Always and Forever (17 page)

Heavy footsteps shuffled toward me and stopped right in front of my stall. The door eased open with little protest, and Brad held my bag out to me. “You forgot your stuff.”

When I didn't reach for the bag, he let it drop to the floor between us. Then, he sank to his knees and sat on the cold tile. A look of distaste crossed his features as he shifted to make himself more comfortable.

“Well, I guess it's not as bad as the floor of a gas station bathroom,” he muttered, sourly.

A giggle burst out of me, and a smile jumped up from out of nowhere to tug insistently at the corners of my mouth.

“That's the spirit.” He grinned, a big goofy smile in return. He paused, bit his lip and measured his next words carefully. “Break-ups are always hard. I know.” He stretched out to pat my knee awkwardly. “If you ever want to talk about it, I'm right here. I promise I won't judge…well, not much,” he added, jokingly.

“Thanks.”

We fell off into silence for the space of a moment. Then, Brad blew out a breath, shoved up to his feet, and dusted off his jeans. “Come on, Mia.” He held his hand out to me. “Let's get out of here.”

I set me palm in his and let him pull me up. “What about school?” I cringed against the fact that I sounded too much like a
never does anything even remotely wrong
goody-goody.

He shrugged. “What about it? Besides, no one will miss us.”

I lifted one eyebrow in question. “Not even Dave?”

“I'll text him, but he won't come with. He's got a game tonight.” He twined his fingers through mine and led me out of the bathroom just as the bell rang and kids spilled out into the hall.

As bodies pressed in around us, the gap between us grew larger and larger until our only point of contact was our tightly woven
fingers, our arms stretched out way past their limits. Still, he did not let go of me, a fact I was supremely grateful for, especially when the scent of an all too familiar cologne surrounded me. Warning bells went off in my head. My entire body stiffened and went on red alert as Kal's hand skimmed my arm and then cupped around my elbow to steer me away from the crowd.

“Mia,” he breathed in my ear. “Can we—”

My chest ached with the pleading tone of his words, the hurt that churned just beneath the surface. I had no words for him, nothing that could be said to soothe away all his aches. I was quite possibly the world's biggest bitch. I knew that. In our relationship—and in our break-up—I was the bad guy, the one to blame for everything. Maybe, I could have—
should have
—done things differently where he was concerned. Hell, I was sure of it, but there was no going back now.

What was done was done.

The only thing to do now was let go and not look back. I shrugged out of his grasp and shook my head. I didn't say anything to him, couldn't make my tongue form the words even if I wanted to. I turned away from him and didn't look back, just let Brad continue to pull me through the hall, allowed the crowd to open up and swallow me whole.

T
WENTY

DAYS FADED INTO ONE ANOTHER,
none any different or more important than the last. I woke every morning with a raging headache. I still refused to take the prescribed pills, and instead flushed them down the toilet so Mom and Dad would think I was following doctor's orders. Even so, I couldn't deny that dry swallowing three aspirin and then eating two Pop-Tarts just wasn't cutting it any longer. The dosage steadily increased until I was taking six pills every morning(not to mention the ones I popped like candy throughout the day), washing the chalky after-taste away with cinnamon flavored toothpaste and the harsh minty burn of mouthwash. No breakfast. Not even my favorite cherry flavored tarts held any appeal anymore.

School became a vast wasteland of silence. I spoke to no one. Ricki was still fuming over our argument on New Year's Eve. Adam stuck close to his girlfriend's side. At times, Brad would try to coax a smile or two from me, but soon he gave up and instead resorted to glowering at Kal, falsely assuming that my stony silence was his fault.

And, Kal…well, after I shoved him off that day in the hallway, he'd kept his distance. Never once did he come by after school. He didn't call me. In fact, he only spoke to me when we were in class and it was absolutely necessary. We'd become strangers.

My life was exactly as I'd planned it. So, why was I so miserable? I could take the easy way out and blame it all on the cancer, a black
hole in my soul that slowly, torturously sucked the life out of me, but that really wasn't true. Well, at least it wasn't the whole truth.

