Side Effects May Vary (12 page)

All I saw was the reflection of him in the window.

I poured a cup of milk and put it in the microwave.

“Alice,” he said slowly, “why have you been avoiding me?”

The question made me testy, like a cornered animal. “I'm not,” I said. “I called you tonight, didn't I?”

He took in a sharp breath and exhaled. “You called me because you decided you wanted me here
tonight
, not because you wanted me.” His voice got louder with every word. “You don't get to be the only person to decide when
this
works for you,” he said.

The microwave dinged as I closed my eyes for a moment and said, “Good night, Harvey.” I couldn't look at him and say it at the same time. I wanted so badly to tell him to stay and that I was sorry, but calling him had been a mistake, and I didn't know how to make him understand that. He had to leave because if he didn't, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from falling down this slope and into him.

“You never surprise me, Alice, which is such a disappointment.”

His words pinballed in my chest, every syllable hitting harder than the last, but I kept my back straight and my expression unmoving as I opened the microwave.

He turned, walked a few steps, and then spun back around long enough to say, “I can't pretend to forget anymore.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers

Alice.

Now.

I
went to bed before my parents got home from dinner. I wasn't sure when I fell asleep, but it was somewhere in between thoughts of Harvey and my mom.

The next morning I slept in and found a note from my mom on the kitchen table.

 

A—

Doctor's office called, had to reschedule your blood work for Tuesday.

Big case on Monday. Went to office to prep. Dad came to help sort papers (and

order Chinese food, yum!). Be home late. Call Dad's cell if you need us!

Love you.

P.S. Left cash in case you go out.

 

There was a crisp twenty lying on the counter.

“Nice,” I murmured to myself. “Unsupervised Saturday.”

I used to love being alone in my house. Our house always felt full, especially over the last year. Everyone seemed scared to leave me alone, but today being alone in my house felt like a clean bill of health.

I spent my morning trying out each of my mom's nail polishes and watching reality shows about hoarding and people staging interventions for others with drug addictions. Those shows were a giant time suck. Anything I did was a sad attempt at avoiding thoughts of last night.

These last couple weeks, I'd pushed him farther and farther away while keeping him barely in reach. Then last night, I really fucked up when I almost let Harvey kiss me. I felt weak and wanted to let him in. In the parking lot, it felt like we would be okay, like we
could
be okay. Under the night sky, everything looked so much better. So much more manageable.

The show went to a commercial break when the doorbell rang. My first instinct was to pretend like I wasn't home.

The doorbell rang again, then three times in quick succession. “Okay,” I called. “Cool it.” I looked through the peephole and saw Eric on my front porch. His messy hair flipped up around the edge of his beanie. He rubbed his hands together.

I cracked the door open. “Hey.”

“I didn't feel like waiting until tonight. You free now?”

Rather than respond, I waved him in with one hand and shut the door behind him. I'd forgotten about tonight and our supposed plans.

“God, it feels so good in here,” he said and then suddenly took notice of my bare legs. “Cute.”

I always felt like that word was an insult cloaked as a compliment, but I swallowed my annoyance and led the path to the living room.

“Cool,” he said, “I love this show. Have you seen the one where this guy saves all of his toenail clippings in mason jars? Crazy.”

“Gross.” At least we didn't talk about cancer. Actually, we never talked about cancer, and that was one of the things I liked best about Eric. “Sit down.”

He sat right next to me, half on my cushion and half on his. “I think I like you,” he said. It was more statement than confession.

I flipped through channels, trying to pretend like I hadn't heard him because I didn't know how to respond.

“So what's up with you and that Harvey guy?” he asked.

“Nothing at all.” I'd never been charitable with words.

“So, um . . . ,” said Eric, from the corner of my vision, and he actually looked a little nervous, which was alarming and endearing all at the same time. He slid closer to me until the bare skin of my thigh touched his jeans. He felt warm, and his closeness made my heart skip. I didn't feel butterflies or anything like that; he made my skin feel antsy, like I might jump out of myself.

