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sick kid than a nurse, so that worked out great for everyone.
    Nowadays with the economy and layoffs, he’s having to cover more territory than ever and is gone most of the time. He says he doesn’t mind, since it makes sure my health insurance is covered, and anyway, he hates coming home to an empty house when I’m in the hospital.
    When I was little, he used to come visit me in the hospital, but I’d always have a Set Back during his visits—my mom said the excitement was too much for me. Dad hates hospitals, so I think he was relieved when she finally asked him to stop coming.
    No one asked me.
    And that’s it. My only halfway normal memory. I try and try but can’t remember anything important from when I was young—certainly nothing as far back as Mrs. Gentry wants us to go. Every time I close my eyes and concentrate on the past, my throat chokes up and my heart stampedes into overdrive.
    I wonder if I am crazy. Not for the first time. Maybe one of those Near Misses rotted my brain and now it’s all Swiss-cheesed like the pictures you see of the brains of people with Alzheimer’s or drug addicts. But then why can I remember everything else? Books I read years ago, things like algebra and geometry, even history—although I admit, I get fuzzy on some of the presidents like Taft and Harding and whatshisname, McKinley.
    It’s my own life that’s a blur.

13
    Homeroom is next. Fifteen minutes of boring announcements over the intercom and TV screens. The only one that sounds at all interesting is that there’s a pep rally scheduled for Thursday, last period. Sounds like fun to me. The rest of the kids groan as if mandatory peppiness and school spirit is too much to ask—some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.
    I’m excited and answer with a perky “here” when the teacher calls my name, but everyone else just grunts or makes a monosyllabic acknowledgment. Terminal boredom.
    I don’t feel sorry for them. Not at all. They have no idea what boredom really is—not until you’ve spent years of your life drifting between hospital rooms and your house, barely ever going out in public. If they only knew, they’d be as excited by the prospect of being in school as I am.
    The fifteen minutes is over and we’re all sprung. I meet up with Nessa and Celina outside the cafeteria. First lunch is pretty much mostly sophomores, Nessa informs me. “But some of the other cool kids eat now as well, so it’s not too bad.”
    Celina rolls her eyes and reminds Nessa, “We are sophomores.”
    I’m not paying too much attention. I’m starving. Usually I’m never hungry, so I see this as a good thing. Mom would probably argue otherwise, shove some reflux meds down me, and order me to rest until the rumbles in my stomach subside.
    They lead me into the cafeteria and it’s like walking into a Category Five hurricane. The sounds are overwhelming—add to them the smells of chili mac, French fries, corn syrup served a dozen ways from Friday, plus body odor, not to mention the bustle of a hundred kids pushing their way through the lines, jockeying for table space, and establishing their social hierarchy.
    It almost makes me long for the comparative quiet of my hospital room (although hospitals are actually very noisy and never peaceful—so much for a “healing” environment). Once I get past the initial shockwave, it’s kind of fascinating.
    “What’s Jordan doing here?” I ask, spotting him sitting alone at the end of a table near the windows. Prime real estate, but since he’s a junior here at the sophomore lunch period, I guess he’s top of the food chain.
    “Poor guy,” Celina says.
    “It’s all our fault,” Nessa adds. “He might just as well be wearing scarlet letters.”
    I realize that everyone ignores Jordan, and they’ve left space around him. Space enough for three at least.
    “It’s because of the peer support?”
    “Yep. Thorne has single-handedly destroyed all of our social lives and condemned