Chapter One #2
“You missed first period,” she says with crossed arms. Her dark curls are still damp from swim practice and her hoodie is dripping onto the concrete. “Where were you?”
“Doctor’s appointment.” I spin my combination, avoiding her eyes.
“Everything okay?”
I yank my locker open harder than necessary. “Fine. Just a check-up.”
“Liv.” She grabs my arm, making me look at her. “You’re my best friend. I know when you’re lying.”
Before I can deflect, Derek appears beside us, raising his brows with a smile.
“Ladies,” he claps his hands together. “What’s the emergency meeting about?”
“Olivia’s being mysterious about a doctor’s appointment,” Maya announces before I can stop her.
“Everything okay?”
Maya loops her arm through mine. “She’s also being weird about it.”
I roll my eyes as we continue to our usual table under the palm trees; the one with just enough shade to remind us shade exists.
Sophie’s already there, mid-meltdown about Tyler not texting her back, blond hair bouncing like she’s in a shampoo commercial instead of real life.
He’s not a great guy in my opinion. He’s too much of a player. She’s too sweet and beautiful for him.
I unwrap my sandwich, tuning them out. Mom’s handwriting curls across the wax paper in blue ink.
Love you to the moon and back. She’s been writing it since kindergarten.
Same note. Same rhythm. Today it feels more like a reminder than a comfort.
Like she’s telling me to believe something I’m not sure is true anymore.
“Earth to Liv!” Maya waves a hand in front of my face.
I blink, startled. “Sorry, what?”
“Sophie asked if you’re coming to Tyler’s bonfire Friday. The whole team’s going.”
“Can’t. Family thing.” Another lie.
“You always have a family thing.” Sophie pouts, sliding her sunglasses up her nose.
Derek leans forward, studying me with the intensity he usually reserves for reading opposing team plays. “What did the doctor say?”
“Nothing major…” I hesitate, then pull the crumpled forms from my bag. “They want me to fill out family medical history stuff, and I can only do half of it.”
Understanding flickers across Derek’s face. He’s known me long enough to have my whole life story.
“That sucks,” Maya says softly. “Can’t your mom help with the other half?”
“She says she doesn’t know anything about his medical history.” The words taste bitter. “Which is convenient, considering she doesn’t know anything about him, period.”
Derek’s quiet for a moment, then asks, “What happens if you can’t fill it out?”
“The cardiologist they’re sending me to will ‘work with what I have.’” I make air quotes. “But apparently family history is pretty important for heart stuff. Heart disease, high blood pressure…” I pause, the next words sticking in my throat. “Sudden cardiac death.”
The table goes silent. Even Sophie stops mid-sentence about Tyler’s texting habits.
“A cardiologist?” Derek’s voice is careful, like he’s handling something fragile. “Why are they sending you to a heart doctor?”
“Because my heart’s been racing and I get dizzy and sometimes I can’t breathe right.” The symptoms sound scarier when I list them out loud. “My blood pressure and heart rate were elevated today.”
Maya reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Doctors are careful these days.”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice doesn’t sound convinced even to me. “Probably stress from school and soccer.”
The bell rings, and everyone scatters toward their afternoon classes. Derek walks with me toward AP English with a solid and comforting presence on a day that’s felt increasingly unstable.
“You know,” he says as we reach my classroom door, “if you ever want to talk about the family history stuff… I mean, I know it’s complicated, but maybe there’s a way to get the information you need.”
I look at him; really look at him. Derek Lance, who’s been my friend since we were thirteen and awkward, who knows me well enough to see when I’m falling apart but kind enough not to push too hard.
“Thanks,” I say, and mean it. “I’ll figure something out.”
The drive home feels endless. Our beach bungalow comes into view as I turn onto our street, white picket fence, blue shutters, flowering jasmine crawling up the porch columns. Picture-perfect on the outside, like everything else in our life.
The front door bangs shut behind me harder than I mean it to. My bag drops with a heavy thud that rattles the picture frames in the hallway—photos of me and Mom at various stages of my life, conspicuously missing any third party.
“Everything okay?” Mom calls from the kitchen.
The smell of burgers and fries snakes through the air, but instead of making me hungry, it knots my stomach tighter. I drag my feet across the hardwood floor, each step announcing my mood.
