Cover

Jamie kept her eyes closed as she sat against the old oak tree in the school courtyard soaking up the early afternoon sun. Her best friend Todd sat on one side and her girlfriend Cortney sat on the other with her bare arm mashed against Jamie's. Jamie wished the moment would never end. Nobody at school knew that she and Cortney were going out or that Todd was gay, too and Jamie wasn't interested in being the poster child for gay sophomore girls at Petersville High School.

"Jamie?" Cortney nudged her with her arm.

Jamie was exhausted, as usual, and couldn't find the strength to answer. She groaned when Cortney's warm arm disappeared.

"Jamie, wake up." Cortney's voice was insistent. "What's wrong with you? Todd, help me."

Jamie wanted to wake up, but she couldn't crawl through the fog in her head. The last thing she remembered was Todd yelling, "Oh shit, her eyes are rolling back in her head. Get Mr. Moore."

Jamie opened her eyes, but the bright lights made her slam them shut again. Her brain felt like mud. She put a hand over her eyes and opened them slowly. She whispered, "Mom?"

"Yes, honey, I'm here."

Her mother clasped her hand.

"Where am I? What happened? I'm--" she swallowed against the Sahara Desert that had become her throat, "--thirsty. Can I get a Coke?" She opened her eyes and saw her mother standing over her, brown eyes wide with concern.

"There's my girl. You're okay now." She turned away from Jamie and said, "Todd, get some water, please." She faced her daughter. "Honey, you're in the hospital."

Jamie struggled to sit up, but only got half way. "Hospital? Why?" She took the glass of water from Todd and registered his worried expression. It was then that she noticed the tube sticking out of her arm. She lifted her arm to inspect it more closely. "What happened?"

She took a sip of the water and the world righted itself somewhat, but what she really wanted was a Coke. A Coke always made her feel better. Well, for a little while at least, until she got that weird feeling again and she wanted another soda. She realized that her mother had been talking the whole time she was basking in the glory of sweet carbonated beverages.

"What'd you say, Mom?"

Her mother patted her hand. "The doctor said you have an insulin deficiency."

"A what?"

"Mrs. Brennan," Todd interrupted, "I don't think she can understand anything right now. She's a little confused."

Her mother sighed. "Yes, I suppose you're right. I'm not even sure I understand this myself." She paced back and forth as if trying to figure out what to say. Jamie hoped she'd grow up to be as pretty as her mom. They both had the same short dark hair and soft brown eyes.

"Understand what?"

Her mother and Todd exchanged a long glance. "Well, honey, they think you might have diabetes."

She stared at them. "Like Grandpa?"

"Well, I think it's a little different than Grandpa's. They call it juvenile onset diabetes. That's what Dr. Marcus said, anyway."

"Dr. Marcus was here?"

"Yes, he came all the way here to look after his favorite patient."

Jamie took another long drink of water. She had been so thirsty lately, she drank soda constantly. And her bladder seemed to be so small that she had to pee all the time. She closed her eyes as a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

"Can I have a Coke?" she asked behind closed eyes. "And where's Cortney?" She didn't try to hide the irritation in her voice.

Todd took her hand. "Cortney, uh, had to go home. And, sweetie, you can't have a Coke. The doctor said you shouldn't drink sodas anymore. Right, Mrs. Brennan?"

"That's right."

No more Cokes? What was that all about? Jamie opened her eyes and found Todd hovering over her like a worried mom. Todd was so good looking with his unkempt sandy brown hair and always-twinkling hazel eyes. Even when he was worried about her, he was sweet. "You should have a boyfriend, Todd," she blurted. "You're so cute."

His face turn red. "Uh, thanks, sweetie, but we'll talk about that some other time, okay?" He patted her hand as if to say, "Not now, dork! Your mother's here." Oh, right, she wasn't supposed to say anything about being gay in front of her mother. Oops. Her mother didn't even know that Cortney was more than a friend. No, moms didn't usually want to know about stuff like that.

"Where's Dad?" Jamie turned her attention back to her mom.

