The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(37)

“When’s the deadline for the art contest?”

“I’ve already signed up, but I have to turn in my piece three days before the exhibition. Which means I have to finish by July twentieth. I can show you what I’ve done so far. I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to put it all together, but if you want…”

“I want. Believe me, I want.”

Wait—what did he want? Not Minnie, that’s for sure. Dark eyelashes blinked at me as his knee rested against mine, and suddenly it was that first night on the bus all over again, staring at each other with flames shooting between us. I quickly decided my fantasy with the spill on the shirt was far too tame—I needed to spill something down the front of his jeans.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured.

“I’m thinking about your 4-H belt buckle,” I murmured back.

Well. That shocked him. Guess my future bon vivant college self had officially chosen Jack over the ex-swimmer college professor.

“I was thinking about how hot your bra looks beneath that see-through toga shirt, so I guess we’re even.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Show me Minnie before I embarrass myself in front of Nurse Katherine the Great.”

Guh. Okay, now he’d shocked me. But God as my witness, I would see that belt buckle again in the near future or die trying.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and blew out a long breath as I stepped across the room to my drafting table. The sketchbook was stashed among a couple of others between the table and the wall. Not that Mom would instantly know I’d been at the lab if she saw the sketches. I copied a lot of “internals,” as I liked to call the inner-organ diagrams, from old textbooks.

Jack hovered near my right arm, watching me flip open the sketchbook. If anything could put a damper on rampant sexual frustration, it was looking at cadaver drawings. I skipped over my preliminary sketches and went for the one I’d been working on the last two sessions: a view of Minnie’s full torso, including the dissected arm. It was pretty disturbing and, frankly, I’d been having a hard time looking at my sketches after I left the lab. This one was extra-bad because I’d included her face and hair. But I really felt I needed to because it humanized her—made her less of a “thing” and more of a real person.

Maybe a little too real …

“Think I’m going to pass out,” Jack mumbled from my side in a funny voice.

I started to apologize, but the words never left my mouth. His legs folded, and he dropped as though like someone had shot him. He was pranking me, surely. That’s what I thought for all of one second.

He wasn’t getting up.

16

I fell on my knees by his side and touched his face. He wasn’t dead. He groaned and tried to lift his head off the floor, but his eyes weren’t opening.

“Mom!” I yelled, but she was already racing into my room with Noah and Heath.

“What happened?”

“He was looking at one of my drawings and said he was passing out, and he just collapsed.”

Mom went into nurse mode. “Honey, can you hear me? Jack?”

“M’okay,” he slurred. His eyes fluttered open.

Her hands moved in quick succession over his neck, forehead, wrist. “Listen to my voice. Are you diabetic?”

“No.” He tried to shift his legs.

She quickly repositioned them. “Are you on any meds?”

“No.” He swallowed thickly and opened his eyes. “God, I’m dizzy.”

“Bex, hand me the pillows off your bed.”

When I brought them to her, she was unbuckling his 4-H belt buckle. I nearly flipped until I realized what was going on: restrictive clothing. She loosened it, wiggling open the top button of his jeans before checking his neck again. He was wearing that black T-shirt, which wasn’t tight. “Under his feet. They need to be higher than his heart,” she instructed. “Has this happened before, Jack? Have you fainted before?”

“Fuck,” he said. Then, “I didn’t mean to say that, sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m sure Buddha will forgive you.”

He tried to laugh. “I can’t believe … I’ve never…”

Mom went through a series of questions. Could he breathe okay? Did his chest hurt? Numbness? She took his pulse again and inspected his head.

“I’m okay, really,” he said, pushing himself up.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Mom answered, pushing him back down. “Heath, go fetch a glass of water and find that stash of Easter candy in the pantry. Noah, you help him.” After the boys trotted off to the kitchen, she said, “Okay, so tell me what was happening. No judgment here, and I mean that.”

“Did you…” His hands felt around his open belt buckle.

“Nurse Katherine’s a perv,” I said.

“Bex,” my mother scolded.

“Look, the whole thing’s my fault,” I told her. “I was showing him gruesome sketches.”

“No, no. I haven’t had a lot of sleep lately,” he argued, buckling himself back up. “I’m probably just run-down. Either that, or I’ve got a Victorian woman living inside me. Jesus, this is embarrassing.”

“Sweetie, nothing embarrasses me,” Mom said. “The things I’ve seen and done in the ER this week alone would make Vin Diesel faint. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”