Dessert First (22 page)

“Can I do anything?” He was so earnest, he looked in pain. It was sweet.

I thought about it. Having to repeat a whole grade was like being sick. “Sit with me, Evan. It won't fix everything, but it's nice.”

• • •

As we were sending emails back and forth late that night, Hunter asked about whether I had any other, non-dying boyfriends. In the real world. I said no, but that somehow triggered a long discussion about what had gone wrong between me and Evan the year before, and I ended up going through the whole story.

H:
He was probably trying to make you jealous and get you to notice he was boyfriend material, not just guy-friend
.

K:
Unlikely
.
And getting together with Tracie to make someone jealous is like cutting yourself in half to lose weight: Sure, it works, but—dang.

H:
Maybe he was a jerk?

K:
No. He's a great guy. Last year he was probably just all freshman-frozen-in-the-headlights when some cuter girl turned her bright smile on him. But it hurt. So he's confined to the friend-zone penalty box, where he can't hurt me again.

H:
Then he's an idiot. Weird, though. You not letting a guy get close because it would hurt if he went away. (*Types her DBF—as in Dying Boy Friend—late at night, whose numbers are not getting better*)

K:
I'm an idiot, actually. I'll have a hard time if you don't pull a miracle recovery. It's too soon after Beep.

There was no reply for a long couple of minutes. I shouldn't have sent that. Hunter had it tough enough as it was.

K:
Sorry sorry sorry
.
It's not about me.

H:
What?
Your life isn't about you? Maybe you should learn how to take care of yourself.

K:
Oh—says a guy in an ICU, full of tubes. Why don't you get better, so you can take care of yourself?

H:
I will if you will.

Which was a little random.

In my opinion, anyway.

The week in March after he stopped the last course of chemo, Hunter got better. Which sounds weird, since chemo was whacking his leukemia. But it made sense.

Beep once said that chemo is like a machine gun from one of his videogames, spraying streams of tiny bullets at all his cells. Those chemo-bullets do
more
damage to the fast-growing cells, like cancer. (And hair. And stomach lining.) But they're hitting everything, including good blood cells and bone marrow.

When they stopped chemo-drip-poisoning him, Hunter got better. Then all he had to deal with was cancer. He felt so good, he even asked me to a dance.

Hunter, it turned out, was going to his senior prom by phone, and would get the streaming video and audio on his computer, while he sat in his hospital room. That way, he could see his friends and classmates, and they could see him, and he could have the feeling of normal life. (Which is what? Sorry.) He also, though, had this goofier idea he should virtually bring me. “You can be on Google Hangouts or on Skype on the other computer,” he explained. “And I'll pull up the video of the dance on a big window on one screen, and you can look at it at the same time I do, and people can see you in your video window along with me, and we can go together.”

“I don't know anyone there,” I said. “And I'm not sure how fun it'll be watching you dance by cell phone with ex-girlfriends and other girls.”

“It'll be fine. I'll introduce you to everyone. My friends. By video.”

“Yeah. Great. ‘Hi, dressed-up dancing friends having fun. Here's a tiny video of my friend Kat, who's randomly sitting at a computer in California, not having fun. What's she doing here? She doesn't know either.'”

“I want to take you,” he said.

“And I want you to get all better, but that's not exactly on schedule either. You go, and tell me about it after.”

In the end, he played the I'm-dying-of-cancer-so-you-have-to card, which was totally unfair. “Otherwise, I might not ever get to take you to a dance, Complicated Girl.”

“Fine,” I agreed after he wore me down. But I wasn't sure it'd be fine at all.