“I'm going to do this, okay?”

He curled his arm around me so that his hand was on the small of my back, pulling me to him. He kissed my neck and unzipped my sweatshirt a little so his lips could travel farther down. A sigh escaped my lips. His kisses became more feverish as he unzipped even more of my hoodie. As he kissed my body, it occurred to me he had never kissed my lips. But the thought vanished as his mouth traveled up my neck to my lips and he kissed me deeply. The feel of him was a magnetic charge, humming my entire body to life.

For a moment, my thoughts shifted to Harvey and the way he was so carefully deliberate with me last night. How he'd taken it so slow—so slow we never reached our destination—and how he seemed so present for the moment, so ready to experience every single touch.

Pushing away my memories of Harvey, I shoved Eric's shoulder back and straddled his lap. This wasn't scary or complicated like being with Harvey. This didn't have to mean so much. He took my face in his hands while I tugged the hat from his head. His fingers moved through my short hair and down my back, bringing me closer to him. I needed his body to be seamlessly connected to mine, to feel something physical, without the anchor of emotion. I tugged his jacket off his shoulders and broke the connection between our lips while my lips concentrated on his jaw and neck, nibbling and kissing. He moaned into my ear, and the sound alone just about broke me in half.

“The doorbell's ringing,” he breathed.

“Ah, hang on,” I said. “Stay back here.” I zipped my hoodie all the way up to my neck.

Without thinking to check the peephole, I swung the door open to find a deliveryman jogging back to his truck and an overnight package addressed to my mom with the word C
ONFIDENTIAL
stamped across the overstuffed manila envelope. Probably something for work.

I tossed the package on my mom's desk in her office.

“Swank office.”

I turned to where Eric stood in the doorway. “I told you to stay in the living room.”

He shrugged.

“Come on,” I said, and tried to squeeze past him, but he didn't let me. Eric picked up exactly where he'd left off, pressing my body against the door.

He lifted me off the ground and I draped my legs around his waist. Carrying me back to the couch, he stumbled backward a little and we crashed down on the cushions. Our limbs were a tangled mess, and our kisses didn't feel quite as potent as they had before our interruption. But I was willing to work up to that. Coming up for air, I unzipped my hoodie completely and threw it somewhere behind me. Eric took in a sharp breath as he devoured the sight of me. I wasn't wearing a T-shirt, just a plain yellow cotton bra. I felt uncomfortable, though, but made a conscious effort not to cover myself with my arms. Just because I felt uncomfortable didn't mean I wanted to look like it.

The hunger in his eyes ignited my entire body.

Then the doorbell rang again. Eric sighed in frustration. A small piece of me—the piece that was smarter than the rest of me and knew that Eric was nothing more than a distraction—was a little relieved.

I jumped to get the door. With my hand on the knob, I realized I didn't have a shirt on. I darted back toward the living room and collided with Eric's chest. He threw his jacket around my shoulders and said, “I couldn't find your sweatshirt.”

Behind me, there was a very distinct sound, the sound of a key turning a lock. My stomach clenched and I felt queasy. Only two people rang the doorbell before entering with a key. The first person was Natalie, and the second person was Harvey. And I knew without a doubt that Natalie was not on the other side of that door.

“Fuck!” I whispered. “Shit, damn.” I turned to Eric. “Hide.
Now
.”

He looked confused, but obeyed, jogging toward the kitchen.

“Alice?” called Harvey. “Oh, there you are,” he said as his gaze swept to the side of the entryway where I was standing. “Listen, can we talk about last night? I feel kind of bad. We don't have to talk about . . . well, you know, but I figured I could at least make sure we were okay. Like, friends. I wish—”

He stopped, like his eyes had caught up with his mouth, and he finally noticed me standing there, my hands limp at my sides, in my bra, and with a jacket (that so obviously didn't belong to me) draped over my shoulders. Something clicked for him and he looked at me with flared nostrils before walking into the alcove off the entryway. He pulled down one of the blinds and saw the old Range Rover in the driveway. He had only seen Eric's car a couple of times at school, but I knew he recognized it.

