Eleven Things I Promised (2 page)

She was pulling at a thread on the top blanket. “They gave me this stupid warming blanket,” she said, “like it'll help.” Tears trickled out the sides of her eyes. I grabbed a tissue and started to hand it to her, then realized she wasn't up to using her arms much. I'd need to do the work. I dabbed at the tears rolling down her cheeks. This was such a backward situation. She never cried. She was usually the one who handed
me
Kleenex. I fell apart at sad movies and pet stores and random other places.

Stella fiddled with the plastic hospital ID bracelet on her left wrist. When her fingers touched the IV tube in the back of her hand, she pulled her hand away. “I hate these things.”

“I've never had one,” I said. “Does it hurt?”

“Not exactly. More like it feels like you're trapped.” We both contemplated that for a minute, me staring at her pinched skin, the heavy tape and plastic tube, and her
looking anywhere but her hand. I looked up at the liquid dripping down the tube from a couple of plastic pouches, pulsing into her.

The door opened behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mrs. Grant walk in. Stella's mom walked over and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Franny, do you think you could go to our house and pack a bag for Stella? You'd know what she wants, and that way, we can stay here.”

“Sure—sure, I'll do that. No problem.” I knew they were probably trying to get rid of me for a while, and though it made me feel guilty to think this way, there was a part of me that was all right taking a break. Stella looked so unlike herself. It was almost as if I didn't know this Stella. I jumped up and started for the door, then turned back to take a last glance at Stella. “I'll be back later, okay?”

She didn't answer. I wasn't sure if she was asleep or if she just didn't hear me.

I headed out into the hallway and nearly bumped into Mason. He was holding a bundle of blue fabric.

“These jeans belong to you? I found them in the parking lot.”

I couldn't respond.

“You said . . . you lost them? I went outside to get some fresh air by my truck and, well. I saw these crumpled on the
pavement like someone dropped them.”

The floor seemed to fall away underneath me, and I felt like I was losing my balance, plunging, arms outstretched, reaching for the ground as if I were in an elevator that was crashing.

“You don't look good.” Mason grabbed onto my waist, forcing me to lean against him. “You feeling all right?”

“Not . . .” I couldn't find the words. I couldn't figure out what to do. I knew I should sit down, but I didn't know where to find a chair.

He took my arm and guided me to a chair by the nurses' station. “Sit down for a minute. Sit right here. Head down, Franny. Breathe slowly.”

I leaned over, head between my legs, eyes facing the shiny hospital floor. I hugged the jeans as if they were my favorite blanket. My warming blanket.

“Come on, Frances. It's going to be okay.” Mason crouched down beside me and rubbed my back once or twice.

Easy for him to say. He hadn't seen her yet.

I must be crazy
. That was all I could
think as a white, slightly dented van from Rocco's Ink Den pulled up in front of my house at seven in the morning.
I'm not really about to do this, am I?

This was different when Stella and I planned on doing it together.

Her parents were going to drive us to the start in Bangor, Maine. The ride went from there along coastal Maine through New Hampshire and then finished in Boston. Stella'd had it all figured out. How we wouldn't have to hang out with our school bike group all the time, because a few of them were pretty annoying. How after the ride we'd spend a day or two in Boston being tourists and recovering. But now it was just
me, standing by my driveway with my mom, who, no joke, was wearing a robe and slippers because it was Sunday and she didn't have to get ready for work.

A lot had happened since Stella's accident, but the upshot of it was that I was headed off on the seven-day, three-hundred-fifty-mile Cure Childhood Cancer Ride without her.

The van's passenger door opened, and Max Modella climbed out. “You ready?” he asked. Max, with his shoulder-length hair and muscular, tattooed arms, looked more like a twenty-five-year-old than one of my classmates. I guess that's what happens when your uncle owns the tattoo parlor in town.

He could make a plain white T-shirt look hot, the way underwear models do. That's all I know. Something about his angular nose and cheekbones. He had about a dozen girlfriends at school; I couldn't keep track of who was current. His uncle Rocco had offered to drive us to the ride's start, and since he had a full-size van and a trailer that could hold our eight bikes, we'd accepted.

“Hey. Your hair?” Max asked. “Was it like that before?”

I wheeled my bike toward Max, declining to answer the question. As of this morning at about one a.m., my hair was bleached blond. Two days before, it had been lightish brown, which went a lot better with my lightish-brown skin.

Max was a laid-back guy who tended not to keep up on the details. Once our American history class moved classrooms, and he didn't catch on until halfway through the term. He kept going to the old room, the way a dog will do if you move across town.

“Well, can we have your stuff?” he asked. “Blondie?”

“Don't call me that,” I told him as I followed him to the bike trailer. I tried to lift the bike into it, but I got it only as far as my shoulders. The trailer was way too tall for me. While I was struggling to lift the bike higher—it really didn't weigh that much, which made it even more embarrassing that I was about to be crushed—Max lifted it easily out of my hands.

