Beast(23)

Fine. We already went over this yesterday during the freak-out. When we found out my bone might be permanently effed.

“You should feel proud of yourself,” the nurse says. “They usually pull the pins out while you’re awake, but your break was so bad and you grew so much, you need surgery.”

“Defenestrate” is one of my favorite words. Not the version where you shitcan someone, although I’d really like to fire this nurse-guy, but the original meaning where you throw them out the window. King James II of Scotland defenestrated a dude, and if it worked for him, I imagine it’d work for me. Why not? I would like to pick up Nurse Ryan with my mighty twenty-and-three-quarter-inch arms and defenestrate him.

Splat.

I bet Mom would hold the window open.

She sits there, her leg jimmying up and down like a piston and her mouth mashed into a razor-thin line, so pissed she can barely speak. “How much longer?”

“He’s prepped for 9:15 AM,” the nurse says. He slams a hand on my back one more time, and my eyelid twitches. “All right, man, I’m off to talk to the doc. No food. No liquids. See you soon.”

Mom grunts as soon as the door closes.

“This is supposed to be the best orthopedic practice in Portland,” I attempt to justify.

“I almost don’t care anymore.” Mom rises and comes over to where I’m plopped on the bed. She lays her hand on top of mine. “You must be sick of it,” she says.

“Happens every day,” I say.

She nods.

“When will I stop growing?”

“I don’t know.”

“How are you so small and I’m so big?” I ask.

“Genetics are funny.” She squeezes my hand and I squeeze back. “You take after Dad. He was a big guy. You’re just like him, in every way,” she says.

Then I have only eleven years left until I die too.

Mom brushes off invisible pieces of lint from my stylin’ gown. “I just wanted you to know you’re not alone.” She touches her nose to my shoulder. A little nudge. “If you ever feel too big, it’s just because the world can be a little small sometimes.”

My stupid head lands on her shoulder. Her cheek presses on top of my scruffy buzz cut, and her arm wraps up as much of my shoulder as it can reach.

A new knock at the door and we both tense. It’s time. “Yeah?” I ask.

An orderly comes in with a standard-sized wheelchair. “I’m here to take you to surgery,” she says, sucking her lip when she sees me. “Oh…I don’t think…Hold on, let me get another chair.”

I hop down and get into my old one. Super deluxe and supersized. “No problem, use mine,” I say. The orderly pushes me and I wave goodbye to my mom. “See you in a couple hours when I’m back in the big, wide world.”





TEN


Waking up from this surgery isn’t as much fun as the last time. No pain pump with a super-cool button to push. No doubt Mom put the kibosh on that. Ah well.

She sits in the far corner of my dark hospital room, reading a book. On the cover a woman in a torn red dress with crazy hair and bare shoulders is getting mauled in the neck by some pirate dude. The spine’s cracked. Must be one of her favorites. Another of the hundred and ninety thigh-slapper novels that she hides under her bed and I accidentally find when I’m looking for ski poles, I bet. “What time is it?” I cough out.

“You’re awake,” she says, ramming the book into her bag. By my side in no time, she scoots a stool close and sits down near my head. “How do you feel?”

“Fine. Groggy.” I rub my eyes and flatten a palm against my head, the hair starting to stubbornly grow back. Feels like I’m rubbing a hedgehog.

“That’s normal,” she says. “Dr. Jensen said it went well and you can go home tomorrow. New cast, want to see?”

I roll over and check. All the names are gone. No more Fern Chapman. I smile. Good. She’s not allowed to sign this one. “Cool.”

“You had a visitor.”

“I did?”

A sneaky little smile takes over. She points. I follow the line and on my bedside table, there’s two daisies in an old iced-tea bottle by my bedside. “Where did these come from?”

“A girl dropped them off. I’m guessing she’s the same girl from that day when I caught you at Pioneer Courthouse Square,” she says. “Jamie? Is that her name?”

I almost explode off the bed. “Jamie was here?”

How did she know I had surgery? And she came into my room? With daisies? Do I smell them for clues or something? I pick up the bottle. The two daisies droop against the side of the open mouth. These aren’t store-bought daisies. Their petals are all gamey and chomped on by bugs. The two ragged stems swim in cloudy tap water.

“So what happened?” I ask, as nonchalantly as I can. “She came in?”

“It was the strangest thing. I’m sitting here, reading my book, when she barges in, all bags and boots and then I could see the girl underneath it all. She’s pretty.”

She says that like it’s a surprise—maybe it is because she was here for me. “Did she say anything?”

“Not at first, no. I was like, can I help you? And she almost ran for the door, but I talked her into staying.”