I have to stop this. I’ll scare Derek looking like this. I don’t want him to know—
But I do.
He needs to know.
He should see the destruction. I’ve felt like a ball of hot tears and snot inside all this time. Why not let it out? Let him see. No more pretenses. No more faking it. He has to let me in.
If he loves me at all, he needs to see this. This mess I’ve become.
I curse and cry and yell stupid things at him. He’s sick, and I’m flipping out livid at him. I hit a drift that throws a sheen of snow into my headlight’s beam. Jeannette gets pulled hard to the side of the road, but I crank the wheel, get my old girl straightened out and back up to speed.
Jeannette and I fight through drift after drift, me sobbing, her engine throbbing, the two solid hours it takes to get to London from the border. My voice is wrecked by the time I flick on my signal and take the Wonderland Road exit.
I plan to stop at a gas station and raid the yellow pages for hospitals, but I see it before I even spot a pay phone. Red brick sprawling giant off to the right. I slow down and turn in, follow the maze into a visitors’ parking lot, and shut off the car. I pull my pink choir T-shirt out of my bag and wipe my face with it. I catch a glimpse in the rearview mirror. All the makeup’s rubbed off. I reach for at least a cover stick. Stare at it. A bitter laugh erupts from my throat. I toss the magic wand aside.
I bang through the glass doors, into the florescent-lit lobby, and march over to a chubby middle-aged guy with a red face under an INFORMATION sign. “Derek Collins, please.”
“Derek, huh?” He types in the name. “Only family allowed up.” He notices my dress, and his eyebrows shoot up. “It’s late for a hospital visit.”
“I’m his sister.”
“Another one? My old buddy, Derek, has got to tell me how he does it.” He hands me a map with a room starred on it. Then he notices my face, my ski jacket thrown over a shimmering gown, and compassion fills his eyes. “I’m sorry. You head right upstairs and cheer him up.”
Am I the only girl on earth who’s never been here?
“Tell that boy he owes me three chocolate bars for this.”
I run away from his friendly voice. Get on an elevator. Stare at the map. Crap. This can’t be right. I ask a young red-haired guy who pushes a cart of pills onto the elevator at the next floor for help. I show him the room number, helplessly.
“That’s Derek’s room.”
“Why does everyone here know him so well?”
“We have our favorites. And that kid—the way he comes back and sings to everyone, brings his friends. We’re all pulling for him.”
My eyes are blurring up again. The guy reads my gross red-blotched, puffed-fat face and how I have to bite my lips to keep them still. “Here. I’ll take you.”
He puts his freckled arm out for me to grab onto and leads me down a long corridor, up another, through a bunch of doors into another elevator. He hustles me past the nurses’ station.
I want to hug him by the time we’re standing in front of the door that matches the room number written on my map. He opens the door and pushes me inside and pulls the door closed behind me.
Derek’s there, lying in a hospital bed, with a mask strapped on his face. He has to fight to get each breath in. His face looks blue against the stark-white hospital sheets. His damp hair stands out dark against his pale skin. His eyes are closed. The eyelids are purple, and he’s got dark shadows under his eyes. His long black lashes look wet. There’s a bag of clear liquid hanging on an IV pole. My eyes follow the narrow tube out the bottom of it to where it turns into a syringe sticking into his chest. There’s another pole holding up a bag of yellowish murky stuff. It has a tube, too. A bit fatter. That tube disappears under the sheets. Oh, gross. I think it’s going into his stomach—where that Band-Aid was. I peer at his face. Tiny clear tubes run into each nostril.
I must have made a noise—a sharp intake of my breath. Maybe I sniffed.
His eyes open, and they focus on me. “No, Beth.” He closes his eyes again.
“No ?” I say it too loud, too harsh.
“Not you.”
“Who else?” I’m losing control.
He pulls down the mask he was breathing into so he can talk better. “You’re not supposed to see this.” His voice is thick and raspy. “Go away.”
