.”

I nod slowly. “Me either. I kinda suck, but it’s fun. Want to play anyway?”

The kid finally agrees, so I turn on the console and pass him a controller. I notice that when he takes it, there’s an attached IV to his left arm with some dark reddish orange liquid. “What’s your name?”

“Seth,” he says. The kid doesn’t like to look me in the eye.

“I’m Jake. How old are you?”

“Eleven,” he says.

“I remember eleven. That was a fun year,” I say, and Seth chuckles. “Do you want to play Facebreaker?”

Seth’s eyes widen. “You like Facebreaker?”

“Yeah, man, who doesn’t? You get to hunt zombies and kill them.”

His smile grows large as the game boots up. “Yeah! And you get to build traps, stations, survival kits. It’s got everything. Especially since this last update they did. It’s amazing.”

I chuckle. “I think so, too, kid.”

Two hours later, Seth and I have established a rather impressive settlement, even have survivors showing up.

“Right behind you,” Seth tells me, and I swing my character’s sword around to chop off a zombie’s head. “Nice!”

We are also a great zombie-killing team.

“So what are you in for?” Seth asks me.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you a community service volunteer, or a choice one?” he asks. “I’ve been here a long time. You seem like a community service one. Temporary.” He doesn’t look at me, and instead keeps walking his character through the abandoned city, scavenging and killing.

“Truthfully, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like playing games with you.”

That makes him smile.

“What are you in for?” I ask him.

“Spinal cancer.”

My heart races a little. “Really?”

“Yup, I have a tumor wrapped around my spine.”

“Wow, kid. That sucks.”

He shrugs. “Not the first time. I had a tumor in my brain and one in my lung when I was born.”

We’re interrupted when a woman walks to us, which I’m grateful for. All of this is reminding me a little too much of Jamie, and I really don’t need any help remembering that. Seth seems cool, though. Sucks that he has to deal with this.

“Seth, baby,” she says. “It’s time to go for now.”

“Ah man,” he says. He looks to her. “Please, Ma.”

“Sorry, babe. We gotta go. You can play more later.”

“It’s cool, man. We’ll save the game. I’ll be here next week, too.”

Seth nods. “All right.”

“Thank you for keeping him entertained.”

“No problem.”

He hands me the controller as a nurse comes over with a wheelchair. He groans, but his mom gives him a look. The nurse has to help him up and get into the chair, and I sit there watching the whole thing like an idiot. My mind is racing, and my chest has a there’s-something-sitting-on-it feeling.

Seth looks at me with a smile. “I had fun.”

I push down the tight feeling swelling in my chest. It pulls at me, trying to suffocate me. “Me, too, kid. See you next week.”

“Thanks again,” his mom says as they all walk away down the hall.

I place the controllers on the ground, rest my hands on my knees. Breathe, Jake. Think about right now.

I can’t think. And it’s hard to catch my breath.

The air is leaving my lungs too quickly.

Some kids are staring at me, but I stand up and move away. The room is getting blurry. I stumble down the hall. Where was I going? I just wanna sit down.

All I see is darkness. An anchor weighs on my chest, bright lights flash in my eyes, everything is wet. I can’t breathe. I vaguely hear voices around me, but I don’t know how to tune in. Images flash in my head, too fast for me to catch on to any of them. It all goes back to that night, to me and Jamie and puddles of blood soaking a cotton field. I’m there, and he’s stuck, and I can’t help him.

I can’t help.

“Jake?” Haley’s voice echoes around me, and I feel her hand on my arm. I don’t want her hand on my arm. It’s too heavy, too much on me. “You’re having a panic attack, okay?” I think she is pulling me away, but it’s hard to see anything except my hands covered in blood. “Sit.” Haley lowers me to the ground. Her hand is on my back, rubbing it. My head is spinning. Jamie is stuck in the car, he isn’t answering. Is it raining? Why am I wet?

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!

“Breathe in…One, two, three, four…breathe out…One, two, three, four,” Haley says. “Do it, Jake.” She repeats herself, and I try to do what she says. Over and over she says it, her voice calm and slow, her hand rubbing my back.

One, two, three, four… Slowly, I can control my breathing.

Breathe out. One, two, three, four… Everything is fading back into reality. The pressure is releasing from my chest. I’m with Haley. I’m not on the side of the road, not covered in blood, it’s not raining, and Jamie is not trapped in the car. I’m okay. He’s okay. Sort of.

“You with me?” Haley asks, her hand still moving in small circles on my back.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I say.

Haley gets up, and I look around. We’re in the art supply closet she showed me earlier. She lowers herself back down on the floor in front of me and hands me some tissues. Good Lord. Was I crying?

“Wow, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re okay?” Her big blue eyes sparkle with concern. I have to look away.

“Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Sometimes. Ever since the accident,” I say. When these attacks happen and pull me from here, I feel like shit. I’ve got that dizzy, fatigued feeling, like I can’t even carry my own body weight or keep my head up. “Promise you won’t mention this to anyone, especially not your brother. He’d be all over me like white on rice.”