It took another second before it all added up for him and he became the most furious version of himself I'd ever seen. “Seriously, Alice? You're kidding me, right?” His voice made the entire house quake as he stormed back to me.

I owe him nothing
, I told myself. I slid my arms through Eric's coat, wrapping it tightly around my rib cage.

“What are you thinking in that head of yours?” he asked, moving toward me.

I wanted to push him away, because the closer he got the more sharply his disappointment came into focus. But soon he would stop trying, and he would realize that I wasn't worth the heartache, and he'd move on to some other girl. I was both ready for and terrified by the inevitability of that moment.

“I can't do this anymore, Alice, this isn't fair. You know that. Don't pretend you're blind to it. I need you to choose.”

It was that feeling again, of being backed into a corner. I stayed silent for far too long, but Harvey waited. And he waited for nothing.

After minutes of thick quiet, he said, “No more, Alice. Good-bye.” Then he walked out the door.

“You said you two weren't anything,” said Eric from behind me. “That's not how people act when they're not anything.” He sounded a little let down, which surprised me. It hadn't occurred to me that Eric might feel something more than hormones for me.

“He's been in love with me forever.” I forced myself to keep my voice steady as I swallowed back tears. “But I don't feel the same way,” I lied, still facing the door. It was probably the most I had said to him since he'd gotten here earlier this afternoon.

I heard Eric moving behind me, and a minute later he appeared in front of me with his hat on and my sweatshirt in his hand. Without having to be asked, I shrugged out of his jacket and slipped on my sweatshirt.

He opened the door and said, “I'll see you Monday.”

As soon as the door closed, I locked the dead bolt behind him and crumpled to the floor.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers

Harvey.

Then.

A
week after the Luke incident, Alice told me I needed to get off work one Saturday night and tell my mom I was staying at Dennis's. At first I told her I couldn't do it. I didn't like lying to my mom, and I still felt pretty uneasy about this whole list thing, but when Alice told me where we were going, I couldn't say no to her—even if it was 100 percent trespassing. Which, I guess, was no surprise.

Alice sat in the passenger seat. “Lake Quasipi should be two exits down.”

“This is going to be awesome!” screamed Dennis from where he sat behind me.

I glanced to the rearview mirror to see Debora sitting next to her brother, biting her lip. She looked concerned. Our eyes met and she smiled for a second, raising her eyebrows. Debora was never very comfortable with breaking rules, so I couldn't really figure out why she'd made us bring her along.

We drove with the windows down, the heat blasting, and music crackling through my crappy speakers. I hadn't planned on inviting Dennis or Debora. But when I told Dennis about our plan to go to Lake Quasipi in the middle of December during the off season when the whole park would be closed to the public, he begged me to let him come with. Which was okay, except that Debora caught us leaving and said she'd tell if we didn't bring her with us.

We all had our perfect excuses. I told my mom I was spending the night at Dennis's, and Dennis told his mom he was spending the night with me. Debora told her mom she was staying with her friend Lucy to get ready for the Spring Academic Bowl. And Alice told her parents she was going to a basketball game and a slumber party with some girls from Miss P's—which was less believable, but cancer had bought her a few Get Out of Jail Free cards. Plus she'd been pretty okay the last two weeks. If it weren't for the lack of hair, I might have forgotten she was sick. Still, I was scared, and I think everyone else was too. But no one talked about it.

Dennis leaned forward with his upper body wedged between my and Alice's seats. “Where should we park?”

I turned my blinker on for the exit. “Uh, in the parking lot?” I looked to Alice.

She nodded.

We followed the signs for Lake Quasipi Family Amusement Park. Alice turned the music down, like we were going through some residential neighborhood and not a weaving two-lane road in the middle of the woods. The road led to the parking lot outside of the park gates. I expected us to have to climb over some sort of gate or maybe even sneak past a rent-a-cop, but there were no obvious security measures. Lake Quasipi was the oldest theme park in the state. None of the rides had ever been replaced, only maintained. There were roller coasters, but nothing huge. Some of the rides were even manual.