“Look at me.” I move to the foot of his bed. “Open your eyes, damn you.” It’s my turn to curse. My turn to scream.
He won’t open his eyes.
I go around to the side of his bed and pry an eyelid open. His skin is hot and slick, but I persist.
He sees me well enough. He turns his face away.
My fingers slip into his dark, damp hair. I lean down and speak in his ear. “This is what you’re doing to me.”
“Go away.”
“It’s not that easy.”
He turns to face me, brushes my face with his fingers. He holds me there with the love deep in his feverish eyes until I can’t bear it anymore.
I turn away this time, stumble over to a chair by the door, and break down.
“Oh, Beth.” He struggles to speak. “Please, Beth. Don’t cry like that.”
I jump to my feet, fear fueling that anger I uncovered in the car. “What am I supposed to do?” I screech in his face. “Tell me, Derek. Whatever it is—I have to know.”
“I didn’t want this to happen.”
“That’s so stupid.” I scream. “I love you. How can you be so cruel?” I whip my head back and forth and keep yelling. “I hate you for doing this. I hate you.” I lunge at him with my fists balled up, screaming, “Stop lying. Damn it, Derek. Stop! ”
The door to his room flies open. A short, sturdy woman with Derek’s eyes darts into the room and gets between me and Derek’s bed. “Control yourself, young lady.” She grabs my wrists. “I don’t know who you think you are or what you think you’re doing here, but you need to get your evening gown theatrics out of my son’s room.”
I stare at her. “But I’m Beth.”
She lets go of my arms. “We don’t know any Beth.” She herds me toward the door.
“Derek! ” He can’t lie there and let her do this to me.
“Stop, Mum.”
“She doesn’t even know who I am.” My knees buckle, and I sink to the floor, crimson gown and all.
His mother whirls around to face Derek. “Do you know this girl?”
“We met in Lausanne.”
“No. You said Blake met a girl in Lausanne.”
“Not like the one I met.” He sucks in air and whispers. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Hearing that makes my tears start again. His mother stares at me and then back at him. “You didn’t tell her? Oh, Derek. How could you do that?”
She comes back to me, helps me up, and hugs me. “I’m sorry, honey.” She keeps an arm around me, and I lean against this woman I don’t know. Maybe she’ll tell me—if Derek won’t.
From his bed, Derek struggles up onto an elbow. “I was going to tell her once I got back on the active list, but it’s taking way too long. Go away, Beth. Forget you were here. I don’t want you in this world.”
Active list? What is that? I’m sure he thinks I’ll leave him here like this—that I’ll ever leave him again. “How can—”
“Hush, dear, he doesn’t mean it.” His mom turns back to him. “It may never happen. You have to tell her—now.” I like this woman. A lot. She emanates sense and strength.
She leads me back over to Derek’s bed, leans over him, smoothes his hair off his forehead, and kisses the spot.
She squeezes my arm, bites her lower lip, and leaves us alone.
chapter 28
TRUTH
I’m not angry anymore. The terror returns.
“Can you go back to the chair and sit for a minute.” The only thing I hear in his voice is utter weariness. “I need to finish this.” He puts the mask back on, lays his head o
n his pillow, and breathes, with kind of a gasp and a rattle, into his mask.
I move the chair close beside his bed and take his hand. He worms it away so he can hand me the tissues from his bedside table. I use up half the box, wiping my runny face. Then I lay my cheek down on his upturned palm.
In a few moments he starts to speak. “Did you ever wonder why my skin tastes so salty?”
“No.” I kiss his hand and lick my lips. “I just like it.” I didn’t get past Scott’s mouth. Derek’s the only guy I ever tasted.
“I was a really sick baby. Always a cold or pneumonia. I screamed all the time and wouldn’t eat. Then I’d eat and eat and eat until I started screaming again.”
“Poor Derek.”
“My poor mum. My dad worked nights—even back then. She couldn’t keep me quiet so he could sleep. And then I’d scream all night, too.”
“What was wrong?”
“Nobody knew. Her doctor said she wasn’t producing enough milk. Stuck me on formula.”
