It's My Life - Stacie Ramey Page 0,37

and there. I want to scream at them to speak to my lawyer. I want to shout that I am not shortsighted. I am simply the one these medical experiments are happening to.

Dad looks like he’s going to say something else, but Mom puts her hand up. “Let’s listen to her, David.”

Hot tears spring to my eyes, and I work like mad not to let them fall, but I’m losing the battle. Sad tears, those I can hold back, but angry ones spill without my permission.

Mom turns to face me. “Oh, Jenna.” She slips her arm around my shoulders, and I can hear her crying also.

Dad turns his face away, because one thing he can definitely not deal with is when any of us cry. “What do you want, Jenna?” he says with a softer voice. His I’m trying to be reasonable voice, and that’s when I know I’ve got him. But I don’t want to win because I cried. I don’t want to win because Dad softened. I want to win because I’m strong and I’m right. Mom hands me a tissue—she always seems to have tissues with her—and I wipe my nose and try to sit up straighter.

“It’s not fair for you to decide what’s going to happen to me.” I sniffle. “It’s like I’m an animal or something.”

“We make Eric and Rena get flu shots every year just like we make you. We made Rena get braces, and she didn’t want them,” Dad says.

“I was on Rena’s side when she didn’t want braces. But also, braces are not surgery. Neither are flu shots. If I had cancer…”

“God forbid, Jenna,” Mom blurts.

“God forbid,” I say to make Mom feel better. “But if I did, would you make me do chemo even if the doctors said it wouldn’t change my long-term prognosis?”

“That’s not the same thing at all,” Dad argues. He shakes his head. “Not at all.”

“It feels the same to me.”

“We know that and we’re sorry.” Mom hands me a brochure while giving Dad a calm down look. “There’s a class being offered at the hospital. It’s all about the pump.”

“We’d like you to take the class,” Dad says.

I nod, processing this development.

“Then you can decide if you want to proceed and when,” Mom adds.

Dad holds up his finger. “But we want a say also. Consider us as silent partners. Investors.”

“The silent part sounds good,” I say.

Dad laughs. “Take the brochure. Sign yourself up for a class. We will put the hospital pretests on hold until you’ve made your decision. But…moving forward, if you get more of a say in your medical decisions, we want more of a say in your academic ones.” He lifts his chin a bit and stares down at me.

I’m feeling fragile when I want to be kick-ass, so I don’t answer him with a smart remark.

“Deal?” Mom asks.

“Deal.” I point to my room. “Am I excused now?”

“Yes, but I’m making kale lasagna for dinner, so you might want to join us for that.”

Low blow. My favorite.

Dad smiles as Mom leaves. “Still friends?” he asks.

“You should’ve been the lawyer instead of your brother.” An old joke.

“I’m thinking that’s a career path you might want to explore,” he says, “which is why you need to go back to the higher-level classes where you belong.”

“I need to get some work done,” I say, my eyes telegraphing my desire to go to my room. I’ve got the brochure they gave me clutched in my hand. I could open it and read it, but I already know what it’ll say: I need to get the pump. I don’t want to hear that right now, just when I’ve finally convinced my parents to let me have some say.

So instead I decide to indulge in one of my dorky guilty pleasures: reading the AP Psych textbook and pretending I’m in that class alongside Ben. According to the online syllabus, they are on unit 4 Sensation and Perception. I could seriously add to some of those class discussions. Part of me feels like trying to hack into them, you know, sort of hang out in the online classroom, but that would make me even more of a weirdo than I already am. It’s not that I can’t do this stuff. It’s just that I don’t want to have to reliably do it. Not when at any moment my muscles could make me a spasmodic example of what happens when the doctor who delivers you goes a little light in the head