It actually made me feel better that Dennis and Debora had tagged along, because they never got in trouble, and if they were here, it felt physically impossible for us to get caught.

The four of us got out of the car, all bundled up in winter coats, hats, and scarves.

“What if there are cameras?” asked Debora, tugging down on her purple knit hat, which matched her gloves and scarf.

“We just have to be stealthy,” I said, “right, Alice?”

“Sure,” she said.

We walked up to the front gate, which was chained shut.

“I think we can all squeeze through that,” said Dennis.

“A camera!” screamed Debora, jumping back enough so she was out of its line of sight.

Okay, so there was a camera, but it was covered in cobwebs and probably hadn't worked since 1983.

Alice picked up a stone too small to be a rock but too big to be a pebble and threw it directly at the camera, knocking it down so that it only clung to the wall by its wires. “Not anymore.”

“Are you crazy?” hissed Debora. “That's vandalism!”

Dennis laughed, and I tried not to.

Alice turned back to Debora. “What? You thought you were going to come here and relive my childhood memories with me in the parking lot?” She squeezed through the fence and from the other side called, “Let's go!”

Debora huffed, but followed as we all filed in.

It was eerie. All the games were locked up, and there were no lights except for the moon and the stars and a little flashlight Dennis had been smart enough to bring. At times, Alice walked ahead of the three of us, scoping the place out, and it made me wish that it'd only been us.

The whole park had this colonial theme, with pastel houses that served as storefronts and little eateries and an old blue Ferris wheel. When we were kids, I thought this place was huge, like its own little country. But now all the doorways were too low and too narrow, the buildings didn't seem quite so big, and the Ferris wheel looked like it probably didn't meet any of the necessary safety regulations.

I ran ahead and caught up to Alice. “Is it anything like you remember?”

“Sort of,” she said. “More rundown.” She took a deep breath and held her side for a moment.

I hated seeing those little signs of her health slipping, and I knew she hated letting it show. But I've often wondered what was worse: being sick or watching it happen.

“We should climb the Ferris wheel!” said Dennis, running to catch up.

“No. No way,” said Debora, tripping behind him. “You would break your neck and die, and then everyone would know we were here and it would be your fault for breaking your neck and dying.”

Alice laughed. “I might like her.”

Debora rolled her eyes.

“I'm only here for the fucking teacups anyway,” said Alice. “This way.”

We followed her, and like everything else, the teacups were much smaller than I remembered. But, still, all four of us barely fit into one cup.

“This is an electric ride, guys,” said Dennis.

“The platform is, but it looks like you can spin the teacups yourself,” said Debora, motioning to the metal circle at the center of the cup. It looked like a little table.

Alice smiled at Debora, but stopped when she realized I'd caught her.

We used to get on this ride and spin as fast as we could. The person to scream
stop
first lost and had to do all the pedaling on the boats.

Dennis began to spin the disc. “You guys ready?”

We nodded.

All eight of our hands tripped over one another, trying to keep the teacup spinning as fast as it would take us. Alice, and even Debora, shrieked. My eyes couldn't keep up with anything except for Alice blurring at the edge of my vision. I wanted to lean over and kiss her. We were moving so fast that no one would have noticed, and Alice might not have even realized that it was on purpose. I slid over a little closer.

On my other side, Dennis screamed, “This is awesome!”

“Watch the sky!” said Alice.

I looked up.

I knew I would never travel through space or fly a plane, but sitting there with the girl I loved—there was no question about me loving her—and two of my oldest friends, the whole universe spinning around me, reminded me how big this world was and how small we were. In a hundred years, no one would know us, but this moment for us would last as long as we did. This. Right now, with traces of Alice coloring my view of the sky, would never be in a history book or a movie, but for as long as I could push air in and out of my chest, I would remember this moment that could never be measured.

