Unravelling. Elizabeth Norris

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      “She should rest,” Dr. Abrams tells him. “Stay off her feet, no physical exertion—”

      “You said she hasn’t had any more seizures after the first one,” my dad says.

      Dr. Abrams nods and explains why it’s important to keep an eye on me anyway.

      To anyone else, it would look like my dad is listening respectfully and absorbing the details. I know better. He tugs on his left ear, which means he’s annoyed and running low on patience. He asks specific questions that suggest more medical knowledge than he has, which means he’s shown my test results and chart to someone at the Bureau, probably a medical examiner.

      I don’t exactly care, though, that my dad has been giving everyone in the hospital a hard time. I’ve got more important things to focus on. Like what the hell Ben Michaels did to me. It’s just about all I’ve been able to think about since I woke up. I tried to have the conversation several times—where I said, “Alex, I died,” and he patted me like a two-year-old and basically said,

      “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      I roll my head to the side to look at Jared. “What’s up, dude? You gonna tell me what happened to your hand?”

      His right hand looks slightly bruised. I reach out, touching his knuckles. He winces. “What happened?” I whisper.

      “I tried to punch Alex,” Jared says with a shrug. But he at least has the decency to drop his eyes and look embarrassed. “He’s fine, though.”

      I made Alex take self-defense classes with me the summer before sophomore year. We always joked that if a guy attacked us, Alex would duck and I would knee the guy in the balls. (There’s a rumor I’m the reason Dave Kotlar only has one testicle now, but it’s a total lie. I have no idea what he did to himself, but since he hasn’t made any big attempts to dispel the rumors, it must be way more embarrassing than getting beat up by a girl.)

      So I know if my brother—who’s never been in a fight in his life—tried to throw a punch at Alex, my best friend would do what he’s best at. He would duck.

      “You were in the hospital, dying for all he knew, and Alex took me to polo.”

      “Um, because I asked him to. Alex is well trained.”

      Jared doesn’t smile like I want him to.

      “Jared—”

      “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” he huffs. “I missed anyway.”

      I open my mouth to try to explain, but I realize that would mean explaining my friendship with Alex, and I don’t know how to explain something that’s just always existed. He’s lived two doors down from me my whole life. Once upon a time, our moms took us to playgroups together, swimming lessons, even dance classes.

      But Jared knows that. What he doesn’t know is that Alex has been helping me deal with our mother’s illness and cover up her drinking since Jared was too young to know there was a problem. Or that our friendship has survived because Alex listens to me. Because Alex knows that supporting me means tackling obstacles my way—head-on. And I don’t know how to explain that Alex is the only reason I’ve been able to stay sane while Dad worked and I had to be a parent—the only reason Jared has been able to do things like play water polo.

      Which is why Alex, despite how much he would have been freaking out on the inside, would have taken Jared to polo like it was just another normal day.

      But by the time I have all that sorted out in my head, Jared has started telling me about his first (half) day of school— freshman orientation.

      “After the assembly and the tour, I went to my first two classes—”

      “What do you have?”

      He frowns at me. “Biology and ENS. But the cool part was, after I came out of ENS, Nick and Kevin were waiting for me.”

      Exercise Nutritional Science is a glorified gym class all freshmen have to take, but more importantly . . . “Nick and Kevin were on campus?”

      Jared nods. “They brought three pizzas from Uncle Vinnie’s for me and my friends, and we all sat and ate, and they told stories about their freshman year. It was awesome.”

      “Awesome?” СКАЧАТЬ