Borrowed time?
A jolt of shock shot through me, settling finally into my heart, which seemed reluctant to beat again for a moment. What did that mean? I was sick? Dying? How could they not have told me? And how could I be dying if I felt fine? Except for knowing when other people are going to die
And if that were true, wouldnt I know if I were going to die?
And if that were true, wouldnt I know if I were going to die?
Uncle Brendon sighed, and a chair scraped across the floor again, then groaned as he sank into it. Fine. Call him if you want to. Youre probably right. I just really hoped wed have another year or two. At least until shes out of high school.
That was never a certainty. Aunt Vals silhouette shrank as it came closer, and I scuttled toward my room, my spine still pressed against the cold wall. But then she stopped, and her shadow turned around. Wheres the number?
Here, use my phone. Hes second in the contacts list.
My aunts shadow elongated as she moved farther away, presumably taking the phone from my uncle. You sure you dont want to do it?
Positive.
Another chair scraped the tiles as my aunt sat, and her shadow became an amorphous blob on the wall. A series of high-pitched beeps told me she was already pressing buttons. A moment later she spoke, and I held my breath, desperate to hear every single word of whatever theyd been keeping from me.
Aiden? Its Valerie. She paused, but I couldnt hear my fathers response. Were fine. Brendons right here. Listen, though, Im calling about Kaylee. Another pause, and this time I heard a low-pitched, indistinct rumble, barely recognizable as my fathers voice.
Aunt Val sighed again, and her shadow shifted as she slumped in her chair. I know, but its happening again. Pause. Of course Im sure. Twice in the last three days. She didnt tell us the first time, or I would have called sooner. Im not sure how shes kept quiet about it, as it is.
My father said something else I couldnt make out.
I did, but she wont take them, and Im not going to force her. I think weve moved beyond the pills, Aiden. Its time to tell her the truth. You owe her that much.
He owed me? Of course he owed me the truthwhatever that was. They all owed me.
Yes, but I really think it should come from her father. She sounded angry now.
My father spoke again, and this time it sounded like he was arguing. But I could have told him how futile it was to argue with Aunt Val. Once shed made up her mind, nothing could change it.
Aiden Cavanaugh, you put your butt on a plane today, or Ill send your daughter to you. She deserves the truth, and youre going to give it to her, one way or another.
I snuck back to my room, shocked, confused, and more than a little proud of my aunt. Whatever this mysterious truth was, she wanted me to have it. And she didnt think I was losing my mind. Neither of them did.
Though they apparently thought I was dying.
I think Id rather be crazy.
Id never really contemplated my own death before, but I would have thought the very idea would leave me too frightened to function. Especially having very nearly witnessed someone elses death only hours earlier. Instead, however, I found myself more numb than terrified.
There was a substantial fear building inside me, tightening my throat and making my heart pound almost audibly inside my chest. But it was a very distant fear, as if I couldnt quite wrap my mind around the concept of my own demise. Of simply not existing one day.
Maybe the news just hadnt sunk in yet. Or maybe I couldnt quite believe it. Either way, I desperately needed to talk it through with someone who wasnt busy keeping vital secrets from me. So I texted Emma, in case her mother had lifted the cell phone ban.
Ms. Marshall replied a few minutes later, telling me that Emma was still grounded, but shed see me the next day for Merediths memorial, if I was planning to go.
I wrote back to tell her Id be there, then dropped my phone on my bed in disgust. What good is technology if your friends are always grounded from it? Or hanging out with teammates?
For lack of anything better to do, I turned the TV on again, but I couldnt concentrate because what Id just overheard kept playing through my mind. I analyzed every word, trying to figure out what Id missed. What theyd been keeping from me.
I was sick; that much was clear. What else could living on borrowed time mean? So what did I have? What kind of twisted illness had premonitions of death as the primary symptom, and death itself as the eventual result?
Nothing, unless we were still considering adolescent dementia. Which we were not, based on the fact that they didnt think I needed the zombie pills.
So what kind of illness could make me think I was crazy?
Ignoring the television now, I slid into my desk chair and fired up the Gateway notebook my father had sent me for my last birthday. Each second it took to load sent fresh waves of agitation through me, fortifying my unease until that fear Id expected earlier finally began to take root in earnest.
Im going to die.
