Part 6 (1/2)

So she doesn't hear me say that I have no idea.

HISTORY OF ME.

”Did you take your pill?” is the first thing my parents ask me each morning. Well, mostly my dad.

It annoys me. It annoys me a lot.

Especially when Jordan echoes their question. It's too icky to have your ten-year-old brother ask you that. It doesn't matter that I don't take the pill for that reason. It's still not something he should be thinking about.

It's not something I want to think about.

I hate the whole thing: menstruation, pills, blood.

So. Much. Blood.

I don't take the pill just for my skin, it's to fix my periods, too.

They used to be awful. Lie-in-bed-sobbing-with-pain awful and an ocean of blood: instant anemia once a month. The first time I got my period I thought I was going to die. The pain was so bad. The bleeding wouldn't stop.

My doctor cured it by making me take a birth control pill every single day. No fake sugar pills-I take the real ones every single day of my life. Now I never get my period. I never have that awful pain. My blood stays in my body, keeping me upright.

My mom freaked out a bit. She was worried that it wasn't natural. She thought having your period was what makes you a woman.

I wish I was a man.

I asked my doctor to explain how it worked, but what he told me about cycles, and uterine lining, and elevated risk didn't make any sense, so I asked Yayeko Shoji. She's a biologist, I figured she would know.

She did.

She told me that women used to have so many babies they hardly menstruated at all. But now women have only one or two or no babies, and they have them when they're already old, which means they have too many periods. All that bleeding puts a strain on their wombs.

I try to imagine being a woman in the olden days, being pregnant over and over again, having a dozen children. But I can't imagine being pregnant even once.

Yayeko says that taking the pill to stop bleeding is more natural than bleeding all the time. She does the same thing. She hasn't had a period in two years.

Yayeko talked to my mom, explained it to her, and Mom felt better about it, but she still wasn't happy. ”You are my daughter,” she said. ”It is difficult to be happy for you to take these tres adult pills.”

Dad didn't have to be persuaded; he's against anyone suffering when they don't have to. Especially him.

For the price of remembering to take one little pill every morning of my life I get good skin, no blood, no pain, and, according to Yayeko, less chance of cancer. It's a fair bargain.

I really don't understand why my parents don't trust me to take a pill every morning. I'm the one it hurts if I forget. I'm the one with incentives. Strong incentives. But, no, every morning it's the same question: ”Did you take your pill?”

”Yes, Dad, I took it. Okay? Like I did yesterday and the day before. I'll take it tomorrow and the day after that and so on, forever.”

I take the pill and I don't complain about their nagging. Well, not as often as I could.

BEFORE.

That first time, after that first kiss, after the icicle fell and I picked up a broken shard, felt it cold and knife-sharp in my fingers-after that-I dropped the ice and ran.

That's what I'd been doing before I paused under the bridge to look at the icicles, before Zach Rubin saw me-I'd been running.

That's what I liked to do in Central Park: run and run and run and run as hard and fast as I could.

Zach took off after me. He caught me, breathing hard to keep pace. I ran harder. He accelerated, too, but was struggling. ”Wait up,” he gasped.

I slowed.

”You're so fast,” he gasped, matching my stride. ”I'm fast. But you're faster.”

”Yes,” I said. I'm faster than anyone I've ever run against. Too fast, my dad says.

To really show Zach, I took off, ran as hard as I could. All the way up and over Heartbreak Hill. Then I stopped at the first empty bench and waited for him.

He got there at last, dripping with sweat, collapsing beside me.

”How?” he panted. ”You're not even on the track team.” The school's track team is as c.r.a.ppy as all our other teams. ”I run. I run all the time. How can you be so fast?” He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his sweater. It was synthetic and not very absorbent. ”Do you train out of school?”

I shook my head. ”I just run.”

”I heard a rumor,” Zach said, more evenly, his breath starting to catch up with his words, ”that you were born a boy. I don't think you look like a boy. But you sure as h.e.l.l run like one. You should be going to the Olympics. You're crazy fast!”

I laughed. Crazy fast. That's how it felt sometimes. Good crazy. There's nothing I love more than running.

”Do you ever compete?”

”We just did!” I was still laughing.

”Real competing,” Zach said. ”Races. Medals. Ribbons. All that stuff.”

I shook my head. ”Too much fuss. Too many rules.” I wished he would kiss me again. I wondered if I should kiss him.

”Who are you?” Zach said. He straightened up, wiped his face again. ”You're not even sweating.”

”I run a lot,” I said. ”The more I run, the less I sweat.”

I leaned forward, wiped the sweat between his upper lip and nose, and then I kissed him.

AFTER.

Climbing someone else's fire escape is as easy as climbing your own. They're all basically the same: the only differences lie in how recently painted they are, how bad the rust, how loose the bolts holding them to the brickwork, how much laundry hangs from them, how many potted plants.

The higher you climb, the more likely a window will be open. Most often not directly by the fire escape, unless they've left one open for you on purpose. Like Zach used to do for me. When he was still alive and waiting for me.

This time the kitchen window is firmly closed and the grate pulled across and locked. I crouch on the escape, looking in. Even with no lights on, through a dirty window and the gaps in the grate, I can see that it's a mess. There are things all over the floor, the kitchen table is piled high with stuff, the sink full of dishes. I don't think they've cleaned anything since Zach disappeared.

I bet it smells worse than it looks. Even through a closed window I can tell. The place is thick with grief and dust. And emptiness. The kitchen is the heart of Zach's home but there's no one in it.

I swing to the outside of the escape, then step across to the first windowsill. Zach's brother's room. Mostly a storage room now that he's in college. Or has that changed? Has he come home to be with his parents? Wherever he is, there's no light on in the room. No sounds of movement.