Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 10

The crowd was louder than it had any right to be for a Thursday.Soccer practice had let out early, which meant half the boys’ varsity team had wandered into Gym A still in their practice jerseys and slides, and they’d decided the best way to support women’s athletics was to scream every time the ball went over the net, no matter who hit it. The bleachers shook every time they stomped. Above them, the faded state banners from 2009 and 2014 swayed a little on their wires. The whole gym smelled like popcorn and floor wax and three hundred people’s body heat.Twenty-three to twenty-two, fourth set. We were up two sets to one on Castle Ridge.Roxie’s set came off her fingers high and tight to the antenna, and I was already moving. Left. Right-left. Arms back. I loaded into the floor, and the floor loaded back into me, and for one clean second I was nothing but air and timing and the Castle Ridge middle’s face as she realized she was late.I hit it through her hands. The ball slammed down

Hall A was so loud it felt like standing inside a drum.Lockers slammed. Somebody was yelling Dylan across the whole hallway for no reason, over and over, like Dylan owed him money. The smell of the cafeteria’s breakfast burritos drifted in from the Commons: hot flour tortilla, browned cheese, and salsa. My stomach turned over. On any other Monday, I’d have been halfway to the line.My head felt heavy. I’d slept nine hours, but I was tired in a way that didn’t make sense, like my bones had been swapped out for wet sand over the weekend.I’d woken up twice in the night sweating through my T-shirt. I hadn’t checked my temperature again.I opened my locker. The metal was cold under my fingers, and I stood there holding the door and staring at my Algebra II notebook on the top shelf like I’d forgotten what it was for.My jeans slid down my hips. I hitched them up with one thumb, and my fingers found the space between the denim and my skin. I didn’t like how much space there was.They were

Chandler was wearing the flannel.The dark green and navy one, washed so many times the plaid had gone fuzzy and the cuffs had frayed white at the edges. He had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the collar was flipped up crooked on one side, like he’d pulled it on in the Jeep and never checked a mirror. In ninth grade, after a freezing scrimmage, he’d tossed it at me when my teeth were chattering, and I’d said without thinking, “This is the best shirt you own. Don’t ever get rid of it.” He’d laughed at me. Then he’d worn it every single week for a month.I hadn’t seen it since spring.It was probably a coincidence. He’d probably grabbed it off his bedroom floor.We walked to the bonfire in a loose line across the gravel lot behind the school, and I smelled it long before we reached the gate: sweet cedar smoke, the warm sugar tang of cheap spiced cider, and half the school’s body spray fighting for the same chilly night air. Up ahead, Stetson and Noelle walked shoulder to should

Sunday, I built the system.I did it at my desk with the door locked and Bernard asleep across my feet, the way other people plan a study schedule. Alarms first. My phone already had one for 2 a.m., labeled water. I added three more: 7:10, 11:40, and 4:05. Bio notes. Hydrate. Stretch. Nobody who picked up my phone would think twice about any of them. Every one meant two ibuprofen, dry-swallowed, wherever I was.The 11:40 one used to say ibuprofen. I’d changed it on Friday, after Stetson grabbed my phone at lunch to make his own face my wallpaper and I’d had to snatch it back before he scrolled.I kept the bottle in three places now. My backpack, my volleyball bag, and the pocket of the hoodie I slept in. If somebody found one, there were still two.Ice before bed. Ice the second I woke up, before anyone else was awake to see me limp to the garage freezer and back.The forged elevator pass went into the inside pocket of my backpack, zipped, where I could reach it without looking.I hat

Children’s Hospital smelled like bubblegum hand soap and warm pretzels, and I hated it immediately.It was 8:40 in the morning. Six and a half hours ago, I’d been flat on the carpet in my own upstairs hallway. Now I was in a wheelchair in the lobby of the biggest children’s hospital in Colorado, with an ER bracelet on my wrist and Stetson’s hoodie still over my pajama top, looking at a fish tank.It was a huge tank, built right into the wall by the elevators, full of bright blue and yellow fish that didn’t know anything was wrong. A little boy with a bald head and a Spider-Man mask was pressing both hands to the glass. His mom stood behind him holding an IV pole on wheels.I looked away fast.The hallways were painted with murals. Mountains and hot air balloons and a fox in a scarf. Somewhere around the corner, a wheelchair wheel squeaked on every rotation, and somewhere past that, a monitor beeped in a slow, patient rhythm. Everything was bright and cheerful and designed very careful