Thicker Than Water (2 page)

“And even if the hospital cafeteria food sucks,” Kia continued as she chewed, “there are loads of cafés and restaurants and stuff around the hospital.” For some reason, Kia felt like saying “hospital” as many times as she could before her dad left for work. Maybe because she was the only one who ever went, and she needed to make the place real to him, the way it was for her.

Only it wasn't. All that real. More like super-real, like it was the only true reality and everything outside that noisy, airless building full of pain was fake, a time-out.

It might have been easier to go if it weren't a hospital where most people didn't get better. Specializing in cancer meant that they had the best staff, best surgeons, best specialists, best blah blah blah, but it sure made it hard on the visitors, knowing that every frail person strolling down a corridor in a blue gown wasn't likely to survive. Every child in a wheelchair was facing a probable death sentence. At least in other hospitals you went in to get cured, you went in to have babies—you went in anticipating coming out. But the place where Kia's mom was, most of what they did was maintenance. Pausing in the process toward dying.

Not always
, Kia reminded herself.
Not every time. She came out before.

Kia pushed the plate away, leaving half the bagel, and got up.

“You finished?” her dad said.

“Yeah.” Before he could say anything annoying, like “breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Kia grabbed her backpack and left for school.

Aces. Made it out of the building without having to deal with some neighbor in the elevator. Often Kia skipped the elevator ride and clomped down the fire stairs. Her dad's apartment was on the Upper East Side, where the kids all went to private school, and small children were never taken there by actual parents but by nannies of other ethnic groups. Kia's dad had moved up in the world since the divorce, while she and her mom had been lucky just to hold steady.

She'd been in the apartment plenty of times before it had become her new address, of course, but now that she was fully ensconced, the differences between her and the rest of the people in the neighborhood were glaring. She stood out walking down the street—long multi-toned hair, all-black clothes, pierced eyebrow, nose stud, heavy-duty makeup were rarities on the Upper East Side.

At least there was one benefit from her temporary head-quarters at Dad's, she thought as she scratched off a flyer pasted inside the bus shelter. No early morning subway ride. Kia went to a nearby public school that specialized in music and art. She had always hated the subway ride from her mom's funky little apartment in the West Village.

The bus arrived and Kia squeezed her way to the back. She plopped into a seat and stared out the window at the gray world. The windows on the bus were surprisingly clean, but the late September drizzle and fog turned everything outside impressionistic. Fuzzy. Like her thoughts.

This sluggishness was a familiar feeling. The morning-after uglies. Back when she was hitting the blades regularly, this was always the aftermath. Today, though, there was an added undercurrent of bewilderment. She had managed to stop for such a long time.

Kia couldn't remember the first time she took a razor blade to her skin. It had begun with her nails, scratching herself with a violence she didn't recognize. At some point she graduated to blades. What she remembered most clearly were her attempts to stop. The shame and fear she felt—what kind of freak
does
this kind of thing? But she also recalled with absolute clarity the sense of release and relief the cutting provided.

She'd quit because ultimately the tugging stopped or at least lessened enough for her to get control back somehow. Until last night.

But why? Why was it back now? Her mom had been diagnosed six months ago—she hadn't done it then. Her mom was back in the hospital three weeks later—she didn't start then. And since she didn't really understand how she had managed to stop last time, she wondered if she'd just keep on doing it now.

Not until she died or anything. Suicide was not appealing, nor was it the reason she sliced her skin. And this was no “cry for attention,” since to get attention for it, someone would have to know and no one did. Kia made sure of that.

Kia rolled her hands up so she could tug her sleeves down a little farther onto her wrists. The cuts were higher up: they ran the length of the veins from the inside of her elbow to just above the cuff of her shirt. Even in the throes of the cutting, she knew where to stop. Kia smirked.
I'm the most in-control out-of-control person I know.

The bus pulled up to her stop and Kia got off and joined the packs of kids heading into school.