I didn't get a new dress for the big event, but I did put on the fanciest one I had, deep blue silk with a semi-plunging neckline. The hem was long, more go-to-funeral-and-be-solemn than go-dancing-and-get-flirty, but I wasn't planning to dance anyway. My hair was still a freakish disaster. Now that it had grown out a little, amazingly, it looked even worse—like my head had suffered some horrible lawn-mower accident while I was sleeping in a park, but they'd missed a tuft at the top, which flopped over, now that it was too long to stick up. But I bought a blue-and-purple silk headscarf with gold highlights at Sari Palace on University Avenue, which covered the whole scene-of-the-hair crime. The colors made me look semi-interesting. I thought Hunter's friends might even cut me some slack, figuring I was another bald cancer patient Hunter had met. I helped myself to part of Rachel's vast collection of eye shadow, eyeliner, and blush, and I worked my way up to a dramatic look, trying to stop short of Kayla-Southerland-style scary excess.

At about the last possible moment, I signed on, and sat in front of the little camera in my computer.

“Wow,” Hunter said. “You look great.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Completely covered up is my hair's best look. But you look terrific.”

He did. His mom had rented him a blue tux, which he'd put on from the waist up. (The rest of him was under the covers of the hospital bed, so never mind.) He looked radiant—maybe a little loopy from a fresh morphine dose, but happy and excited.

Hunter's mom, standing by his bed, made a fuss, and insisted on taking a “prom picture” of the two of us, on split screen, in a computer window. Hunter couldn't stop smiling, and for a couple of minutes I thought the whole remote-prom thing would actually be okay-weird instead of awful-weird.

Then his mom set up the last bit of the technology bridge, to get Hunter to his prom by phone, with me tagging along, and excused herself. “I guess I should leave you two to your dance . . .” she said uncertainly, like she'd be happy to be invited to stay and hover.

“'Bye, Mom,” Hunter said. “I'll text if there's a problem.”

And then there was the boom of thumping bass and jostled wobbly video, and we were at his prom, carried around as a phone. The music blared in the background, too loud, and people had to yell over it into the phone to be heard. Hunter yelled back, and they could barely make him out. No one could hear me at all.

“Dude!” his friend Michael yelled, his face close in the phone. “Welcome to prom!”

“Michael, here's my non-Canadian girlfriend—” Hunter pointed, I guess, toward me on the computer screen propped up beside him on his bed.

“So great to see you!” Michael bellowed. But he was yelling to Hunter, not to me.

Different guys and girls kept carrying the phone out to the lobby, where the music wasn't quite so loud so they could have holler-conversations about who was there with what girl or boy and what different colleges they were going to next year, and how basketball season went. After the first couple of pointless tries to introduce me to people who could barely see my picture on the tiny phone screen, Hunter gave up introducing me at all.

I sat, with my hands on my lap, wearing a frozen smile. This was so fun. From that point on, the fact Hunter had “brought a date” went completely unnoticed. Different girls took turns dancing with the phone, doing full body scans of their skimpy prom dresses, spinning in awkward circles to the music, shaking the phone in nausea-making wobbles.

Then different girls took turns kissing the phone. From what I saw, while I was mostly trying not to look too much, so many girls kissed that phone it probably caused a schoolwide mono outbreak.

Then a couple of them went all "girls gone wild" on Hunter, putting the phone down the front of their prom dresses. What was the point? With the plunging necklines, there wasn't much mystery to begin with.

“Got to go,” I said, after the third glimpse of bra and one actual nip-slip. I disconnected.

I'm sorry
, I private-messaged Hunter on Facebook.
I'm glad you got to go to your prom. And I want you to get to hang out with your friends. But I had to go. It was hard for me (really hard) watching a bunch of other girls taking turns showing you their ta-tas. After kissing you by phone.

I waited five minutes, but there was no reply, so I added.
I mean, after _they_ kissed you by phone
.

Five more minutes. No reply. I tried for funny.
On the plus side, you won't have to all weird them out at Make-A-Wish, trying to get into a strip club, 'cause now you've basically (1) been there; (2) seen that. Also, you don't have to ask the girls at school what's shaking, 'cause they've already shown you.

I waited fifteen minutes, but there was no reply. I guess Hunter was still promming out by phone, and someone else's bra or nipple or tonsils up close was a lot more interesting than my mere words.

Good-night, Hunter
, I finally sent by message, wondering what they were showing him by then.

