Invincible (6 page)

“It's so weird you give them to sick people, don't you think?” I feel my words and blood thicken. My tongue is a fat slug in my mouth. “As soon as you pick a flower, it starts dying.”

“Stop it,” Will whispers.

The world dims and spins its final spin. I am still and heavy, a windless fog.

“Will,” I think I manage to say. “I give you all my flowers.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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THIS SLEEP ISN'T LIKE THE OTHER KIND OF SLEEP. IT'S BETTER. It's magic.

In this sleep, I am not sick. I have never set foot inside Oakland Children's Hospital. I float around time and space, unburdened by gravity. The morphine makes me invincible—my bones are steel, my marrow is liquid silver. I am superhuman. Warmth spreads from the IV through the central line in my chest, into my head, down my spine, and deep into the rest of me, hugging me from the inside. I have never felt pain. I will never feel pain. I am cradled by peace. Liquid love pulses through my body. I am home.

This is the best kind of dream. It is the kind where I am in control, where I am both the director and the star. I can simply decide that the last year never happened—and voilà!—life is perfect once again. There was never Sick Girl, Cancer Girl. There was only ever Pretty Girl, Happy Girl. The cheerleader with the perfect boyfriend, the lifelong best friend, the parents who never fight. Here I am with my long hair and perfect skin. Here I am stretching before cheer practice, my hips solid and flexible. Here I am with the sun in my face, when everything is possible.

“You're so beautiful,” my mother says. I feel her hand caressing the patchy peach fuzz of my head. The touch pulls me from the dream and I am in my hospital room, straddling both worlds. “So beautiful,” she says again, and the words fly away like butterflies. I want to say “I love you,” but it is too much effort to make my mouth move. My eyes open to slits and for a moment the peace drains from me; I know she is lying. In her eyes, I see myself reflected, I see the words that should have been said instead of “beautiful.” All she knows how to say is “beautiful.” She cannot say how pale my skin is now, how sunken in my cheeks, how sickly skinny I've become after so many rounds of chemo, after so many meals that refused to stay inside me.

No. She will not ruin my dream. She will not suck the peace out of my blood. Just focus on the hand softly dusting the pain away. Don't look inside her. Never look inside. Focus on something else, peer through the haze at something that takes you out of this time and place.

My pom-poms sit on a shelf in the corner, next to the giant photo of the cheer squad, signed by everyone. Even though Stella turned it backward, I can still see it; I have X-ray vision. There's me with my arm around my best friend, Kasey. Her little mouth sings,
Remember what it felt like to be part of something?
She squeezes me and I feel it, a warm hug around my waist. She says,
Remember what it felt like to be the top of the pyramid? Remember what it felt like to be certain no one would ever drop you?

Our happiness is bigger than everything. Our smiles are so strong they blow the stench of sadness out of this room. There goes my mom flying out the window. Bye, Mom! Go home and take a shower. Go out for a nice dinner with Dad. Get your nails done. Have a spa day. Get out of this place as fast as you can.

Evie!
Kasey calls from the picture.
Evie!
the rest of the squad repeats. Their tiny, tanned arms are waving at me to join them. “I'm coming!” I tell them. I can smell the grass of the field already. I can feel the snug comfort of
North Berkeley Lions
written in blue across my breasts, the tightness of my long hair pulled into a ponytail.

It is the afternoon before the winning game that takes our football team to Regionals. We are getting in one last practice. I have the big finale flip of the halftime routine, but that is not what I am nervous about. There is a big party after the game, but that is not where I am going. Will's mom and dad will be out until late. We have been dating for eight months and I can't imagine it being possible to love anyone more than I love him. Our love is the stuff of fairy tales.

I wonder how long he has been planning this night—the fire in the fireplace, the candles, the red roses. I wonder how he managed to score this bottle of champagne. Our hands shake as we ting our glasses in cheers, as we say “I love you” for the millionth time. I wonder if he knows this will be the happiest day of my life, that in a year I will rely on a drug so I can come back here in dreams, that a chemical will help hold me in his arms in front of this fireplace.