“I'll take it from here,” Max said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Blondie,” he added again.

I shook my head, grabbed my duffel and sleeping bag, and stowed them in the back of the van, jamming them in on top of everyone else's. My bike helmet was attached to the duffel bag's handles, a shocking neon green that nobody could miss. Kind of like my new hair color.

Now what?
I'd asked the mirror as I stood there, water dripping onto my shoulders.
Do I have to bleach my eyebrows to match? Or . . . anywhere else?

I hurried back to say a quick good-bye to my mom. She'd
packed a giant cooler full of snacks for the team. She'd stayed up half the night baking granola bars and brownies and muffins. I knew, because I'd stayed up just as long, packing and repacking. She was so tired she hadn't even commented on my hair except to say, “Hm, nice, you can do that sort of thing when you're young.”

I had to give Mom credit. For someone who really didn't want me to go on this trip, she was being very supportive.

“Here, I got you something. The girl at the Bike Barn said it's the one thing every cyclist should have.” She handed me a small paper bag, and I pulled out a complicated gizmo with about a dozen different levers and functions.

“So what does this do?” I asked, turning the metal tool over and over in my hand.

“It's a wrench? I don't know,” she said. “I really have no idea. I asked for a recommendation.” She laughed and gave me a hug. I had to try really, really hard not to cry. I'm terrible at good-byes, and looking at the tears running down my mother's cheeks, I had a good idea where I'd inherited that trait.

“Mom, it's going to be fine,” I said, brushing my eyes. “
We're
fine.”

“I know—but—but—” she stammered as she sobbed.

“You said butt,” I told her, which got her to laugh. “You said but-but, actually. Which seems like as good a time as any
for me to leave.” I gave her another quick hug. “Promise me you'll check in on Stells for me.”

“I will. And you, be safe,” she said as I turned around to climb into the van. I knew what she meant.
Stay on the side of the road. Way, way over. Look out for cars. Don't let the same thing happen to you that happened to Stella.

Inside the van, Autumn Daye (yes, that's her real name) and Alex Nelson were sitting in the very back row, all wrapped around each other, as per usual. Not only were they never apart, they were the typical football player/cheerleader combination. It was like they were following a script.

Margo Maloney—my archnemesis since we fought over the same doll stroller at preschool—Will Oxendale, and Elsa Stevenson were in the third-row seat. Cameron Cruz sat on the small second-row seat where I was to join him.

They all stared at me. “Uh, morning,” I said. “Ignore my mom and her robe.” I perched on the bench seat, holding my small bag close to me.

Cameron waved hello, while simultaneously nodding to the music he was listening to through white earbuds. Autumn and Alex glanced up at me, then went back to snuggling and talking about their plans for high school domination. Typical. They were the power couple at Sparrowsdale High. I was just a regular person.

“What did you do to your hair?” demanded Margo, wrinkling her tiny nose. She really did have the most perfect nose on the planet. And small ears, too. She reminded me of a chipmunk. Tiny, quick, and hyperactive.

“I like your hair,” said Will. “I think it's rather avant-garde. A bit cheeky, even.” He was from England, an exchange student for spring term, and his British accent made him sound smarter than the rest of us. Trust me. We were in English Lit together, and if he raised his hand to make the exact same comment I did, somehow he'd get an “Exactly!” and I wouldn't.

“It's nothing. Don't mention it, actually,” I said, lowering my shoulders, wanting to shrink for a minute.

“Well, why did you do it if you didn't want people to notice it?” Margo asked.

“Oh, I just felt like it,” I said. It was a long story, one I wasn't about to go into with her. Though we'd supposedly been friends for a minute when we were in preschool (before the doll stroller incident), we'd never liked each other, even though we were on the same dance team, the Shooting Sparks, for two years. We hadn't spoken much at all since we both outgrew the team. Margo had her friends, and I had mine. Mostly, I had Stella.

“Never mind. I thought Stella was going to come see us
off,” Margo said, leaning forward and looking around the yard, as if Stella would be hiding in the bushes outside my house or something.

“Oh, she was going to. She planned on it,” I lied. “But then she got a last-minute doctor's appointment this morning.”

“At seven?” Margo scoffed.

“It's an, uh, it's an MRI. For her leg. To see how it's healing. They do those early, I guess.” I shrugged. I was used to making excuses for her. I'd been saying things like,
She's self-conscious about her facial injuries
, and
She has a meeting with the police today to reconstruct the accident,
and
Her parents are being really protective and won't let her go out
.

None of them were true.

The truth was, her injuries were a lot more serious than she wanted anyone to know. She wouldn't
want
to be here to see off this group.