Trouble was, I didn't think I knew what the truth was anymore. There was only one thing I knew for certain, and that was the fact that I was about to die. The
when, where
, and
how
of it was still up in the air. Honestly, I wasn't even sure what difference it made anymore. Really, why did it matter so much? I was dead either way. There was no saving me, no way around that terrible truth.

Today, Mom dropped me off at school. She never asked why Kal wasn't driving me, and I never volunteered the information.

I walked into class just as the bell rang, which earned me an icy glare from Mrs. French. Mumbling an apology, I flipped my book open and bowed my head over it, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on that particular page. A shifting a few rows over and a loud thwack, followed by a low pained grunt, had my head—as well as everyone else's—swiveling around.

Kal and Brad glared daggers at each other. Kal wore a pained expression and rubbed the back of his head. I turned away before either boy could glance in my direction. As hard as I'd been pushing everyone away lately, Brad has been the only one to stick. The boy was like a cockroach; nothing could deter him, not even nuclear attack. I'd tried everything I could think of, from slinging hurtful insults to freezing him out with a Cold War type silence, to ultimately resorting to the scorched earth technique where in a fit of rage at his dogged determination to stick with me I'd cracked and screamed at him in the middle of the school parking lot and shoved him forcefully away from me. Like a faithful Labrador, he'd come bounding back, all big, hopeful eyes and goofy grins.

Even though he was ruining my
Leave All Friends Behind
campaign, I had to admit that it was kind of nice having that kind of friendship. It made everything else a little more bearable. Not so lonely.

I shook my head and shoved all thoughts of doom and gloom, friendships and death from my mind. But instead of focusing on what Mrs. French prattled on about, I let my mind wander and lost myself in memories of better times. Times when I had friends, family, a future, a life.

Next thing I knew, the bell rang, and everyone jumped out of their seats. Mrs. French shouted over the cacophony of books slamming, students talking, and general chaos that ensued the moment class was over. Something about mid-terms coming up and final grades. I heard only half of it, and really didn't even care to find out the rest. What did it matter to me if I passed or failed a mid-term? Not like I needed to worry about keeping my grades up for college, anyway.

I packed up my stuff and headed out the door. Brad fell in step behind me.

“So, Mia,” he said. He slung his arm around my shoulder and steered us back to my locker. He'd made a habit over the last couple weeks of dropping his things in my space, so now he didn't even need to stop at his locker anymore. Having all his shit crammed in with mine kind of made it feel like we lived together, which was more than a little weird. “What are we doing this weekend?”

“
We
?” I echoed as I spun the combination to my locker until the door bounced open. “Since when are you and I a
we
? And, does Dave know about this
we
business?”

He laughed and exchanged his English book for History. I pulled out my Math book. “Of course, he does. In fact, he just told me last night how if I played my cards right, he'd let us have a threesome.” He waggled his brows lasciviously.

An overwhelming heat surged up to my face, flooded my cheeks with color. “He didn't,” I choked out.

“Who didn't what?” Dave asked from behind us. He slung an arm around Brad's shoulders and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Then, he draped his free arm around my neck and drew me in to drop one on the top of my head. “How are my girls doing?”

Brad, face flushed crimson, shoved away from his boyfriend with a jab to the shoulder. “You're a dick, you know that?”

To which, Dave just chuckled. “Aw, come on, baby. You know I'm just joking.” He slid closer to Brad, hooked his arm around the other boy's neck and reeled him in for another kiss, one that curled even my toes. Several people made catcalls as they walked by, and more than a few suggestions were made along the lines of
get a room
or
that's not the kind of porn I usually go for
. I took that moment, while
they were too lost in each other to notice anything else, to make my exit, mumbling about not wanting to be late for class and that I'd see them later.

About halfway to the math lab, my pace slowed. My feet dragged beneath me like I waded through fast drying cement. My head became unbelievable light, a balloon filled to bursting with hot air slowly detaching itself from my body and floating
up, up, up
. I ground to a halt right there in the middle of the hall; someone behind me nearly walked right into me and then grumbled about people not watching where they were going, but I couldn't muster the strength to tender an apology or even get myself out of her way. My stomach bottomed out, and I teetered. Everything blurred around me to the point that I didn't know I was falling until the ground rushed up to my face, smashing into my nose, my mouth, my forehead.

