Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern Read Free Book Online

Typed out on the line below— Place of birth: Mercy Hospital .
    What a coincidence, he thought, and then he remembered Nicole telling them that Amy was fine at birth but had an aneurism the day after she was born. His heart began to pound against his chest. You were there, the voice said. You were with her when it happened. He waited for the inevitable: It probably was your fault.
    He began to sweat. Was it possible? Were they infants lying beneath the same warming lights when it happened?
    Suddenly the fear consumed him. What if he and Amy were infants lying together under a plastic oxygen tent? What if he rolled over and cut off her oxygen supply? It was possible, wasn’t it? He’d been a ridiculously big baby, over ten pounds, all cheeks and rolls of fat, his mother used to say. He would go home and look it up, but he was pretty sure aneurisms meant the oxygen supply was cut off to the brain.
    Maybe this explained his lifelong fascination with Amy and her body’s quirks. He caused them all! He must have! Why would he feel so responsible otherwise?

CHAPTER SEVEN
    M ATTHEW WAS NEVER SURE if anyone noticed his rituals. He hoped not, of course. Occasionally people asked questions that made him wonder. Why do you wash your hands up to your elbows? Why do you avoid the blue tiles on the floor? Why do you tap lockers? He always gave short, panicky answers. “I’m not!” he’d say. Or: “I got something on my arms in bio lab.”
    Amy was the first person he gave a real answer to.
    A week after his revelation about their birthdays, they were on their way to lunch.
    “WHY DO YOU SOMETIMES WALK ON YOUR TOES?” Amy asked.
    Matthew blushed. He hadn’t realized he was doing it in public. “I do things like that sometimes.”
    “WHY?”
    He told her the truth. “Usually I walk on my toes when I’m happy.”
    She laughed, then typed: “YOU’RE HAPPY WITH ME?”
    Because this wasn’t about his rituals, it seemed safe to clarify. “Yes, I am. Most of the time. Except when you ask me embarrassing questions.”
    “WHY IS THIS EMBARRASSING?”
    “Because people aren’t supposed to walk on their toes after a certain age. I know that. I just like it. It’s not the weirdest thing I do.”
    “WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST THING YOU DO?”
    By then he couldn’t remember: Had he brought this up? “There’s just things I do sometimes.”
    They walked into the resource room where they’d started eating their lunch after Amy pointed out that neither one of them bought any food and technically they didn’t need to eat in the cafeteria. She’d had enough of the cafeteria.
    “The truth is I have problems like you do, only mine don’t show,” he said as he unwrapped the sandwich he’d packed for himself, wrapped once in wax paper, then plastic, then tinfoil. “I worry too much. Logically I understand that my fears aren’t rational, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about them. I go over them in my mind. All the time.”
    “FEARS ABOUT WHAT?”
    “Mostly I worry that I’ve hurt people unintentionally. Or ruined someone’s life without meaning to.” It felt strange to say this out loud. He wasn’t sure why he was telling her except that yesterday, at their monthly peer-helper meeting, Nicole had told them a story about Amy being a preemie. “She was such a tiny thing. Less than three pounds. Nobody expected her to live. If she did, they said, she’d be a vegetable. Now I send those doctors a copy of her report card every year!”
    Matthew raised his hand. “Does that mean Amy was in an incubator by herself?” As soon as he asked it, he knew it was a strange question.
    “Oh my, yes,” Nicole said, unfazed. “She was in intensive care for close to two months. There weren’t many other babies around. One or two others who weren’t so lucky.”
    Matthew was euphoric. Proof he hadn’t caused Amy’s problems! It made him chattier now.
    “HOW WOULD YOU HAVE HURT OTHER PEOPLE?”
    “It’s easier than you think.