“I'm pretty sure they can do MRIs any time of day,” Margo replied. “My brother broke his foot and he had one right away—”

“What do you want me to say? I'm not her doctor,” I snapped. “How should I know why they scheduled it at seven?”

“Fine. I was only asking. I'm just concerned,” said Margo, sitting back between Will and Elsa. “Don't bite my head off.”

Too late,
I thought. I turned around and faced forward, my blood pounding. Why did Margo have to pry? Then again, that was the way she was—obnoxious. Of course Stella wanted to be here, way, way deep down. But she was barely speaking to me or to anybody. There was no way she was ready to be a cheerleader for the team she'd started, organized, and now couldn't be on.

Since I'd stepped up and become a real team member instead of just Stella's tagalong friend, I'd gotten to know the team a little bit better—but not much. We'd posed for pictures, we'd sent hundreds of texts, we'd trotted around school and our neighborhoods, begging for donations and pledges. We'd even spent an entire Saturday afternoon at the supermarket, bagging groceries and asking for donations. Despite all that, we hadn't exactly
bonded
.

In fact, some people had gotten really competitive about the bagging. It was annoying. Margo started campaigning the minute someone stepped into the store—“Pick me! Check out in lane three!”—and Autumn and Alex were no better, acting like the Homecoming Queen and King they were.

I was a better bagger—before my McDonald's job, I worked one summer at a pharmacy where I bagged plenty of odd-shaped stuff—but
they
got all the customers.

Life. So unfair.

Cameron leaned over from his spot against the window. “You know what I realized when we picked you up?” he asked. “Our house matches yours. Same colors. Same size, everything.”

“Really? You live in the same development?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. I live in Sector Ten. Otherwise known as Landing Lane. It's a copy of your block, right down to the mailbox stripes. It's so fake.” He shook his head. “It kills me.”

I laughed. “I know,” I agreed. “It's like a set for a really boring movie.”

“Revenge of the Vacuum Cleaner. Crime in the Cul-de-Sac,” Cameron said.

I laughed again. Cameron was a funny writer—I knew that from working on yearbook with him. Not that yearbook was my thing, exactly. I was just following orders to get involved in activities for my college applications.

I didn't think working on yearbook and working at McDonald's was going to score me any points, though. I'd have to kick it up a notch over the summer and fall semester of senior year. I was so dreading that. I liked my little noninvolved world.

Cameron held out a small bag toward me. “Try one? They're protein-and-carb cubes. Great for energy.”

“Oh, um, sure.” I recognized the brand as one that Stella
liked, too. I'd take all the help I could get. I popped one into my mouth and chewed slowly, the lemonade-glazed gel glob dissolving in my mouth. It was horrible. How did anyone eat these? I took a sip from my water bottle to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. “How long until we get to Bangor?”

Cameron glanced at his phone. “Three hours. Enjoy.” He slipped his earbuds back in and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the window. He definitely was not a morning person. When we'd had first-period biology together, he often ran in fifteen minutes late and would have to clean up after labs to make up for it, so Mr. Bamford wouldn't report him to the main office. I don't think he cared about having to do clean-up. He seemed to think it was a fair trade for getting to come in late.

I looked out the window, feeling the familiar pang I got whenever I left town.

We crossed the roads where I'd gone on training rides over the past few weeks—some with Mason, and some by myself. He was always patient about the fact that I was slow on hills (well, slow everywhere, actually), even though it must have driven him crazy to wait for me. He'd ride to the top, then coast down beside me and climb once more, but at my pace. He never said anything critical, unless it was about the dumb things Stella and I did when we were little, or the fact
that I wore jeans and long-sleeved shirts for rides.

I didn't feel comfortable wearing all that cycling gear. It just highlighted how much I wasn't a real cyclist yet, unlike the rest of them. It also meant I nearly drowned in my own sweat once or twice.

I'd since forced myself to buy a couple of pairs of long biking shorts that had a padded liner so my butt wouldn't hurt after the first ten miles—but they weren't the skin-tight look; that was just the inner layer. The outer layer was baggy and black. Along with those, I had on a bike jersey, and in a small bag next to me were Stella's old clip-on shoes, which she was lending me. We wore the same size, which was lucky. In the meantime I was wearing flip-flops.

I gazed at the river we were crossing, where a rower in a single scull was headed upstream, oars cutting through the early-morning fog that hung over the water.

Stella and I had canoed the same river the summer before. We'd packed a lunch, planned the place where her dad would pick us up, and drifted downstream blasting music from our phones and singing along. We'd gotten sunburned, eaten by mosquitoes, and nearly swamped by a powerboat full of men who whistled at us until we told them we were sixteen and paddled quickly to shore.

It had been the best day of the whole summer.

Now, I reached into my jersey's back pocket for my phone, hoping against hope that Stella had sent me an encouraging “good-bye and good luck” text.

Nope.

I'd just barely been allowed to visit her and say good-bye the night before.