The Opposite of Falling Apart

CHAPTER 1 - JONAS

SUMMER 2014

Jonas had done two things when he'd come home from the hospital for the first time after The Accident.

1. He'd taken a permanent marker and scribbled out the lower half of the left leg on his Bones of the Human Skeleton poster, which had hung on his closet door since fifth grade (when he'd decided he wanted to be a doctor).

2. He'd looked at the newly-altered poster and cried, for the first time after and the only time since.

He was looking at the same poster now.

"Jonas?"

His mom's tone was familiar. It was the same tone she'd been using with him for the last year. It was as if she was tiptoeing around him, walking carefully to avoid stepping on something sharp like glass shards or a Lego brick. His gaze fixated once more on the mass of permanent ink on the poster that obliterated the left tibia, fibula, patella, half the femur—irrevocable, unshakable. It won't go away! he'd screamed in his head, that first day, as he angrily smeared ink on the poster. This won't ever go away! And that was when he had cried.

"Are you there?"

Jonas sighed into his phone, the static breath rebounding in his own ear. "Yes, Mom. Here."

"Okay," she said. "Look, I know you haven't really driven since, well, you know." She paused before pressing onward, her tone diplomatic. "Your sister forgot the waiver for her summer camp, and you know they're leaving later this afternoon. I really wouldn't ask under any normal circumstances, but I have a big meeting at work today and I can't get away to bring it to her."

Jonas thought about his sister being unable to zip-line or white-water raft or any of the other things she had been going on and on about doing at summer camp since school had first let out back in May. He thought about his sister, so excited to go off and do something, the first thing their parents had had any extra money for, what with Jonas's stack of receipts for doctor's appointments, hospital stay, therapy, and prosthesis (which hadn't left his closet since the day he'd gotten it).

"I was just wondering if you could take it to her."

Easier said than done. Jonas frowned, massaging the place right above his nonexistent left knee, where the rest of his leg should have been.

"Jonas?"

He pictured himself saying no and then pulling the covers over his head to block out the outside. "Okay, Mom," he said instead. After all, he'd put her through enough, hadn't he? He could do one thing for her, right? And for Taylor, who had kind of been the forgotten one in all this mess.

"Okay? You'll do it?" Jonas could hear his mother's relief through the phone. He also didn't miss the hope in her voice. He wondered if she had expected more arguing. She'd been trying to get him to leave the house for something, anything, since the end of the school year (really, since Jonas's Great Tragedy). He could also hear the concern in her voice. He knew she'd be worried that she was asking too much. Jonas felt bad—the uncomfortable feeling of guilt squeezed at his insides. After all she'd done for him, she shouldn't have to worry about asking too much. She shouldn't have to worry that her son couldn't handle a little thing like a quick errand.

"Okay," he said again. Maybe she'd believe him a little more after he said it a second time. Maybe he'd believe it a little more too.

He could practically see the smile on her face. "Thank you, Bird!" she exclaimed. Jonas closed his eyes and tried not to cringe at the child- hood nickname (You're so skinny, like a bird! his mom used to say). He could picture her smiling an actual smile (not tired or forced) and he felt a little better about himself for once. His mom was continuing, her words humming in his ear. "Taylor said the form is either on the counter or on her desk in her room. If you could just take it—they're meeting in that parking lot behind the school, you know the one."