Chapter 1: The Request
The fluorescent lights of St. Jude Memorial Hospital burned through my closed eyelids. I remember the smell first—a sharp, sterile mixture of rubbing alcohol and bleached linen, completely devoid of the overpowering lavender air freshener that masked the scent of dampness in the laundry room back home. My throat felt like cracked parchment, and every beat of my heart sent a rhythmic thud of pain against my temples.
I opened my eyes to the steady beep of a heart monitor. A woman in a white coat stood beside my bed. Her badge read Dr. Melissa Grant. She was adjusting an IV line taped to the back of my bruised, emaciated hand.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry for my mother. I knew better than to make noise. I waited until her gaze met mine, and then I grabbed the edge of the thermal hospital blanket. I twisted the coarse fabric into my fists, squeezing until the joints in my fingers turned a bone-white hue.
“Say I died,” I rasped. My voice was a hollow, desperate thing, barely louder than the hum of the medical equipment. I darted my eyes toward the closed door, terrified that the wood might suddenly splinter open. “Please. Tell my adoptive parents that I died.”
Dr. Grant froze. The practiced, reassuring smile on her face fractured, replaced by a profound, chilling stillness.
I had been brought in after passing out at school from severe dehydration and a fever that had been cooking my brain for days. The school nurse had dialed 911 when I had violently flinched at the mere sound of a ringing telephone, begging the staff not to let “Mom and Dad” come get me. They had assumed I was in the grips of a delirious fever dream.
