Chapter 1: How Not to Make Friends CHAPTER 1 How Not to Make Friends
Here ya go, little lady!”

A clown with dripping white face paint hands me a balloon he has twisted into a unicorn. I squeeze its neck, hoping it will burst. Unicorn-head bursting feels about my speed. The only thing worse than going blind is using the last of your sight to watch sick kids eat boiled hot dogs in July. Outdoor dining in the summer in the South should be outlawed, along with warm Pepsi and teenagers in bouncy houses.

I have been to four of these annual hospital picnics. It doesn’t get better with time. I give the unicorn a little poke. He still doesn’t pop. He’s a fighter.

“Mom, please,” I beg as a nurse wheels out a bubble machine. “Let’s go.” That’s the second-worst thing about impending blindness. Your mother follows you everywhere. “Or at least give me your phone,” I add. Phones are excellent buffers.

“Violet, for the last time, I’m not giving it to you.” She moves her purse to the opposite shoulder, out of my reach, and nudges me toward the picnic tables. Strangers gather around bins of Fritos and coolers full of Fanta.

“Go make friends,” she suggests/orders.

“Attractive.” I’m stalling. I point to the damp patches of perspiration on her nice silk shirt. She looks down and sighs. I feel a twinge of guilt. She took time off work to bring me to this thing, and she never takes time off work. She’s a lawyer at Martin, Coughlin & Schwartz, LLP. She’s not Martin, Coughlin, or Schwartz. She’s Meredith Marino, and she’d be a partner if it weren’t for me. Kids with degenerative diseases can be time consuming like that.

I hold up a finger. “One ice-cream cup and then we go.”

“Grab me one too,” she says, and gives me her “chin-up” smile.

I’m halfway across the lawn when I hear the shout. Several, actually.

“Call 911!” somebody yells, which is absurd, since we are at a picnic for the children’s hospital and there is no shortage of medical personnel. I veer toward the drama, hoping it’s the right level of interesting—bigger than a Band-Aid, smaller than the thing that shocks your heart. Slightly less than life-threatening would be optimal.

Under the pavilion, it’s a scene straight out of a horror movie. A boy lies on the ground clutching his throat. His face is purple. This is so much bigger than a Band-Aid. I stop breathing. It’s like my body and his are linked. He’s fighting for breath and I can’t find mine, either. The scene has sucked it out of me.

For the longest three seconds in the world, nothing moves except his feet, which are twitching and kicking the table leg closest to him. Then a nurse dives onto her knees and heaves him up like he’s a load of laundry. I watch, a few feet back from the crowd, as the woman in bright yellow scrubs wraps him in a bear hug. She squeezes him hard—harder than a person should be squeezed if you expect them to reinflate. Time slows even more as the two of them pitch about in a weird slow-motion dance. I risk a step closer at the same time as the rest of the crowd steps back. It’s just them and me in the pavilion now.

Even though he’s obviously choking, our eyes lock for a second. It’s disconcerting, like catching someone mid-nose-pick. The nurse gives one more huge pump with her arms, his eyes bulge, and a wad of chewed-up something shoots out of his mouth. He coughs and keeps coughing while spit and tears run down his face. Cheers rise up behind us. He will live to be sick another day.

“Honey, where are your parents?” the nurse asks as she eases him onto a picnic bench. She’s pretty, the way some mom-aged people can be, with light brown skin and kind eyes.

“My dad dropped me off,” he rasps, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His brown hair is that kind of long you can only get away with in summer. I finger the ends of my dark, curly hair, which are now red, courtesy of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid. There have been a lot of hours to fill lately; this is how I spent one of mine last week. Mom was less than thrilled.

Neither the nurse nor the boy is paying me any attention. It’s exhilarating, like lurking in the shadows of a crime scene. My dying eyes soak it up. I study the boy. Now that he’s not being Heimliched, I can tell he’s about my age. I step closer. He’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in all the years of picnics put together. He spits in the dirt next to his foot, which is right next to my foot.

“Gross,” I state for the record.

He grins and turns his eyes on me. They are the exact same shade as the July sky. They are TikTok-filter, boy-band eyes, and I let out a hiccup of a laugh. I’ve got to get out of here.

I back up into somebody with an “oof.” How are there so many people under this pavilion all of a sudden? I turn to apologize.

A girl who has to be half my size at most raises white cat-eye sunglasses and huffs.

“Excuse you.”

I cross my arms. You don’t get an “I’m sorry” from me with that attitude. If we were on the soccer field, I’d shove her. Worth the red card. I lift my hands to do it anyway out of reflex, but she leans past me and points to the boy.

“That is why I bring my own food.” She pops open a clear plastic container filled with rice and neon-orange mush that smells delicious. She doesn’t eat it, though, just clicks the lid back on and nods.

