"Dinner," Jackson called through the door.
"'Kay. Be down in a sec."
Fi stowed her books in her backpack. Marcus made like he'd help her out, but she shook him off. She didn't like how he looked, now that she was a few feet away and had a better perspective. He looked paler than when she got there. "Are you sure you're all right?"
He wagged his eyebrows as he dragged his fingers through her hair, combing it out. "Just dandy."
She eyed him a minute before deciding to believe him. At the front door she gave him a quick peck on the mouth. "I'll call you later," he said.
I NEED THE CAR!!! Ryan texted.
She would have complained about her rude brother, but she glimpsed an irritated Jackson watching them from the hallway and knew it could be worse.
FEBRUARY
FIONA
Fiona was in no mood for Lucy's rant, but David had gotten sucked right in.
"Why not dump weed killer right into the Mississippi, then?" Lucy asked, squaring off with him. He sat beside Fiona on the coffee shop's battered futon.
"That's not what I meant," he said. "But you can't expect all the big farms around here to go organic. It's just not practical."
"Fiona, does your boyfriend know it's that kind of thinking that's destroyed our ozone layer?"
David had yet to develop the skills to avoid Lucy's Injustice-Du-Jour debates. On any other day, Fiona would have been a nice girlfriend and helped him out. But today was February 27, the day she was always bitchy-as Ryan had been kind enough to point out last year. Today, it was every man for himself.
Fiona stood up, taking both her Moleskine and mug. "I'm getting a refill."
When she got to the counter, Gwen held out her hand, taking the mug and refilling it without instruction. "Are you coming with Ryan tonight?"
"Um-"
Gwen handed the mug back. "My art show?"
"Oh, right. Your show."
"I've got three paintings. My teacher thinks a few local art dealers might even come."
Gwen went to a high school for performing and fine arts. All seniors participated in a show-which Fiona found equally intriguing and horrifying. "Let me double-check with Ryan."
Gwen nodded. "I'm heading out in a minute, to get ready. It's at six."
"Right, I know," which she didn't. Nor did she want to go.
Just then, Ryan walked in and planted a quick kiss on Gwen. He turned to Fiona, his smile fading. "How you doing?"
"I'm fine. Why?"
Ryan reached over to pick up the mug of decaf Gwen had already poured. He pointed toward an empty table in the corner. "Come sit with me."
She wasn't sure which was worse-this annual February 27 heart-to-heart with her brother or Lucy's sermon in the nook. At least she'd get him to herself.
As she walked behind him, her eyes came level with his shoulder blades, rather than the back of his head. He looked so much older than her now.
At the table, he studied her over the rim of his mug. "I want to talk about the surgery."
Fiona's breath came out in an audible ooof. "God, why?"
"Because you've gotta make a decision."
"Maybe not making a decision is the decision."
"Is it?"
She used her index finger to circle random patterns across the wood. "Why do you want me to decide now? Why can't it be next year? Or ten years from now?"
"If you don't do it soon, you will have to wait. The recovery time is four months, at least. It's not like you can schedule it whenever you want it. If the donation is there, you've gotta be ready for it."
"I know."
"Once you get up to Chicago, you won't have that chunk of time again for four years. You've already got all the credits you need to graduate, you're already set with college. It's the perfect time."
"Did Mom pay you or something? What's with the sales pitch?"
"You're suspicious, because I want what's best for you?"
"How do you know this is best for me?"
"You want to wallow every February twenty-seventh from now till you die?"
"It's one day! Every other day I'm fine."
"You're burned every day, Fiona."
"Yet you make a bigger deal about it than I do," she snapped. "You didn't get burned, Ryan. I did."
Ryan looked at the table. "I know."
"So you can't be all high-and-mighty about what I should do."
"I'm not. I just want to help. I want to make it better."
Make me better, you mean. "Is it that hard to look at me?"
It was a hateful thing to say. She was equally pleased and horrified as all expression melted off his face.
She stood, picking up her Moleskine. "Tell Lucy and David I went home."
"I'll drive you."
"I want to walk."
"No, let me-"
She held up her hand and walked out without a glance or a word to anyone else.
It wasn't a long walk home-maybe a mile-but it was cold and gray in that way that only Memphis in the winter can be. Not cold enough to justify buying a two hundred dollar puffy down coat, but never warm enough for the bulky sweatshirts everyone made do with instead. And the gray. She hadn't seen actual sunlight in a month and a half. Maybe vitamin D withdrawal was the real reason she was so foul by the end of February.
Tossing her hood over her head and pulling the drawstring tight, Fiona bundled against herself and began the trudge home. Gradually the walk warmed her. Cold, clean air filled up her lungs and scrubbed them clean. She unfolded slowly, each vertebra notching itself upright when good and ready. Twenty minutes later, her hood was down, her back straight, her good cheek flushed.
At some point, Fiona found herself simply standing. A low wall edged the lawn just beside her. She was only a few blocks from home, but she walked over to sit on it. Not moving forward or backward, but sideways.
She breathed, in and out. She felt the cold, hard stone poke into the cold, hard of her tailbone. She stared ahead at nothing in particular.
Ryan was right, of course. Everything was horrible on February 27. She was horrible.
On February 27, she was scarred. Every bit of her-face, heart, soul, brain-was mauled and mutilated. She was nothing but damage.
She hated it all. Her scars, her self-pity, herself.
She wanted to be whole.
She pulled her Moleskine and pen from her pocket and began to write:
Accidents and incidents / Freak twists in coincidence
Build me up, like bones and skin
I want love and sin
Let me lure you in
Let me begin again
But this fate and skin / They trap me in.
Well, she didn't write it all at once. There were stops and starts, scratched-out lines, rearranged words. Countless breaths came in and out while the sun dipped away, and the night crept up. She only vaguely noticed the lost light and cold fingers, but this was a perfect kind of trance.
She looked up when the car honked.
Ryan screeched to a jerky stop at the curb in front of her and hopped out. "Where the hell have you been?!"
"Here," she said, looking at him with a groggy, afternoon-nap feeling.
"It's been two hours."
Fiona looked at the-even grayer, like burnt charcoal-sky. "Wow. I didn't realize-"
"What are you doing?" he said, in a furious panic.
She folded the Moleskine, resting it on her knees. "I was walking. And then writing."
"It's a thirty minute walk home-tops-from the coffee shop, Ona. It's"-he looked at his watch-"six thirty."
"Wait, doesn't Gwen have a thing?"
"Yes, she does. You'll notice I'm not there."
It was bad, she knew, to feel a little triumphant about this. "What, you thought I was abducted or something?" She pointed to the long row of large, turn-of-the-century houses lining the street. "We're not exactly in a high-crime area."
He sat beside her and pulled at the weeds growing through the cracks in the wall. "Anything could have happened. I didn't know."
Ryan looked tense and edgy, not yet recovered from his ridiculous-but sweet-panic. Fiona's heart broke a little for him. For the moment, she forgot her problems and stepped out of her mood. She nudged his shoulder with her own. "You're a mess. Talk to me."
He rested his hands in his lap and looked straight ahead, toward the house across the street. "I just get lost in your story sometimes."
"Lost in my story?"
He nodded. "Like . . . there's this place you're supposed to be, and it's my job to get you there."
"Where am I supposed to be?"
He shrugged. "If I knew, I wouldn't keep screwing it up."
"How are you screwing it up?" she asked, thoroughly confused. It was like someone had sliced the pivotal chapters out of the "story" before she even got a chance to read it.