Broken by C.J. Lyons Read Free Book Online Page A

us—me—well insured, and me being sick.
    I can’t imagine what our family would be like without me being sick. What would we talk about? How would we plan our time, arrange family vacations except around trips to specialists and hospital stays?
    But that year, the Year of Nothing Good, all I wanted was not to be sick. Not too much for a thirteen-year-old girl to ask, is it?
    Of course, like all thirteen-year-old girls, my hormone-fueled imagination ran amok. I became one of those Drama Queens I so despised when I met them in the hospital.
    Back then, I kept a journal. Here’s what I wrote:
    I am going to kill her.
    If you’re a police officer and reading this, it means I’ve failed. If you’re anyone else, then why are you being a sneaky perv prying into a girl’s private thoughts?
    But you’ll keep reading. Just to see what happens. If I really mean what I say.
    I do.
    You’ll read about my life and delude yourself that this isn’t real, that no one you know could have this happen to them, that no one you love could be suffering like I am.
    You’re wrong.
    Even as you uncover my secrets, you won’t believe. You’ll dismiss me as an angst-ridden, melodramatic, typical teenage girl. You won’t do anything about what’s happening to me.
    That’s okay. No one else did anything to help either.
    Because I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried everything. No one believes me.
    Despite the life of lies I’m forced to live, I’m determined to tell the truth here. No matter how shameful it is.
    And the truth is: I must kill her.
    Before she kills me.
    Crazy, right? Told you, total Drama Queen.
    So, home from the hospital, I refused to eat or drink anything that came from Mom. The first day or so, before Mom noticed I was avoiding the food she cooked, I felt fine. But then things went downhill fast. Despite avoiding Mom.
    I wouldn’t even drink a glass of water that she got me from the tap as I watched. Instead, I’d retreat to my room, drinking only Ensure and vitaminwater, leaving her in tears and Dad yelling when he got home that week.
    That wasn’t even the worst. Turns out it wasn’t Mom making me sick. Or the medicines the doctors had her give me. Turns out everything was all my fault. Me and my stupid genes making my heart run amok.
    I ended up back in the hospital, worse than ever. A Major Set Back. They almost lost me. Again.
    If it wasn’t for Mom, worried and checking on me in the middle of the night, they would have. She saved my life. Again.
    Then they found my journal. Shit hit the you know what.
    Only good thing that came of it was that my Near Miss finally gave the doctors the clue they needed to figure out what was really wrong with me—my heart was broken.
    So broken that it tried to kill me with potentially fatal rhythms. Nothing to do with Mom or the meds. It was me trying to kill myself. Which of course made me feel even worse for blaming Mom when all she was trying to do was keep me alive.
    Once I was out of the ICU, they made me talk to a shrink. He decided my quasi-homicidal delusions were normal teen rebellion coupled with a high-stress, codependent, mother-daughter dyad.
    In other words, I was a perfectly normal thirteen-year-old. At least as far as my psyche was concerned.
    Dad made me apologize to Mom and she cried and I cried and everything was fine after that. Except, of course, for my broken heart.
    After that there were no more suspicions, no more acts of rebellion…until now.
    I am very aware that I’m taking my life in my hands by coming to school. Being normal might just kill me.
    But it’s my life. If I can’t have a say in it, then what’s the point anyway?
    Might as well be dead.
    Of course, with Mom hovering like she is, trying so hard to keep me alive, I might die of embarrassment before my messed-up heart ever gets the chance to kill me.

16
    An awful silence fills the cafeteria as my mom walks out. The kind of silence that happens in horror movies, just waiting to be