My eyes go to the bag on the second IV pole. That’s what the stuff in it looks like, baby formula.
Derek pushes the sheet down past his waist and pulls up his hospital gown. The tube is attached to a plastic disk embedded in his stomach. “Now you know why I always wore bulky sweatshirts, backed off when you got too close, went ballistic when you tried to take my shirt off.” He notices my eyes following the tube to the bag of stuff on the pole. “It’s a feeding tube. People with my condition need a lot more calories to thrive than normal people.”
“But you eat. I’ve seen you.”
“Not enough. I was a skeleton baby when the doctor finally stuck me in the hospital. One of the doctors suspected and gave me a sweat test.” He nodded. “I have CF. That’s why my skin tastes so salty.”
I lift up my head. My face pulls into a knot. “But you’re not in a wheelchair. I can’t believe your brain is messed up.”
“No. You’re thinking CP—cerebral palsy. Cystic fibrosis, CF, makes all the mucous in your body extra-thick and sticky. That’s why I cough.”
“That could be allergies—or asthma.”
“No, Beth. It’s CF. It blocks up my pancreas and messes with my liver, too. I have to take a handful of enzymes if I want to digest anything. I was a snot-nosed brat who wouldn’t eat, so Mum stuck me on the tube.” He glances at the IV pole and bag. “I’ve been doing night feeds at home to keep my weight and growth normal since I was a kid.”
“Then why do you have to be in the hospital now?”
He closes his eyes for a minute to nerve himself, opens them again. “I’ve got a jungle of exotic bacteria growing in my lungs.”
“Why don’t they give you antibiotics?”
“Like that?” He glances at the IV. “And that’s what I just breathed in, too. I live on antibiotics.” His face turns bitter. “Too much antibiotics.”
“Your drug habit?”
He manages to lift his eyebrows. “That’s just the beginning.”
I sit up straight, wipe at my face, feeling stupid for not catching on that he was sick—not being here for him sooner. Blake was right. What kind of crap girlfriend am I? But it’s going to be fine now. He’s safe in the hospital, getting treatment. Antibiotics will fix him. I squeeze his hand. “Why didn’t you tell me? You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been going through.”
“My whole life I’ve been the boy who was going to die.” He struggles to pull air into his lungs.
Die? He’s not going to die.
His scratchy voice continues, “All my friends know I’m going to die. My ex back in Amabile was the heroine because she loved the boy who was going to die. Every girl since junior high who liked me knew I was going to die.” He coughs and lies back on his pillows.
I plaster a brave smile on my face. “But you’re in the hospital. They are taking care of you. You’re not going to die.”
He squeezes my hand. There’s no strength behind it. “I needed a place where I wasn’t sick. Where I could just be the boy who loves you.”
“I still would have loved you.”
“Not the same way. I needed a whole heart once in my life. Is that so wrong?”
“You’ve got my heart.” I get up so I can lean over him. “All of it.” I smooth back his hair like his mom did. “And you’re going to get better. I can help you now.”
“My CF is kind of severe. I got listed for a double lung transplant two years ago.”
I draw back, afraid. “They want to cut you open and take out your lungs?”
He nods. “Last spring, after we got pegged for the Choral Olympics, I took a real dive. Lots of hemoptysis—coughing up blood.”
I try not to flinch. I don’t think he noticed.
“The bacteria took control. I got a massive infection. They almost lost me twice.”
My lips start trembling. I struggle to keep them still. Bite them. Hard.
“You better sit down.”
I sink back in the chair, confused. Except for a bit of a cough, he was fine in Switzerland. And every time I’ve seen him since. He was always tired. Coughed a bit. Other than that, he seemed fine. But how much can you tell from a phone call or an online chat?
“My mom got me into a drug trial for a brand new cocktail of treatments—including a heavy dose of a new space-age antibiotic. I survived—that usually doesn’t happen without a lung transplant. It’s kind of a miracle I made it to Lausanne. My choir—wanting that trip—hearing your voice and deciding I had to find you—got me out of the hospital and onto that plane. Poor Blake.” He sort of shakes his head, hardly moves it. “Our room was like a clinic.”
