Far From You

20

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

“Get up.”

I pull the covers over my head. “Leave me alone,” I moan.

I’ve been home from the hospital for a week and I haven’t left my bedroom. I’ve barely left my bed, the walker just another reminder of how much everything sucks. All I do is watch TV and take the cocktail of pain pills the doctors keep giving me, which leaves me so fuzzy, I don’t want to do anything, anyway.

“Get up.” Mina yanks at my blankets, and I can’t fight her with just one hand, my other still in a cast.

“You’re mean,” I tell her, rolling slowly over to my other side, smashing my extra pillow over my head instead. The effort it takes just to roll over makes me groan. Even with the pills, everything hurts, whether I’m still or moving.

Mina plops down on the bed next to me, not bothering to be ­gentle. Her weight jostles the mattress, making me rock back and forth. I wince. “Stop it.”

“Get out of bed, then,” she says.

“I don’t want to.”

“Too bad. Your mom says you won’t leave your room. And when your mom starts calling me for help, I know there’s a problem. So—up! You reek. You need to shower.”

“No,” I groan, smashing the pillow into my face. I have to use that stupid shower chair for old people with bad hips. Mom’s hovered outside the door each time, basically worrying herself into a fit about whether or not I’ll fall. “Just leave me alone.”

“Yeah, right, that’s really gonna work on me.” Mina rolls her eyes.

I still have the pillow pulled over my head, so I feel, rather than see, her get up off the bed. I hear the sound of water being turned on. For a second I think she’s turned the shower on in the bathroom, but then the pillow I’m holding is yanked out of my hands and, when I open my mouth to protest, Mina dumps a glass of cold water over my head. I shriek, jerking up way too fast, and it hurts, oh shit, it hurts. I’m still not used to how I can’t twist and move my spine like I used to. But I’m so angry at her that I don’t care. I push up on the bed with my good arm, grab the remaining pillow, and hurl it at her.

Mina giggles, delighted, dancing out of the way and then back, tilting the empty glass in her hand teasingly at me.

“Bitch,” I say, yanking my dripping hair out of my eyes.

“You can call me whatever you want, smelly, as long as you shower,” Mina says. “Come on, get up.”

She holds her hand out, and it’s not like anyone else who’s offered themselves to me as a temporary cane. Not like Dad, who wants to carry me everywhere. Not like Mom, who wants to wrap me in cotton and never let me go anywhere again. Not like Trev, who wants so desperately to fix me.

She holds her hand out, and when I don’t take it immediately, she snaps her fingers at me, pushy, impatient.

Just like always.

I fold my hand in hers, and when she smiles, it’s sweet and soft and full of the relief that can only come after a lot of worry.