Chapter 1
Joseph’s phone alarm went off, jolting him rudely out of sleep, as it did every morning. But this wasn’t just any morning.
He sat bolt upright, feeling for his phone, trying to shut off the klaxon, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.
Not just rapidly. He wasn’t sure what the word was for the racing train engine in his chest. He couldn’t even discern each individual beat; it was going so fast that he thought he was going to have a heart attack.
After finally putting his hands on his phone, blindly jabbing at the screen and pushing the volume buttons, he finally got it silenced. He took deep gulps of air, trying to get the oxygen that his racing heart was demanding, knowing that if he waited for a minute or two, his heart rate would return to normal and he could relax and start his day as usual.
Well, not as usual, because there would be no lying around lazily in bed today. With his startled awakening and near heart attack, there was no way he would be drowsy enough to curl up and go back to sleep. And he couldn’t even think about the five or six follow-up alarms going off. Normally, it took a few times before he was awake enough—or worried enough about being late for school or practice—that he finally hauled his butt out of bed to get showered and dressed. And maybe eat something before racing out the door.
His heart kept pounding at its racing, frenetic pace, even as he squinted at his phone screen and thumbed through a few messages he had received during the night, thinking that if he just proceeded with his usual activities and distracted his brain, his heart would slow down again and he would be fine.
It kept beating uncomfortably fast, giving him a dull ache in his chest that was probably just from holding his muscles so tense.
Joseph took another deep breath and let it out slowly. He plugged in his phone so that it would charge while he was in the shower and shuffled to the bathroom to take care of business.
“Are you up?” Mira Demain called from the kitchen.
Since there was no one else in the house, it wasn’t like she didn’t know who was wandering around.
“Yeah, Mom,” Joseph growled, irritated at having to speak first thing in the morning. He didn’t like the way that she talked to him as soon as she heard him up, quickly going from asking him how his sleep was to peppering him with other questions about his plans for the day. He needed space and quiet when he woke up, time to get his brain functioning without having to speak or compose questions.
And this morning, even more so, trying to calm his heart down and go about his routine, pretending everything was normal.
He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door very firmly to signal that he didn’t want to be disturbed. He was in the bathroom, a private space, which should be protected by a cone of silence. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, skin pale and clammy, and attempted to smooth down the blond hair sticking up all over his head without success.
He could hear Mira walking down the hall from the kitchen.
“How did you sleep?” she shouted through the door.
Joseph growled, not answering.
“Did you have a good sleep?” Mira persisted.
“I can’t talk right now,” Joseph told her. “Leave me alone.”
“Are you okay? You sound funny.”
“Mo-om!” Joseph complained, drawing the word out into two syllables in protest.
Mira sighed loudly at his refusal to hold an early-morning conversation through the bathroom door. “Fine. Come and talk to me when you’re out.”
Joseph grunted at her.
He sat on the toilet for a while, both too tired to move and rooted to the spot by the pain in his chest and the insistent racing of his heart.
But it gradually slowed down, returning to his cardio target zone, and finally to a more normal resting rate. Joseph thought it might still be a little fast but, at least, nothing like it had been. He continued to take deep breaths, trying to calm his body and convince his brain that there was nothing to panic about.
Eventually, he shed the shorts and muscle shirt he wore for bed and climbed into the shower.
“Are you okay?” Mira asked as soon as he showed his face, even though he hadn’t yet sought her out. “Feeling all right this morning?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine,” he growled, trying to pass her in the hallway to get to his room to finish dressing and getting ready for the day.
“You aren’t usually up this early. And you look… pale or sick. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I just woke up earlier than I wanted to.” He rubbed his eyes. “I thought you would be happy about that. You’re always telling me that I need to get up earlier so that I don’t have to rush getting ready for school.”
Mira pushed a hank of dirty blond hair behind her ear. “I am happy about it,” she told him immediately. “I was just worried that you might not be feeling well. You’re not usually up so early, and you look… drawn. I don’t know. It’s just the morning light,” she laughed, but it sounded forced. “I never see you by this light anymore. You’re like a vampire. Up all night and then sleeping when the day actually starts. Until the last minute before school.”
She didn’t look that great herself. She was working too much and her face was tired and lined.
“I know. But this morning, I’m up, so don’t get on my case about it.”
“I’m not.” She patted his arm soothingly. “What do you want for breakfast? Do you want me to get you something?”
“No. I’ll get my own breakfast. After I get dressed.”
He didn’t feel much like eating. He was a bit nauseated. Probably just from getting up too early. He knew he was supposed to eat something before school, but he didn’t feel much like it most mornings. His stomach wasn’t really awake until halfway through the day. But he had to eat before taking his meds, which meant he had to force himself to have something. Maybe just a Pop-Tart or something. Not something that his mother would approve of as an appropriate breakfast for a growing boy.
Luckily, he usually didn’t have breakfast until after she had left for work.
And who was it that bought the Pop-Tarts anyway?
Chapter 2
By the time he got to school, Joseph was feeling back to normal. He still had some tightness in his chest, which he thought was just from holding himself tense. He was distracted monitoring his heart rate, but other than that, everything was fine.
