chapter forty-four.

Simon - December 2007

To put it simply, it was the worst Christmas ever.

It wasn't bad because I hadn't gotten what I wanted (I had, in fact—it was a shiny new Spider-Man action figure, web-shooting pose and all, and it was currently sitting on top of my bookshelf ). It wasn't bad because there was a storm or the food was bad or someone had gotten stuck in traffic, any of the common misfortunes. In fact, it had been a great Christmas. A perfect Christmas, even, until I'd reached for my orange juice at brunch and spilled it all over the table because my entire body had started to shake.

I'd been on the floor for twenty minutes, changing rapidly from skin to skin, seizing uncontrollably, while my parents and Noah and Abbie and Grandma and Grandpa all craned over me, trying to get me to stop. Calm down, they said. I'm right here, they said. Can you hear me? they asked. Simon, Simon, Simon. I could reply to nothing.

It had been two hours since then and instead of going outside and sledding with Abbie and Noah and some of their friends I was instead shut in my room. Though my parents had recommended I stay out of sight while the guests were over, I probably would have sentenced myself to incarceration via bedroom on my own. I didn't want to scare anyone. It was bad enough that everyone at school already thought I was weird because I didn't talk to anyone but Noah. If they found out the real reason, there'd be no coming back from that.

So I huddled on my bed, rolled up in a thick, blue plaid blanket I'd stolen from the downstairs living room. I stayed there, paging through a book but not exactly reading it, trying to ignore the somewhat constant skipping of my pulse. My bones and muscles were achey, and though I'd finally changed back into myself an hour ago, my skin still didn't exactly feel like it belonged to me. In a way, it didn't.

So, yes.

It was the worst Christmas ever.

Rose knocked and brought me tea. She pat my head and said, "Are you sure you don't wanna come down and hang out with me in the kitchen? I won't make you do dishes, I promise."

I shook my head. "It's safer here."

Rose gave me a piteous look. "Simon, precious, nothing's going to happen."

"We don't know that," I said. "We don't know that for sure."

Rose continued looking at me piteously for a moment, then sighed and turned for the door. I thanked her for the tea, and she was gone, the door shut behind her.

Outside, in the hall, I could hear my parents talking. Though a door was between us, I could see them nonetheless: Mom sitting in one of the arbitrary hallway chairs, her head in her hands, Dad standing next to her, his face probably red and a vein probably showing up in his neck. He always looked like that when he was frustrated, and I knew he was frustrated, because I could hear him.

"It's obvious it's not medical," he was saying, his voice gruff. "All the doctors look at us like we're crazy. Maybe it's supernatural, somehow?"

There was a pause. Then, I heard my mom laugh bitterly. I shuddered because I'd never heard her laugh like that. "Are you kidding? Simon practically just had a seizure in front of us and you're saying it's not medical?"

"What kind of seizure looks like that, huh?" Dad fired back. "What kind of seizure shakes you into a different person? It wasn't a seizure, Mary. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's something else."

"Simon's...condition...is not a fairytale."

"I'm not saying it is!" Dad exclaimed, loud enough to make me jolt. I curled my knees further into my chest, drawing my blanket over my head until I could see nothing but blue-tinted darkness. I wanted to disappear. Right then, I did. Maybe then they wouldn't fight so much. If most of the times they fought, they fought over me, then if I ceased to exist, all problems would be solved.

I heard the door open—the voices outside grew louder for a second—and shut again. A moment later, hands slid over my ears.

"Don't listen to them, Ginger Snap."

I lifted my head. "Noah?"

"They'll stop. Eventually. Just don't listen."

I sat up. Though he wasn't wearing snow boots, he was still in the rest of his sledding apparel: longjohns, snow pants, winter cap, massive coat that made him look like a marshmallow. He smelled like pine needles and salt. "I thought you were sledding."

"I was," he said, "but I thought this was a little bit more important."

"Abbie?" I inquired. Our three-year-old sister needed constant babysitting and technically was not supposed to leave the sight of Noah or me when our parents were busy.

"Dropped her off with Rose for a sec."

Relief filled me, and then regret. He didn't need to worry about me. Just because my Christmas sucked didn't mean his had to. "Noah."

"Yeah?"

"You can go. I'll be fine."

"Shut up. I'm staying until they stop yelling."

I put my hands over his; finally, for the first time since he'd come in the door, Noah dropped his head and looked at me. "I won't listen. I promise, I won't. You can go sled with your friends. Please?"

Noah blinked at me, then chuckled. He took his hands from my ears and stepped off the bed for a second and shucked off his coat, then his hat. He'd gotten a haircut recently—Grandpa had done it—but it was cut too short so now it was all spikey. I thought he looked sort of cool. Like a race car driver, or something. Noah, on the other hand, hated it. When Abbie had seen his new haircut for the first time, she'd started crying.

"You feel bad, or something?" Noah said, but before I could answer, he'd climbed back onto the bed to sit right in front of me, criss-cross applesauce. "Oh, boo-hoo. Poor me, I can't go repeatedly slide down a hill until I get frostbite, or bored out of my mind. Whichever comes first. Boo-hoo-hoo."

"I just don't want you to miss out."

"And I don't want you to be alone," he said. "Cuz when you're alone you lay on your bed and stare at random things and sulk—oh yeah, kind of like you're doing right now."

"I'm doing it for you," I told him. Noah took notice of the tea I hadn't consumed yet and reached around me to retrieve it. I didn't stop him as he took a sip. "So I don't creep your friends out with my random spazzing."

"It is creepy-looking," Noah admitted, and then paused. His face went utterly still for a moment, like he'd vacated his body, and then collapsed into a frown. He handed the tea back to me and said, "Simon?"

Simon? I shuddered. I was so used to him calling me "Ginger Snap" that hearing him use my actual name made everything seem terribly out of place. Like a dream, almost.

I said, "What?"

"I'm not scared of you."

I didn't get it.

Noah realized I didn't get it. He rephrased: "As creepy as the entire shapeshifting thing is, I'm not creeped out. I'm not scared of you at all, Simon."

"It sounds like you're just trying to make yourself seem cool."

Noah exhaled, and then he did something I didn't expect. He grabbed my head, tilting it forward, leaning his forehead against mine. We were close, way close, and as awkward as it should have been, it wasn't at all. He held me there and he stared at me and somehow my pulse was the calmest it had been all day.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that you don't have to hide from me," Noah said. "So don't try it."

He let me go.

Outside, the hallway was quiet.

Noah gave me a look, and I gave him a look, and then we both got off the bed and opened the door and snuck a peek out into the hall.

Mom was alone in her chair now, leaned against the hall table. Dad was nowhere to be seen.

I thought for a second she was sleeping, but then I saw her shoulders heave, once, and I realized she wasn't sleeping at all.

She was crying, very softly.

I was so exhausted of seeing her cry over me.

I stepped forward. Noah snatched at my collar but missed and I ignored him. If Mom heard me coming, she acted like she didn't, remaining in her chair and wiping at her eyes even as more tears filled them.

I knelt down in front of her, forcing her to look at my face. She looked down at me, stunned for a second. As her hand came around my cheek, she said, "Simon?"

"I'm not sick," I told her. I said it because I was tired. I said it because I was done. I said it because she needed to know. "I'm okay, Mom. I'm not sick and I'm not going to leave you."

She bit her lip, and for a second I worried she wasn't going to listen.

But then she hugged me, wrapping her arms around me, bringing my head to her chest. She'd held me like this before, many times before, but I remember something about this time being very, very different.

"I know, baby," she said into my ear. "I know."

After that Christmas, we never saw another doctor again.