Hope and Other Punch Lines(54)

“We’re going to kick the blue team until they’re dead!” Livi says, interrupting our weird showdown. Her whole tiny body vibrates with excitement. “We’re going to be the winningest!”

“I like your enthusiasm, but we’re not supposed to actually kick the other team. Or, you know, kill them,” Noah says, charmed by Livi, which in turn charms me despite myself.

“Not actually kill ’em dead,” Livi explains, and shadowboxes the air before progressing through an array of karate moves. “But boom, pow, wham, boink ’em!”

“That was some impressive onomatopoeia,” Noah says, smiling at Livi, and then he pauses only a half second before mock-punching my shoulder.

We’re back to being buddies. I tell myself I don’t mind. I tell myself you can’t lose something you never really had.



* * *



—

The blue team is going down. We’re in the middle of an aggressive game of musical chairs—it turns out I’m a ringer—and I’m distracting myself by getting completely swept up in the competitive spirit. Red paint decorates my face. My hands still burn from tug-of-war. My voice is shredded from screaming. The scoreboard is officially tied, and we’re moments away from learning who won the day’s Color War.

After a particularly brutal seventh round, most of my fellow reds have been eliminated. Only Livi, Noah, and I are left from our team. From the blue, there’s Zach and two boys whose names I do not know and who I intend to beat, despite the fact that they are four years old and the cutest.

The music switches on, and we begin to circle again, moving increasingly faster in our weird squat-run so that our butts are ready to find the nearest chair. The song swells along with my heart. For the first time in my life, I understand all those sports fans who cry over things like the Super Bowl. I’ll admit it: I want to win. I want to win more than I’ve ever wanted to win anything in my life.

This feels much bigger than the first day of a silly camp Color War. This is about giving Livi a taste of victory after no one wanted to be on her team. This is about giving me a taste of victory too. Some sort of cosmic sign that I will be okay for now, that this heartbreak is temporary, that I’ll survive summer’s end.

The music stops. I drop to the nearest chair and manage to beat the two blue boys, who end up falling onto my lap.

“You’re out!” I scream, exuberant, punching the air, until I see that both Livi and Noah have been left standing too. Shoot. It’s just me and Zach for the last round, and victory now rests solely on my shoulders. A crowd has gathered around us—a bunch of the older kids and even Lifeguard Charles—and the cheering grows louder.

I can do this, I tell myself. I will do this.

I think tactically. I’m about half of Zach’s size, so I can’t meet him with brute force. I’m going to have to be sneaky and fast.

The music starts—a girl-power pop song, one of my favorites, one that I danced to in my room before the start of camp, one that promises I’m better off without him—and we start our rotation around the single chair. I’m breathing heavily, enough to feel the burn in my lungs, sharp and tight. I ignore the pain.

“Go, Abbi! Go!” Livi yells.

“You got this,” Noah says, calm and fierce at the same time.

“Take him down!” Julia screams, crossing team lines to root for me.

I watch Zach’s hairy knees as we move, and listen. I know this song, have air-drummed to it enough to know when the absence of music means an extra beat or dead air. Then, as the singer promises to come back stronger, louder, better, there it is, a millisecond of a pause and the music stops. Zach starts to lower his heavy body onto the chair, and so I do the only thing I can. I slip right under him and land first.

I win.

The crowd goes wild. Everyone is screaming. Zach still sits on me, but I’m so excited that I barely notice. The chair, this victory, is mine. All mine.

After a moment, I push his back to get him off me, but he doesn’t move. I push again.

Suddenly, my disloyal lungs decide now would be a good time to revolt. They don’t even give me a chance to revel for a few minutes. I cough deep and hard and it hurts in a way coughing is not supposed to hurt. I feel like I’ve dislodged an organ.

“Get off of her!” Noah yells, right up in Zach’s face. I cough more. I feel the blood vessels in my face fill. Too hot. “You’re hurting her.”

“Seriously, move,” Julia says as Noah grabs Zach by the collar and lifts him off me.

“Relax, brother, I was playing,” Zach says. “I was barely sitting on her. She’s fine.”

Except despite the fact that I’ve been freed, I can’t get any air. The coughing gives way to a whooping wheeze. The world blurs and I see explosions of light.

“Help!” Noah screams. “She has asthma!”

“What?” Zach asks.

“Someone call an ambulance,” Noah says.

Ambulance? No. This isn’t happening. I’m fine, I want to say. We won Color War! Please don’t ruin this for me.

I want to tell him This will pass. It always does.

I want to say I know what this is.

I want to say I still have one more month.

No words come. I’m trapped in one of those nightmares where you can’t scream.