The Opposite of Me (47 page)

“I guess I always felt chunky around you,” I said. I swallowed hard and continued. “And I felt like it wasn’t worth the effort to put on makeup. Or do anything with my hair.”

“Because?” Alex prodded.

“Because no one noticed me next to you,” I said softly. It almost physically hurt to say those words, like ripping a scab off an old wound that hadn’t fully healed. I thought back to high school, when I’d cowered before the cool senior guys while Alex made them all fall in love with her. I thought about the old woman who’d grabbed my hair with a hand that looked like a claw and announced it was a shame I didn’t look like my sister. I thought of a thousand painful slights, big and small: the times waiters rushed to fill Alex’s water glass and left mine empty; the times guys gaped at her after their eyes flicked past me; the times people said
“Your sister?”
in a tone of voice that didn’t bother to conceal their shock.

I didn’t hold those moments against Alex anymore, because I finally understood they weren’t her fault. But that didn’t mean those memories no longer hurt.

“Look, Alex,” I said. “You’re going to go back to being gorgeous soon. And I’m glad, I honestly am. But I guess I always felt like I faded into the background when you were around. It’s not your fault, of course,” I added quickly.

“I didn’t know,” Alex said, and I realized it was true. Alex hadn’t known how I’d felt, but of course, neither of us had known much about the other. She shook her head. “I thought you didn’t care about clothes and stuff.”

“Apparently I do,” I said. “I’ve been shopping like crazy lately.”

“I was a little jealous of you, too,” Alex said.

“You?” I said. “Seriously?”

“Of your job,” Alex said. “The way you flew around the world and dreamed up all those commercials. It always sounded so cool.”

I stared at her for a moment, stunned. Alex had been jealous of
me
?

“I was jealous of Gary,” I blurted. “He seemed like the perfect guy. And he adored you.”

“I was jealous of your independence,” she said. “I’ve lived in this town my whole life. You went away to college and grad school and you lived in New York. You had this great little apartment and you knew the city like you’d lived there forever.”

She’d been jealous of
me
. I still couldn’t fathom it. All this time, I’d had no idea.

“You know, I thought I had a little crush on Bradley when I first came home,” I said casually.

“You did?” Alex was truly surprised; I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t faking. So Bradley had never said anything after all.

“Crazy, huh?” I said. “I was kind of mixed up for a while there.”

I forced a laugh, to show how inconsequential my crush had been, but Alex didn’t join in.

“Do you still—” She paused and her forehead creased in worry.

“God,
no,
” I said.

“Because I thought you had that guy in New York,” she said. “And then you were going out with Jacob.”

“Alex,” I said, putting my hand over hers. I had to make light of this, but maybe someday I’d tell her the whole story—and maybe I’d be able to really laugh about it by then. “Bradley and I were only ever meant to be friends. I was just trying to work
up a crush on him so I didn’t have to deal with the fact that I was fired. And there’s one other thing I have to confess,” I said, making my voice grow somber.

“I’m not sure if I can take it,” Alex said. “It’s like Jerry Springer around here.”

“I was also insanely jealous,” I said slowly, “of your . . . toenails.”

“My toenails,” Alex said slowly.

“They always look perfect. Who the hell has pretty toenails?”

“Well, it’s official,” she said. “You need more therapy than me.”

I looked at Alex, and we both smiled.

“Look, I know this sucks,” I said. “But your hair is already growing back. You’ll be off steroids soon. It’s going to be okay.”

Alex nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same, I realized. Maybe once you’d lost your beauty overnight, you’d realize how fleeting a thing it was, and it would always seem like a mixed blessing.

“So about those test scores,” Alex said.

“Weird, huh?” I said. “Not that I’m jealous or anything.”

Alex smacked me in the arm. “I was thinking maybe I’d stop modeling. I want to keep doing the TV stuff, but by the time my hair grows back and I lose the weight . . . I don’t know, it just seems easier to stop now than to let it drag out. Quit while you’re at the bottom, right?”

“Are you going to pursue something more in TV?” I asked.

“Don’t laugh,” Alex said.

“I won’t,” I promised.

“I was thinking,” Alex said slowly, “about going back to college.”

“Do it,” I said instantly.

“Really?” she said. “Don’t you think I’d feel weird, going to college at twenty-nine?”

“Nope,” I said. “What classes are you going to take?”

She lifted a shoulder and gave a half shrug. “Business, maybe.”

“Just do it,” I said again.

“Thanks, Nike,” Alex said. “I figure by the fall, things will be back to normal. Maybe I could start then.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

She nodded and leaned back, lost in thought about an unexpected future. Just like I’d been moments before.

“I was just wondering,” I said casually, “if you’d thought about calling Bradley.”

The dreamy look dropped away from Alex’s face. “Not yet,” she said in a guarded voice.

“Alex, he wants to see you,” I said.