She’s at the stove. Her hair is twisted in a bun so tight it looks painful. Cooking the way she looks right now is her signature stress move. She glances over at me for a second before turning back to the skillet.
“Hey, sweetie,” she says, forcing brightness into her tone. “How was school?”
“Fine. Got my homework done in study hall.” I drop into a chair at the kitchen table with a deliberate slump And crossing my arms.
“And soccer practice?”
“Coach got irritated because I missed a few shots.” I kick the table leg hard enough to make the salt and pepper shakers jump. “I was distracted. Thinking about this morning.”
Her shoulders tense slightly, but her voice stays light. “How did the appointment go?”
“You would know if you’d been there.”
The spatula clatters against the pan. She steadies it quickly and flips a burger with more force than necessary. “I told you; I had an emergency at work. You’re strong enough to handle a check-up.”
“It wasn’t just a check-up.” I lean forward, watching her face. “She’s referring me to a cardiologist.”
The spatula goes still. “What?”
“A heart doctor, Mom. Because of my symptoms—the racing heart, the dizziness, the chest pain I told you about that you said was probably nothing.”
She sets the spatula down carefully and turns to face me fully for the first time since I got home. “What did she say exactly?”
“That my blood pressure and heart rate are elevated. That they need to run tests. And…” I take a breath, watching her expression. “That they need a complete family medical history.”
The color drains from her cheeks. “Olivia.”
“She specifically mentioned heart disease, high blood pressure, sudden cardiac death. Genetic conditions, Mom. Information I might actually need.” My voice rises with each word. “Details about my dad that you refuse to discuss.”
“I already told you; I don’t know anything about his family’s medical history.” Her tone goes flat and defensive. “It never came up.”
“It never came up?” I stand, the chair scraping against the tile. “You were married to him. You had a child with him. And you never once discussed family medical history?”
“It was different then. We were young.”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand. “Stop. I’m not stupid, Mom. The story doesn’t add up. It never has.”
She turns back to the stove, but her hands shake as she plates the burgers. “Let’s just eat, okay?”
“Can I eat in my room tonight?”
“Yes, fine. Grab the mustard and ketchup, please.”
I yank them from the fridge and slam them onto the counter louder than necessary. The silence stretches between us, thick as the grease in the pan.
“Mom.” I try one more time, my voice softer now but with steel underneath. “The cardiologist is going to ask about his medical history. I need real answers.”
She twists her bun tighter, then scrubs at the greasy pan like she could scrape away the question. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Will we? Or will you have another convenient emergency when I need you to come with me?”
This time she does turn, and for a moment, I see something crack behind her eyes. Fear, maybe. Or guilt. But then she composes herself, pulls the mask back up.
“Not fair, Olivia.”
“Isn’t it?” I take my plate and head for the stairs, each step heavier than the last. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve been avoiding talking about my father my entire life. And now it might actually matter for my health.”
At the top of the stairs, I turn back to look at her. She’s still standing at the sink, shoulders curved inward like she’s protecting herself from something I can’t see.
“Mom?”
She doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”
“Whatever happened between you and my dad, whatever reason you have for not talking about him, I need you to know I might actually need this information. Not want it. Need it. For my health.”
The silence stretches so long I think she’s not going to respond. “I know,” she says quietly.
In my room, I kick the door shut and sink to the floor against my bed, plate balanced on my knees.
The burger tastes like cardboard, but I eat it anyway, staring at the photo on my nightstand of me and Mom at the pier last summer, sunburned and grinning in matching floppy hats. She looks radiant. I look clueless.
I pull out my phone and stare at the blank message screen. Somewhere out there, probably in Michigan, is a man who shares half my DNA. A man whose medical history might hold the key to understanding what’s wrong with my heart. A man my mother refuses to talk about for reasons she won’t explain.
The medical forms sit on my desk, half-completed. Tomorrow I’ll go to school and Derek will ask how things went with my mom. Maya will worry about the cardiologist appointment. Coach will wonder why I’m still missing shots.
And somewhere in this house, my mother will continue keeping secrets which might literally be a matter of life and death.
Funny how you can love someone so much and still be furious at them in the same breath. Funny how secrets can live in a house this small without being spoken aloud. And funny how a heart can race with anxiety about the one person who might hold the key to fixing it.