Free My Beating Teenage Heart by C. K. Kelly Martin

Strathedine, Ontario, population circa 140,000, before I died. My family lives at number thirty-seven Heathdown Crescent, in the southwest part of town. I chant the address in my head too, but my efforts come to nothing.
    Breckon rolls onto his side not seven feet beneath me. I feel sorry for him but I don’t understand what I’m doing here. I’m not anyone’s idea of a guardian angel. I wasn’t even sixteen years old yet when I died, I have no idea how to fix people (I’ve only just remembered my own address) and, even if I did, I’m powerless. Only an observer.
    Breckon opens his eyes and surveys his clock radio. It’s ten after eight. His eyelids are heavy and pull themselves abruptly shut, but only for a few seconds. His smoky blue eyes fight their way open again. He coughs as he rises and I try to feel shameless about watching him tug off his T-shirt. If I’m supposed to be here, why shouldn’t I see everything I possibly can?
    Breckon’s chest is slightly paler than his face. He’s not super ripped like someone who haunts the gym but not skinny or flabby either, an almost perfect in-between—the kind of hairless lean body that no doubt many girls would want to run up to on the beach and throw their arms skittishly around. It would look better still with a tan but …
    I glance away as he drops the green boxers he slept in last night. So much for feeling shameless. I can’t take advantage of the view this way when I know what Breckon’s been going th cbeef I didrough. Do you see that? I ask the universe. Do you see how I shouldn’t be here?
    And then again, would peeking at his penis be more personal than watching him burn himself on purpose? I shouldn’t be here , I repeat. I don’t know what you want me to do .
    No one answers me.
    It’s not fair , I say. Not fair. NOT FAIR .
    My eyes snap back to Breckon, who has put on a fresh pair of boxer shorts. He digs into his closet and continues getting dressed. Then we—me trailing him by a couple of feet—go down to the kitchen. I cringe as he eyes the tap.
    NO! I lecture. YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT AGAIN.
    Breckon shakes his head like he’s disagreeing with me. He pours himself a glass of orange juice and has just begun putting together a breakfast for himself when his mother wanders into the room in loungewear and fuzzy beige slippers.
    Her breath catches at the flash of red she’s spotted on the knuckles of his left hand. The bandage shifted a little during the night and the part of the wound she can see is far from the worst of it, but it would shock me too if I were seeing it for the first time.
    “Let me see that,” she insists, walking swiftly towards him.
    “Mom.” Breckon hides his hand behind his back. “It’s fine. It hurt worse yesterday—it just needs a chance to heal.”
    “Show it to me,” she demands.
    Breckon holds out his hand and, with that moody teenager look from yesterday morning, starts unspooling the bandage for his mother.
    She stares, horrified, at his lobster claw. “Breckon,” she murmurs, her head tilted to one side and her eyes lit up with alarm. “I’m calling Dr. Siddiqui and taking you in to get that looked at.”
    Breckon rolls his eyes a little but he really can’t protest much. There’s no denying that his hand looks like it was lowered into a deep-fat fryer.
    His mother’s already grabbing the cordless and punching in a quick succession of digits. Two minutes later Breckon has a confirmed appointment with his doctor. “They’re squeezing you in,” she tells him. “We need to get there as soon as possible.”
    “We?” Breckon’s head snaps forward. “Don’t you mean me?”
    I don’t know what Breckon’s mother looked like before she lost Skylar but what I’ve seen in her face during the past few days are layers of grief that flatten her every expression. The final layer—the one she wears closest to the surface—is the one that reminds her she still has to care about something. While the