I was mentally running around my exercise wheel in my brain when Mr. Crossman, the vice principal, walked into our classroom. We all watched as he walked over to Mrs. Splintz and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and walked briskly over to my desk.
“Marissa, I need you to step out into the hall for a minute.”
Chapter Fifteen
My legs started to shake. “Why?” I grasped my seat.
She tilted her head to the side in that way grown-ups do. “Please, Marissa, just come into the hall for a minute.”
I got up from my seat and began following behind her. My legs felt like I was a new doe just walking for the first time — wobbly and unstable.
In the hall, Mr. Crossman, and Mrs. Splintz, just looked at me for a moment.
“Marissa, let’s take a walk to Mr. Glidman’s office,” Mr. Crossman said.
I followed him and Mrs. Splintz silently. I wondered why Mrs. Splintz wasn’t going back to the classroom. I wondered what was so bad that they had to bring me to the guidance counselor’s office.
“Hi Marissa, please have a seat,” Mr. Glidman said.
“I’ll stand, thanks,” I replied. My feet felt super-glued to the pale blue carpet. Mr. Crossman left the room, but Mrs. Splintz stayed behind.
I could feel heat forming on my neck. After taking a long inhale, Mr. Glidman finally spoke.
“Marissa, I’m just going to say this. Your grandmother is in the hospital.”
I felt a punch to my gut.
“She’s had a heart attack.”
My body fell in a heap onto the floor.
“Oh dear.” Mrs. Splintz knelt down to me. “Marissa, are you all right?”
I could hear her, but the words sounded distant, like she was in a tunnel or something. “Is she—” was all I could get out before the tears came. Big, wet, crocodile tears flooded my face.
“Sweetheart, I’m going to drive you to the hospital, okay?” They both helped me up off the ground. I nodded to Mrs. Splintz. She told me to wait a minute while she went to retrieve my things from the classroom. Mr. Glidman and I moved out to the hallway. With a hand on my shoulder, he kept telling me how sorry he was. Was she dead already? No, he would have told me if she was. Or would he? I wiped tears with the back of my hand. Some girl was walking in the hallway near the restrooms, and I caught her staring at me. Embarrassed, I turned my face and tried again to wipe the tears away, but they just kept coming.
“Okay, dear, let’s go.” Mrs. Splintz had returned with my things. She wrapped an arm around me and guided me all the way to her car.
There’s something surreal about being in a car with your teacher. I mean, you never think of your teachers as people. But, then you’ll run into them at the grocery store or the mall, and it’s like you get put into this whole alternate universe. You find out that they buy mac and cheese too, and they use the same laundry detergent you do. To me, the out-of-school-versions of teachers always seemed like doppelgangers. Personally, I didn’t want to think about my teachers outside of school. It just gave me the willies. So being inside Mrs. Splintz’s car was totally creeping me out.
Maybe I was just trying to distract myself from why I was actually in her car and from where we were going, but I couldn’t stop looking at her stuff. Like how all her radio station presets seemed to be classic rock. She was scanning through them, and I kept hearing song snippets from bands like Boston, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen. Why would my English teacher be listening to Zeppelin? In the little coin holder, she had a matchbox and three different lip glosses — the same types that I would buy at the drug store. One was a shimmery light pink, another was a mauve tone, and the last was a deep berry with gold shimmer. While she kept her eyes on the road, I looked at her profile. Her brown curly hair was tied up in a messy bun. She had some foundation on and a touch of blush. I could tell she had at least one coat of mascara on, but that was it for makeup. Simple. Where did she go in her non-school life that she wore gold shimmery berry-colored lip gloss? Her ring finger on her left hand was bare, meaning she wasn’t married. Did she date? She was a Mrs. though, so she must have been divorced. How old could she be? Again, I looked at her profile — no real visible wrinkles, but she was definitely out of her twenties. So mid-thirties, maybe. What did people in their mid-thirties do on dates? Ew. I decided I didn’t want to think about it.
I was still gazing at her as she parked the car. “Okay, here we are.” She looked at me, and I immediately looked away. “I’ll come in with you, okay?” Her hand touched mine, and I nodded.
The scent of bleach made my nose feel like it was on fire. I hated hospitals. Everything about them made my insides squirm. Mrs. Splintz had spoken to the reception desk and asked where we could find my grandmother. As we walked the hallway on the fourth floor, I felt my stomach twisting and turning. It was as if I had swallowed broken glass, and the shards were battling inside me. We stood outside the door to room 451. Mrs. Splintz put her hand on my back.
“Do you think you can go in?” she said.
I stood frozen. The
