3

THERE ARE FEW THINGS IN LIFE AS ANNOYING AS THE SOUND OF four hundred and seventeen pairs of feet stomping up wooden bleachers. Except for maybe the smell of the four hundred and seventeen teens attached to those feet, crammed into a stifling high school gymnasium that held a varsity wrestling match yesterday afternoon and the town rec program’s Zumba for Expectant Moms before first bell this morning. Nothing could rival the smell of that blood on the derby track two weeks ago, but this is mounting a good case for second place.

“You ready?” Sibby asks, surveying the audience from our spot under the basketball net.

I nod. How could I not be? I said I would find a way to own this situation and I’ve hit upon the perfect solution. Plus, this is hardly our first rodeo. Or our tenth. This scene is both familiar and exhilarating.

There are two places I feel most like me: on the derby track and onstage at a rally. Roller derby is out at the moment, so rally it is.

I glance at my mother, who’s here for “moral support” and is standing on the sidelines nearby, chatting with Miss Leekley, my art teacher. They catch me looking and Mom flashes the subtlest of thumbs-up signs, paired with a tentative smile.

“Who am I?” Sibby asks, drawing my focus back to her.

I grin. “You are the madwoman in their attic.”

“And you are a rebel swamp forest goddess. We yield to no one and nothing. We bend all to our will.”

Some rely on Kanye in their earbuds, some chug Red Bull. Sibby and I pump up for our speeches with our own special brand of affirmations.

Principal Kurjakovic raises her eyebrows at us and, upon Sibby’s answering nod, strides to center court and taps the microphone. “Good morning, seniors! I’m sure many of you are wondering what the purpose of today’s assembly is. For that, I’ll hand things off to Sibilla Watson and Amelia Linehan. Please give them your full attention and respect.”

I’m not sure we’ll get either for long. Graduation is less than three months away, close enough that we can taste it, so attention spans are shot to hell already. And with college acceptances coming in earnest this week, those are basically all anyone can focus on. But for the moment my classmates’ naked curiosity is keeping smuggled phones tucked in pockets and whispers quiet.

Sibby squeezes my pinkie one last time before stepping forward for the mic handoff. Everyone cringes at the scritch-scratch noise the speakers broadcast when she vigorously wipes the head of it with the edge of her T-shirt, which reads EXTRA AF. I doubt much blame is cast, though; our principal has a well-documented issue with spittle.

I force my shoulders back and my spine straight as I catch up to my best friend, accept the now-clean mic from her, and turn to face my classmates.

“Fellow Falcons,” I begin. “We interrupt your morning to bring you an important call to action. A big thank-you to Principal Kurjakovic for allowing us this platform.”

Sibby tips her head toward the mic in my hand and says, “And we know you’ve come to expect this kind of stuff from us, but today’s is bloody important so don’t be a bunch of Tooligans.”

This earns some appreciative giggles, even though the majority of my classmates have no idea what she’s just said. Sibby collects Australian slang words like they’re souvenirs from her annual trips back home and takes glorious pleasure using them in undiscerning ways.

I allow the laughter to fade away, then launch into the next bit of our speech. “We want to talk to you today about organ donation . . . specifically why you should consider registering to be a donor. Your organs alone could save the lives of up to eight patients and help countless more. The numbers speak for themselves and, in fact, polling shows that ninety-five percent of people in this country support organ donation. The problem is that only fifty-two percent have taken the mere minutes required to register.”

Sibby’s hand covers mine on the mic and she raises it toward her. “Why, you ask? Because you American tossers are even bigger bludgers than us Aussies, that’s why.”

My classmates who recognize that she’s now sworn—not once, not twice, but four times—within the first few minutes, and in plain earshot of half the school’s administration, reward her with scattered cheers.

She silences them with a finger to her lips and waits for their full attention before dropping her voice low and sober. “There’s nothing to applaud, friends. There’s a severe shortage in the number of available lifesaving organs. Every ten minutes another person is added to the waiting list for one . . . and every day twenty-two people die while languishing there.”

I purposefully reviewed this speech over and over so I could become immune to those numbers, although a shock wave still passes through me at hearing them reverberate through the gymnasium. I plant my feet and will it away.

Mental toughness, that’s what Dr. Wah prescribed. Which happens to be your specialty, I remind myself.

Sibby is giving me raised eyebrows, waiting for me to speak my line.

