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carnation pink and Rose lets out a noise like she’s been sucker punched, and a thin, reedy baby wail cuts through the robotic thrum of the machines. My eyes fill with tears; I am suddenly overcome—
verklempt
, Zeidy would say, although that’s an ugly word for what this is, this beautiful, open, grateful, terrified feeling, like every nerve ending has come to the surface of my skin and been lit like Fourth of July sparklers. I want to stand up and burst into applause—people do it for all kinds of lesser miracles: when a pilot lands a plane, when a preschooler bangs tunelessly on a piano; when sweaty men manage to throw a ball into a metal hoop, so why not now? Why not for
this
miracle? There is life in this room. A new life. And I saw it happen.
    “It’s a girl.” Dr. MacManus smiles, holding up the tiny, squalling thing, and just before she’s taken away I see that her miniature fists are balled at the sides of her face like a boxer.
    She’s a fighter, my niece. At least, I hope so.
    She’ll have to be.

Chapter 2
    J
axon
    A UGUST 28, 6:50 PM
    I ’ve never been in an ER before, unless I count the ones on TV. It’s kind of crazy, me growing up sixteen years in Crown Heights and never seeing the inside of a hospital. And not because of guns or gangs or anything, either—the neighborhood has become so gentrified that I’m more likely to get hit by an artisanal gluten-free scone than a bullet, let’s be real—but because the drivers speed down Bedford like they’re playing Grand Theft Auto, and the bikers are even worse. People have to jump out of the way if they want to live. There’s this one delivery dude from Good Taste Chinese (don’t believe the hype; the name’s a ploy) who I swear needs to be in one of those countless
Fast & Furious
movies, he’s that badass.
    But I haven’t been run over by the Good Taste driver—not yet, anyway. Tonight I’m strictly on Good Samaritan duty. My best friend, Ryan, almost broke his neck hopping a tree on his skateboard. It was to impress a girl, as most stupid stunts are.
    Her name is Polly. She and Ryan and me met in homeroom freshman year, in the H-I-Js (I’m Hunte, he’s Hendrick, she’s Jadhav). But then Polly—I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a perv, but she, um,
grew
. Sophomore year she got curvy and popular and started doing things like joining the step team and chairing dance committees, and we just kind of stopped seeing her. But it was over for me; I was smitten. I mean, a girl who can recite the periodic table of elements in order from memory
and
bhangra dance like her hips are spring-loaded? It’s the hot nerd jackpot. I just couldn’t manage to talk to her or do anything remotely cool in her presence. It doesn’t help that my only real hobby is kickboxing, which I do alone in my basement with a red punching bag and can’t show off unless I want to start a fistfight.
    Ryan, to his credit, is my boy and has tried to help me get Polly’s attention. But he’s the kind of guy who has a natural confidence even though he’s about the same height as my thirteen-year-old twin sisters. And I just . . . don’t. When it comes to girls, I choke. And when it comes to Polly? I completely crash and burn. Like today.
    School doesn’t start until next week, but today the rising juniors were supposed to go in to get their schedules and new ID photos taken. A lot of kids didn’t go because of the hurricane, but my mom’s hard line with anything school-related is that unless the building is literally locked or she’s in a coma, I’m going (and if the threatened coma ever happened, you can bet my dad would send me anyway). The Asian kids at Brooklyn Tech are under a lot of pressure from their families to do well, and it’s taken as a given, like “Oh yeah, Korean parents are
crazy
.” Well, West Indian parents don’t get stereotyped as much, but they’re just as intense. Maybe back on the island everyone’s dancing to Bobby