You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

When I get home, I’m antsy. I can’t focus on homework and my parents are talking about Adina in hushed tones. So I put on the special sports bra that fits my double-Ds like a shield and go for a run. My typical route: Burke-Gilman Trail along Gas Works Park, northeast through the University of Washington, Seattle’s huge public college, then back to Wallingford, the neighborhood we’ve lived in since Adina and I were born. Nirvana’s Bleach pulses against my eardrums.

It’s nine degrees Celsius outside. I refuse to measure anything in Fahrenheit. All scientists use Celsius, which is much cleaner and simpler. Water freezes at zero, boils at 100. I try not to think about how cold it is. Instead I focus on the reason goose bumps are prickling my arms: the tiny muscles attached to the hair follicles are contracting, making the hairs stick straight up, causing my skin to pucker.

I run track in the spring, and the rest of the year I jog almost daily to stay in shape. I started running track in middle school because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get into Johns Hopkins with advanced classes and a 4.0—I had to be extraordinary. An AP kid and a scientist and an athlete and a student council rep and a hospital volunteer.

Some people love running to clear their heads, but I usually relish the extra time to think. This afternoon, though, my head fills with thoughts I can’t control. How Adina’s feeling. What this means for her future. What I’m supposed to say to her besides I’m sorry a hundred times because it’ll never be enough. How getting a disease named after you is clearly a great accomplishment, but it’s not quite the same as claiming a star or a city.

Siegel disease: the tendency to overanalyze everything.

Chinese takeout containers are spread across our kitchen table. My fortune declared WEALTH AWAITS YOU VERY SOON. Aba got the same one.

It’s after seven p.m. when Adina gets h

ome. Aba jumps to his feet, and Adina shrinks away like a frightened cat. “Hey, Adina. Do you want some hot and sour soup? We saved you some.”

“Not hungry.” Her knuckles are white on the handle of her viola case, and her red lipstick is stark against her ashen face.

I push a piece of broccoli around my plate.

“I know how you feel,” Ima tries.

“No,” Adi says, and I notice she doesn’t look directly at Ima, “you don’t.”

Ima’s head is jerking up and down, up and down, up and down. That will never happen to me. Instead of relief, I feel a tightness, like my entire body has been mummy-wrapped.

Adina aims her gaze at me. “This is your fucking fault. I didn’t want to know. I told you I needed more time.”

Language, I expect one of my parents to say, but the warning never comes.

“I . . .” I grip my chopsticks, unsure what to say. She took the test because I asked her to. Forced her to. But the results were decided a long time ago, imprinted in our DNA.

“Adi,” Ima says, “this is no one’s fault.”

Adina ignores her. She places her palms flat on the table and angles herself closer to me. I’d be able to see her pores if they weren’t microscopic. “You wanted to know so badly, and you made me do it with you—why? As punishment? Or because you couldn’t handle doing it alone?”

Both. That’s the truth.

I snap my chopsticks in half. Maybe she sealed her own fate when she pressed delete. No—I force the illogical thought from my mind.

“You would’ve wanted to know eventually,” I say, but my assertion is half-hearted.

She snorts. Smacks the table. “Because you know me so well?”

“Girls,” Aba says quietly. “Let’s all give each other some space, okay?”

Without saying anything, Adina spins around and climbs the stairs to her room, her door slamming shut.

Give each other some space. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? There’s too much space between my sister and me, an entire galaxy I fear our results have made impossible to cross.

Eleven

Adina

SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT ABOUT ME. I can’t see it, can’t feel it, but I know it’s there. It has been hiding in me for eighteen years. I’ve gone eighteen fucking years not knowing I am a ticking time bomb.

The day after we get our results, I skip school. My parents told Tovah she could stay home too, but she had a quiz in AP Statistics and a test in AP Bio and a presentation in AP Lit, and naturally, she couldn’t miss any of them.

“If you want, I can keep you company, Adina’le,” Ima says to me Thursday morning after Aba and Tovah have left. Her arm flaps. One day that will be me. “My aide can handle the class today, or I’ll get a . . . I can’t think of the word, but you know what I mean.”