My chest tightens and knees brace.No. “My hand’s not trembling.” It’s not. Not on the outside. How could she know?
“Yes, it is,” she says softly, as if ashamed of this accusation.
I slip my hand out from behind her and glance down at my steady palm. “It’s not…” I stare harder, looking for something that can’t be seen. “My hand isn’t moving.”
“But I know,” she says with a confidence that can’t be argued with.
“How?” It’s my secret. It’s my flaw. It’s my disease to bear—no one else’s. It’s what taught me that no girl wants to be around someone who might collapse without warning and shake so violently I might injure myself. It’s the reason why Leah Berkowitz from Hebrew school broke up with me less than a day after we started dating. It took me three months to get the courage to ask her out. Then, on a Sunday morning during temple services, I woke up on the ground in the synagogue, blood dripping out of my mouth from biting my tongue during a seizure. She must have realized then why it took me so long to ask her out. And she never spoke to me again.
“It’s not important—how…”
“Yes, it is,” I argue. I didn’t tell her. No one told her. No one would. No one truly knows me anymore now that I’m homeschooled.
Rosalie hesitates. The troubling look in her eyes tells me she can hear my thoughts out loud. “Is it epilepsy?”
I freeze. Not from the cold. From disbelief. “How—how do you—how could you possibly know?”
She drops her gaze. I’ve scared her. She doesn’t need to be burdened with this. There’s no reason for her to even know. As if guilt is slicing through the air, she says, “I’m sorry—I’ve seen the signs. The micro tremors, long stares, the held breath, a forgotten thought. You stop for just a moment…when the world keeps going.”
I take her hand in mine. “Who’s saying you’re not the one doing that to me?”
“Me?” she questions, her eyes wide, hurt, as if I’ve accused her of something malicious. That’s not what I meant.
I lean in, conveying how long this secret has held me in its captivity—a prisoner of my body. “I didn’t want anyone outside of my family to know,” I murmur against her sweet, warm lips. “Medicines have helped me conceal the truth, especially fromthe others at school before the imposed Jewish laws prohibited us from attending. The workers at my father’s factory too—anyone who might see me differently if they were to know.”
“You have nothing to hide,” she utters, her lips sweeping gently against mine.
“I’ve always felt like I’m one breath away from the world thinking I should be institutionalized,” I explain—words I’ve never spoken out loud.
“Your entire life?”
“I was born with a curse, or so the first doctor who diagnosed me kindly put it.”
“It’s not a curse…” she whispers.
I lower my head to hers as a rush of honesty spills from my soul. “I’m Jewish, born with a disease. The Reich wants to exterminate people like me.” My chest constricts, and a breath catches in my throat. “I’m living on borrowed time.”
“No,” she hisses. “No. I’ll help you.”
I pull back as wishful threads of hope might save me. “How?”
No one can save me.
ELEVEN
ROSALIE
MONOWITZ (AUSCHWITZ III)
Present Day: March 4, 1944
Weyman’s instructions for this selection sear through my mind with every face I see:
“Hose down those you consider ‘fit’ with disinfectant. As for the ‘unfit,’ drop the hose by your side and a kapo will remove the man. No need to waste disinfectant on them.”
The hum of shivers and muffled groans fuses to the wind, threading through bare branches and hollow reeds. The cold in Auschwitz never ceases, and nothing stops the numbness from seeping into my hands as I aim the stiff rubber hose at Stefan and spray him. I try to disappear from this moment. I fail. Hurting him doesn’t harden me. It fractures something inside of me.
He grits his teeth and clenches his eyes—strangulation grips my neck as I watch this torture. His body quivers, and my stomach lurches. Is it a seizure? Did the cold cause this? Is it the sight of me? Is he just…just…freezing? How long has it been since he’s been able to take his medicine? There’s no way any part of it remains in his bloodstream.