I gather my breath and speak from my diaphragm. “Seven thousand patients in America alone could be saved each and every year if we had a more robust donor pool.”

Here we go.

My stomach roils but I stare boldly at my classmates and state, “One of those patients saved could be me.”

A ripple runs through them and I will myself to keep my chin high. Activism 101: There are two core components to every successful campaign—hit your audience with stats to drive home the problem, then give them a personal story to connect them to the cause. Today that story is my own. We’ve reached the “necessary evil” part of this rally and I just have to power through it.

Even so, this is the part I’m most apprehensive about. I’m telling them about my BA this way so I can own the narrative, on my terms, and turn a bad situation into positive action. I’m not doing it in dramatic fashion as a play for anyone’s pity—that’s the very last thing I want—but I’ve worried it could be seen as that.

I need to command their respect, not their sympathy.

I picture all my activist idols from Sojourner Truth to Emma Gonzalez, channel their fierceness, and exhale. “A couple weeks ago I learned that a disease I was born with, but that hasn’t really affected me until now, is slowly turning my liver to cement. If I don’t receive a transplant, eventually the liver I have now will go into organ failure.”

My voice stays steady and strong and I’m proud of that.

Fear is not the boss of you; courage is.

The gym stills abruptly at my words, but I don’t react. I’m reciting memorized lines, injecting calculated emotions, stopping any real ones from penetrating my armor. I don’t dare glance at Sibby or, equally dangerous, my mother. Instead, I clench my jaw and force myself to return my classmates’ attention.

I know what they see when they look at me. They see the same pink streak my hair always has. (Well, the color sometimes changes, but the streak itself doesn’t.) They see the familiar necklace that spells out Rolldemort in loopy gold letters. They see yet another of my shabby chic/retro outfits. Today it’s a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, topped with a navy cardigan that has embroidered rosebuds marching up the button band, a bright yellow pleated skirt, and pink-and-white-striped socks that reach well above my red boots.

I don’t know all four hundred of them personally, but I’m pretty sure I can guess what every last one of them is thinking: She doesn’t look like she’s dying.

Which is very true.

There are no outward physical signs that anything is the least bit off with me. If central casting put out a call for “Dying Girl,” I would not—repeat NOT—land the role. For one thing, those trope-y kids are always baby-faced and angelic-looking, whereas my eyes, while perfectly fine as far as I’m concerned, aren’t saucer-shaped enough to be described as “doe-like.”

Also, Dying Girl is always “wise beyond her years.” I’m pretty damn smart and happy to own it, and I wouldn’t be sitting on an early admission to Amherst if I wasn’t. But smart and wise are two very different things.

Oh, and I could never convincingly flutter my eyelashes and ask Dr. Only On TV Do Medical Professionals Look Like Me for a chaste yet still utterly age-inappropriate first kiss before I slip away to meet my maker on the gentlest of exhales. Especially since my first kiss ship sailed, well . . . a while ago. Hudson Fordham. Ninth grade. Maisy Tannenbaum’s house. Maisy Tannenbaum’s mother’s peach schnapps. (For Hudson, not me. I was stone cold sober for the whole disastrous slobberfest.)

So pretty much the only X mark I’d get on the Dying Girl checklist of requirements is that . . . I might be dying.

As soon as I have the thought, I push it away. Harshly.

You are not dying. Do not think like that. Ever.

The whole point of this assembly is that I don’t intend to let anyone else think like that either. I might be sharing my story with them now, but I want them to walk away with all the proof they need that I’m the same Amelia as ever: fierce and fabulous.

A cell phone rings deep in a backpack and there’s a curse and a frantic rustle for it. Someone cough-shouts “Dumbass” and a few people giggle.

I embrace the comic relief, smiling myself before saying, “I want everyone to know that I’m getting good medical care and I’ll be fine—I didn’t share any of that to shock you or to have you worry about me, but because I want to put a face on this cause and make the point that you never know just who might need this lifesaving gift you have to offer. So, if you do decide that you’d like to register to become a donor, we’re here to make it really easy for you. Some of you may have already declared yourself one when you got your driver’s license.”

I hand the mic to Sibby, who continues, “If you aren’t sure, look to see if you have a little heart symbol on there. If you didn’t know what that meant at the time or you’ve changed your mind since, you can sign up today and you’ll get a card you can carry in your wallet.”

She passes it back to me. “We have volunteers with materials from Donate Life on hand today. They’ll be set up outside as you leave and they can answer questions and get you all taken care of.”