I nod, starting to get there. “That’s why you flipped about him taking Sarah there.”
He touches the tubes that run into his nose. “I had to have oxygen on the plane—and all night and the mornings except when we performed.” He weakly lifts a hand and points to a black mound of Kevlar on top of the dresser. “I took my vest and inhalation mask. Three times a day, I inhaled antibiotics and this stuff that thins your mucous, and then I was in the vest for twenty minutes.”
“What does it do?”
“Moves the gunk in the smaller passages of my lungs into the bigger ones so I can huff it out.”
“Huff?”
“Like a cough without a cough.” He closes his eyes. “Before I got the vest, the guys used to put a piano bench on a flight of stairs and pound me. Blake’s almost as good at it as my mum.”
He’s losing me. “You sang, though. Your voice was totally pure.”
“I did extra treatments before performances. I spent the night in the hospital twice for IV antibiotics. Modern medicine is great.”
He wasn’t weak like this. I’m still confused. “How did you do that and keep up with the schedule?”
“I skipped out of most of the practices. I did performances and you.”
“But after, you were so active.”
“That might have been a mistake. I mean exercise is a good thing. My adrenaline cravings kept me strong and alive for years. I’d been so weak and sick, and suddenly I was alive again, relatively healthy again—and pumped full of you. You’re better than any drug, Beth.”
I shake my head.
“I went overboard after you left trying to keep up with Blake. Mountaintops aren’t a smart place to be if you have trouble breathing. I had to take my portable O2 tank with me when we went snowboarding. I got a few good runs in, sucked oxygen in between them. It was my last shot to live.”
He went overboard that last night with me, too. “We stayed out way too late. And then you had to go rescue Sarah.”
“That wasn’t so bad. I took a taxi. I took a lot of taxis in Lausanne. The only time I walked was with you. You just thought I was getting a cold.”
“You totally faked me out.”
“After I dropped Sarah off, I didn’t go back to the hotel room—went straight up to the hospital. The Swiss doctors were great.”
I remember him coughi
ng as our bus rolled away the next morning.
“I crash-landed when I got home—right back to the hospital.”
“No cottage?”
“I lied, Beth.” His voice drops to almost nothing. “I lied a lot.” He closes his eyes, exhausted from all this talking. “I don’t expect you to forgive me.” There are tears behind his words. “Say hi to Scott.” He can’t stop the pain that takes over his face.
“I’m supposed to leave now?” I should be livid. Angry. Hurt. Scared. I look at his pale, sunken face, tinged blue and bruised, his lips more purple than pink, watch as he takes a labored breath and tries to control his emotions. He looks so young—especially with his hair slicked back like that. There’s nothing left of the confident singer, the intimidating composer, the sensitive boyfriend who wants to keep me a nice girl. He’s just a small boy, and all I want to do is take care of him. He’s not beautiful anymore; neither am I. But what I’m feeling inside is. I love him more than I ever did.
I lean over him again. “You’re going to be fine now. I’m here.”
His eyes flicker open. “I came to see you as soon as they let me out. Whenever I could escape”—his eyes take in the equipment around him—“this.”
“How did you expect to keep me in the dark if I joined the AYS?”
“I think there was a part of me that wanted you to find out. They let me out for practice when I’m up for it. I planned on getting better, not . . . ”
“I’m sorry. I would have been here, Derek. Every day.”
“I know.” He motions me close so I can hear him whisper. “The median life expectancy for CF patients is thirty-seven.”
I swallow. “That gives us loads of time. Remember? You told me they’re doing stuff with genetics.”
“Thirty-seven is the median age. That means half of us die a lot sooner.”
“Not you, though.”
He puts his hand up to my face. “I can only father a baby in a test tube.”
“You can’t—”
“No. That works. The sperm can’t get through my clogged tubes.”