Kids These Days

Chapter 9: Becca

The average human heart beats seventy times a minute. I know this because I've been staring at my abuela's heart monitor for the last three hours, waiting and praying for the numbers to fall below ninety. She's asleep, but her heart is thumping in her chest like she's going for one of her early morning jogs. (Sixty-four years old, and she still wakes up before sunrise to run. And I wonder where I get my good running genes from.) Her eyelids flutter with every ragged breath she takes. I wonder if she's dreaming. If she is, I hope it's a good one. After three weeks of chemotherapy, my abuela could use some happiness.

My own eyelids begin to droop with weariness. The hospital is eerily quiet after midnight, the silence broken only by nervous whispers and the steady beeping of machines. I would've fallen asleep hours ago if the chair I'm occupying wasn't so uncomfortable. And if my abeula wasn't dying next to me in a hospital bed.

She's not dying, I remind myself. Cancer is treatable. Even rare forms of leukemia are treatable. Last week, I read an article about a doctor who separated two twins connected at the hip. Modern medicine is the inventor of miracles. And if anyone deserves a miracle, it's my abuela. The world owes her one. Hell, I owe her one. If only I could figure out how to use those curandera abilities she's always telling me about...

The number on the monitor drops to eighty-four. I inhale sharply, only to watch her heart rate climb to ninety-three. No change.

She's not getting better.

But she will, I think. She has to.

In the end, we are all selfish creatures. I need my abuela to live because I can't imagine life without her. I'm only seventeen, a year too young to rent my own apartment, and if my abuela dies I'll have to move back in with my parents-- or figure out a way to survive on my own until I'm a legal adult. Well, I'd have to bring Julia along, so I guess I won't be totally abandoned. I don't think she'd be very happy about being homeless for a year. Not that I'm looking forward to life on the streets, either. (I'm being dramatic. I know. There are kids my age who don't even have parents, let alone grandparents. I have options. And even shitty options are better than none.)

Then there's the small issue of my abuela being the only person (aside from the Director, and she hardly qualifies as a mentor) who can teach me how to see the future without losing my mind. Being a psychic isn't just reading palms and tarot and burning sage. It's also knowing you could've prevented your cousin's near-fatal drug overdose, or predicted your grandmother's cancer diagnosis months before the doctors ordered a blood test. It's the crushing, debilitating weight of the world on your shoulders every fucking day, and don't even think about shrugging it off because if you do, someone will die.

Every. Fucking. Day.

As far as I know, we're the only two living Reyes with the gift. If my mother is capable of supernatural feats, she's not telling.

Sometimes I envy her because she got out.

I'm stuck here. Forever.

"Becca..."

I sit up quickly in my chair, the words, "abeula, estas bíen?" already flying off my lips. But my abuela is still asleep, her heart rate beeping at a steady eighty-nine.

So who did I hear say my name?

Maybe I'm delirious from exhaustion. That would make sense. I've only slept a few hours a night for the past week. (Sometimes, the nurses send me home and I sleep a little better there. I can't tell if they pity me or if I just get in their way.) Still, I should be able to tell what's real and what's not. Mindfulness is sorta part of the psychic job description.