That was when I was a different kind of invincible, a time before pain, a time before fear, sixteen years old and three months away from the doctor's visit that would be my death sentence. The biggest things on my mind that day were if I could pull off my flip in the cheer routine and whether it was true that the first time you have sex always hurts no matter how gentle, if there was still a chance of getting pregnant even with a condom, even after being on the Pill for two months in preparation.

I had been worried then about creating a life. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

And now the pain comes back, like cracks in the sky. Shooting bursts like meteors. The sweet drifting turns into falling. I am crashing. I am no longer weightless. I am full of needles, full of knives. I don't know if this pain is physical, but it hurts so much I think it will kill me.

“Mom!” I cry, and I sound like I'm drowning.

Come back from the window. Put your hand on my face. Tell me I'm beautiful again.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I AM TOO PRESENT. I AM TOO AWARE OF MY BOREDOM.

“What should we watch?” Caleb says. He's the only one of us who has his own laptop. We've been scrolling through the Netflix menu for fifteen minutes.

“Something scary,” Stella says. “Or sexy. Something scary
and
sexy.”

“I want to watch something funny,” I say.

“Me too,” Caleb says.

“You always want to do what Evie wants to do,” Stella says. “Hey, can I borrow your laptop tonight?” She always wants to borrow Caleb's laptop.

“Why don't you use the computer in the teen lounge?” I say.

“Maybe I don't want Dan looking at what I'm doing.”

“Is it illegal?” Caleb asks.

“No.”

“Is it porn?” I ask.

“Jesus, what's wrong with you people? Who do you think I am? I'm just Skyping with Cole, okay? It's almost impossible to find a time we can both do it because he's so busy with school and work. My parents won't let him visit, so it's the best I got. I haven't seen his face in like three weeks.”

“Okay,” Caleb says. “You can borrow it.”

“How is he?” I say. I've never met Cole, but I feel like I know him from hearing Stella talk about him for the several months they've been dating. I know he's in his second year of nursing school at Cal State East Bay, works at a coffee shop on Telegraph, and shares a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Oakland with a waitress/burlesque performer. I know he's vegan, loves to bake and watch movies, and dreams of backpacking across South America someday. I know he can calm Stella down when no one else can, not even me. I know he was born a girl, but has considered himself a boy for as long as he can remember. I know he gives himself a shot of testosterone every Wednesday night and has been for the past year.

“What about this one?” Caleb says, his attention back on the computer screen. “It has Will Smith in it. He's funny.”

“Evie,” Stella says, ignoring him. “It's nice to have you back in the land of the lucid. Though I have to say, Junkie Evie is pretty entertaining.”

“I guess,” I say. “I was just starting to get used to it, then Dr. Jacobs said I had to go back on the wimpy pills again.”

“Dr. J is stingy with the narcotics. He's notorious for it. He's all about prescribing the bare minimum, then taking it away as soon as he thinks you don't need it anymore.”

“But isn't it supposed to be, like, the one perk of being a terminal cancer patient, that you get free reign with the painkillers?”

“You're preaching to the choir, girlfriend. He's a sadist.” She laughs. “You never cease to surprise me, Cheerleader.”

“Why? What'd I say?”

“Have you ever even been high before? Like smoked pot?”

“I got tipsy on hard lemonade once.”

“Hard lemonade: the gateway drug to morphine. Oh, Evie, you're adorable.”

“I think it's good,” Caleb says.

“You think what's good? Hard lemonade?”

“No, Dr. Jacobs not giving out too much drugs. It's good for us to be here, like really
here
, as much as possible. Don't you think?”

“I'd rather not be too present for my dying, actually,” Stella says.

