Demon Derby (2 page)

Spectacle was the school’s spring talent show. I’d been in major demand for skits ever since freshman year, when I’d pretended to beat the crap out of the JV offensive line in mock combat. The best part about that sketch had been the costumes. I’d been dressed like Princess Leia, and the football players had worn Stormtrooper uniforms.

“You still got the moves, right? I mean, after …” Luke waved his hands, like he’d decided to finish the sentence in sign language because he couldn’t bear to say the c-word out loud. Because if he said the word “cancer,” he might get it. Wuss.

“I don’t know if they’d let me in or not,” I said. “You’d have to ask.”

“Will do,” he replied.

We emerged from the stairwell into the open expanse of the parking garage. And despite the fact that I was barely managing not to gasp for breath, I walked straight for the safety wall, propelled by frustration. Every time I tried for a little normalcy, the leukemia thing hit me again. It felt like people weren’t going to see me as anything but a poor little cancer girl for the rest of my life, and it made me want to hit something.

I boosted myself onto the ledge, looking out into the empty space between the parking garage and the adjoining Arts and Sciences building, ignoring Kyle’s worried voice behind me. “Be careful!” he barked. “That’s dangerous.” He must have thought I was stupid. Of course it was dangerous; that was why I was doing it. If I didn’t push myself a little, I might just fade away entirely.

My heart began to thump as my body realized what I was intending, and my hands developed the familiar tremor that comes with a big jolt of adrenaline. But this time the rush held a new edge of fear, a little voice that whispered how stupid this was, that I should be resting, that I wasn’t strong enough.
Little cancer girls don’t do stunts
, the voice reminded me.
They decorate posters and look pitiful. That’s what you’re good for now
.

Damn voice. The only way to prove it wrong was to make the jump, and I couldn’t do it while I was distracted. So I pushed away the doubt as best I could, reaching up to run my fingers over the smooth silver of my lucky katana necklace. I could do this. I knew that edge like I knew the back of my hand. Three stories up, a flat expanse of well-manicured grass at the bottom broken by a stretch of sidewalk. The side of the Arts and Sciences building, almost close enough to touch. A single bar atop the safety wall separated me from the air. I stepped over it, ignoring the assorted hoots and yells behind me as different members of the crew urged me forward or back. They’d understand later how much I needed this. I’d prove myself to them. And to me.

I pictured the trick from beginning to end, every detail sharp in my mind—the swing of my arms, the momentum in my core, the press of my foot against the brick, the precise placement of each step. Only then did I push off the ledge.

“Casey!”

Kyle’s panicked yell threw off my concentration, and I felt the swoop of air as he reached for my legs and missed. I
would have been offended if I hadn’t been suddenly terrified. Why had I thought this was a good idea? Now that I was airborne, the three-story drop seemed much higher than it ever had before. I’d always felt immortal when I’d been freerunning. But now I knew without a doubt that I was mortal. I felt a sudden urge to grab for the safety of the railing, but I was already committed.

My brain might have been scrambled with fear, but my legs remembered what to do. I planted my foot against the Arts and Sciences building as I fell, pushed off at an angle, and hurtled toward the parking structure again. I bounced back and forth between the buildings like a Ping-Pong ball, keeping my momentum in check as I descended toward the ground. My body was in it just the way it needed to be; it knew all the moves and executed them flawlessly. But instead of that feeling of freedom and triumph I’d always gotten from freerunning, I wanted nothing more than the safety of the ground again. It wasn’t thrilling to defy death anymore.

My shoes touched the grass. I landed just right—knees soft to absorb the shock, body canted forward to transfer my momentum into an effortless run. But my legs buckled underneath me, spilling me to the concrete. My jeans ripped; the skin underneath tore open. I reflexively threw my hands out to protect my face, sacrificing the skin off both palms.

I rolled into the cool springiness of the grass and just lay there, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t know what had gone wrong. Had my mind been too weak, or had my body? Either way, the only thing I’d proven was that I’d lost my edge.

Kyle yelled, “Are you okay, Case? Stay there! We’ll call an ambulance.”

Very few things could have gotten me to my feet, but that worked. “No!” I yelped, shoving myself up. The scrapes weren’t bad; I’d had much worse. It was the failure that I couldn’t deal with. “I’m fine,” I added. “Just a little road rash.”

“Are you sure?” Willow leaned over the side of the building like she might be able to evaluate the state of my knees from thirty feet up. “That was a bad spill.”

“Totally sure.” I plastered a grin on my face and raised my stinging hands overhead in a gesture of mock triumph, trying to make light of the situation. “Next time, I’ll stick the landing.”

Kyle burst out the stairwell door like I was on fire. “Did you hit your head?” he demanded, rushing over. “Are you dizzy? Do you have any weakness? You should be sitting down, dude.”

“I’m fine. I must have turned my foot on a rock. We forgot to scout the landing zone.” I tried to sound nonchalant as I offered the lame excuse, but my voice wobbled. He only looked more concerned. “Honest. If anything’s damaged, it’s my pride.”

His long mouth pressed flat with disapproval. “You should go home,” he said.

“I want to stay. Please, Kyle. If I go home now, I’ll never come back, not after that.”

“You’re not jumping again.” It came out as an order, not a request. I would have been angry if I hadn’t agreed wholeheartedly.

“I won’t. Not today, anyway.”

It felt like a concession of defeat. The best way to recover from a spill is to get right back up there and try it again. But I wasn’t up to it. I might never be up to it again, and if that was true, who was I? Stunts had been my whole existence before I’d gotten sick. That left me with nothing.