He’d had breakfast and his meds, which should prevent him from having any more panic attacks. Dr. Shapiro would tell him that he needed to practice anxiety-calming techniques, stress reduction, and all of that emotional resilience stuff—which sounded good when he lectured Joseph but, later, when Joseph needed real help, he found they were just empty words.
Soccer was the way to burn off his anxiety. The meds helped, of course, but the only thing he could do to send the anxiety packing when he was having a hard day was to run like crazy, preferably in a soccer game where it was constructive and would benefit the team. Soccer was his life preserver. That one thing he could grab on to when everything else failed.
“Hey, Demain!” greeted an awkward-looking, too-tall girl with a blond ponytail, as he slammed his locker door and twisted the dial on the lock. “How goes it?”
“Hey, Lora.”
“How was your weekend?”
“Okay, I guess. Not like I did anything. How was yours?”
She shrugged. “Nothing big. But hey, here we are, together again!” She made an all-embracing gesture.
“At school,” Joseph intoned.
“I know. But it could be worse.”
He opened his mouth to answer.
“It could be prison,” Lora pointed out.
Joseph laughed. “It kind of is.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugged again. “Were you at Mom’s or Dad’s?”
Joseph resisted answering questions about his family situation, looking for a way to change the subject. “Are you coming to the game this week?”
“Uh-huh. As long as I don’t have to babysit. I’m not supposed to, but… you know that can change at the last minute.”
Joseph nodded. “Yeah, sure. I just meant were you planning to.”
“Yeah, sure. Of course. I’m the team trainer, aren’t I?”
“Well… not exactly. You took some courses and kind of… bullied coach into letting you hang out on the sidelines.”
“I’m the team trainer,” she said firmly. “That’s why I’m there.”
Joseph shrugged and let it go. Lora would go where she wanted to go and be what she wanted to be. She was that kind of a girl. When she set her mind to something, there was no talking her out of it with logic or reasoning. It didn’t matter what obstacles were in her way or what the various personalities involved had to say about it; she was going to get her way. Joseph wasn’t quite sure how she did it, other than just by being hardheaded. She seemed to always find a way.
At the end of the school day, Joseph was feeling tired and worn out. He assumed it was because he hadn’t gotten as much sleep as usual, and the panic attack had drained a significant amount of his energy. He stopped at the convenience store across the street from the school to grab an energy bar before practice. Beside the till, they had one-shot caffeine energy drinks that promised five hours of energy. Joseph usually avoided those, trying to stick to more nutritious foods to keep in shape, but decided that today would be an exception. He could have caffeine now and then. And on a day he was short on sleep, feeling out of sorts, and needed to get through a couple of hours of practice, he figured that he deserved it. It wasn’t like he was taking steroids.
He paid for his snack and slammed the fruity energy drink, throwing the can in the garbage in front of the convenience store rather than carrying it back to the school and letting anyone there see him with it.
Joseph rushed back to the school, determined to make it to practice on time. Most of the other players were ahead of him, some already out on the field. As he changed, he bantered with his remaining teammates, using their energy and enthusiasm to fuel his own. He mentally prepared himself for the intense practice ahead. Maintaining focus and giving his all was crucial, and the coach would notice immediately if he were off his game.
“See you out there,” Marcus told Joseph as he left.
“Yeah, see you in a minute.”
As Joseph shut his locker door, he was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness.
“Whoa…” He leaned on the door, waiting for the head rush to pass so that he could go on.
“You okay, Demain?” William asked.
“Uh… yeah, in a minute…” The dizziness didn’t immediately pass as he expected it to. He started to sweat. Did he have a fever? Maybe he was sick? That might explain the early-morning racing heart, how he had dragged around all day, and the dizziness. He was coming down with something—the flu.
He tried to push back the other feeling that was threatening to overwhelm him. A sense of doom and dread. Something terrible was about to happen. He didn’t know what it was, but it was serious. He felt like someone was going to die. One of his parents? Was it a premonition of something that was really going to happen?
The sweat was coming on stronger now. Gathering at his temples and also running down his back in a cold stream.
“Demain?” William approached him. “You’re not looking so good, man. You’re as white as a sheet.”
William grabbed Joseph by the shoulders, maneuvering him to one of the benches. “Sit down. Are you feeling faint? Nauseous?”
Joseph laced his hands behind his neck and leaned forward. “Just… dizzy for a minute. Maybe a fever, I don’t know.”
William touched his forehead with the back of his hand. “Maybe. It’s probably the flu. Something is going around. You want me to tell Coach?”
“I’ll be okay,” Joseph said, pressing a knuckle to his head. “If I just wait for a minute, I think it will pass.”
“I don’t think so,” William disagreed. “I’m going to go get Coach.”
There wasn’t any point in arguing; William was going to whether Joseph liked it or not. Joseph sat there on the bench with his head bowed. He put his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Even though he said that he was sure it would pass, he didn’t think it would. He had a foreboding this was the beginning of something new in his life, something that was going to doom him and keep him from soccer forever. It felt like the ceiling was pressing down on him. Like the sky was pressing down on the building outside and everything was being compressed. How did the story about the little chicken go? The sky is falling?
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