Love, Ish by Karen Rivers

Author:Karen Rivers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2017-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I fall asleep reading, which is good, because right away, I’m in the biome. This time, I’m not working, I’m sitting. It’s dark outside and I’m not alone. Someone is sitting next to me, but I can’t quite see who it is. I can hear him breathing, though. Or her. I guess it could be a woman, I really don’t know. We are watching the moons rising outside the glass. It’s amazing. You know how sometimes, on Earth, the moon looks really huge, way bigger than normal? In this case, both moons are enormous. They also move more quickly than on Earth, so it feels sped up, like a show on fast-­forward. The person next to me clears his/her throat. I keep trying to turn my head to see who it is. It’s a dream, I tell myself. Just turn your head! But I can’t. The dream slips away from me before I get a good grip on it. When I open my eyes, the book is still in my hand. I read until my eyes hurt and my head is aching so bad that I want to puke (again) and then the door opens to my room, the hallway sounds leaking in like a wave. I look up.

And it’s the last person who I would ever have expected to see.

It’s Elliott.

“Hey, Red,” she goes. “Getting enough attention?”

“Funny,” I say, uneasily. Is she allowed to come in here and bully me? Where are Mom and Dad, anyway?

“Mom and Dad are coming,” she says. “They’re just in this big boring meeting with a bunch of doctors downstairs.” She shrugs. “I stayed for a while, but I couldn’t stand it. Blah, blah, blah, you know?” She rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry my brain tumor is boring,” I go. “Thanks a lot.”

“Cheer up,” she says. “I’m here to make you feel better.”

“Oh,” I say. I mean, I have a lot of possible responses, such as, “Have you ever cheered anyone up?” or “Do you even know what that means?” She throws her long legs over the arm of the chair. She’s wearing bright pink Converse. Mom must be thrilled. Maybe bright pink Converse are the Official Shoes of Cheering Up People Who Have Brain Tumors.

I want to say something, but I can’t figure out how to say it. But what I’m thinking is, Oh, great, now you’re going to be the daughter that Mom wishes I could be? But it doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense. I open my mouth to try to say something like that, but nothing comes out.

“I’m missing cross-­country practice for this,” she says.

Elliott loves running. I do, too! We actually have lots in common, the more I think about it! But it’s like she has no idea that I like running, she has no idea who I am, she’s so busy being her.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” I point out. “Sorry for your terrible loss, I guess.” My head is throbbing, like the brain tumor is having a party in there and invited a bunch of its friends.

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