UpSpark: A Love Story (The Five Elements): YA Urban Fantasy by Nicole Wells ➱ Book Tour with Giveaway
Chapter One
Private Medical Practice
Silver Spring, Maryland
June 2017
I'M WAITING IN THE EXAMINATION ROOM. I've moved from the exam table to
the plastic chair at its side. I feel like I have more fortitude
here. It's a little more familiar and less lonely than being elevated and
exposed on the exam table. My mom is still in the waiting room. I
didn't really think it would best for her to be here. I mean, Jesus, dad
only died a year and a half ago. But what if it's positive? I
wouldn't be able to drive myself home after that. And I couldn't ask a
friend. It's just ... too much. Too personal.
I also moved to the chair because every time I moved on the table, every fidget,
every deep breath, caused that damn paper to crinkle, like a mocking echo of my
nervousness. A refrain to my thoughts. I decided I could do without
the added exclamation of the too-loud crinkle in the too-quiet room.
My thoughts circle around and around, only pausing when I wonder how much time
has passed. I refuse the temptation to check my phone, but then lose the
fight to keep my eyes off the clock on the wall. It's been three
minutes. Goddamn, but the brain can think a helluva lot of thoughts in
three minutes.
Happy birthday to me.
My name is Enya. I'm 18. Newly minted. Just a couple weeks
ago, actually. To most kids, that means another degree of freedom.
Moving out of the house, entering official adulthood, starting the rest of
their lives, maybe beginning the independence of college. To me, it means
I get to take a test.
A genetic test.
I've
been waiting my entire life for this test. No, I've been waiting my
entire life for the results of this test. And I can wait a little
longer. I think of not looking at the clock and end up looking at the
clock. Another minute has passed.
Are these my last minutes of freedom or the beginning of
freedom? The shadow of a death sentence will either become real or
dissipate.
My eyes drift to the clock again.
Thirty-two seconds have ticked by.
I focus on benign facts. Did you
know that about 300 million cells die every minute in our bodies?
And that we replace about 48 million
cells a minute?
Or that every few years most of our body
has recreated itself?
Or that most of our body is made up of
stardust? Everything in our bodies originates from stardust, which is
still falling and still recreating us. There’s something beautiful in the
impermanence of us from the eternity of stars. I wish that thought could
bring me the reassurance it usually does.
Did you know that I want to be a
doctor? I know exactly the kind, too. I want to do Integrative
Medicine. Yeah, all that kooky stuff. I love it. I really
believe I've got my head screwed on a little tighter than my mom does since my
dad died last year. I credit my getting acupuncture and homeopathy.
People know it works, too. That's why it's so popular. I'm gonna be
part of the movement that brings it to the forefront.
Despite waiting for it, the double rap on the
door startles me, and Dr. Yee strides in before I can recover. I could
have chosen a different doctor to tell me my fate. A genetic expert in a
comfy conference room. But Dr. Yee is my family doctor who’s a special
combination of straightforward and kind, and I trust her. She grabs the
black wheeled stool and sits, leaning onto the examination table, facing
me. There is a computer screen hiding my medical records beside us, but
she doesn't log in. I want her to. In my mind — I've prepared by
imagining this playing out, and I used our prior visits as fodder for my
fantasy — she logs in. She shows me what it says. Sometimes it's
printed out; in my fantasy that usually doesn't bode well.
She is staring at me now and I
desperately, unreasonably, want her to show me the computer screen. I
don't want her to tell me directly. Give me a buffer, let the windows to
my soul have some privacy. But the only shutters to my eyes are my eyelids,
and my face feels frozen, eyes wide.
I observe a part of my brain that is
having its own conversation, that's analyzing all her mannerisms, like a poker
fiend making bets. Is that normal? I've had this doctor for as long
as I can remember, and she knows me. And I know her. And she seems
extra doctor-y today. I cannot marshal my thoughts, and a group of them
tangent off, ping-ponging into a future of preordained death. Other
thoughts perseverate on the computer screen, while the background conversation
of Dr-Yee-is-wearing-sunshine-yellow-today-what-does-that-mean distracts me
from her words.
She leans even closer and paper
crinkles. "Enya, I know you are prepared for any answer.
You've had extensive counseling."
I've had, and I'm not. My dad had Huntington’s
disease. It’s a fatal disease that’s passed on to your kids. His
mother had it and he had a fifty percent chance of having it, just like I have
a fifty percent chance. My dad decided not to get tested, but I want to
know. So I had to go through a lot of counseling to get tested.
Since there’s no cure. It’s not a pretty way to go, but I’d like to
prepare if I can. But I’m not prepared for this like I thought I would
be.