Twenty minutes later, still no reply. It was 11
P.M.
Hunter's time, but still early in California, 8
P.M.
, so I had a long wait before anything resembling bedtime. I posted on Facebook and my blog,
Having a miserable time
, then I signed out of Facebook as Kat, to keep from going all stalker girl and sending Hunter six more unanswered messages.

It was a painful reminder about where I really stood with Hunter, even though he typed “DBF” and claimed he was “in a relationship.” He was eighteen and cute and a basketball star. I was sixteen and me, and 3000 miles away. He had lots of friends and knew lots of girls who would be happy to be more than just friends, at least if his hair grew back and his guy equipment started working again.

Maybe I was better than them at hanging out with someone who was sick. Maybe I sent funnier emails. But I wasn't okay with sending him pictures of my boobs. Which, for the record, looked small and undernourished compared to the down-the-dress look he was getting from those senior girls at prom.

I was just words. And I couldn't compete with live girls, once he got out of the isolation unit. If he got well, he'd turn back into a cute basketball star, and I'd turn into what's-her-name who used to send funny messages when he was sick. (“What
was
her name? Wait. I'll think of it. An animal, with a K. Kitty or something . . . ?”)

I logged back into Facebook as Cipher. Put a status message up for her.
Even virtual girls have difficult times with boys.
Evan was online, so as Cipher, I shot him a private message.

C:
Hey, Skinnyboy—am having a bad night. (Really bad.) How 'bout you entertain me, while I untangle my poisonous tentacles?

E:
Boyfriend trouble?

C:
Not exactly, Skinnyboy. Noticed from your Facebook profile you're still single. Whew! So what could be wrong?

E:
I think you're having boyfriend trouble.

C:
More like, figuring I'll never have a real boyfriend. We elusive online creatures are like that. But then, the real world is full of broken glass and razor wire, so it's probably safer to drift through as an invisible, virtual girl. (And less scary for everyone else, since my poisonous tentacles don't show.)

E:
You've never had a boyfriend?

C:
Not exactly. Had a massive crush on a guy last year. Won't tell you details. He broke my heart, but probably didn't notice. Maybe he was my boyfriend. He just didn't know. Somehow, I forgot to tell him about the crush.

E:
I'm sure he saw it. Too late. Then wished he could have undone the damage.

I wish. Was he speaking from experience there? Scary, especially if Evan ever figured out Cipher was me.

C:
Never, Skinnyboy, underestimate the ability of a guy to miss seeing how he's stomped the female heart, right in front of him.

That was a good description of Evan last year and tonight with Hunter. But I should add something reminding him I wasn't real, or predictable.

C:
Also, you don't know what you're talking about, with all that certainty. I'm a mystery.

E:
Probably not as mysterious as you think.

C:
I'm more mysterious than I think. I have no idea how I manage to screw up my life. But I am, clearly, more talented at that than even I can imagine, and I'm partly imaginary.

As soon as I hit send on that, I knew I'd gotten the tone wrong. Gone all grim instead of flirty. So I speed-typed a follow-on.

C:
Sorry
.
Ignore that last. Honesty leaked through. Going back to Snark n' Flirt mode. We don't do reality here. Too limiting and depressing.

E:
I wish I was your boyfriend. In the real world.

What? Great. Now Evan was throwing himself at an online girl who didn't really exist. And, unfortunately, I had real-world experience with Evan being someone's girlfriend who wasn't me.

C:
Ah! On to fantasy. Well played, Skinnyboy. But no, you don't.
I'm funny and flirty, but only online. You're one of the closest things I have to a boyfriend. (Pretty sad, since all we do is email and Facebook messaging.) I don't want to crash this beautiful, secret online thing into the tall wall of reality. In the real world, I'm a mess.

E:
You're not that much of a mess.

Okay. I'd already posted way too many facts resembling Kat.

C:
You have no idea, SkinnyB. My poisonous tentacles are so tangled right now, I'll have to comb them out with human bones for an hour, before I can use them again to spear more trolls online.