Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon Page B

sorry.”
    I take a minute to really look at her. Under the hostile hair and aggressive eyeliner, there’s a chubby, young, shy kind of face. And round blue eyes. Her fingernails are chewed to ragged stubs. I put my hand over hers. “You were great,” I say. “You were super.”
    Her face lights up. “Really? You’re not, like, mad? Or anything?”
    â€œOr nothing, Marie.”
    She leans forward. “My real name is Kelly,” she says. “Marie was just part of my costume. Marie was, like, you know, my alter ego? Like, I could be much braver, more, uh, bold as Marie than as me? Mostly, you know, I’m kind of, I don’t know, scared and not too smart. A real dim bulb, my brother says. Do you understand that, how a costume, you know, can make a huge difference?”
    I’d like to say that I’m paying full attention to these deeply insightful questions about issues of human identity and all—but, really, I am looking down her vest. See, she isn’t wearing a shirt under it, even. I mean, it’s just a shiny orange vest with a deep V open in front and kind of wide-open sides, and from any angle, there are big-time, fully visible breasts under there. Creamy plump round white breasts, rolling around free. And hazy memory or not, I can most definitely remember sliding between those breasts. I try to pry my eyes upward, focus on the girl’s face. But once I do, I see that she’s holding her bottom lip between her teeth. And I most surely do remember those lips, too. And I can feel myself making a tent pole beneath the sheets. “Yeah,” I say, brilliantly. “Well, nice to meet you, Kelly-Marie.”
    She giggles. “And, you, too, Richard Casey.” She leans even farther and the breasts press right up against the bed rail and kind of squoosh over the top. “See? I had to find out your real name, too. I kept asking around. Some people knew your uncle and some know your mom, too, and they told me the story about you—how you’ve been sick for a long time and how you were here and, well, I found you, didn’t I?”
    I’m resisting, just barely, the urge to grab her and haul her into the bed, when Edward comes in. He smiles this great big grin and nods at Kelly-Marie. “Hello,” he says. “Thought you guys might like something to drink.” And in his hands there are two cold cans of Coke. Not the hospice-size minicans. Not ginger ale. Real Cokes.
    And I know that he must have gone to one of the machines down on the first floor, by the ER, and actually bought these himself. Shelled out a buck fifty each. Sometimes, you know, human kindness just knocks you off your feet. “Thanks, man,” I say. I hope he can hear how I know what he did and how I really appreciate it.
    He waves a hand and takes off, swinging the door almost all the way closed on his way out.
    So that Kelly-Marie and I can sit there and drink our Cokes and talk and laugh and flirt. Just like any other teenagers, anywhere in the whole wide world.

10
    I T’S GOING FINE—TURNS OUT Kelly-Marie is a freshman at Hudson High and she’s heard of me because I’m a senior—or I would be if I ever went to school. And I’m sort of famous, in a lousy way: the boy that’s always sick. She doesn’t say it, so I do: “Yep, that’s me. The Incredible Dying Boy.” And then I feel like a real jerk because her blue eyes get so sad. I laugh. “Not really,” I say, trying not to sound totally lame.
    She brightens up. “Really? You’re not?”
    I look at her and I say the stuff I usually say to my mom when she’s down. “Hell, no. Listen, right now, right this minute, there’s a whole bunch of science geeks, right? I mean, like, all of these super-smart research dudes, and they’re working away like madmen, day and night and fucking day again. I mean, these guys, they’re at