It's like when my mom gets her mammogram
and then freaks out until the test results come. If there's cancer, it's
been there. It didn't magically appear on the day of the mammogram.
The test just brought the possibility front and center and she's out of her
mind with worry until she gets the results. There's something in the
knowing that makes fear manifest. Ignorance is bliss.
So I’m here, willingly giving up my
bliss, and freaking out.
Because my dad started having symptoms on
top of a midlife crisis and ended up killing himself.
Because the knowledge catches up to you.
It would be better to prepare. Dr. Yee said I’m prepared.
"You are prepared for this,"
she repeats. The exam table paper crinkles sound their exclamation point,
now like a cheerleading section, but I don't need an audience. She's
staring, and I think she expects me to nod. I'm still frozen.
"Enya, it's positive."
Chapter 2
THE BOTTOM DROPS OUT and there's a
roaring in my ears. I think I'm going to throw up and I don't care.
I couldn't move if my life depended on it. What life? Oh my
God. Oh my God.
She reaches out and grasps my hand,
a tether keeping me from falling further into the abyss. She's modeling deep
breaths and gently squeezing my hand and her eyes are trying to catch mine.
"This isn't the death sentence
it used to be. We have great treatments for the
symptoms."
OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod. She's
got to be wrong. Every test has its false positives, right?
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!
"Enya, look at me."
My body registers her words and follows her command without the compliance of
my mind. Her kind brown eyes hold me steady. She hasn't moved,
hasn't changed except to clasp my hand, since she first sat down.
"Enya, take a deep breath in. And let it out." I siphon in air
through stiff lips. I feel like a scarecrow, a mishmash of ill-fitting
parts about to topple down. I'm shaking. My eyes are leaking.
Deep breath, she is saying. My breath is a ragged and staccato in and
out, like I'm learning how for the first time. I feel if I stop this
breathing I will fall apart. I realize I am squeezing her hand when
wetness plops on our grip. Deep breath. The echo of her words is
resonating in my mind, like sounds heard under the ocean, registered but not
received. Breath, breath, -athhh, -thhhhHH.
Eventually, in the quiet of this
rhythmic space, I see her again. Her image blurs, I blink a tear free,
and I see her again. She squeezes my hand once more.
"Enya, you are the same person
you were when you walked in that door."
We've talked about this.
She's repeating things we've talked about. Like my wooden body, a wooden
automaton mind numbly clasps onto the concept and holds it close. I
nod. The ocean spills from my eyes, a river down my face. But I'm
granite now, my face, my limbs, heavy, frozen, immobile. Cold and
detached. Only a small section of my mind is whirring, not enough to run
this body, but enough to grasp onto each lifeline of thought she feeds me.
"There is no one hundred
percent in medicine. We have best guesses. And our best guess is
that you will be able to have a full and complete life. You can have a
career and a family if you want." Yes, we have talked about
this. I thought I was prepared. I thought I had taken it all to heart.
But somewhere, some dark unconscious passage along the way, I skirted away from
letting the possibility fully sink in, like thinking about it would tempt
fate. I thought I was prepared, but this... this is riding out a
hurricane on the makeshift raft of a door that is all that's left of the house
you knew.
She goes on, but trivial thoughts
of my college applications occupy my stupid mind. It’s deteriorated into
a hamster on a wheel, scurrying round and round. What a waste of
application fees. What a waste of time editing all the application
essays. What a waste...
My brain sounds an alarm as it
hears the word “anticipation.” This is medicalese for “it could get worse
with each generation”. Such an ill-fitting, stupid word to take the place
of “poor prognosis.” I remember talking about this too. It's
because it was my father that had it, not my mother, that I might have it worse
and symptoms might start earlier.
Wow, the measure of good now is
like a ruler through bug eyeglasses, some fractured thing repeating and
magnified in its power over me, mocking what I used to know and how things used
to be.
She mentions my mother and I
surface from the abyss of my thoughts. Do I want her to come in the room
with me now? There is an appointment with the counselor to go to.
We earmarked the time, but I'd hoped we wouldn't use it. It's strongly
recommended I have a loved one with me. I fought it before, with all the
hallmark independence of youth, but I see the sense now. I force my
wooden head to nod.
Dr. Yee cracks the door open and
talks to someone in the hall. She doesn't leave me, she doesn't let go of
my hand. I feel like an invalid with her concerned vigilance. I
will never know what it's like to be old, but maybe I am getting a glimpse
now. What weird thoughts. I think I am losing my mind. Maybe
this is like being old too. I guess I'll never know.
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