“Hey, Gloomy!” A tall, scrawny redheaded guy banged into Kia so hard she nearly tripped.

“Aaron,” Kia scolded, pulling her bag back up onto her shoulder.

“I called your name like three times before I hip-checked you back into this world,” Aaron said. “Everything okay?”

“I'm not gloomy,” Kia said. “Just ... thinking.” She did her best to stretch her mouth into a grin. “But now that I'm at school, I won't have to think anymore, will I?”

“Oh no, thinking is highly frowned upon here!” Aaron said. “And if you indulged in such an activity, you'd be in the minority anyway.”

“So, really, why the cheer?” Kia asked. She fluffed up her bangs while examining her reflection in the glass window of the entrance doors. Her thick dark eyeliner was drawn expertly, no wobbly lines, and just the right amount to make her look intense but not raccoonish. Her purple-black lipstick created the perfect pout with no going outside the lines at all and no smudging. Mornings after, she tended to be extremely meticulous.

Her outfit had been chosen for comfort and camouflage. She tended toward layers—all in various shades of black—and today, with the requisite long sleeves. Kia was tall, with definite curves, and liked the way loose clothing sort of kept her shape hidden. She wasn't fat, but next to skinny Aaron and their slim friend Carol, it was hard not to feel big.

“I have plans for tonight—and not just for me,” Aaron said. He pushed open the door and they went into the building. “For you and Carol too.”

“I'm supposed to go to the hospital today,” Kia said.

“That's okay; this is a night thing. And since it's Friday, there's no backing out because it's a weeknight. Not even from our overly conscientious Carol.”

“And what is this nighttime thing?” Kia asked.

“Tell you at lunch!” Aaron called before being swallowed by the swarm of kids finding their homerooms. Kia saw him wave hello to some of the other students in the music program, then she turned and headed for her classroom.

“Hey,” a boy sitting in the back row greeted Kia as she slid into her seat next to him. Virgil had choppy hair dyed as black as Kia's and three studs in his ear. His leather jacket had a skull and crossbones on the back. He was tilted back in his chair and his sturdy boots, similar to Kia's, were up on his desk.

“Hey, Virgil,” Kia replied.

Virgil thudded the front legs of his chair back onto the floor and rummaged in his backpack. He pulled out a CD and tossed it onto Kia's desk. “Made this for you.”

Kia picked up the CD. “What is it?”

He shrugged. “More of those bands you liked. I was trolling through some MP3 stuff and burned you some.”

“Thanks. I liked the last one you gave me.”

Virgil grinned, flashing his dimples. He didn't smile that much and suddenly she wondered if it was because he knew that the dimples made him look really sweet, like a goth cherub. His smile definitely took the edge off his hard-core image. So did his personality, but Kia didn't want to break it to him that for all his swagger, he was actually nice.

She slipped the CD into her bag as Ms. Romero walked in and took attendance. One good thing about school: Kia wouldn't have to worry about a slip for a whole six hours.

 

Kia was hit by a wave of noise as she entered the cafeteria. Was it something about the Formica surfaces and hard plastic that made sound reverberate? She nodded hello to Marni and the rest of her old group of friends, the ones she never talked to anymore. It wasn't like they'd started being mean to her or anything—they just got distant. As if her mom's cancer were contagious or after all the drama of the diagnosis, before the summer and the first round of chemo, they just didn't know how to deal with Kia anymore. Maybe it was all just too boring. It was sometimes boring to Kia.

She easily spotted Aaron's lanky frame and red hair loping through the maze of tables. Aaron had grown six inches over the summer without putting on a single pound (at least it looked that way), so he really stood out in the crowd. Unfortunately, a glimpse of his face did the trick too since acne had recently taken hold of his skin like an invading army. Aaron sat down at a table near the windows with the third member of their trio, Carol Avery.

Carol's long auburn hair was backlit by the dim rays struggling to get through the grime on the chicken-wired windows. Carol was like a cat—she always managed to position herself in the most flattering, photogenic spots completely unselfconsciously.

