Free Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider Page B

trying to see what my life would look like to a total stranger. Most of the pictures were grainy cell phone things, other people’s uploads from the Model UN conferences, featuring everyone in the van, in our suits around a conference table, wearing sweatshirts in an Applebee’s at one in the morning somewhere near San Diego. I had my arm around Hannah in most of them. There were pictures from junior prom, too. Of Hannah and me in our formal wear, our smiles ridiculously fake as we posed with the Paris-themed backdrop. From the pictures, you’d almost think I had a life beyond making the honor roll.
    After my internet session expired, I walked back to the cottages. It was around eight o’clock, and one of the Indiana Jones movies was being screened in the gym. Genevieve and Angela hadn’t shut up about it at dinner. Apparently everyone brought blankets and pillows and came in their pajamas. But it seemed like the kind of thing that was only good if you had the right people to go with.
    It was eerily quiet outside, and the birch trees behind the dining hall rose straight and white in the distance. I hadn’t spent a lot of time outside lately, and I’d forgotten how peaceful it was to be alone in the dark. I walked slowly, breathing in the cool air, and it made the ache in my chest a little better.
    I could feel the USB stick in my pocket, and I wondered what Hannah had written for her essay. Maybe about how she wanted to work as a White House staffer, or how she’d moved from Canada when she was fifteen. I had no idea what I was going to do for mine.
    When I got back to Cottage 6, I went up to my room and plugged my USB stick into my laptop. There was this awful moment where I thought the file hadn’t transferred, and then it opened.
    L—Thanks for proofing! she’d put at the top. You’re a rock star. ☺
    It was the smiley face that made me totally unprepared for what she’d written.
    At first, I thought it was a joke. Then I was confused. And then I was angry as all hell.
    The essay was about me. About how we’d planned to go to college together, but after I’d become “terminally ill,” she knew that she needed to live for the both of us. She actually said that. “Live for the both of us,” like I was too corpsified to do any living for myself. Like TB was a guaranteed death sentence, and the bedsheet was already being pulled over my head.
    It wasn’t a college essay. It was an obituary. My obituary.
    My phone rang, startling me. I knew it was Hannah. And I knew that whatever I said to her right now would be unforgivable. But I also knew that I didn’t give a shit.
    “Hi,” I said flatly.
    “Did you read it?” Hannah asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “And?”
    “Honestly? I’m in shock,” I said.
    “Well, it’s a bit embellished for dramatic effect,” Hannah allowed.
    “Wow, you think?” I said, my anger flaring. “Was the essay prompt to write an obituary for someone you know?”
    “I thought you’d be flattered,” Hannah said.
    “Flattered? That I, how did you put it, was grateful for the days you sat by my hospital bed, helping me through the pain?”
    It was quiet on her end of the line, but I could still hear her there, pop music playing softly in the background.
    “I wasn’t trying to exploit you,” she said.
    “Your words, not mine.”
    “Lane—”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t care, and I don’t want to hear it. Because the thing is? I’m not dead . I’m not dying . And here’s another thing I’m not, while we’re at it. I’m not your boyfriend anymore.”
    I slammed down the phone, which was oddly satisfying. Much more than stabbing angrily at the screen of my iPhone.
    I kept repeating what I’d said to her over and over again in my head. That I wasn’t dead. And I wasn’t dying. No matter what Hannah had written in her essay.
    The odds were 80 percent that I’d walk out of Latham before the end of the year with an arrested case of TB and a doctor’s note permanently