Authors: Amber L. Johnson
7.
I THINK THE HARDEST part about my birthday would
have to be watching my parents’ faces when they bring my cake to the table.
It’s like the amount of candles on top are a final marker of my life. Like
they’ll never get to do this again. My mom can’t hold back her tears this time,
and while it makes me really uncomfortable, it makes Kayleigh and Terrence even
more so.
Hannah, on the other hand . . .
“Make a wish, Bishop.”
My lungs feel inadequately full of the breath needed
to blow them out, and I give her a sidelong look to communicate that this might
not happen. She just smiles and pulls out her phone, dipping her face next to
mine. “On the count of three.” I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and start
to exhale. Her breath rushes past mine as the flash goes off before my closed
lids. “Two wishes are better than one,” she whispers. “Don’t tell me what yours
was, though. If you say it out loud, it doesn’t come true. I learned that at
Disney World when I was six.”
It makes me laugh a little because we both know what
I wished for. And I assume hers was the same as mine. Saying it out loud won’t
change my fate. The extinguished candles are giving off curls of smoke that I
stare at for a few seconds, lazily zoning out as my mom cuts pieces of cake and
places them on tiny blue plates. Hannah’s hand rests on my shoulder as she
chats happily with my parents, making an effort to include my other friends in
the conversation while I concentrate on simply staying awake and trying to
breathe.
“My head kinda itches,” I say quietly. Without
missing a beat in her conversation, Hannah removes the baseball cap from my
head and scratches it lightly until I nod that I’m okay again.
Kayleigh’s eyes are watery when she says goodbye,
and Terrence is uncharacteristically quiet when he leans over to bump his fist
to mine.
“Want to hang out tomorrow?” he asks; his voice low
and eyes wandering over the remainder of the people in the living room.
“I’ll call you.”
He just nods and stands back up to put his arm
around Kayleigh’s shoulders. They say goodbye and I'm left staring at the door
as they walk away. I listen to my parents and Hannah talk. Hannah excuses
herself and comes over to me with an overly chipper look on her face.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“I don’t want it,” I counter, hoping she can hear
that I’m teasing because I’m not so good with inflection lately.
“Lying liar
who lies
. You love surprises.”
“Did you knit me a hat?”
Her eyes go wide and for the first time since we
met, she appears to be speechless. “Damnit, Oliver. Did you want a knitted hat?
It would have been lopsided and unintentionally Rasta. I’m sure of it.”
I picture her trying in vain to knit something
hideous and me having to feign appreciation and it makes me laugh a little, my
lungs screaming in torture as I wheeze through it. “No. No hats. This one is
just fine.”
“I’ll be right back.” She bounds up the stairs to my
room and I’m left with my parents for a few minutes.
“Are you all right?” My mom is trying not to be a
helicopter, but she’s unsuccessful. I’ll probably never get around to telling
her, but I’m thankful for it.
“Just another day in paradise.”
She smiles and runs her fingers across my palms,
heating them up the tiniest bit. “I told her that she could take you out for a
while, but that you needed to be back in a couple hours. It’s chilly tonight,
so I’ll grab something for you.” I watch her disappear and return a minute
later with one of my hoodies. My dad helps me stand and they work in tandem to
get it over my head. I’m so lethargic that I have to save all of my energy for
the short walk to the car. They discussed a wheelchair but I asked them to hold
off for just a little while longer. There’s something about relying on someone
to push me around that feels so . . . final.
Hannah returns with a bag under her arm and leads
the way to the car. My dad assists and gives me a kiss on the head after he
buckles me in. “I’ll be on duty when you get home, so don’t hesitate to call if
you need anything.”
“Okay,” Hannah and I say at the same time.
When she drives us to the lake, I’m not surprised.
But I am tired.
“I can’t make it to the rocks.”
“Sure you can.” She gets out of the car and I hear
her rummaging around in the trunk before she appears at my door and opens it
for me to see a lawn chair with a couple boogie boards duct taped to the legs.