Carol was in the music program with Aaron—she was a flute player and also had a light soprano voice. But she and Kia had been friends long before high school. They had grown up in the same neighborhood, so they had gone to the same middle school together too. Not long ago, Carol's older brother had dropped out of college and run away: a different kind of grief than Kia knew, but for both of them loss was always possible, always hovering. As a result Kia and Carol shared a similar anxiety around telephone rings. They communicated mostly by e-mail.

“Hey, you,” Aaron greeted Kia as she dropped into the seat beside Carol.

“Aaron has plans for us,” Carol said.

Kia raised her pierced eyebrow. “I heard. And what might they be?”

“Do you know what today is?” Aaron asked.

“Friday,” Carol replied. “As in thank God it's.”

“True. But it's also the autumnal equinox. Very important day in the witchy world.”

“And this matters to us because ... ?” Kia asked.

“Because there is going to be a public Mabon ceremony tonight in Central Park, and we're going to be there,” Aaron explained.

“What kind of ceremony?” Kia asked.

“Pay attention! It's a Wiccan ceremony celebrating the autumnal equinox. You know, witches.”

“Like for Halloween?” Carol asked.

Aaron rolled his eyes. “No. There are real people who practice witchcraft all over the city all year round.”

“But are they people we actually want to know?” Kia asked.

“Of course they are! They're mysterious. And interesting!” Aaron waggled his strawberry blond eyebrows. “And maybe cute guys will be there. For all of us.”

“Why didn't you say that in the first place?” Carol asked.

Kia laughed. Carol was always on the lookout for new play-mates. She divided her time between intense studying and even more intense make-out sessions, but her primary emphasis was always on the academics. Those two interests left her little time for anything else, including friends. Aaron and Kia were the rare exceptions.

“Sounds fun.” Carol turned to Kia. “What do you think?”

Kia knew going with them would be safer than being home alone after her slip last night, but the whole fake witch ritual sounded pretty lame.

“Well?” Aaron prodded. “I know you're going to the hospital, but the event starts at sunset. Hang with your mom for an hour and then head over. It's on the east side of the park anyway.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Kia hedged.

Carol glanced at Kia. “How's that going, with your mom?” she asked.

Kia shrugged.

“And your dad still never goes with you?” Aaron asked. Kia knew he was really pissed at Kia's dad for not being very involved during her mom's first stint in the hospital six months ago, when she had been diagnosed and had surgery. Kia was pissed too, but it wasn't like there was anything she could do about it.

It was scary. You loved someone enough to marry them, have a kid even, but in spite of all that, somewhere along the way you got to a point where not even a life-threatening illness could bring about the courtesy of a phone call.

“You know Dad,” Kia said to Aaron. “Intense stuff has never been his thing.”

“True,” Carol said, sipping a diet soda. “Like when you had to get stitches. He spent more time threatening lawsuits against the playground than taking care of you.”

Kia laughed. “Exactly. Ruling the co-op board in his building and eating in nice restaurants. Those are his specialties.”

The bell rang, and Kia finished her soda.

“So?” Aaron asked. “We on for later?”

“Sure,” Kia said. “Why not?”

For the rest of the afternoon, Kia blurred through her classes. She never felt pulled into focus, probably a result of her close encounter of the razor blade kind the previous night. She stashed her stuff in her locker when the final bell sounded and headed for the exit.

She was just outside the door when it hit her that she'd totally forgotten about ceramics class. A thick guy with a thicker backpack slammed into her when she skidded to a stop.

“Hey,” he snarled. “Watch out.”

“Sorry,” Kia said, scurrying back into school.

She raced around a corner, realizing that if she went to the hospital after ceramics, she'd have to miss the Wicca ceremony.

She could always skip the hospital visit today. It wasn't like she'd be able to have an extended visit like she could over the weekend.