“Remember about a week ago when you asked if Hil and I were cat fighting—because I had bruises?” I regretted my choice of openings; annoyance spilled across Gyver’s features.
“I was joking. What’s Hillary have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, but your comment made me notice how much I’m bruising.” I held up my elbow as proof; showing him the purplish bull’s-eye that marked the spot I’d just banged on the door.
Gyver touched it with two cool fingers. “Are you okay, Mi?”
“No.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, the fear that piled like stones in my stomach. “I’ve also been really tired and I had a fever. Mom and I went to the doctor and he took some blood. He called me back the next day for more. We went to Lakeside Hospital for tests yesterday—they took a sample of bone marrow from my hip. Today we met with the head of oncology.” I felt detached, as if narrating the details of someone else’s life.
“What is it? Just tell me.” His hand curled around my arm, hitting the bruise, making me wince.
“Leukemia,” I whispered, the word sharp and acidic in my mouth.
“Leukemia?” His eyebrows had disappeared under tousled hair, and his face and voice were pleading.
I forced myself to continue. “It’s called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. ALL for short. It’s blood cancer; my body’s making lots of bad white blood cells. They’re called blasts—and they’re crowding out all of my good cells.” I parroted the words the doctor used that afternoon. My voice was emotionless, but my arms were trembling. I squeezed my knees tighter and tipped my head against the cool glass of the window in a last-ditch effort to blink back tears. I hadn’t cried in the doctor’s office. Hadn’t on the drive home. Hadn’t while getting ready. But with Gyver, it seemed like the only thing left to do.
“What do the doctors say? Mi?” He sounded little-boy lost, like the first time we’d watched Bambi.
I stared at the car’s ceiling, speaking around the stutters in my breathing. “It’s aggressive. That’s the word they kept using. ‘An aggressive form of cancer,’ ‘its spread is aggressive,’ ‘we need to start aggressive treatment immediately.’” I shut my eyes and tears traced salt lines down my face.
“That’s why I went to the party tonight. I just needed to feel normal for a few more hours. Before my life becomes a mess of chemo and doctors and drugs.” The last barrier between me and detachment fell, and the doctor’s words hit with suffocating reality. “God … I have cancer.”
He tugged on my elbow and pulled me toward him. I resisted at first; his sympathy would make it harder to stop crying. His other hand closed on my shoulder, and I surrendered, allowed him to draw my head to his chest and fold his arms around me.
I could feel the thud of his heart through his T-shirt, interrupted by the convulsions of my sobs and his unsteady breathing.
It grew hot in the car—late-June-in-Pennsylvania humid—and I couldn’t tell tears from sweat. I needed to stop. To calm down. I couldn’t go home blotchy and terrified. I unclenched my fingers from a fistful of his shirt, sat up, and focused on slowing my breathing and tears. I took another sip of his water and asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m mentally shouting every swear word I know.” He rubbed his forehead with both palms, then leaned back against the seat and shut his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Am I okay? Am I okay? Of course not, but who cares? How are you? What does all this mean?”
“I don’t really know … I haven’t had much time to figure it out. We’ve got piles of brochures at home, and Dad’s already ordered every book he can find.” My fingers were at my throat, twirling my necklace in frenzied loops.
“So what do we do?”
His “we” filled my eyes again and I couldn’t answer.
“Mi? What happens next?”
“I check into the hospital tomorrow for more tests. I’m not coming home for a while, like, at least a month. Probably not till August. Dr. Kevin—that’s my doctor, my oncologist—said they’d keep me there so I don’t pick up infections.”
“A month! What about school? Are you going back in September?”
The mention of school sparked a different reaction. I put my feet on the floor and sat up straighter. “It’s only been a day. I don’t know. I haven’t figured out all the details yet.” I sounded angry, but the alternative was tears and I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—lose control again.
He sighed and squeezed my shoulder. “Mi, I can’t believe this.”
“Get this, my horoscope today was: ‘Kick back and enjoy the flood of contentedness! It’s a great day to appreciate what you’ve got and stop worrying about getting more.’” I stared out at the litter-strewn parking lot. A lonely toddler-sized flip-flop. A cracked sand pail.
“I don’t know why you read those. They’re crap.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the point is I should start appreciating my life, because this is as good as it’s going to get.” My words slipped from bitter to wistful.