Alive Read Online Free Page A

about my makeup work, and by now, I’ve missed the lunchtime crush of students. I walk down an empty hall where every
classroom door has been sealed shut until the time when the next bell rings. Through the blinds of the classroom windows, I can make out the students, trapped inside, faces aimed at whiteboards,
human specimens entombed inside a series of glassy terrarium tanks, all lined up one after another. I pass through a cold spot on the way to the cafeteria, a not-so-rare phenomenon in Seattle,
where the coldest air seems to pool into invisible ice pockets—even indoors. I guess it happens because of the uneven amounts of moisture in the air, but when I was little, my neighbor told
me that if you found yourself passing through a cold spot, it meant you’d just passed through a ghost. The image always stuck.
    I pause to lean on a set of lockers. Being up for an entire day has left me feverish. I feel red and sticky at the base of my neck and behind my ears. The locker cools my skin and I allow myself
a few minutes to breathe. I don’t have a firm grasp on what would happen if I overworked my new heart, but I imagine it heating up under pressure before exploding like a bloody pile of
spaghetti in a microwave.
    A boy my age who I recognize as Harrison Miller rounds a corner down the hall, whistling, with a book in hand. He stops when he sees me. “Are you all right?” he asks. “You
lost?”
    I smile wanly. “Fine, yeah, thanks. Just catching a breather.” I stand up straighter and push the fallen wisps of hair out of my face. Though it’s sweet he asked, I take his
comment as a context clue about the rest of my appearance and, to put it in medical terms, the prognosis isn’t good.
    “You must be new here. I’m Harrison.” He extends a hand. “You’re a senior too?” He points to my copy of
The Awakening
. Harrison, who I’ve known
at least in passing for six years, is built like a screwdriver, knobby head attached to a rod-straight body.
    My eyes widen. I don’t know when the last time we talked was. Maybe never. But at a small private school, you
know
people. “I—I—” I stammer, unsure of what
to say. I’ve been in and out of school for over a year, but could people have possibly forgotten me? I pause for a second. Nobody takes this long to answer with her name. Then, on instinct, I
answer, “I’m Veronica Leeds.” I use the name Brynn and I once invented to talk to boys online. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of introducing myself as
Stella—he’d surely recognize the name and afterward realize he was talking to a girl who’s completely unmemorable.
    We shake hands and—after exchanging a few excruciating niceties about how friendly the people are here and how the class ranking system blows and how the worst thing about Duwamish by far
is the uniforms—part ways. By now I feel confident that I’ve turned an unattractive shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, so I duck into the women’s restroom, which smells unmistakably of
Lysol and French fries, just as I remember.
    It’s hushed. The sound of running water trickles in from the boys’ restroom next door. Feeling all but invisible in this school, I’m halfway relieved to see a reflection in the
mirror. I unzip my bag and take out a travel-size Clinique makeup carrier. I lean over the counter to apply a soft layer of lip gloss and a dash of blush. The last thing I want now is to look sick.
I’ve done the whole sick thing and I’m so over it.
    At first glance I think that I spilled my compact on my shirt. The hint of color on my white polo draws my gaze downward. Tucking my chin, I frown at a glob of red on the fabric. I try to scrape
it off with my nail. No luck. I feel my eyebrows squinch into a
V
at the top of my nose.
    When I step back to look in the mirror, crimson handprints cover my shirt from my stomach all the way to my chest. My hand flies to my mouth and I catch a whiff of something metallic.
    “Oh my God.”