"Oh, he's on his way. As soon as he heard his baby girl had fainted at school, he dropped everything. He should be here any minute."

"I fainted?"

Todd squeezed Jamie's hand. "You don't remember?"

"No, the last thing I remember was eating lunch with you and Cortney and then I felt kind of weird and just wanted to sleep. Wait, I think you yelled at me or something."

Todd laughed. "So you don't remember Mr. Moore shouting, ‘Call 911! Call 911!,' and then the ambulance ride?"

"No way! Ambulance ride?" Her mother helped her sit up in the hospital bed. "Oh, man, my first ambulance ride and I was passed out. Dang."

Jamie smiled when Todd laughed at her. He said, "You're crazy. Do you know that?"

Jamie nodded and then took another sip of water. Water sucked. Maybe when everybody left, she'd sneak out and find a soda machine. Where was her jacket, she had change in one of the pockets.

"Oh, and you weren't exactly passed out in the ambulance," Todd added.

"I wasn't?"

"Uh, no, apparently you punched one of the EMTs."

"No way!"

"Yes way. They had to restrain you."

"Oh, my God. Is the EMT okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. You weigh all of what, ninety-nine pounds? You don't pack much of a punch."

"Mom, what happened to me? Am I . . . okay?"

Her mother put on her best everything-is-going-to-be-okay face. "We think so, honey. Dr. Marcus said your blood sugar was too high and you had a reaction. This is probably why you haven't been able to put on any weight. And he said that lots of kids live with diabetes and have a pretty normal life."

Jamie didn't want to say it out loud, but her life had been far from normal to this point. Cortney . . .

"Todd, where's Cortney?"

"I told you, sweetie, she had to go home."

"Oh." Jamie leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Even though her brain was still muddy about being in the hospital, the fact that Cortney wasn't there came through loud and clear.

Jamie leaned against the oak tree with Todd on her right and Cortney on her left. Three weeks had passed since her fabulous fainting act in the courtyard. She took out her glucose meter and pricked the side of her finger. Squeezing her finger, she watched as a small bubble of blood oozed out. She swabbed the blood onto the tab. Within seconds her glucose level popped up on the digital screen.

"What'd you get, sweetie?" Todd looked over from his side of the tree.

"Seventy."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah. Well, no, it's too low, but I'm about to eat anyway, so I'll be okay."

"When do you have to check your sugar--?"

"Shooting up again, Jamie?" Sean Manfred shouted and laughed with his entourage of friends in tow. Marcy Dunbar, one of the girls in the group, hit him on the arm and told him to shut up. Jamie could never figure out why someone as nice and as cute as Marcy would hang out with a low-life like Sean.

Cortney said quietly, "Don't listen to them, Jamie. They're jerks."

Jamie put her glucose meter away. "I know. I can't hide, right? I mean, if I don't check my sugar levels I could go back to feeling rotten again. I mean, Dr. Marcus said that diabetes could wreck my heart or kidneys or eyes. Some people go blind. I'm freakin' fifteen. I don't want to go blind."

Todd put an arm around her and pulled her into a quick hug. "We know, sweetie, we know. Don't we Cortney?"

Cortney patted Jamie's leg as if she were a puppy. "Yeah, we know."

Todd pulled his arm back and Jamie couldn't help wishing that Cortney would put her arm around her, but they were at school and that couldn't ever happen. Especially not now with all the attention on the girl that fainted. She hated the way everybody stared at her as if they could catch it. And her teachers tiptoed around her as if she were made out of glass or something. All the attention made her feel like an idiot, but, like her mom said, "You have an illness and you're taking care of it. You shouldn't feel ashamed or embarrassed." Thank God she had Todd. And Cortney, too.

Jamie pulled the insulin needle out of the port in her stomach and put the needle back in the plastic box. The port made taking the shots a lot easier because she didn't have to put the needle directly into her skin. "Thanks, Mrs. McDougall." She handed the box to the school nurse.

"No problem, kiddo."

Jamie turned to go and the nurse called after her, "Hey, Jamie, your friends can come in here while you're doing this, you know."