“I’m Noor Singh, and that’s my mother who saved your life.”

The nurse in yellow stands.

“Yes, thank you, Noor. We hadn’t quite gotten to introductions.”

Noor rolls her eyes.

“I’m Nurse Priya.”

The kid with the too-long hair jumps to his feet like he didn’t almost meet the afterlife. He bows. “Wyatt Cass, at your disposal.” When he straightens, I catch sight of a scar peeking out from the neck of his T-shirt. He sees me looking and holds my gaze until Noor clears her throat.

“So, anyway…” Noor trails off. She’s giving her mother that look, the same one I’ve been giving mine for the past hour. She’s ready to get out of here. But Nurse Priya says to Wyatt, “I’m going to get my stethoscope and a bottle of water.” She points at him. “And then you are going to drink it and I am going to listen to your breathing. And you”—she points at Noor—“are going to stay here and visit.”

The minute her mom is out of sight, Noor slides her sunglasses back down over her eyes. “I’m not here to make friends.”

“Me neither.” I glance over my shoulder at Mom, who is checking her watch—a good sign. I notice she hasn’t made an effort to talk to anyone.

Wyatt sits back down on the bench. “Well, I just had a near-death experience and I am all for seizing the day. Why don’t we visit a minute?”

Visit a minute—he sounds like my Nonna.

“What do you know about near-death experiences,” Noor mutters, scrolling through her phone. I would give a million dollars and my right foot for a phone to look at right now.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he says. Seriously, his eyes are embarrassingly blue. I look back down at his scar.

“We still don’t know your name,” he prompts me. Introductions were inevitable, I suppose.

I state it like a prison sentence. “Violet Marino. Age thirteen. Going into eighth grade at Croft Middle.”

“I’ll be in eighth too, at Grassland. High five.” He holds up a hand. I let it hang.

“Same. At J. T. Moore,” Noor adds, still staring at her phone.

“Well, this was destiny, Violet of Croft and Noor of Moore.” Wyatt tips an imaginary hat to us. His nerdiness is so hardcore, it almost veers back into coolness. Almost.

“Please never do that again,” Noor says as her mom comes back with bottled water for all of us.

Nurse Priya watches us drink. She’s smiling that mom smile that screams, I’m so proud of you for playing nice! It’s making me uncomfortable. I inch away. Wyatt takes note.

“Got somewhere to be?” he asks.

“Why don’t you all exchange numbers?” Nurse Priya prompts.

“Mom,” Noor says, bumping shoulders with her mom in a way I have absolutely never done with mine. It suggests comradery and homemade meals around the family dinner table and sharing dressing rooms while shopping at Target. It is the opposite of my life.

“What? I just thought since I saved this boy’s life, maybe it’s fate,” she says with a wink.

“That’s what I said!” Wyatt thumps me and Noor on the shoulders like he’s known us for years. I exchange a loaded glance with Noor, but she surrenders her phone into Wyatt’s open hand anyway.

He holds it up in a fist. “Sick kids unite!”

Nurse Priya blinks once and then makes her way back to a cluster of other people in pastel scrubs by the cotton candy machine.

Noor raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m sick?”

“Yeah,” I add. It comes out weak. I sound sickly.

Wyatt takes another long drink of water and then squints at both of us before lifting his arms wide.

“Who isn’t?”

“Forget it. I changed my mind,” Noor says, and makes a grab for her phone, but she’s too short. I’ve got at least half a foot on her, and Wyatt, half a foot more. He holds the phone above his head. I see her decide not to jump.

“Fine,” she sighs. “But if you cyberstalk me, I will end you, do you hear me?”

Wyatt nods dutifully, and I take a step back, edging around Noor. The dust gets on my sandals and between my toes. For the first time in history, I am grateful Mom took away my phone after the hair incident and the fire in the trash can thing. I have no phone to sync. I turn, already deleting their names from my memory.

“Violet of Croft,” Wyatt calls as Noor pockets her phone. She’s moving away too, forgetting my existence as I plan to forget hers. But Wyatt dances in front of me like a boxer in a ring, blocking my way. I can see Mom over his shoulder, wilting on a bench near the parking lot.

Wyatt stares at me, his blue eyes expectant in a way that makes me jittery. If there were a door to freedom, mine’s closing fast.

I swallow hard and dart left, my best soccer move.

“Coming!” I yell, though no one has called for me, and jog toward Mom without looking back.

“Where’s my ice cream?” she asks when I reach her.

“Long story.”

She studies me for a minute, doing that systems-check thing she likes to do when I don’t give her enough info. Finally, she sighs and holds her hands out so I’ll pull her up.

“Well, did you have any fun?”

I say yes. Because that’s what you do when you’re going blind and you know it’s only going to get worse. You look in the eyes of the only person who cares about you. And you lie.