“But you don't want to be a zombie for the time you have left, do you? If you're all high on painkillers you miss the opportunity to say good-bye to the people you love. I want to make sure I can spend as much time as possible with my family. And you guys.”

I don't like the direction this conversation is going. What happened to watching a movie? If I was still on the morphine, this wouldn't even bother me.

“I guess you're right,” Stella says. “I'm sure Dr. Jacobs isn't going to let Evie be in pain or anything. I'm sure when it's really,
really
the end, they pump you full of everything.”

“But Evie still has some time until then,” Caleb says.

“Wow,” Stella says. “We really know how to pick conversation topics.”

It's quiet for a while after that.

“My parents want me to be at home,” I finally say. “When it gets to that point. When it's really the end.”

“What do you want to do?” Caleb says.

“I don't know. I want to be able to decide then.”

“Did you tell them that?” says Stella.

“Yes, but Dr. Jacobs says that isn't realistic. Because at that point I might not be in any condition to make decisions.” And then it hits me, a wave stronger and harder and heavier than the morphine ever could be, one that sucks the air out of me and replaces it with terror. I start crying. I feel everything slipping, falling, tearing away.

“What if it comes out of nowhere and I don't have a chance to tell anyone what I want?” I blubber. “What if they just take me out of here and I can't talk anymore and don't have control over
anything and all I can do is lie there while they make decisions for me and I can't do anything about it? What if I can't say good-bye? What if—?”

I am crying so hard I can't see or hear or breathe. I feel Caleb and Stella's arms around me. I feel us squeezed tight, fused into a ball of pain and sickness and love.

“You don't need to worry about us, if that's what you're thinking,” Stella says. “We know you love us. It's okay if you can't say good-bye.”

“It's so funny,” I say, wiping my snotty nose on the back of my hand. “I spend all my time in here wanting to go home, but now it's like I'm scared to. I don't want to go home just to die there.”

“So stay here with us,” Stella says matter-of-factly, as if it is a wonderfully simple decision. “Either way, we'll make sure Dr. J puts you back on the good stuff.” I know her confidence is an act, but it still makes me feel better.

“Yeah,” I say.

Caleb is crying quietly beside us. “Hey,” I say. “It's not that time yet. I'm still here, right?”

He nods, his bottom lip trembling.

“I changed my mind,” Stella says. “I think I want to watch a comedy too.” She puts her feet up on my bed and leans back in her stiff hospital chair. “Jeez, Evie. Isn't there some way to clean under your cast? You're starting to smell.”

Caleb picks the Will Smith movie, and we spend one more night together in my room, pretending to not all be thinking the same thing—that this could be the last time, that this won't be my room for much longer, that I will be replaced by another sick kid with more hope than me.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“STELLA, IT'S YOUR TURN,” CALEB SAYS. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO be playing gin rummy, but Stella's been distracted for the past half hour, texting frantically on her phone.

“Hold on a sec,” she says for the hundredth time, holding up one long, skinny finger with blood-red nail polish.

Caleb takes off his hat and rubs his head, like he's thinking hard about his hand of cards. He only takes his hat off when he's with us, in the privacy of one of our rooms. Cancer Kids can be particular about their hats. His is an Oakland A's baseball cap his dad bought him at a game last year, before his cancer came back. It's easy to forget he belongs here when it's on, but when he takes it off, you can see the trails of scars from old surgeries, the weird peeling and discoloration from recent radiation treatments, and you immediately remember he's not a normal boy.

Will just texted that he's eating pizza and playing video games with his football friends, Jenica is no doubt studying, Kasey's going out on her second date with the new guy, and here we are, three seriously abnormal teenagers, sitting on my bed on a Friday night pretending to play gin rummy while every other person our age is out in the world doing things regular teenagers do, at movies or parties or having sex or eating dinner with their parents. Stella's texting again with an evil grin on her face, Caleb's organizing the piles of cards on the tray over my legs, and I'm looking out the window at the black sky, and this is as normal a life as I'm ever going to get.