I yelled. I howled at the moon and, for a few minutes, I forget about how I thought my life hinged on kissing Alice. I forgot about who my dad might be. I forgot about disappointing my mom. I forgot about everything that didn't fit inside of this moment.

“Stop! Stop!” yelled Alice.

I grasped the disc on either side, stilling us.

Alice sat up on her knees and leaned over the edge of the teacup. Her whole body shook as she coughed like a little kid who'd been crying for too long. She wiped her mouth. I put my arm around her shoulder.

Debora moved in closer to us.

“I feel sick,” moaned Alice.

“It's okay,” said Debora. Our eyes met from either side of Alice. “It'll get washed away by the rain. Just let it out.”

Dennis opened the little door to the teacup and ran down the exit ramp. “I'm sorry,” he said over his shoulder. “Other people vomiting makes me vomit too.”

She kept coughing, but nothing came out. Finally, she said, “Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm okay.” She turned around and sat back down, slumping in her seat. “Give me a minute.”

None of us said it out loud, but we knew it was the chemo. Alice's body had started to tell her what she could and couldn't do, and she had never responded well to limitations.

I unwound my scarf from my neck and handed it to her to wipe her face.

“Thanks,” she said and rested her head on my shoulder.

Debora scooted back a little and watched the patch of trees beside us that led out to Lake Quasipi.

“We should go home,” I said.

Alice sat up. “No,” she said. “No, I want to stay.”

So we did. We found Dennis not far from the teacups at a row of water fountains. Thankfully, the water was on, so Alice splashed her face a few times and took a few sips of water.

We ran out to the docks and played on the pedal boats until the chill of the water became too much. Then we went to the mini mine train and used the hand pumps to go through the tunnels.

When we were done, it was too late to drive back, so we spent the night in The Tunnel of Love, which was nothing but a really small indoor roller coaster with plywood cutouts of kissing couples. It was really dark, but it was warmer than it would have been outside. Each of the coaster cars were these oversized love seats with red, sparkly plastic upholstery and purple piping.

Dennis and Debora fell asleep first, but I couldn't sleep and neither could Alice. She crept over to my car, with her finger to her lips. Her breath smelled like spearmint chewing gum.

I opened my mouth to talk—to ask her if she was okay—but she covered my lips with her fingers and shook her head no.

Dennis's snores echoed down the tunnel from the back cart, and I could hear Debora a couple cars back, her breaths heavy and measured.

Alice left her fingers on my lips and leaned forward into my shoulder. She pulled the collar of my T-shirt aside, kissing my neck. I breathed into her fingers and kissed her fingerprints, hoping the proof of her would always stay there on my lips.

I let my hands work up her arms until my fingers found her neck, her face, pulling her to me.

And then we kissed. It was deep and slow, like a first kiss should be. Her mouth melting against mine. I had to stop my head from working because all it was doing was thinking about this moment—
Alice is kissing me. Alice is kissing me. I'm kissing Alice. I'm kissing Alice—
and not living in this moment. And I couldn't let myself ever forget this.

Alice slid down low in the cart, so I followed. She yanked her jacket off and mine too without ever pulling away from me.

I held her hips and waited for her to push my hands away as they ran up the back of her shirt and over the straps of her bra.

Her hands swept over my chest and down my stomach, while kissing my neck all the way up to my ear. The feel of her hands against my skin. And the thought of where those hands might go. I gasped.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Just kissing tonight.”

I fell asleep, with her curled into my chest and my chin resting on top of her head, scared for tomorrow because this was too perfect to last.

 

When I woke up in the morning, Alice sat in her own cart, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

“I'm starved,” yelled Dennis, his voice muffled, from the back of the tunnel.

Debora yawned. “Me too.”

The park looked different under the sunlight, a little bit sadder than it had the night before. Chipped paint, splintered wood, cracked sidewalks.

We piled up in the car and Alice insisted that Dennis take the front seat.

Every time I looked for Alice in the rearview mirror, she flicked her eyes off to the road and instead it was Debora whose gaze caught mine. We stopped for breakfast outside of town. There were few words, lots of yawns, and no regrets.