My Soul to Take
Page 28

Ms. Marshall replied a few minutes later, telling me that Emma was still grounded, but shed see me the next day for Merediths memorial, if I was planning to go.
I wrote back to tell her Id be there, then dropped my phone on my bed in disgust. What good is technology if your friends are always grounded from it? Or hanging out with teammates?
For lack of anything better to do, I turned the TV on again, but I couldnt concentrate because what Id just overheard kept playing through my mind. I analyzed every word, trying to figure out what Id missed. What theyd been keeping from me.
I was sick; that much was clear. What else could living on borrowed time mean? So what did I have? What kind of twisted illness had premonitions of death as the primary symptom, and death itself as the eventual result?
Nothing, unless we were still considering adolescent dementia. Which we were not, based on the fact that they didnt think I needed the zombie pills.
So what kind of illness could make me think I was crazy?
Ignoring the television now, I slid into my desk chair and fired up the Gateway notebook my father had sent me for my last birthday. Each second it took to load sent fresh waves of agitation through me, fortifying my unease until that fear Id expected earlier finally began to take root in earnest.
Im going to die.
Just thinking the words sent terror skittering through me. I couldnt sit still, even for the few minutes it took Windows to load. When my leg began to jiggle with nerves, I stood in front of my dresser to peer in the mirror. Surely if I were ready to kick the proverbial bucket, I would know the minute I saw myself. Thats how it seemed to work when someone else was going to die.
But I felt nothing when I looked at my reflection, except the usual fleeting annoyance that, unlike my cousin, my skin was pale, my features completely unremarkable.
Maybe it didnt work with reflections. Id never seen Heidi in the mirror, nor Meredith. Holding my breath, and barely resisting the absurd urge to cross my fingers, I glanced down at myself, unsure whether I was more afraid of feeling the urge to scream, or of not feeling it.
Again, I felt nothing.
Did that mean I wasnt dying, after all? Or that my gruesome gift didnt work on myself? Or merely that my death wasnt yet imminent? Aaagggghhh! This was pointless!
My computer chimed to tell me it was up and running, and I dropped into my desk chair. I pulled up my Internet browser and typed leading cause of death among teenagers into the search engine, my chest tight and aching with morbid anticipation.
The first hit contained a list of the top ten causes of death in individuals fifteen through nineteen years of age. Unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide were the top three entries. But I had no plans to end my ownlife, and accidents couldnt be predicted. Neither could murder, unless my aunt and uncle were planning to take me out themselves.
Lower on the list were several equally scary entries, like heart disease, respiratory infection, and diabetes, among others. However, those all included symptoms I couldnt possibly have overlooked.
That left only the fourth leading cause of death for people my age: malignant neoplasms.
I had to look that one up.
The description from a separate, respected medical site was dense and nearly impossible to comprehend. But the laymans definition under that was too clear for comfort. Malignant neoplasm was doctor-talk for cancer.
Cancer.
And suddenly every hope Id ever harbored, every dream Id ever entertained, seemed too fragile a possibility to survive.
I had a tumor. What else could it be? And it had to be brain cancer to affect the things I felt and knew, didnt it? Or the things I thought I knew.
Did that mean the premonitions werent real? Were brain tumors giving me delusions? Some sort of sensory hallucinations? Had I imagined predicting Heidis and Merediths deaths, after the fact?
No. It couldnt be. I refused to believe that any mere illnessshort of Alzheimerscould rewrite my memories.
Hovering on the sharp, hot edge of panic now, I returned to the search engine and typed symptoms of brain cancer. The first hit was an oncology Web site that listed seven kinds of brain cancer along with the leading symptoms of each. But I had none of them. No nausea, seizures, or hearing loss. I had no impaired speech or motor function, and no spatial disorders. I wasnt dizzy, had no headaches, and no muscle weakness. I wasnt incontinentthank goodnessnor did I have any unexplained bleeding or swelling, nor any impaired judgment.
Okay, some might say sneaking into a nightclub was a sign of impaired judgment, but I was pretty sure my decision-making skills were right on target for someone my age, and miles above the judgment of others. Such as certain spoiled, vomit-prone cousins, who shall remain nameless.
I was tempted to rule out brain cancer based on the symptoms alone, until I noticed the section on tumors in the temporal lobe. According to the Web site, while temporal-lobe neoplasms sometimes impaired speech and caused seizures, they were just as often asymptomatic.
As was I.
That was it. I had a tumor in my temporal lobe. But if so, how did Aunt Val and Uncle Brendon know? More important, how long had they known? And how long did I have?
My fingers shook on the keys, and a nonsense word appeared in the address bar. I pushed my chair away from the desk and closed my laptop without bothering to shut it down. I had to talk to someone. Now.