to hell with eating healthy. We ordered in pizza—pepperoni with stuffed crust, plus Mom made fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy. We topped it off with cake and ice cream. No one said happy birthday, but with mine being three and a half months away, it kind of felt like we should have, especially since we know I won’t be home for my birthday.
Hours ago, I felt sick from eating too much. Now my stomach calls out to me. It’s not because it’s empty; it’s because it knows it will never be fed again—at least not for two to ten years. It’s the old “no food after midnight” rule. They’re using anesthesia to put me out, so there’s a risk of choking if anything is in my stomach. If I choke while I’m unconscious, my airways will close up and my brain will be deprived of oxygen.
If that happens, I’ll be thawed out and given a pass to ride that special short bus. So, no food.
In a way, I guess that’s good. I can’t imagine a slice of stuffed crust pizza being frozen in my stomach for two or more years.
Talk about freezer burn.
I roll onto my back, and the mattress shifts around my body.
It doesn’t feel right. It feels off somehow, foreign, like this isn’t the bed I’ve slept in since I made my way out of the crib all 2 6 6
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
those years ago. I roll back onto my side, but that doesn’t feel right either. I kick off the covers and start pacing. I pace around my bed, pace back and forth along the wall where my dresser is. Finally, I pace right up the stairs and find myself standing outside my parents’ bedroom. The door is shut, but I can see a light shining dimly from beneath the door. Of course they’re not asleep. How could they be?
I want to knock. I want to fling open the door and fall into their arms. Tears burn my eyes while I imagine sobbing in their embrace. I want them to tell me that I don’t have to do it because there’s another way. They’ve just discovered it, just seconds ago they had some brilliant realization of how I can be saved another way.
I can see them; Mom and Dad are sitting on the bed. They’re embracing each other, comforting each other. They’re fighting the urge to slip down the stairs and stare at me in my sleep, except I’m not sleeping. They know that. And to enter my do-main would be to open the floodgates to a sea of emotions none of us are strong enough to deal with. So they hold each other. They hold on to their hope.
I don’t go in.
I won’t leave them with the memory of me scared and sobbing. I’m going to be strong.
All I have to do is go to sleep, and the gas they give me will take care of that, so really, I don’t have to do anything. Negative 320.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Don’t think about that. Don’t. Just go to sleep and wake up. And be strong.
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Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
Be strong. Be strong.
Quietly, I knock my forehead over and over again against the frame around my parents’ door. Be strong, I repeat. Be strong.
My dad’s hand is on my shoulder. “It’s morning, buddy,” he says. “About time to go.”
“Go where?” I mumble and try to get the kink out of my back. I’m in the hallway. I must have fallen asleep . . . I’m awake.
One hundred and a thousand percent awake. Time to go, he’d said.
Dad smiles down at me and offers me his hand. I take it, gripping it tightly. He pulls me to my feet, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead his other hand goes around my shoulder, and he pulls me to him. Mom’s there too, her arms going around me, but we can’t stay like this for long. We know it.
We’re on a tightrope of sorts. We can’t make any wrong moves.
There’s a schedule, both physical and emotional. Right now, it’s time to be strong. Time to move like robots or zombies, to move without thought, without emotion.
The emotional part will come later.
I go downstairs and get dressed, being careful not to look around my room. Either I’ll see it again or I won’t. If I get better and come home and