"Thanks, but, uh, they're a little squeamish about the needles."

"A lot of people are. Have you spoken with your doctor about getting an insulin pump? It just hangs off your belt."

"Well, I think it's like really expensive and Dr. Marcus wants to see how the injections work out first." And the thought of having the pump attached to her 24-7 didn't sound like fun, either.

"Sounds like a plan. See you tomorrow. Same time, same place."

Jamie stepped out of the nurse's office and linked arms with Todd. "Thanks for waiting." They headed toward the courtyard.

"No problem, sweetie. Anything for my best girl."

"People are gonna start talking about us, you know."

"What?" He nudged her shoulder with his. "Two queers walking together?"

Jamie laughed. "Yeah, or one queer and one drug addict."

"Would you cut that out? No one thinks you're a drug addict."

"Then how come everyone calls me druggie?"

Todd held the door to the courtyard open so Jamie could pass through first. "Because they're morons. At least Cortney and I know you're the awesomest chick on campus."

"Phht."

"Oh, that was ladylike."

They settled in against their usual tree in the busy courtyard and Jamie said, "Yeah, well, Cortney's been avoiding me."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's not here, is she?"

Todd nodded. "Oh. You've got a point there."

"I swear ever since I fainted that day--right here I might add--she's been weird. And she never even asks me about my glucose readings or hangs around when I have to do my insulin. I think she's embarrassed by me."

Todd picked at a blade of grass and remained silent.

Jamie nudged him. "You know something, don't you?"

He put both hands up in defense. "I didn't say anything."

"What do you know?"

"Girl, I can't believe how well you can read me. Okay, I didn't want to say anything, but Cortney's been hanging around with Heather again."

"Fair-weather Heather? The Heather that broke her heart? That Heather?"

"I'm sorry."

Jamie picked up a stick and threw it as far as she could. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I--c'mon, don't kill the messenger. Oh, shit. Speak of the devil," Todd said under his breath.

Cortney walked up with a stack of books clutched to her chest. "Hey guys."

"Hey," Jamie and Todd said at the same time.

"Look, I, uh, have a lot of studying to do, so I'm just going to go to the library. Okay? Catch you later?"

Jamie saw fair-weather Heather standing at the doors to the library, looking in their direction. She took a deep breath and sighed. "How about never?"

Cortney looked confused. "What?"

"Look, girls," Todd said springing to his feet, "this has been swell, but I'm going to check out the guys playing basketball and dream. See you later, sweetie."

"Bye, Todd." Jamie watched him retreat. She wished she could go with him. She looked down at her feet. "Cort, maybe we shouldn't . . ."

When Cortney didn't respond, Jamie knew she'd been right. Cortney didn't want to be with her anymore. Tears welled up in her eyes.

Cortney shuffled her feet. "Jamie, I'm sorry. I . . . I just don't know how to be there for you." The silence grew wide between them. "Listen, I think we should see other people."

Jamie couldn't form words around the lump in her throat so she just hugged her knees and nodded. Cortney walked away.

The bell finally rang to end the worst day of her life. No, the day she fainted and found out she had diabetes--that was the worst day. This was the second worst. Jamie flung herself out of her seat and trudged toward her locker. Dr. Marcus said she should check her blood sugar two hours after eating, so she usually checked it right after school, using her locker to shield the glucose meter from her classmates. But today she just didn't feel like checking it. In fact, she'd had enough. She didn't want to be a diabetic anymore. It was a royal pain in the ass. Once you managed to slog through one day, you woke up and had to live another one full of shots and glucose tests and stupid girlfriends who freak out and then walk away.

Jamie slammed her locker shut and decided that she didn't want to take the bus home, either. Donuts. That's what she wanted. The donut shop was only about a half mile away in the strip mall near the high school. Oh, a small part of her knew she shouldn't do it, but a bigger part demanded her old life back because this whole diabetes thing was freakin' unfair.

Standing in line at the donut shop, she felt dizzy, but she didn't care. And she told herself that she didn't even care that Cortney decided to go "see other people." Whatever.

