24

TO DESCRIBE THE LAST FEW DAYS AS CRAPPY WOULD BE LIKE saying the Titanic hit a minor snag on its maiden voyage.

Easter’s never been a huge holiday in our house—we’re not all that religious—but this year I slept through it entirely. While thousands of marathon runners were #BostonStrong on Monday’s Patriots’ Day, pounding the pavement just across the river from me, I stayed under my covers, waking here and there when Dad delivered food on trays, like he used to when I had the flu as a little kid.

I mostly leave my phone across the room. Sibby’s in New York, probably still pissed off about our fight and definitely clueless about what happened back here, and I don’t need to see any Instagram pictures of my classmates living it up on their own vacations. After the other night, Will definitely can’t provide an escape for me anymore, though he did text me to say he was thinking about me and hoped I’d reach out whenever I felt up to it. Alex can get his updates from my parents.

But what is there to update? That my bloodwork at the hospital led to my being assigned a new MELD score of twenty-seven? (Twenty-seven. Three away from “needs a liver within weeks” and possible moves to faraway states.) That when I went to the bathroom yesterday I could have sworn the whites of my eyes had a tinge of yellow to them? That I’ve taken to peeing in the dark ever since and pretending to be asleep when my parents enter my room so they won’t notice?

That I don’t want to talk to anyone or do anything.

My disappointment over the missed liver is a cobra in a basket and at random intervals the lid gets knocked off and the snake uncoils and strikes.

All the negative thoughts I’ve tried to keep at bay since that day at the derby arena join forces and overpower the floodgate in my brain.

I’m Dorothy trapped inside the tornado as my world spins around me, only I don’t know if the place I’ll land at the end of all this will be anything like Oz. It could be better. Or worse. It could be blank nothingness.

I’m terrified.

It’s Tuesday afternoon when my phone rings, probably the only thing besides bathroom trips that could get me out of bed. I’m not harboring much hope of hearing from the hospital again so quickly, but my heart trips when the caller ID displays a number I don’t recognize.

It takes me three swipes to get the screen to respond because my thumb is instantly damp with sweat.

Calm down—it’s probably another robocall.

“Hello?”

“Amelia?”

“I— Yes?”

Okay, she sounds like an actual person, but that doesn’t mean—

“Hi! This is Claire Layzell, from the Cambridge Arts Commission. I sit on the committee that awarded you the grant for the mural?”

My breath whooshes out and then catches again as I simultaneously process that this isn’t a “We have a liver for you!” call, but in fact is probably about to be a callout. I haven’t touched the mural in six days now. I’d made good progress in the early part of last week, but once Thursday hit, that was that.

I scrub my T-shirt across a day and a half’s worth of fuzz on my tongue. “Oh! Yes, hi. How are you?” I’m trying to sound professional, or at least halfway normal, but my voice is froggy from underuse.

“We-ll,” she says, giving the word two syllables in a way that reinforces something is wrong. Usually this would cause my stomach to sink, but my reaction instead is surprisingly meh.

“I’m calling because I wanted to check in with you on your progress. I’m standing in front of your mural as we speak,” she says.

The contract I signed with the arts commission stipulated that all work had to be done prior to May fourth since the restaurant is slated to have its soft opening the following week. It’s now the middle of April, but I hadn’t been feeling particularly stressed about the deadline, especially because I knew I’d have this whole week off from school to work long hours on it. Except the thought of dragging myself out of bed and into the real world now . . .

The place in the core of my belly that usually bubbles up with eagerness whenever I contemplate getting my hands on that wall gurgles once, and disappears in a black hole of apathy. Who cares about a ridiculous mural? What’s the point? Besides, Sibby was right—it’s just a generic design anyone could do; it doesn’t have to be me.

Just like that, biliary atresia claims another part of me and I know I’m possibly being melodramatic, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I don’t even recognize myself.

I’ve been quiet on my end of the phone and Claire clears her throat. “So, maybe you could fill me in on where things stand? I ride by it every day on my route to work and was really excited about what I saw taking shape. When progress halted, it gave me pause. If you’re struggling with some aspect and I can be of any help, well, that’s the reason for my check-in.”

