Burning Blue

It hits me: that look I caught Mom giving me in the bathroom the night before. Was it suspicion? My second thought is that Jay Nazzaro hasn’t called. I feel like an idiot all over again. I thought he felt it too, a connection, the possibility of deep friendship rooted in common experience: being afraid of the next attack, not knowing when it’s coming. But can you build a real friendship on fear?

I’m groggy as I head downstairs. Mom is in her studio. She left me a breakfast plate on the counter, steak and eggs. I slide it into the microwave and stare through the window, watching the carousel turn as the food starts to smoke. Suddenly the rain is back. . loud on the windows. I kept the umbrella Jay fixed for me. He knows what it’s like, people trying not to stare at you. They smile sweetly, but really they’re thinking, Freak. Maybe we could be alone together.

The microwave blips. I cut into the meat, overcooked, gray. The stringiness. The veins. I clench my jaw to keep myself from screaming. I try not to look at it as I cut it up and bag it for our neighbor Mrs. Gluck’s cat. On impulse I grab my phone. To hell with it. I check my recent Calls Sent for Jay’s number and tap it.

SIXTEEN

She wanted to go riding, as in horseback. I’d been on one of those miniature ponies once, the kind out in front of old-school drugstores. Two quarters get you two minutes of slow-motion bobbing. Other than that, the closest I’d come to a horse was when I stepped in a pile of hay-threaded crap left in the middle of the trail at Ramapo Mountain State Park. “Look,” I said, “you and Dave, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything, you know?”

“That’s a little presumptuous of you, don’t you think? If you don’t want to go-”

“No no, I want to.”

“Do you ride?”

“Sure.”

“The forklift.”

“You can ride the horse, I’ll chug alongside on my skateboard.”

“Yeah, no, the horse won’t like that. We’ll see what we can do.”

After school I met her at the stables. My horse was a big black Arabian with a half-moon shock of white for a bib. He ignored whatever I was trying to do with the reins and followed Nicole’s horse into the trails. After a few minutes of smashing my nuts every time the horse trotted a step, I had to ask Nicole if we could take a break. She showed me how to absorb the shock with my knees. I was doing squats for half an hour straight. I had no alternative but to come to the conclusion that horse riding sucked. On the upside, Nicole was wearing riding pants. She had amazing legs.

We came to a clearing and stopped. Nicole popped a pill. “Allergies,” she said. She dismounted and led the horses to a water trough. She whispered to them, and they bent their necks to nuzzle her. She laughed quietly into their ears as she fed them apple bits. I found this resilience almost disturbing. How does a girl who has just been burned in an acid attack find the will to smile? But when she got back onto her horse she grimaced. A very long hour later we were done. She led the horses to their stalls, and I went to the concession stand. We grabbed a picnic table at the edge of the eating area. Nicole squinted into the tree shade.

“Photographers?” I said.

“I left through the service gate. Didn’t see anybody following me.”

Two middle school buses were pulling into the parking lot. The kids were loud.

“Thought you were going to get some peace and quiet, did you?” I said.

“The trails were nice though, right?” she said.

The kids mobbed the concession stand. They were shrieking more than laughing. All the bouncing around on the horse had given me a headache. Nicole adjusted her sunglasses so they were closer to her eyes. She made sure her hair covered the left side of her face. “My second surgery is coming up,” she said. “I can’t believe I have to keep doing this. The anesthesia. Going dark like that, bam, you’re dead, you know?”

“I do.”

“The harvesting is the worst of it. The idea of it.” She pushed her cheese fries away. “My mother begged me not to ride. She said I would open up the wound. I said, ‘I’m not doing any headstands on the horse today, Mom,’ and she said, ‘No, I mean your hip. You’ll split the stitches.’ I had to sneak out of the house.”

The kids threw ketchup-soaked fries at each other.

“Did you?” I said. “Split the stitches?”

“They were ready to come out anyway. The wounds stayed closed. I checked them in the bathroom.” She winced. “Hurt more than my face right about now, though.”

The kids’ screaming was really getting to me. Underneath it was this crackling buzz. About twenty feet away, a dude was spot-welding a hinge onto the pasture gate. The stink of acetylene and burning metal cut into my nostrils and seeped like a nosebleed into the back of my throat. “What does he do, your dad?” I said.

“Finance. I better call my mom.”

I gagged on the metal taste. The sun flickered. Nicole said from a great distance, even though her face was inches from mine, “Jay, are you all right?” as I fell backward.

SEVENTEEN

I came to on a cot in the stables office. The woman who ran the concession was taking my blood pressure. Nicole mopped my brow. I put my hand down to my crotch.

I was dry.

“How long was I out?” I said.

“Maybe two minutes,” Nicole said.

“Was I-”

“You were shivering, sort of,” Nicole said.

“I don’t think you were all the way out,” the woman said. “You stood up when I told you to and you let us walk you back here. Has this ever hap-”

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you taking any medi-”

“Supposed to be.”

“When was the last time you-”

“Yesterday.” She had taken off my sneakers. I sat up and put them back on.

“Hold on a second there,” the woman said. “The ambulance is on its way.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.”

“Jay,” Nicole said.

“My father’s insurance doesn’t cover ambulance rides.”

“That’s no reason not to get medical attention,” Nicole said.

“It is for me.” I was done pretending, acting as if I belonged here at a riding stable, of all the ridiculous places, one that catered to a bunch of spoiled rich kids.

“Let me call your mother, then,” the woman who ran the concession said. “Just lie back there and breathe until she gets here.”

“My name is Jay Nazzaro. I’m at Huntington Stables. Today is Friday, October twenty-second. I’m alert and oriented with no signs of physical trauma or amnesia. I was eating fries, and I had a seizure. I know the drill, okay? By law you have to let me go.” I left.

Nicole followed. “Can I at least take you to the hospital? My father’ll pay, Jay.”

“No way. Can you pop the hatchback?” We were at her Subaru, or her maid’s.

“You’re not seriously thinking of skateboarding?”