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RESURRECTED I DON’T REMEMBER much, just a jumbled mix of images. The ambulance. Being stabbed in the leg once. Then twice. Adrenaline shots to restart my heart. Sirens wailing from far away, and then much too close. A TV flickering blue and white high in a corner of the room. Machines beeping and blinking all day and all night keeping vigil. Women and men in white uniforms. Stethoscopes and needles and antiseptics. Then that smell of jet fuel, that smell that welcomed me before, and leis and the scratchy blanket wrapped twice around me, and why does the window seat matter when the shades are drawn closed? I remember my mother’s face and how her tears could make a sea. I remember Olly’s blue eyes gone black. I closed mine against the sorrow and relief and love I saw there. I’m on my way home. I’ll remain trapped there forever. I’m alive and don’t want to be.
READMITTED MY MOM HAS transformed my bedroom into a hospital ward. I’m propped up by pillows in my bed and attached to an IV. I’m surrounded by monitoring equipment. I eat nothing but Jell-O. Each time I awake, she’s by my side. She touches my forehead and speaks to me. Sometimes I try to focus, to understand what she’s saying, but the sound is just out of my reach. I wake again sometime (hours? days?) later to find her standing over me, frowning at her clipboard. I close my eyes and take inventory of my body. Nothing hurts or, more accurately, nothing hurts too badly. I check in on my head, my throat, my legs. They’re all fine. I open my eyes again to find her about to put me back to sleep. “No!” I sit up much too quickly. I’m dizzy and nauseous at once. I mean to say I’m OK, but no sound comes out. I clear my throat and try again. “Please don’t make me sleep anymore.” I at least need to be awake if I’m going to be alive. “Am I OK?” I ask. “You’re OK. You’re going to be OK,” she says. Her voice trembles until it breaks. I pull myself to seated and look at her. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, and it’s stretched too tight across her face. A painful-looking blue vein stretches down from her hairline to her eyelid. I can see other blue veins just under the skin of her forearms and wrists. She has the frightened, disbelieving eyes of someone who witnessed something horrible and is waiting for more horrors to come. “How could you do this to yourself? You could’ve died,” she whispers. She steps closer, hugs a clipboard to her chest. “How could you do this to me? After everything?” I want to say something. I open my mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in. I remain in bed after she leaves. I don’t get up to stretch my body. I turn my face away from the window. What do I regret? That I went outside in the first place. That I saw and fell in love with the world. That I fell in love with Olly. How can I live the rest of my life in this bubble now that I know all that I’m missing? I close my eyes and try to sleep. But the sight of my mom’s face earlier, all the desperate love in her eyes, won’t leave me. I decide then that love is a terrible, terrible thing. Loving someone as fiercely as my mom loves me must be like wearing your heart outside of your body with no skin, no bones, no nothing to protect it.
- Page 136 and 137: THE FIVE SENSES HEARING The alarm
- Page 138 and 139: “Maddy—” “I’ll explain ev
- Page 141 and 142: At first I’m not sure what I’m
- Page 143 and 144: HAPPY ALREADY “MADS, BE SERIOUS.
- Page 145 and 146: I reach over and take his hand. “
- Page 147 and 148: eyes. “I must’ve missed a lot o
- Page 149 and 150: TTYL
- Page 151 and 152: THE CAROUSEL “I’VE DECIDED BAGG
- Page 153 and 154: MADELINE’S DICTIONARY prom•ise
- Page 155 and 156: And, too, the world is in me.
- Page 157 and 158: REWARD IF FOUND OUR HOTEL SITS righ
- Page 159 and 160: three meals and two snacks exactly
- Page 161 and 162: eathed the same filtered air for so
- Page 163 and 164: GUIDE TO HAWAIIAN REEF FISH
- Page 165 and 166: I’m sure I don’t want him to. *
- Page 167 and 168: ZACH BACK AT THE hotel, Olly calls
- Page 169 and 170: Do you have my daughter? Is she OK?
- Page 171 and 172: THE MURPHY BED IT’S LATE AFTERNOO
- Page 173 and 174: ALL THE WORDS I COME AWAKE slowly,
- Page 175 and 176: MADELINE’S DICTIONARY in•fi•n
- Page 177 and 178: THIS TIME OLLY SMILES. HE will not
- Page 179 and 180: “Do you believe it?” he asks.
- Page 181 and 182: THE END SOMEONE HAS PUT me in a hot
- Page 183 and 184: My. Heart. Stops.
- Page 185: RELEASED, PART ONE
- Page 189 and 190: RELEASED, PART TWO Wednesday, 6:56
- Page 191 and 192: Madeline: but mine isn’t
- Page 193 and 194: GEOGRAPHY I’M IN AN endless field
- Page 195 and 196: LIFE IS SHORT SPOILER REVIEWS BY MA
- Page 197 and 198: PRETENDING I’M STRONGER WITH each
- Page 199 and 200: I’m trying not to focus on Olly,
- Page 201 and 202: FIVE SYLLABLES A MONTH LATER, just
- Page 203 and 204: HIS LAST LETTER IS HAIKU From: gene
- Page 205 and 206: FOR MY EYES ONLY From: Dr. Melissa
- Page 207 and 208: question if I have spoken after all
- Page 209 and 210: IDENTITY CARLA’S BARELY IN the do
- Page 211 and 212: PROOF OF LIFE ALL I HAVE to do is g
- Page 213 and 214: have SCID?” Her concern morphs in
- Page 215 and 216: I should feel compassion. But that
- Page 217 and 218: THE VOID A UNIVERSE THAT can wink i
- Page 219 and 220: “But my heart stopped.” “Yes.
- Page 221 and 222: ONE WEEK A.D. I HAVE MY first weekl
- Page 223 and 224: THREE WEEKS A.D. MY MOM TRIES to en
- Page 225 and 226: FIVE WEEKS A.D. I ORDER REAL plants
- Page 227 and 228: MADELINE’S MOM
- Page 229 and 230: lot left.” We go back inside. I f
- Page 231 and 232: THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END
- Page 233 and 234: FUTURE PERFECT #2 From: Madeline F.
- Page 235 and 236: FORGIVENESS I STARE OUT the window
RESURRECTED<br />
I DON’T REMEMBER much, just a jumbled mix of images. The ambulance. Being stabbed<br />
in the leg once. Then twice. Adrenaline shots to restart my heart. Sirens wailing from far<br />
away, and then much too close. A TV flickering blue and white high in a corner of the<br />
room. Machines beeping and blinking all day and all night keeping vigil. Women and men<br />
in white uniforms. Stethoscopes and needles and antiseptics.<br />
Then that smell of jet fuel, that smell that welcomed me before, and leis and the<br />
scratchy blanket wrapped twice around me, and why does the window seat matter when<br />
the shades are drawn closed?<br />
I remember my mother’s face and how her tears could make a sea.<br />
I remember Olly’s blue eyes gone black. I closed mine against the sorrow and relief and<br />
love I saw there.<br />
I’m on my way home. I’ll remain trapped there forever.<br />
I’m alive and don’t want to be.
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