“Your chariot waits.”
“Where . . .”
“I’m an engineering genius, that’s where. Now come
on. I need to get you across the dirt.”
She pushes me from behind, and it’s a rough ride,
yet I can’t help being amused by the entire situation. She’s huffing a little
as we come to rest just next to the stack of rocks I’ve come to know as Ours.
Hannah comically wipes her forehead and sits on the lowest slab, pulling the
bag she brought onto her lap.
“I didn’t want to give you this in front of your
parents,” she says, dipping her hands into the bag.
“Your dad got me some medicinal marijuana?”
Hannah’s laugh is abrupt and the wind carries it off
across placid water. “God, no. I mean . . .
I wish
. But,
no. This is just from me and I wanted it to be ours or whatever.
So . . .” She hands over a small box wrapped in newspaper. “I
figured you didn’t care about wrapping paper.”
“I don’t.” With a little effort, I get the box open
and my eyes widen in disbelief. “How could you afford this? You barely make
anything at the diner.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “I work there to
work. Never underestimate how powerful a parent’s guilt is. Both of mine pay
for my ‘mental stability and affection.’ Divorce-kid bennies.”
“They should give you more money for the mental
stability.”
She taps me on the shoulder and pretends to be
offended. “Hey, asshole, I can take that back.”
I’m completely in awe over the gift and I shake my
head with as much conviction as I can. “You wouldn’t take something from a kid
with cancer. Even
you’re
not that cruel.”
She leans over and passes me the rest of the gift.
“The camera is part one of your present. This is the second.”
It’s a book; wide and respectably heavy. When I open
it, I’m greeted with the picture that she took of the two of us as we blew out
my candles just under an hour ago. In her sprawling handwriting, she’s written
beneath the picture:
‘Where wishes come true.’
She looks beautiful, and
I look sick. But there’s a certain hope in the photo that takes my breath away.
“I went upstairs to set up your new photo printer.
Because you need to remember this time so that when you get better, you can
look back and see . . . I’ll take you anywhere you want to go,
as long as you make it a memory in this book.”
There’s a tightening in my chest and I have to look
away from her to catch myself before I say something that may hurt us both in
the long run. After I’m sure my voice won’t waver, I hand her the camera. “Show
me how to work it.” So she does. And when I am confident that I have the basics
down, I ask her to set it on the ledge above her head and start the self timer.
She leans in and stares up at the camera as we watch
the red light strobe for the ten second countdown. And right before the flash
goes off; I turn my face to hers and kiss her cheek.
When I have the time to develop the photo, I tell
myself that under it I will simply write:
‘Where I fell.
’
8.
OF THE TWO EVILS, chemo is the lesser than
radiation. Radiation makes me nuclear and Hannah’s not allowed near me for
days. With chemo, I get pumped and go.
Time is an odd thing now. It creeps by so slowly
that sometimes I feel like maybe I’ve died and I’m caught in the void, unable
to move beyond the next minute. On the other hand, the days are going by at an
undesirable rate because Hannah is going to head back to school soon. Without
me.
And I don’t know what that means for the future of
us.
Today she enters my house through the garage door
without knocking. My mom has become used to this and hugs her when she enters
the kitchen.
“Good morning, Stella. What’s the skinny on The
Skinny?”
“I’m sitting right here,” I call as loud as I can
from my new home on the couch.
Hannah regards me with a roll of the eyes. “I was
talking to your mother. She won’t lie and say you’re doing fine when you’re
not. Unlike some people I know . . .”
My mom holds a plate of pancakes out to her while
giving me a playful glare.
“Would you prefer I call you Mrs. Bishop? I never
asked.”
“Whatever you’d like.” My mom chuckles because she
loves
Hannah. What the girl calls her is such a moot point, it’s comical.