He let out a long sigh. “All right. I’ll sit here with you.”

I flashed him a grateful smile before looking up at the rest of the crew. They still hovered at the ledge, waiting for the verdict. Luke clutched his cell, ready to dial at a moment’s notice.

“I think I’ll watch for a while,” I said, swallowing the lump of shame in my throat. “Are you going to leave me down here all alone, or is anyone else tricking today?”

I didn’t have to ask twice. They practically jumped all over each other trying to show me their newest moves. I pretended they just wanted my advice, but I knew they were secretly relieved that I wasn’t going to kill myself with a repeat performance. Even worse, I felt the same way.

After about a half hour of watching my friends defy gravity, I was done. Kyle walked me home. It felt like I was slinking off with my tail between my legs. No one invited me back, and that was a relief until I got angry at myself for being relieved. At least I didn’t have to pretend everything was okay; Kyle was pretty withdrawn too. I knew I should ask him what he
was thinking, but I didn’t really want to go there. We made plans to meet later that night for the annual Halloween Bash, and he gave me a gentle noogie before leaving me on my front step, so I knew we were cool. And really, I was too exhausted—in every sense of the word—to confront things if we weren’t.

My parents were both theater profs, and they had Friday office hours, so I was free to go up to my bedroom undisturbed. Post-diagnosis, they’d turned my room into a little palace. I had my own mini fridge, flat screen, gaming console, the works. After a quick bathroom detour for disinfectant and bandages, I flopped bonelessly onto my bed and flipped through the channels. Nothing was on except
Jersey Shore
reruns, so I turned the TV off. For some reason, it was hard to get all emotionally worked up over orange tans and random hookups after the day I’d had.

My eyelids felt like concrete. I closed them for just a minute and didn’t wake up until my older sister, Rachel, jumped on the bed and started shouting.

“Casey, you lazypants. Wake up!”

“Dude!” I flopped over in my cocoon of blankets and rubbed my face. “There’s no need to yell. I’m right here.”

“Hey, I can’t help it if I’m a force to be reckoned with.” She hugged me so tight, my back cracked. “Please tell me you did that to your head on purpose.”

“Yeah. My hair came back patchy. I looked like I had mange.”

She tilted her head. “It makes you look tough.”

The comment made me feel instantly better. Rachel always knew what to say. My sister was two years older, but we’d always been close. If it hadn’t been for her and Kyle, I would have gone completely insane in the hospital. The rest of the crew had come to see me, but they’d been so uncomfortable that I’d wished they hadn’t. I’d never been able to talk to them the way I could Kyle. Not that I was holding a grudge or anything; that was just the way it was. But now I knew that the clichéd crap about how true friends stick with you when things go to hell wasn’t just clichéd crap.

Normally I didn’t pay much attention to my looks, but I wasn’t a robot. It felt good to know that I wasn’t completely repulsive. My problems were less about the hair and more about the rest of the package. I had sunken, reddish scars dotting my body from my neck all the way down my torso. Biopsies and aspirations, PICC lines, the Broviac catheter—each one had left its mark. I did my best to keep covered, even in hot weather. Not because I was vain but because I was tired of looking like a circus freak. At least I could pass the hair off as a fashion statement. Which it mostly was.

Rachel took one look at me and sat down, tucking a lock of long blond hair behind her ear and putting on her most serious expression.

“You look upset. What’s up?”

I shrugged evasively. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be here for another half hour.”

“I cut out of sociology early, since I couldn’t take you out last time I was home because
someone
had the gall to get
pneumonia. What’s up with that? Cancer isn’t good enough and you have to hog all the other illnesses too?”

“What can I say? I’m an overachiever.”

“I’m in awe of your mad skills.” She snorted. “Now quit changing the subject and tell me what’s wrong.”

“I just …” I didn’t know what to say. My eyes roamed the collage-covered walls, plastered with photos and magazine clippings that only reminded me of how I’d lost my edge. Levi Meeuwenberg, my freerunning idol, leapt into the air over a picture of pre-cancer me, my arms flung up in triumph. I would have given anything to be that girl again. She was fearless, and I had too much to lose. But I couldn’t say that to Rachel. I’d already put her through plenty. “I don’t know,” I finished lamely.

“Well, then stop looking at me like I spit in your cornflakes.” She shook a finger in mock disapproval. “We’re going to that Halloween party, right? Out with the crappy and in with the happy!”

“That’s horrible.” I threw my stuffed ninja at her.

“But still wise beyond my years,” she said, tossing the toy back onto the bed. “So, what do you say? Are we going or not?”

“All right.” I shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

When we were ready, I felt like a strange alternate-reality version of myself, a kickass Casey 2.0 who hung out in futuristic biker bars and didn’t take guff from anybody. My costume
consisted of Rachel’s old roller derby uniform—red jersey, black shorts, fishnets, pads, and black roller skates. She’d drawn intricate curlicues all over my head with a hot-pink marker, which looked totally sweet. Makeup shaded my thin face into razor-sharp edges, and wide black lines traced my eyes, curling up into feline tips. My lips were so purple, they looked bruised.

I skated out to the sidewalk and spun to face my sister, regal and corseted in a Marie Antoinette costume. The skirt was so wide, she had to turn sideways to get out the door, and the bodice turned her already voluptuous figure into something wars were fought over. I would have been jealous that she’d gotten all the curves—I was compact and boyish, while she was tall and hourglassish—but people automatically assumed she was an airhead just because of her looks. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that.