The Van Pact

14: Stevie

I'm living in a fog. I think I may have a brain tumor. Every time I tried to concentrate in Chemistry, I'd start to shiver. My phone would buzz in my pocket –a text message from Carla, a snap from Valerie- and I'd feel my writing arm go weak. I think Mr. Zhang could tell I was ill. He ended lecture about five minutes earlier than usual, "to give us time to start the homework." Right, sure.

            Everything is awful.

            Horrible.

            Miserable.

            I was scheduled to visit Ms. Gabel at lunchtime. I took the green apple and the ham-and-Swiss potato bread sandwich I had packed to her office with me, but I couldn't eat. Of course, Ms. Gabel had to screen me for anorexia then. I don't think I convinced her that I already believe I'm too skinny. She gave me three pamphlets, one about the dangers of undereating, one about safe sex, and one about finding personal validation outside of romantic relationships. Three years as my guidance counselor and she doesn't understand my psychological make-up whatsoever. Probably because she's my guidance counselor, our school has four thousand students, and I'm ostensibly well adjusted. I don't think she even knew my name till last week. That's how it's supposed to be. The system was working. Then dumb Valerie had to go and destroy my façade of emotional stability: not only with the fibromyalgia debacle, but now by making me become friends with Jesse.

            This might be the worst thing to have ever happened to me.

            Let me explain: it appears I might now have a chance with Jesse. I might actually get to date him. He might actually want to date me. Valerie was stupidly confident about that in Calc. She punched me on the shoulder as if I were a prizefighter and she my coach. I swear, if she says you're in like Flynn one more time, I might completely lose it.

            On the surface, this should be something I'm happy about. Yet, I can't make myself happy. I'm waiting on the proverbial other shoe. I may have managed to escape the first of the O'Shaughnessy laws of inevitability. I may have actually secured a small, nay, infinitesimal chance at my dream guy. But there's always law number two. Either Jesse will reject me – or I will develop a brain tumor and die before we can consummate our relationship. I've been hoping for the latter. It will probably hurt less than the first possibility. I've felt hazy since this morning. It might be a migraine coming on, but it could also be cancer.

            "It's not cancer," Valerie snorted as she slid into the seat next to me at our lab table. "Trust me, I know about cancer."

            "Right, sure," I pulled my anatomy binder out of my book bag. "Just because your mom's a doctor doesn't mean you've inherited all her medical knowledge by Lamarckian evolution."

            "Yeah, well, Lamarck was onto something," Valerie smiled at her notebook. "A man before his time."

            "I'm going to die," I said, "that's the only way this could end. Good things don't happen to me."

            "We're all going to die," Valerie's ginger ponytail bobbed as she spoke, "and we'll all be fine."

             Something cold brushed the back of my neck. I swung around in my chair and saw first what looked like the bones of a human hand, then an arm, then a ribcage, and a skull. I jolted backwards in shock and knocked my left elbow on my lab table.

            Mr. Webb cackled beside what I realized was a plastic skeleton. Not the supernatural embodiment of my fast-approaching death, but a plastic skeleton. A teaching aid. I bumped my elbow for a stupid teaching aid. The classroom erupted into laughter. I hated all of them. Except for Jesse. And maybe Val.