I ask him, propping myself up onto my elbows.
Don’t ask! Julia says. She has understood immediately what sort of man he is. Why would you encourage him?
“Time for ev-er-y-thing.” (That’s exactly how it sounds.) “You’re a young man now, a person.” He’s gripping the railing of the bed in his zeal. “If you do this thing, Evan Weary, you will become something that’s not meant to be.”
His voice and his certainty are mesmerizing. I feel as though he has pressed something sharp into my malfunctioning heart. The Reverend Tadd-not-sure-if-it’s-his-first-or-last-name sees that he’s gotten to me, and he follows up immediately.
“Do you want to turn yourself into a demon? A life-devouring creature?” he asks me, his face getting close enough to mine that his minty breath washes over me. “Is that your goal?”
Do you know the sensation when you’ve been injured but the pain hasn’t reached you yet? I am having that feeling now. I think it was his use of the word life-devouring.
I know resistance is called for. “Um … I don’t know if I even believe in demons—” I begin, but he rides right over me.
“You don’t want to be one! That’s the answer. No good person wants that!”
I can feel Julia’s outrage that I’m taking these insults lying down. Roll over and kick him in the nuts! she tells me.
But I don’t have to, because our mother has finally found her courage, and she grabs the Reverend Tadd by his shoulders.
“You have to leave now,” she tells him, her voice quaveringbut firm. When he doesn’t budge, she puts her hands on her hips and says, “If you don’t leave, I will call the nurses—and security! I mean it, Reverend.”
He stands up, unrushed, as if he were done anyway and is leaving only because it’s his own choice. He brushes off his pants and stares down at me and Julia, calmer now that he’s succeeded in calling me a demon—or, I guess, a soon-to-be-demon. The full demonification hasn’t happened quite yet, as he has thoughtfully pointed out.
“Reverend!” our mother says, warning him against further pronouncements.
Close-lipped, Reverend Tadd walks to the hospital room door, yet before we’re rid of him, he looks back at me and takes another stab. “You don’t have to do this selfish thing,” he says.
Selfish. It’s the word that’s always there, in the back of my mind. How did he know?
Sensing that I have become paralyzed before this man, Julia steps in. Can’t you see it’s already eating Evan up? she yells at him. If Jesus were here, He’d slap you! You—you—creep!
But Reverend Tadd, of course, has not heard her, and he’s already left the room.
“I’m so sorry, Evan,” our mother says. “I said he could say a prayer here, that’s all.” She’s leaning against the closed door and has dissolved into tears, which, actually, has been her most common state over the past few months.
What’s Mom crying about? Julia asks, still half yelling. She’s the one who let him in here. Oh, Evan … are you crying too?
I wake up and know that my parents have tricked me, or rather, that they had the nurses drug me. I’m in my own hospital bed, even though I don’t remember moving back. Sunlight is pouring in my window. It’s morning. The Day.
“Julia,” I say as my eyes open.
The room is full, but empty of her. Nurses are crowding in with prep carts and rubbing alcohol and IVs. They’re checking my vitals, slipping tubes into my veins, talking to me with that impersonal friendliness they must learn in nursing school.
I catch sight of my father, so tall that it feels like he’s in the way, even though he’s standing in the corner to stay clear of the bustle. He smiles benignly at me.
“It’s okay, Evan. She’s gone on ahead of you.”
“Julia!” I say again, louder this time.
The nurse closest to my face makes little noises that are half shushing, half consoling. Well, mostly shushing.
I hear Julia very distantly. Evan. Evan. That’s all there is, only the ghost of her voice from somewhere far below me in the hospital. Evan …
It is … I’m not sure how many days later. Maybe four?
They took Julia’s heart while I was unconscious, and then, inside my chest cavity, they used her “compatible tissue” to rebuild my own heart, and then they jolted the super-heart into action, and (I heard later) they all clapped when it began pumping blood. Pictures were taken. A day later they did the kidneys, the liver, and everything else that required renovation.
I have a line of metal staples down the middle of my chest. They look pretty badass, like Dr. Frankenstein was given free rein to close me up. There are stitches and staples in lots of other places too. Supposedly, modern medicine is excellent at minimizing scars, but my nurses assure me that mine will still be amazing after they heal. I’ll look like a scattered train track for the rest of my life. It feels like the train on that broken track hit me, then backed up to finish the job. Except … even with all the pain, I actually feel better. My heart is beating strongly and regularly, my body seems lighter. How crazy is that?
“Here I am,” I say.
The hospital room is empty except for me, so I can get away with talking to myself without drawing frowns from the nurses. I lay a hand across the mess of staples down my breastbone. “And here you are,” I tell Julia. “Keeping me alive.”
She doesn’t answer. It’s rainy today, and the only response I get is the patter of raindrops on the hospital window. Even if you’re one of those people who love the rain, I think you’ll agree that the things it says are, at best, extremely boring. At worst, they’re only raindrops, which are no substitute for your dead twin sister.
“Dead,” I say, trying out the word that I haven’t let myself think. I’ve shied away from it since the operations. Now that I’ve said it aloud, though, I have to ask her what I’ve been afraid to ask.
“Julia, were you dead when they took out your heart? Or did I steal it from you while you were still alive?”
She doesn’t answer. Of course, she doesn’t need to. Everyone—the doctor, my parents, the nurses—danced around this question. But I always knew the truth.
I am growing again.
It’s been twelve days since the last surgery and there’s enough oxygen in my blood, and my digestive system actually gets nutrition out of the food I eat, and and and and, you know, all the things the doctor optimistically suggested would happen, are happening. I’ve grown an eighth of an inch and gained three