Just thinking the words sent terror skittering through me. I couldnt sit still, even for the few minutes it took Windows to load. When my leg began to jiggle with nerves, I stood in front of my dresser to peer in the mirror. Surely if I were ready to kick the proverbial bucket, I would know the minute I saw myself. Thats how it seemed to work when someone else was going to die.
But I felt nothing when I looked at my reflection, except the usual fleeting annoyance that, unlike my cousin, my skin was pale, my features completely unremarkable.
Maybe it didnt work with reflections. Id never seen Heidi in the mirror, nor Meredith. Holding my breath, and barely resisting the absurd urge to cross my fingers, I glanced down at myself, unsure whether I was more afraid of feeling the urge to scream, or of not feeling it.
Again, I felt nothing.
Did that mean I wasnt dying, after all? Or that my gruesome gift didnt work on myself? Or merely that my death wasnt yet imminent? Aaagggghhh! This was pointless!
My computer chimed to tell me it was up and running, and I dropped into my desk chair. I pulled up my Internet browser and typed leading cause of death among teenagers into the search engine, my chest tight and aching with morbid anticipation.
The first hit contained a list of the top ten causes of death in individuals fifteen through nineteen years of age. Unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide were the top three entries. But I had no plans to end my own life, and accidents couldnt be predicted. Neither could murder, unless my aunt and uncle were planning to take me out themselves.
Lower on the list were several equally scary entries, like heart disease, respiratory infection, and diabetes, among others. However, those all included symptoms I couldnt possibly have overlooked.
That left only the fourth leading cause of death for people my age: malignant neoplasms.
I had to look that one up.
The description from a separate, respected medical site was dense and nearly impossible to comprehend. But the laymans definition under that was too clear for comfort. Malignant neoplasm was doctor-talk for cancer.
Cancer.
And suddenly every hope Id ever harbored, every dream Id ever entertained, seemed too fragile a possibility to survive.
I had a tumor. What else could it be? And it had to be brain cancer to affect the things I felt and knew, didnt it? Or the things I thought I knew.
Did that mean the premonitions werent real? Were brain tumors giving me delusions? Some sort of sensory hallucinations? Had I imagined predicting Heidis and Merediths deaths, after the fact?
Did that mean the premonitions werent real? Were brain tumors giving me delusions? Some sort of sensory hallucinations? Had I imagined predicting Heidis and Merediths deaths, after the fact?
No. It couldnt be. I refused to believe that any mere illnessshort of Alzheimerscould rewrite my memories.
Hovering on the sharp, hot edge of panic now, I returned to the search engine and typed symptoms of brain cancer. The first hit was an oncology Web site that listed seven kinds of brain cancer along with the leading symptoms of each. But I had none of them. No nausea, seizures, or hearing loss. I had no impaired speech or motor function, and no spatial disorders. I wasnt dizzy, had no headaches, and no muscle weakness. I wasnt incontinentthank goodnessnor did I have any unexplained bleeding or swelling, nor any impaired judgment.
Okay, some might say sneaking into a nightclub was a sign of impaired judgment, but I was pretty sure my decision-making skills were right on target for someone my age, and miles above the judgment of others. Such as certain spoiled, vomit-prone cousins, who shall remain nameless.
I was tempted to rule out brain cancer based on the symptoms alone, until I noticed the section on tumors in the temporal lobe. According to the Web site, while temporal-lobe neoplasms sometimes impaired speech and caused seizures, they were just as often asymptomatic.
As was I.
That was it. I had a tumor in my temporal lobe. But if so, how did Aunt Val and Uncle Brendon know? More important, how long had they known? And how long did I have?
My fingers shook on the keys, and a nonsense word appeared in the address bar. I pushed my chair away from the desk and closed my laptop without bothering to shut it down. I had to talk to someone. Now.
I shoved my chair aside and crawled onto my bed on my hands and knees, snatching my phone from the comforter on the way to my headboard. At the top of the bed, I leaned back and pulled my knees up to my chest. My eyes watered as I scrolled through my contacts for Nashs number. I was wiping tears from my face with my sleeves by the time he answered.
Hello? He sounded distracted, and in the background, I heard canned fight sounds, then several guys groaned in unison.
Hey, its me. I sniffed to keep my nose from running.
Kaylee? Couch springs creaked as he sat upI had his attention now. Whats wrong? He switched to an urgent whisper. Did it happen again?