It's My Life - Stacie Ramey Page 0,54

imagine I’m flying, like I was when I was in the MRI tube. I try to feel the same things I felt that day. The breeze. The voice. The hand that brushed my hair back. Then stroked my cheek. The magic I’m always looking for. But there’s nothing. Just me and the big mess I’ve made.

“Jenna, are you even listening to me?” Mom’s tone is decidedly harsh until she realizes I’ve completely zoned out. “Jenna? Sweetie? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little dizzy.” All of this being swung around is catching up to me.

“Maybe you should stay home?”

“I hate missing.”

“Jenna?” Mom uses the soft I-haven’t-given-up-on-you tone.

I just stare. It’s like I’m exhausted from being showered. My body feels done. “I can’t go to school,” I say.

She nods. “Okay. Let’s get you to bed.”

I congratulate myself on dumbing down my expectations of myself and taking easier classes. It makes staying home easier, no doubt. But I let my mind drift over the essay I would have written for my AP Language midterm as Mom helps dress me and put me to bed. It would have been about the use of symbols in The Scarlet Letter. I would start off easy, talking about the letter A and how that symbol changes over the course of the novel. Then move to the meteor as a symbol, and finally, Pearl, herself, who is less of a child and more of a symbol of her mother’s love.

I’m thinking about Mom and her love. How she’s annoyed sometimes, downright furious at others, but how, no matter what I do or how I act, she still does love me.

* * *

I listen to the sounds of Rena getting ready and Mom rushing as I recover from my morning defeat. I hear Mom on the phone with Dr. Rodriguez. She’s got it on speaker, probably because she’s busy getting my meds ready. And with Mom, speaker is pretty freaking loud. According to her, she’s killed her hearing by listening to music with headphones turned up too high and now she can’t hear.

“Yes. She’s lethargic and kind of spaced…”

“Her body is telling her what she needs,” Dr. Rodriguez responds. “Right now mostly she needs to rest and to heal.”

Mom answers. “Yes. That makes sense.”

So I guess I’m not dying. That’s good news.

“I was hesitant to bring this up, but Jenna’s rehabilitation needs may be more than what you can handle at home.”

“What do you mean?”

My hearing goes into supersonic mode, but to no avail, because at this point Mom takes it off speaker.

I can still hear her responses, though. “I’m not sure about a rehab center. Isn’t that kind of drastic?”

More of Dr. Rodriguez talking while I strain to read Mom’s mood from a room away.

Then Mom. “I’ll speak with her and her father, but I’m not sure it’ll go over so well.”

Dr. Rodriguez says something superintelligent and persuasive because then Mom says, “Well what would happen with her school?” and then the moment of understanding. “Oh. Okay. That might work.”

And I think, hells to the no. There is no way on God’s green earth I’ll be going to a rehab center like our grandfather had to last year after his hip replacement. How could she make this decision without even talking to me? I text Uncle Steve.

We need to expedite our plans.

Why what’s going on?

They are talking about sending me away. To a rehab center.

We’ve got the paperwork completed for medical emancipation. I just have to file it.

Thanks.

I blow out a big breath. This is all too much. My body is aching. My muscles hurt, so of course I pretend for a second that I’m Jennifer. The one who isn’t saddled with medical concerns or, God forbid, a trip to a rehab center. The one who is going off to college, having just graduated top of her grade after all her AP classes. I’d be so full of potential, bursting with possibilities. Maybe I’m taking the train out to school, so Julian drives me to the station. We park in the drop-off part of the parking lot. People are all around us and Julian looks so damned sad I can’t even take it. He puts the car in park and then stares straight ahead. I put my hand on his. “It won’t be that long.” In my fantasy, even going to different colleges can’t keep us apart.

We would sit there, me not wanting to leave, him not wanting me to go, but neither of us able to stop