Anything but Ordinary(45)

Maybe she could become an English teacher, like Mr. Schefly, who she’d had junior year. When she had to miss class because of tournaments, he told her she didn’t have to do the regular assignments. He told her she could write about diving instead. But she usually chose to do the assigned work. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to write, it was that she wanted to keep diving to herself. She feared that if she wrote about it, she’d be giving something away.

She watched the clock. Her phone had died.

She wandered through the shelves, looking for him.

It had been three hours, and he hadn’t come.

She went outside, walking around the building, jumping at the sight of every tall, dark-haired guy. There were a lot of them, but not the one she was looking for.

Bryce sidled up to a pay phone, thinking she’d call home. As she put in the quarters and picked up the receiver, she heard, “Hey.”

He was behind her.

She hung up the receiver, barn swallows flying in her stomach.

He walked up to her, his hands hooked on the straps of his backpack. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She pulled off her hood, feeling her hair wind up in coils in the moist air.

“You should really charge your cell phone,” he said.

“I suppose.” They stood in silence for a minute, looking at each other. “But isn’t it more fun this way?”

“I suppose,” Carter echoed her.

Bryce laughed. And when the laugh faded, she laughed again. Together, they walked to his car, standing much closer than they had to be.





ryce sat in Carter’s car with orchids in her lap, orchids to the right of her, orchids in the back. Such is the life of someone who knows a lot of people in the Vanderbilt Medical Center.

The past few days, Carter seemed to always be leaving her to go to the hospital. He had always done that, of course, but Bryce had never really thought about where he was when he wasn’t with her. It got her thinking of all the people she knew there, the people she hadn’t spoken to since she left.

One bouquet was for little Sam (but mostly for Vandalia, his nurse, who often mentioned in a loud voice how much she loved flowers), one was for Jane, who she hadn’t seen since the CAT scan blowout, and the last one, the one in the back, was an apology to Dr. Warren.

Bryce was trying a new thing. Not just thinking good things, but doing them. So many people had helped her, and if she couldn’t be a good girl who did whatever they said, the least she could do was say thank you for all they’d done. Now it was just a matter of convincing herself that setting foot back in the hospital was worth it.

“You ready?” Carter pushed a couple blossoms away from his cheek.

“No,” she sighed, but she unhooked her seat belt and opened the creaky door.

They seemed to glide through the halls of the neurology wing, at least compared to the way she used to move through them. Jane was too busy to chat, but when Bryce handed her the flowers, she gave her one of those soft but strong hugs that Bryce loved.

Sam looked as peaceful as a painted angel, so Bryce left Carter to read him a couple of chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and headed toward Dr. Warren’s office.

Dr. Warren was out, but the door was open. There was barely room to set down the orchids. Her desk was covered in pages and pages of type, pens and highlighters scattered across it. GRAHAM, BRYCE was at the top of every single sheet. Her heart beat faster.

She scooted a thick stack to the right and set the flowers down. What, am I her only patient? No way. Dr. Warren was the head of the department.

Bryce was curious. She picked up one the papers, an image of a brain. My brain. There were red circles around certain spots. Bryce could imagine Dr. Warren poring over her desk, scribbling notes on the scanned image, her normally stoic face twisted with worry.

She backed into a corner of the empty, daylit office. Something must be wrong.

But something was always wrong.

Her stupid brain. Things came out of it that constantly baffled her. Strange visions. Impossible sights. Crazy thoughts that made her do foolish things. She swallowed with a dry mouth and walked into the bright hallway to find Carter.

She could hear his voice coming through the doorway of Sam’s room. He was speaking in a steady rhythm.

“‘…she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.’”

Bryce stepped inside. He looked up. “Hi,” she whispered.

Carter smiled, and it took away the balled-up feeling in her stomach. “You don’t have to whisper,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You should just talk to him as if he was awake. I mean…” He stopped, getting a funny look on his face. “I never whispered to you. And look where you are now.”

She understood. She remembered. She sat down in one of the patterned hospital chairs next to Sam. “Hey, Sam. Are you liking Huck Finn?”

He would be thirteen by now if he woke up, but he looked young, like a little-boy version of Carter. Handsome. Adolescence would have been kind to him. His face was light, unbothered.