Chapter 1 - Stop Pretending
“Stop pretending, Emma!”
My mother’s voice reached me through a roaring sound in my ears.
I was standing at the kitchen sink when the room began shrinking.
The yellow light above the stove stretched into a blur.
My fingers stopped feeling like mine.
I tried to put down the plate I was holding.
It slipped.
White ceramic exploded across the warm wooden floor.
“Mom.”
I grabbed the counter.
“I can’t breathe.”
She stood beside the dining table in a green dress, arms folded tightly.
Monica Hayes.
My mother.
The person who was supposed to recognize when I was afraid.
Instead, she looked annoyed.
“You were perfectly fine during dinner.”
“I’m not fine now.”
Uncle Ray leaned against the refrigerator with a beer bottle in his hand.
He laughed.
“She’ll fake a whole seizure if it gets her out of doing dishes.”
My chest tightened harder.
Ray Dalton was my mother’s older brother.
Forty eight.
Loud.
Smug.
Always at our house even though he had his own apartment fifteen minutes away.
For as long as I could remember, every weakness I showed became a joke to him.
Headache?
Drama.
Nausea?
Attention.
Crying?
Manipulation.
At eighteen, I had learned the safest thing was to stay quiet.
But I could not stay quiet when my lungs stopped working.
“Mom.”
I tried again.
“Please.”
My younger brother Caleb stood near the dining table clutching his stuffed dinosaur.
He was ten.
His face changed before anyone else’s.
“Her lips look blue.”
“They do not,” Mom snapped.
Caleb began crying.
“Mom, look at her!”
Ray slammed his beer onto the counter.
“For God’s sake, Emma. Stand up.”
I tried.
My knees folded.
I hit the lower cabinets.
Pain shot through my shoulder.
Then I slid to the floor.
My chest felt like someone had wrapped a steel band around it.
I clawed at the collar of my gray hoodie.
Air would not come.
Ray stepped closer.
“See?”
His voice sounded distant.
“She’s waiting for everybody to panic.”
Caleb screamed:
“Daniel!”
My stepfather came running from the living room.
Daniel Hayes had married Mom four years earlier.
He was not warm.
Not exactly.
But he had never laughed when I was sick.
He stopped in the kitchen doorway.
His face changed instantly.
“Jesus Christ.”
Ray rolled his eyes.
“Don’t start.”
Daniel shoved past him.
He dropped to one knee.
“Emma?”
I tried to answer.
Nothing.
He looked at my face.
Then shouted:
“Call 911.”
Mom snapped:
“Daniel, don’t encourage this.”
He turned toward her.
“Look at her mouth!”
For the first time, Mom actually looked.
Her confidence broke.
Caleb grabbed the phone before she moved.
He gave our Cedar Rapids address through sobs.
I heard fragments.
Eighteen.
Can’t breathe.
Turning blue.
Kitchen floor.
Ray crouched near me.
“Emma, enough.”
Daniel shoved him backward.
“Get away from her.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“She’s not breathing right.”
“She does this.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“She’s dramatic.”
Daniel looked at him with something close to hatred.
“Shut up.”
My vision disappeared at the edges.
Mom came closer.
“Emma?”
I could hear panic now.
Too late.
Her hand touched my shoulder.
My body jerked once.
Then went strangely loose.
The ceiling tilted.
Caleb screamed my name.
After that, I remember the front door crashing open.
Boots.
Voices.
A woman sliding onto her knees beside me.
Navy uniform.
Blue gloves.
Orange medical bag.
“Emma? Can you hear me?”
I tried to open my eyes.
She clipped something onto my finger.
Her fingers pressed against my neck.
She looked at the monitor.
Then at my face.
“Stretcher!”
Her voice exploded through the kitchen.
“Get the stretcher in here immediately!”
Another responder ran.
Daniel pulled Caleb away.
Ray stepped backward.
Mom kept saying:
“What’s wrong with her?”
The paramedic ignored everyone.
She opened the front of my hoodie.
Listened to my chest.
Checked my pupils.
Then her fingers stopped beneath the left side of my neck.
There was a burning sensation there.
I had noticed it earlier that afternoon.
I thought my hoodie tag had scratched me.
The paramedic stared at the skin.
Her expression changed.
“What is that?”
Mom moved closer.
“What?”
The paramedic rubbed gently near my collarbone.
A pale rectangular outline surrounded an irritated patch of skin.
Something had been stuck there.
Something recently removed.
“I don’t know,” Mom whispered.
The paramedic looked at my pupils again.
Then at my breathing.
“This isn’t asthma.”
Ray stepped toward the doorway.
Daniel noticed.
“Where are you going?”
“Getting out of their way.”
The paramedic looked directly at Mom.
“What medication was she given tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“Prescription pain medicine?”
“No.”
“Sedatives?”
“No!”
Her voice cracked.
The paramedic stood as they lifted me.
Mom reached toward the stretcher.
The paramedic blocked her with one gloved arm.
“Step back.”
“I’m her mother.”
“And I need the truth.”
“I told you, she didn’t take anything.”
The woman’s eyes moved to the mark on my neck.
Then back to Mom.
Her voice dropped.
“This girl has signs of a dangerous drug exposure.”
The kitchen went completely silent.
May you like
Ray stopped moving.
And even through the fog closing over me, I saw his hand tighten around the beer bottle.