I’m supposed to continue with instructions here, but Sibby tugs at the mic. I release my grip and a whisper of apprehension ghosts along my skin when I turn to her and see the two marks of red high on her cheeks. Those are Sibby’s “I’m going to cry” tells.

Sure enough, her voice is choked with tears when she says, “Lia’s story will have a happy ending. It will. I’d like to think you’d all form a long line if Lia needed a kidney. Actually, you wouldn’t even need to, because she’d already have one of mine.”

The sentiment is super sweet but . . . no. No, no, no. Please don’t, Sibby. This isn’t what we rehearsed at all; she’s completely off script. She’s supposed to be strong, like me. She can’t get emotional. They’ll take their cues from her and that’s not what this assembly is for—it’s for exactly the opposite. It’s so that everyone can see I’m handling things just fine and even being proactive about using my experience for a greater good. This is me setting the tone and leading by example.

Sibby sniffles loudly into the microphone and pauses to run her sleeve under her nose. “But while we each have an extra kidney to offer, none of us has a spare liver. I get that.”

My hands twitch, desperate to swipe the mic away from her. I know she’s my best friend and I should be sympathetic to how this whole thing is affecting her—and I am. It’s not like it doesn’t twist my gut to see her crying over me. But how can she not realize what this display of hers is going to do? Maybe she didn’t know she’d react this way until we got up here, and that’s fair. Except now that she has lost it, she should be cutting things short and rushing us off the floor—not ad-libbing all this other stuff.

But she doesn’t hurry us offstage. Instead she continues, “Since we can’t offer up our livers, the least we can do is offer our names to that registry. I know we’re all dreaming about breaking loose from this place and setting off on grand adventures, me included, and I wouldn’t actively wish for anything terrible to happen to any of you. But the fact of the matter is that none of us knows what our futures hold and your very last act on Earth could be saving a life. Lives, even. Lives like my Lia’s.”

She throws her free hand around my shoulders and I’m too shell-shocked to do anything but play along. Does she really not recognize this has veered so far off message we’re practically in another time zone?

“Save Amelia! Save Amelia!” someone chants.

Oh no. No, no, no. Please no. My story was only supposed to connect people to the case for organ donation—generic, anonymous organ donation.

I was never supposed to become the cause.

Half the class has taken up the refrain, ignoring the hand I’m holding up to stop them, before I manage to grab the mic from Sibby and plead, “No, please! Please stop!”

I can’t believe Sibby is actually smiling at them, when I’m horrified. Positively horrified. I don’t need them to save me. I don’t need saving. Okay, yes, technically speaking I guess I actually do. But from a stranger, not from my peers.

I need everyone here to treat me the same way they always have.

I wave the last stragglers quiet. “Um, look. I’m fine. Please. This isn’t about— What I mean is . . . whether you decide to be a donor yourself or not is totally your choice. If you do decide for yourself and of your own free will, minus any guilt trip, more information and sign-ups will be in the hallway outside the gym.”

People crane their necks toward the exits and I rush out the last little bit of my script, desperate for this horror show to be over. “Also, make sure you tell your parents your wishes, because if you haven’t turned eighteen yet, they still get final say and they should know what it is you want done with your body.”

Sibby hijacks the microphone again, with my hand still attached, to say, “Take extra forms! Hand them out on the T, or at your next track meet, or at Comic-Con, for all I care. The more people we can sign up, the better odds Lia has!”

“Save Amelia! Save Amelia!” a lone voice from the back resumes and it’s only by some miraculous blessing that everyone’s now too absorbed in gathering things and talking to their seatmates that it doesn’t get taken up again. Thank god. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining.

But then I happen to catch KellyAnne Littlefair’s eye as she lines up to make her way across the bleachers, and she glances away quickly, like she’s embarrassed to have been caught studying me.

KellyAnne and I swap Anatomy notes. We’re not friends, exactly, but we’re friendsish. I know she’s not trying to be hurtful, but she’s just confirmed my biggest fear.

I’m used to being noticed around school for being the girl always ramped up about a cause, or for playing roller derby, or for one of my more unusual retro outfits, or maybe even as one half of the Lia + Sibby badass duo. All of those things are expressions of who I am, and I have no problem owning them.

But what if, from here on out, everyone only sees me as . . . Dying Girl?

Well, screw you, central casting, because I do not accept the role.