Alex unfolded her legs and stood up.

“Don’t push me,” she said.

“C’mon,” I said. “Just call the guy. Put him out of his misery.”

But Alex was already walking through the doorway, as though she was desperate to put space between herself and any mention of Bradley.

“Good night,” she said, and she gently closed my door.

Thirty-one
 

 

“ALEXANDRA ROSE?” THE RECEPTIONIST called.

As Alex and I stood up and crossed the threshold into the inner office, a terrible sense of déjà vu crashed over me. The last time we’d been here, the doctor had delivered the news about Alex’s tumor.

Dr. Grayson rose from his seat behind his desk to shake our hands. His expression was perfectly bland, the facial equivalent of tapioca pudding. I could see Alex’s new scans on his desk, spread out like a hand of poker. Yesterday, a different technician, a young mother of three who’d chatted about her kids during much of the procedure, had taken those scans while Alex lay inside the MRI tube. Afterward I’d searched the woman’s eyes, but she didn’t reveal a clue about the results.

Although during surgery Dr. Grayson had removed most of Alex’s tumor, a tiny slice—the shape of a thin crescent moon—was resting on the optic nerve, and he hadn’t been able to risk cutting away that part. If the tumor had grown, even a little bit, he’d have to bombard it with radiation to wipe it out before Alex’s vision was permanently damaged.

Right now,
radiation
was the scariest word I could imagine.
It meant Alex’s recovery would be delayed. It meant months of steroids, of daily visits to the hospital, of lethargy and nausea and a dozen other potential side effects. It meant the old Alex would stay hidden away where no one could see her.

I looked down again at the scans on Dr. Grayson’s desk. Suddenly I remembered that, in poker, you never laid down your hand until you were finished gambling and the game was over.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Grayson said, looking at Alex.

Just those two little words. How could such small words be powerful enough to almost knock me down? I reached for Alex’s hand. It was ice-cold, like her foot had been the night she’d disappeared inside the MRI tube, the night this had all started.

“Are you sure?” I blurted out.

He nodded. “It grew several millimeters. Not much, but in such a short time it’s enough to send us a warning. We need radiation to kill all the cells that are producing the mass.”

Alex nodded, like it made perfect sense. “When do I start?” she asked. Her voice was as calm as if she were asking when her favorite television program would begin, or when an airline flight would be taking off.

“I’m hoping we can schedule you to start Monday,” the doctor said. His voice was grave, his expression reassuring yet concerned. Did they teach that in medical school? Did they have a course in how to look sorrowful yet optimistic? Suddenly I wanted to leap up and grab his shoulders and violently shake him. This was all his fault; he hadn’t gotten out the whole tumor. Suddenly I hated this doctor with his steepled fingers and fancy diplomas. What good were all those degrees if he hadn’t been able to help Alex, damn it?

“I’d like a six-week course of radiation,” Dr. Grayson said, oblivious to my raging thoughts. “The treatment itself will be relatively straightforward. You won’t experience any pain, if you’re concerned about that.”

“I’ve read all about it,” Alex said. “I know what to expect.”

Something was terribly wrong. She should be yelling and screaming about the unfairness of this all, of being forced to battle a brain tumor at the age of twenty-nine. She should be crying and fighting. Why was Alex so calm?

She was slipping away, I realized as fear gripped my stomach. She was going back to the place of endless television and dull eyes. Alex was disappearing again, maybe so far that this time I wouldn’t ever be able to reach her.

“Radiology will need to mold a mask for you, so that the beams hit only the mass and the rest of your brain is protected,” the doctor said.

“I see,” Alex said, as unemotionally as if he’d just offered her a glass of water.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said inanely, squeezing her hand.
Stay with me,
I pleaded silently. But Alex’s hand lay limply in my own.

“Do you have any other questions?” the doctor asked. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear today, but the good news is I’m confident we’ll be able to knock this out with radiation.”

“I thought you were going to say the tumor hadn’t grown,” Alex said. “My vision is still good, so I was hoping that meant . . .” She swallowed and continued. “That nothing had changed.”

“The change is small,” the doctor said. “But there is a change.”

Alex nodded. “Then let’s get on with it,” she said simply.

The last time we’d been in this room, she’d gripped her armrests until her fingertips turned white, then she’d cracked jokes and burst into tears. Now she was completely numb. I almost wanted her to make a joke, to do something to show that she wasn’t going to spend the next three months sitting on the living room couch, staring into space.

The doctor rose from his desk. “You can call me with any
questions,” he said. “If you want to wait outside, I’ll see if they can squeeze you in for the fitting today.”

A few months ago, Alex was being fitted for clothes she’d model on the pages of magazines. Now she was being fitted for a plastic face mask that would cover her skull and protect her brain from the devastating radiation rays. It was so terribly unfair.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” I said, squeezing her hand again as we walked into the waiting room. I’d never felt more helpless.