Free Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider Page A

before. Before my lungs turned traitor, and walking laps around the sports field in Wellness made me so exhausted that I plonked facedown on my mattress after it was over.
    I felt gross when I woke up the next morning. I was running a fever, which wasn’t high enough to bother a nurse over but still made getting out of bed feel like an ordeal. I lay there feeling sorry for myself until I barely had enough time to throw on a pair of shorts and make it to breakfast. Genevieve and John and their friend Angela were trying to sell me on their prayer group again, but I couldn’t pay attention.
    My head throbbed, and my arms felt so rubbery that it was a miracle I hadn’t dropped my tray in line. I felt like I’d pulled an all-nighter, even though I’d gone to sleep around one.
    “Well?” Genevieve asked, leaning toward me. “What do you think?”
    I hadn’t been listening. At all. Instead, I’d been watching Tim cut his pancake into tiny pieces and drop them into his cereal, which was so weird that at first I thought I must be imagining it.
    “About what?” I asked.
    Angela sighed.
    And then I started coughing. I scrambled for my handkerchief. But I hadn’t brought it, or that stupid biohazard baggie we were supposed to carry it in, so I grabbed a napkin instead.
    When I took it away from my mouth, it was stained with blood.
    My mouth tasted disgusting, and the whole table was staring at me uneasily.
    The blood thing freaked me out. It had happened twice before, right when I’d gotten sick, but not for weeks now.
    “Shit,” I said, balling up the napkin. “Sorry.”
    “Hey, everyone has bad days,” John offered. “It’s no big deal if you can’t make it to prayer group later.”
    “Wow, thanks, I was really worried about that,” I said. I knew I was being a dick, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t sit there and eat my breakfast while they stared at me with these worried looks on their faces, like my med sensor was about to start beeping.
    “I’m not hungry,” I said, picking up my tray. And then I went back to the dorm, where, for the first time that wasn’t six in the morning, both showers were free.
    I stood there for a long time in the lukewarm water, hoping it would bring down my fever, and trying not to panic over the indisputable evidence that I wasn’t getting better at all; that, if anything, I was getting worse.
    HANNAH CALLED ME that evening. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she asked if I’d gotten her email, and I told her I hadn’t checked yet.
    “Why not?” she asked.
    “Because the librarian hates me.”
    “What did you do, study too loudly?”
    Hannah giggled like it was inconceivable that I could do anything to jeopardize my permanent status as teacher’s pet. I sighed, not wanting to get into it.
    “I’m not going back there,” I insisted. “I’ll just give up the internet. I’ll go outside or something. I heard there’s this thing called the sun.”
    “Overrated,” Hannah said. “Now, go read my essay and call me back, please.”
    So I went. Thankfully, the librarian gave me an internet pass without even bothering to look up.
    I logged on, not knowing what to do first. Because it turns out, when time is precious, there isn’t much of a point in reading webcomics or listicles. I didn’t have anything important in my in-box apart from Hannah’s essay, which I loaded onto my stick to read later.
    I had a couple of Facebook messages, mostly of the“how are things” and “get better soon” variety, from classmates I’d barely ever talked to. And one glance at my wall was enough to thoroughly depress me. Everyone wanted me to know that I was in their thoughts and prayers, except for this kid from math class who was promoting his band’s new EP. I loved that, how there was one guy who just wanted me to buy some music, who either didn’t know or didn’t care what was going on in my life.
    For the rest of the time, I clicked through my Facebook photos,