The Arrival of Someday by Jen Malone

Author:Jen Malone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

15

I WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT DRILL IS UNDERWAY BEFORE TELLING Coach we need to leave and waving goodbye to everyone from the sidelines. Sibby’s eyes go wide and she holds a pretend cell up to her ear. “Call me later!” she mouths.

The car is completely silent for the first couple minutes of our drive home, and I stare out my window at the streets crammed with multifamily houses.

Eventually Mom says, “No one expects you to be able to keep up right now, you know. You could have been honest with them.”

I stay angled away from her. “I’m already one of the newbies on the team; I don’t want them to see me as weak.”

Although what will they think when I don’t show up at the next practice? Because I can’t imagine my fatigue is going to get any better from here—not until I have a new liver inside me.

I wish I’d never gone tonight. In English class this morning, I’d actually half hoped for symptoms so it wouldn’t feel like this disease was eating me up inside so mysteriously, but now I regret ever thinking that. Being oblivious makes everything easier to deny, makes it easier to cling to positivity.

“I can’t say I didn’t feel the same way about being seen as weak when I was starting out at the firm, so I get it. Although I think maybe under these circumstances—”

“Mom, can we please not talk about this right now?”

There’s nothing but her small sigh to indicate she heard me. I catch myself fiddling with my Rolldemort necklace, in the same absentminded way I do a lot, but this time the metal feels heavy in my fingers. I slip a hand underneath my hair and slide the clasp to the front of my neck, but I can’t work the catch free without two hands, which would attract Mom’s attention, so I tuck it out of sight under my sweatshirt instead. I’m not Rolldemort right now. I don’t know who I am.

I can’t believe this roller coaster crested again. I was riding so high mere hours ago and now I’m in a gully. I wish it didn’t have to be like this: all or nothing. I wish I didn’t have to chase highs to try to banish the lows. I wish normal could be good enough. But there’s no such thing as feeling regular these days—I’m either fighting off the darkness or exhilarated to find a few moments of sweet oblivion from it. Up, down. Up, down.

I’m running out of new options for the highs though, since everything I attempt backfires on me. The dress code protest. Sketching in my spot by the dryer. Hanging out with Will.

The mural is a tiny bright spot, but it will go by fast now that it’s finally underway.

Derby was my shining beacon of hope. For the last three years, the track has been the place I’ve felt most like me. It takes guts to endure the elbowing and it takes showmanship to keep the crowd engaged and cheering when we’re basically looping the same endless circle.

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