Then, there was nothing.

*   *   *

I couldn't have been out for more than a few minutes, just long enough for someone to carry me to the nurse's office. I awoke—coughing and sputtering—and batted away some noxious odor that attacked my nostrils.

“How are you feeling?” The nurse asked in a soft, concerned tone.

“I'm fine,” I replied automatically and struggled to sit up. A low groan popped out as a wave of dizziness knocked me back down on the cot. I threw an arm over my eyes and slowly counted to ten, hoping against hope that by that time the world would be done spinning and there'd only be one of everything. Done with my counting, I let my arm fall away and reluctantly opened my eyes to be rewarded with only one nurse smiling down at me.

“Better now?” she asked.

“Just peachy.” This time, I sat up slowly and was able to fight through the lightheadedness and nausea.

She nodded and turned slightly away from me. “I was just about to call your parents—”

“No, don't do that,” I cut in a little more forcefully than was probably warranted. I cleared my throat at her startled look. “I mean, they both work, and I'm fine. Really. I-I didn't eat breakfast this morning. I got up late—”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” she admonished. “You should never skip it.”

“Yes, I know, but, you see, I overslept and, well…” I trailed off with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

She regarded me for a long moment. Then, she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a bag of cookies and a juice box. After looking me over one last time to make sure I wasn't going to face-plant in the middle of the hall anytime soon, she released me with the cookies, juice, and a late pass.

Math—usually my easiest subject and, thus, favorite class—proved to be a torturous affair. For some reason, nothing seemed to make much sense. Ms. Crandall explained the formula we were using three times, but I still couldn't quite make it work, and forget solving the equation she'd put up on the board—it could have been written in Sanskrit for all the sense it made to me.

“Mia.” She'd pulled me aside when class ended. Concern colored her normally pale, washed-out face. “Are you sick, dear? It's not like you to struggle with the work.”

I just shook my head, offered up some excuse about lack of sleep, and then trudged off to the library for my study hall. Normally, I'd actually use the free time to study, especially since I had a test in History right after lunch, but today, I wedged myself in at a table far away from all the others and pulled out the offensive paper I'd printed up nearly a month ago after that disastrous appointment with Drs. Shreve and Bernstein. I hadn't really listened to what they'd said about the disease, so when I'd been a little clearer, I'd done some research of my own. Which led me to this paper, the one I'd studiously ignored until now. The one that explained what exactly Anaplastic Astrocytoma is—in actual English so even a teenager could understand it—and what its most common symptoms are.

Obtuseness.

I stared at the word, not printed any larger or darker than any of the others on the page, but it fairly jumped out at me. Obtuseness. What other word could be used to describe my lack of intelligence in math class?

I scanned the rest of the page, mentally checking off each item that I'd experienced for myself. Double vision, drowsiness, eyesight problems, headache, lethargy, and now, obtuseness. That left only four on the list. What would be next? Vomiting? Seizures? Mental status changes—would I really become crazy? Was I already and didn't know it? Or would it just be a slight personality change? That was also on the list.

Obtuseness. The word kept sailing through my head, through a brain already full of so many black spots it had more holes than Swiss cheese. How many more before I became a dribbling idiot?

I couldn't let it come to that. I wouldn't.

Suddenly I was right back where I started, back in that damned basement, calculating just how many steps I'd need to ascend before I was assured of falling to my death. No, I wouldn't do the basement again. I couldn't risk failing. I had to think of something else. Something that I wouldn't survive. But not just that, something that I could do without anyone finding me before I'd done the deed. It wouldn't do to be saved from certain death, again.

The bell rang and temporarily jerked me away from those suicidal thoughts. I'd do it today, right after school. It'd be hours before Mom and Dad were home from work and Ben was home from basketball practice. It'd be perfect.