Sunny(15)

Then Aurelia jumped up, and screamed what we both already knew.

You’re choking!

Now, this is the part that I didn’t expect. No one really knows what to do. Not me. Not Aurelia. Not even you, Diary. So I did the first thing I could think of, and no, it wasn’t dance. I just started throwing things. Not, like, really throwing things, but knocking things around. I spun and swiped the rest of the breakfast off the island, even Aurelia’s, then I staggered backward and knocked the dish soap and paper towels and basically everything on the counter onto the kitchen floor. I don’t know why. Just a reaction. When you choking, you just have to move. Can’t just stay still when there’s a chewable but not-so-chewable golf ball stuck in your throat, cutting your air.

Aurelia also didn’t know what to do, so she ran over to me and told me to turn around and started beating on my back, which, let me tell you, doesn’t work. Then she threw her arms around me, grabbed me around my stomach and just started yanking me and pulling me toward her, which I guess was supposed to be the Heimlich maneuver. And she did that for a while, and I kept hacking and hacking, and eventually, guess what? It didn’t come up. It just went down.

That was breakfast.

That’s how the day started. With me almost choking to death on a hot piece of a too-hard biscuit. And after I got over how scary it was, we laughed about it.

It can only go up from here.





Dear Diary,

I’m sure you could probably guess that me and Aurelia were late to the hospital. When we finally got there, Gramps was in the lobby already. But he wasn’t waiting for us, he was talking to Patty’s aunt. The same aunt I had just been thinking about when Aurelia came to the door talking about car accidents. Now, Diary, I don’t know if this is true, but I might be one of those special people who make things happen by thinking about them. So I’m going to try to remember to think about throwing the discus on Saturday morning. I’m going to imagine myself throwing it a long, long way. I’m also going to imagine my father laughing. And I’m going to do that right now.

Anyway, Patty’s aunt was talking to my grandfather and telling him something about how hard it’s been for her to depend on other people since she broke her arm, and how Patty is doing the best she can, but she doesn’t want to distract Patty from school and running.

Then Gramps introduced me to her, and before she could say anything, I just gave her a hug because I had just been thinking about her, which now that I think about it, might’ve been weird. Even weirder than a wave.

I also didn’t think about how a hug could hurt. Especially when your arm’s broken.

I apologized, and I told her that I only hugged her because I know her. From practice. And that I was Sunny.

Guess what, Diary? She called me a celebrity! And said she’d heard a lot about me and how I was going to be the first thrower for the Defenders. I told her that was true but that I might not be as good a thrower as I am was a runner.

And she said she thinks I can throw the discus a mile. Maybe even two.

Diary, I wanted to tell her that was impossible, but she was so nice and she already had a broken arm, and I’d already almost died, so I felt like maybe we should let some of the small things slide. She thanked my grandfather again, then told me she’d tell Patty she saw me. And once she went to catch her ride, Gramps asked me and Aurelia what took us so long.

Aurelia told him it was a long story and that it didn’t matter because we were there and we were ready. But Gramps didn’t look good. He looked like something was happening behind his skin. Like his thoughts were making his stomach hurt. Like they were milk that had become glue in his gut.





Dear Diary,

I know I said a little while ago that my day can only go up from here but

Like I said, Mr. Rufus deserves his own entry.

There’s something weird that happens when your grandfather, who is a doctor, tells you your favorite patient of his took a turn. “Took a turn” doesn’t mean what it means on the track when you take the turn. It doesn’t mean what it means when you’re doing a puzzle and you take a turn to put a piece in. It means upside down. It means not good. It means stuff like amniotic embolism, or, in Mr. Rufus’s case, coma.

There’s something weird that happens when you hear, He’s fighting for his life. There’s a feeling that comes over you, that came over me, that sounded like, Cushhhhhhh. The same sound of a crowd going wild or a TV on a bad channel. I felt like a TV on a bad channel. Like I didn’t have a signal and couldn’t get a clear picture. It’s weird for nothing to be a feeling. The feeling of nothing is still a thing. And it sounds like Cushhhhh, and it feels like falling in slow motion.

But I was somehow able to say, in regular motion, that I wanted to go see him.

Mr. Rufus changed overnight. Like, even though he’s just in a deep sleep—a deep sleep he might never wake up from—his face looked completely different. I can’t really say if he looked like he had become older all of a sudden, or if he maybe went backward and became an infant again. I don’t know, but it kind of seemed like both.

Gramps said that there was no point in us doing our dance routine because Mr. Rufus wouldn’t be able to see us, but that if I wanted to talk to him, he could hear me.

So I sat next to his bed. I didn’t really know what to say to him. I mean, I only know him from coming to the hospital twice a week and dancing for him. But he’s the one who always danced with us. He always bopped around in the bed and laughed and it was kinda like he understood me, just by doing that. I figured I could share whatever was on my mind. I mean, I didn’t know what else to really talk about. So I leaned over and whispered in his ear and told him I almost choked to death this morning.