Jamie paid for a dozen jelly donuts, her favorite from her former life, and headed out the door. She made her way around the side of the building and plopped onto the cold sidewalk. She ripped open the box and took a huge bite of one of the donuts. The dough and powdered sugar and sweet jelly filled her senses and made her feel like an addict finally getting the drug she craved. The first bite took forever to get down because she'd taken way too much in her mouth, but she persevered because there were eleven and a half more donuts to go.

She held the donut up to her mouth for a second bite, but angry tears forced her to put it down. She hid the tears streaming down her face behind her hands. When she could finally breathe without crying, a voice startled her back to reality.

"So what do I do when that donut spikes your blood sugar so high you start to get all wonky?"

Jamie looked up startled by the interruption from her misery and saw Marcy Dunbar standing over her.

"What?" Jamie wiped at her eyes embarrassed that this cute girl, a fellow tenth grader, had seen her having a mental breakdown.

"That donut." She gestured to the half-eaten jelly donut in Jamie's hand. "I don't think that's on your new list of things to eat, is it?"

"No, it's not." Jamie rolled the donut in a napkin and threw it at the trash barrel.

The pretty blonde leaned against the building and slid down next to Jamie. "I'm Marcy. You're Jamie, right?"

"Yeah. That's me. The freak of the tenth grade." Jamie kept her head down. "Did somebody send you here to watch me self-destruct?"

Marcy laughed softly. "No. I was two people behind you in the donut shop." She held up a plastic bag. "Coffee for my mom. I heard you crying when I came outside, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Jamie smiled in spite of herself. "Sorry."

"For what?"

"You have better things to do than to babysit me."

"I can't think of a single thing, actually."

Jamie looked up and found herself caught in a pair of crystal blue eyes. She couldn't tell whether she got dizzy from the half-eaten donut or from Marcy sitting so close.

Marcy smiled in a way that made Jamie's cheeks grow warmer. Jamie dropped her head in embarrassment, but Marcy reached over, cupped her chin, and made her look up again. "Jamie, you're not a charity case to me." Jamie's chin felt cold when Marcy let go. "Look, I know you and Cortney broke up at lunch and I figured you could use somebody to talk to."

"Oh, my God."

"Don't freak. It's cool. I'm, uh, into girls, too. And, well, Heather has a big mouth so that's how I heard about you and Cortney."

Jamie couldn't think of a single thing to say except, "Oh."

They sat in silence on the cold concrete for an eternity until Jamie finally said, "I'd have to give myself an insulin shot."

"What?"

"The answer to your question. If I didn't put myself into a diabetic coma with those donuts, then I'd have to get the blood sugar down with insulin."

"Oh, okay. And what about the flip side? What if your blood sugar's too low?"

"Give me a piece of candy or juice or something."

Marcy nodded as she absorbed the information. "Hey, do you think I could hang out with you and Todd at lunch sometime?"

Jamie couldn't believe that someone would actually want to hang out with the tenth grade freak, the sophomore druggie. "Um, I guess."

"You say that like you're not sure."

"I just don't know why you'd want to commit social suicide like that."

Marcy looked off into the distance. "Well, maybe, I, uh, have reasons of my own."

Jamie watched Marcy's cheeks turn scarlet.

"Oh," Jamie said with understanding.

Marcy placed her hand on top of Jamie's. She smiled shyly and said, "Is this okay?"

Jamie felt her face flush. She answered by lacing her fingers with Marcy's. "Are you sure you know what you're getting into?"

"Yeah, I think I do. Now, how about we get rid of these donuts, okay?"

Jamie handed the box over with her left hand, still clutching Marcy's with her right. "Yeah, who needs donuts, anyway?"

"C'mon." Marcy tossed them in the trash barrel. "My mom and I live in the apartment complex right behind the donut shop. Do you want to come over?"

Jamie's instant smile almost split her face. She nodded and let Marcy lead her home. The second-worst day of Jamie's life had just made a miraculous comeback. She snuck a peak at the beautiful blonde who held her hand and knew she wouldn't need donuts anymore, because out of nowhere she had found something so much sweeter.