“Whatever you tell me stays between us. Don’t worry about that.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I actually believe her. I look at her, and her eyes are so open and caring. “You were really great at helping with that.”

She gives me a soft smile. “Well, I’ve dealt with it. I work in a children’s rehab center. Parents, kids, other volunteers. I cried for days when I first met Gracie.”

“I’m impressed,” I say, but I have been since the BS Party when she told off Shelby Kramer. Haley Howell seems to be full of surprises.

Haley shrugs like she doesn’t know what to do with the compliment, but her cheeks get a little rosy.

“You have a lot of impressive things about you, actually.”

“I mean, yeah. I’m awesome,” she says.

I laugh. “Right, obviously.”

She laughs, too. We sit there in the closet, this quiet understanding between us, and I’m not really sure what I want to do next. I’ve never sat this close to her like this before. Her eyes light up when she smiles, and I’ve never noticed how they have little specks of green in them. I don’t want to stop looking.

“I guess we better get back to it.”

I reach out and touch her arm. “Did you want to eat some lunch after?”

“Sure. What were you thinking?”

“Chinese?”

Haley smiles. “I love Chang’s. It’s my favorite.”

“No way,” I say.

She looks offended. “Yes way. I mean, have you had their crab rangoons? It’s like they fill them with love. Oh, or that garlic pepper shrimp? Yum!” I can tell she means it because she says it like someone who loves food. Like she’s seeing it and tasting it already.

“I do know. Chang’s is my favorite, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but Howell hates it, and he believes all Chinese food is made from cats, so we never go.”

“Tell me about it! My brother is ridiculous,” she says.

It’s like saying his name breaks whatever spell we had going on. The energy in the closet changes, and something clicks into place. We both sit there another second, trying to find it again, but Chris Howell has broken it.

“Let’s go clock out,” she says.

Haley is on her second plate of garlic pepper shrimp—and to be honest, I like it. I like a lot about Haley Howell. She’s got good taste buds, and she’s really funny. And cute, like the kind of adorable cute that I wanna be around. I never really spent enough time with her to notice that before.

“I didn’t know you liked Play or Be Played.”

“What’s not to like about it? It’s a reality gameshow where people don’t even know they’re playing a game. That shit is classic hilarity,” I say.

She laughs and takes a drink of her sweet tea. “It’s good. My favorite of all time, though, has got to be The Mailroom.”

I drop my fork in a very dramatic way on purpose. It’s the same thing Shawn from the show does when someone has done something dumb and he’s now got to go fix it, which is all the time.

Haley laughs. “Nice impression.”

“Shawn is the best.”

“I’m a Percy fan.”

“Percy, huh?”

“Yeah, he has a good heart and a small brain.”

I laugh, too. “I love that show. Jamie hates it.”

“Chris, too. Our brothers are weird.”

“We should watch it together,” I say.

“You practically live at my house anyway, so yeah, any time.”

This day started out weird, but I’m having a really good time with Haley. She’s surprising. It’s astounding how you can spend your whole life knowing someone and not really know them at all.

“So what do you know about Seth?” I ask because now my mind is back there again.

“Mmm,” she says. “He’s been in and out for most of his life. His mom is a single mom, two other brothers. He started treatments again in hopes of reducing the tumor, but they won’t know what happens until it happens.”

“He’s a cool kid.”

“Yeah, he’s got a lot of passion.”

“He loves Facebreaker.”

She grins at me. “Yeah, he loves video games and football.”

“Football, huh?” I ask, and she nods. “Did you tell me to sit with him on purpose?”

Haley puts her hands up in defense. “No, honestly I did not.”

“I believe you.”

“You should,” she says.

Mrs. Chang brings us the check, with some of those extra chocolate mints and two fortune cookies. We each toss in some money, and Haley grabs her fortune, then looks at me. “Grab one.”

“I don’t do fortune cookies.”

“Everyone does fortune cookies.” I don’t want to say no, so I take it. “We have to open them at the same time.”

“Why?”

“Because the universe has to decide which fortune we are going to get, and we need to do it together.”

I give her a look because that sounds ridiculous, but I’ll play along.

“Okay,” I say, and we unwrap the cookies. On her count of three, we break them at the same time and unroll our fortunes.

She hmms and reads hers aloud. “‘Your smile is a passport into the hearts of others.’”

“Not bad,” I say. “Mine says, ‘All things are difficult before they are easy.’”

Haley smiles. “See? Fate meant that for you.”

“Maybe.”

“I should get going. I have homework, already. Thank you for the lunch idea.”

“We should do it again next week.”

She smiles again, and it really may have some sort of power. It’s disarming and rewarding, a prize I never want to let go of. I’ve never felt some sort of way just from a girl smiling at me. It makes me want to do it more.

“Done,” she says.

When I get home, Jamie is playing Facebreaker.

“How was your day volunteering at the soup kitchen?”

“Great,” I say. “It was great.”