“Stella is a beautiful name. I’d demand that
everyone
say my name if I was named Stella.” She grabs the plate and balances it on one
hand while she holds a cup that she’s brought with her above her head. It’s
filled with green liquid and I can’t stop staring at her as she drinks it
through a straw. Noticing the look of abject horror on my face, she waves it in
my direction. “Want a sip?”
“No.”
Hannah Hartwell is the queen of dirty looks and I am
afforded one of her best. “It’s delicious.”
“Highly doubtful.”
“You can’t even taste the spinach. And
it’s . . .”
I cut her off. “Healthy. I know.”
It’s amazing how fast she makes herself at home. Her
plate is balanced on her knees and she’s already searching Netflix for
something to watch.
“I swear to God, if you turn on another vegetarian
documentary, I will throw myself out the window.”
“You’d have to get off of the couch first.”
I stare at her with narrowed eyes for a good length
of time, making sure she’s taken at least three bites of pancakes before I
speak again. “My mom cooked those in bacon grease.”
She’s gotten really good at throwing pillows at me
one-handed.
***
Our backyard has always been one of my favorite
places in the world. Filled with trees, and surrounded by a wooden fence, it
was like my very own fantasy land when I was younger. Now, it still holds some
kind of magic when the sun begins to set and the fireflies make their twilight
debut. There’s another storm rolling in, and I can’t stop staring up at the gray-drenched
sky.
Hannah’s sitting next to me, her feet tapping
against the porch. “You know how some people think that colors are their
prettiest in the brightest sun?”
“Sure.”
“I like this
a whole lot
better. Greens are
greener. Everything just stands out more when there’s a tinge of darkness
behind it. All that light can wash colors out.”
Even though the temperatures during the daylight
hours haven’t fallen in the least, the impending storm adds heaviness to the
humidity that makes you feel like you’re breathing through a wet sponge. Still,
I don’t want to move. I want to hold onto this until I can’t anymore. While
I’ve been feeling better for the past few days it doesn’t mean anything,
really. I can’t hold out hope for something so unknowable.
“Can you take a picture of this?” I ask because I’ve
forgotten my camera.
“Sure.”
When she returns, she turns the camera on me and I
shake my head, holding up a shaking arm to shield my face. “Just the sky.
That’s all. I want to remember what we were both looking at.”
She grins, bringing the camera down to her chest.
Wind has begun to pick up around us, and her hair is blowing across her face,
her hazel eyes searching mine. I mentally note her David Bowie t-shirt, and
shorts that are cut just an inch longer than I would prefer, given how
incredibly nice her legs are. This is a mental picture just for me. I don’t
need a camera.
Bending over my chair, she places the camera on the
table next to me and balances her hands on the wrought iron armrests at my
sides. “I was looking at you, not the sky.”
Something stirs in my chest, a fluttering of
anticipation when her face is so close to mine. With great effort, I tuck back
the thoughts that have begun to run so rampant in my mind lately. Thoughts of
my appearance next to hers. I’ve become much thinner. My eyebrow and leg hair
is completely gone. I’m constantly cold, even when I’m warm. But Hannah looks
at me like I could be the centerfold in some celebrity teen magazine.
“And now I’m staring at you,” I say quietly.
She lifts a timid hand to my face and runs her
fingertips across my cheek, causing my eyes to drift closed beneath her touch.
“Have you put any more pictures in your book?” It comes out so quietly, like
the warm summer breeze.
“Yeah.”
“Can I see them?”
“Nope.” Opening my eyes, I watch as she drops to her
knees and folds her arms across my legs to look up at me questioningly.
“Why not?”
I offer her the most hopeful of smiles. It’s all
that I can muster. “Because, when I get better and visit you at school, I’ll
bring it to show you.”
Her reaction is to look away and press her cheek to
her arm. I pull one arm free to run my palm across her head, slipping my
fingers through her hair. It’s the first time she’s cried. Because it’s the
first time I’ve openly said that I think I might survive.