Her tone is coddling, like I’m some temperamental artist wrapped up in my creative genius and needing a dose of reality. Ha! I never used to be temperamental—I was exactly what Coach wrote in my college recommendation letters: hard-charging and enthusiastic. In the good ways. But that Amelia isn’t here right now. That Amelia has all the doses of reality she can handle and then some. That Amelia would never have even contemplated uttering the words that form instantly on my tongue.

The ones I now speak. “I’m sorry, but I have to quit.”

I don’t know which one of us is more surprised. There’s a small gasp on the other end and then . . . silence. I wait, scanning my emotions for the relief I thought would come from unburdening myself of this added pressure, which I really don’t need to be dealing with at the moment. Instead, I’m wooden.

Claire recovers before I do. “Can you please tell me why that is?”

“Um, I’m just having a really hard time making it work with my schedule,” I tell her. I keep my tone breezy; I don’t need any pity on top of her reproach. “I’m sorry,” I add once more.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Claire’s upbeat manner is gone, replaced by something much snippier. “I didn’t share this when I called to award you the grant, but the committee was very hesitant to give this project to someone so young. They were concerned that you’d ditch it when you got caught up in the other hoopla that comes with graduating high school. But I went to bat for you! I thought your application essay spoke to your maturity and I called them on their bias. You’re putting me in a difficult spot here.”

“I really am sorry.” Even a week ago, her words would have fired me up. Right now, though, the most my brain musters is a small internal outcry over the indignity of leaving her to believe that all teenagers are flakes.

I’m not a flake! I’m dying!

The echo of those two words bounces against my brain, stopping my breath.

I’m dying.

I’m dying.

Two months ago, that sentence would have sounded as far-fetched as believing that my mother would start a diet or that a guy I hadn’t seen in years would ring my doorbell out of the blue or that I’d go night swimming in the ocean in April. But all those things happened.

And so might this.

Oh my god, so might this. The knowledge settles in my spine. I could die.

My score is twenty-seven and if it reaches thirty, the need for a transplant becomes urgent. Meaning I could die soon.

Like, actually . . . die.

Dead.

Gone.

Forever.

It’s such a bizarre and abstract thing to try to get my head around and yet I can’t deny it anymore. It could happen.

The room spins and I sit hard on the end of my bed. I exhale, aware that Claire is still on the other end of the phone line, possibly waiting to see if I’ll add any further explanation. Well, maybe I will. If I’ve already gone entirely against character by quitting the mural, I might as well go the distance and concede defeat. What do I have to lose at this point?

“You don’t have to be embarrassed when you talk to them.” My voice is hollow. “Just tell them I’m not wrapped up in any graduation hoopla, and that it’s not a prom dress I’m in the market for—it’s a liver.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t? I’m not following.”

I screw my eyes shut and speak the words, as much for me as for her, letting myself taste them on my still-fuzzy tongue for the first time. “I have a serious liver condition and things aren’t looking great for me at the moment. I need a transplant soon or else . . . I could die.”

Her inhale is sharp. A beat passes before she speaks. “I—oh. Um, wow, I—had no idea. I don’t even know what to say here. You—”

I cut her off. “I didn’t know my circumstances myself until after I’d already accepted the commission. I should have updated you on my diagnosis.”

“Oh, Amelia, my heart is breaking. I’m so sorry. Please don’t give one more second’s thought to the mural. We’ll contact the runner-up and see if he—well, it doesn’t even matter where we go from here, that isn’t anything you need to worry about. I—is there anything I can do to help you?” She’s a totally different person than she was five minutes ago.

My mood is so black I’m tempted to snap, “Not unless you happen to have a type ABO B liver you’re not in need of,” but of course I don’t. It’s not this woman’s fault she happened to be stuck on the phone with me the first time I allowed myself to truly acknowledge what my fate might be.

Instead I thank her for her understanding and stumble over yet another apology, before disconnecting the call. I stare at the phone in my hand for a long time, in disbelief that I did the thing I swore I wouldn’t do: I used my disease as an excuse, for sympathy.

I just surrendered to being Dying Girl.

It’s not just my liver that’s being overtaken by scar tissue; it’s all of me.