Dessert First (23 page)
Authors: Dean Gloster
E:
Can you be serious for a minute?
C:
Yes. As serious as death and heartbreak. But not this minute. This minute I want to be all virtual, where none of the pain of the real world can reach me. I just want to flirt with Skinnyboy, without leading him on to any discussion that's not G-rated. 'Cause I'm a flirt, not a tease.
E:
How about a friend? I think you count as a friend. You even sound like one of my friends.
Danger. Damn it.
C:
Skinnyboy has it wrong, but breaks Cipher's heart anyway. She can only exist virtually. As he tries to shove her into the real world, even in the wrong place, she is nearly destroyed. She does the only thing she can do. She disappears.
I logged off. Oh, crap. Was Evan figuring out I was Cipher?
I terminated Cipher's Facebook account out of panic, which I felt bad about, because before Drowningirl disappeared, Drowningirl used to occasionally post on that page. I still had Drowningirl's email address, though, and Facebook lets you reactivate a deleted account for thirty days.
The next day wasn't carpool, but Evan met me at my locker at the beginning of lunch, and I messed up the combination twice, trying to open it, while he distracted me with a butchered version of how he drove my friend Cipher off Facebook.
“Do you have her email?” he asked.
“You're asking me for another girl's email address?” I guess the movie pass in my birthday card was not a hint to take Evan to the movies. Also, I wanted to lay it on thick, separating Cipher from me in his mind. “Seriously?”
“Umm.” He looked worried. “Maybe?”
I gave up trying my locker combination. “I have it on the computer at home.” Also, in my brain, but I wasn't telling Evan that. “How about I send her
your
email address and tell her you want an email back, since you drove her off Facebook.”
“Thanks. Uh, Kat? Iâ”
“Sorry.” I cut him off. “I'm having a bad day. Like, beyond even my usual bad hair day. Maybe we could talk some other time.”
He looked at me, searchingly. “I'd like that.”
Apparently, after spacing out and ignoring me completely for an hour, Hunter eventually fell asleep and missed the end of his prom. He woke up and got evaluated during morning rounds before he figured out his “girlfriend” in California was unhappy about the dance. The day after the fiasco, Hunter sent me a pile of messages apologizing, and wanting to Skype. I was not, actually, in the mood. We could do it by text, I sent, and I was in hiding anyway, not being as photogenic as some girls he'd seenâa lot ofârecently.
So we texted back and forth and partly smoothed things over, and in the evening I finally emailed:
K:
How about, in the future, the one of us who's
not
on narcotics gets to plan outings?
H:
Fine. Your turn. What's our next date?
K:
Next? Date? I'll get back to you. I'm not in a planning mood right now. But we could browse the Victoria's Secret bra collection online, to remind you of our last one.
H:
Wasn't our last date. Will be more. I promise.
K:
Ha. Don't send checks your fatigue level can't cash. And I'd have to agree. Also, let's not count that disaster as our first date, 'cause it sucked.
H:
Of course not. Our first was exchanging sweet emails. About vomit.
K:
Really? You romantic devil.
H:
Yes. And dozens of movies we saw together.
K:
Sitting 3000 miles apart.
H:
See? âThe ultimate big screen experience.' Sorry about the dance. I screwed up. Will make it up to you somehow.
K:
Excellent! Now you have to live for decades, 'cause that'll take time.
H:
Great. Will work on it. (*Sends Kat a virtual kiss*)
K:
(*Sends back the taste of ice cream*)
H:
Yum. Why ice cream?
K:
Sweet
,
but a little cold right now. Bye, DBF. Type to you later.
Yeah, Hunter. Chew on that.
Re: Facebook and my friend Evan
Hey Cipherâ
My friend Evan thinks he accidentally drove you off Facebook. He asked for your email so he could un-drive you away. I told him I'd send you his email instead. Could you email him? He tried to say sorry to me for something last year after he mashed my heart, but I didn't let him, because I was so bruised, so I owe him one on the let-him-have-a-chance-to-say-sorry front. Also, he's a great guy, and my best friend, so could you go easy on him?
Kat
P.S. You'd totally think he was cute, in person, if that makes a difference.
Then I listed Evan's email address.
That was pretty clever. I didn't say
I
thought Evan was cute, just that Cipher would think so (same thing, of course). And I mentioned enough other stuff so, when “Cipher” forwarded the message with her cover note, Evan would know I'd mostly forgiven him for the year before and I appreciated his being my friend, without getting mushy. In person. Or directly. Which somehow I have a problem with.
A few hours later, as Cipher, I forwarded that to Evan with a cover email.
Hey, Skinnyboyâ
Your friend Kat says I should let you apologize. So get to it, and maybe I'll tell you the stipulations and limitations about communications. If any. Communications, that is. (*Her poisonous tentacles quiver in anticipation.*)
Cipher
Dear Cipherâ
I'm sorry if I drove you off Facebook. I promise not to pry anymore, if that's what you want. Can we be friends? Again?
Evan
Skinnyboyâ
*Sigh* Was hoping for at least one grovel, to show you missed me. (If I drove you off Facebook? Yes. You did. Do you see me on Facebook? No.) You're a guy, so even if you don't know what you did wrong, you should make a sincere, deep, abject apology, in general. Face it: You must have screwed up somewhere, sometime. This could be your make-up apology opportunity. So: Maybe. I'll think about it. But even if the answer's yes, we're having Rules. Which I'm busy coming up with.
Cipher (who might come up with mysterious Rules, because yes she is. Mysterious.)
Dear Cipherâ
I'm sorry. (*Grovel. Abject apology.*) And: You rule. Seriously, but mysteriously.
Evan
Skinnyboyâ
That's better. So, here are the Rules: (1) I'm not a real person, so you don't try to make me one, or confuse me with one you know. You don't push or pry or guess. (2) We get to talk and joke, even flirt, but we're not crossing lines into racy stuff like “send me a picture of your boobs” or even “what are you wearing?” Not happening. (3) Turns out, even my tangled swirl of poisonous tentacles can't protect my tender self. So if you break any of these rules, I disappear in a cloud of invisible ink. Immediately, forever, no coming back. Delete my Facebook account and never use this email again, which will be a huge pain in the poisonous stinger, because it's how I keep in touch with other people I know online. Also, no talk about being my boyfriend. I'm juggling enough already. Besides, with my poisonous tentacles, you should probably only date within your species, even online.
Tentacle hugs, Cipher
Cipherâ
I agree. But with the boyfriend thingâyou're allowed to change your mind later.
Your pal, Evan
Skinnyboyâ
Of course. I may be invisible, but I'm a girl invisible friend. I'm always allowed to change my mind.
Cipher
(*Whose tentacles just changed color mysteriously, because she's changeable, she is.*)
The Cipher emails with Evan got me thinking. Maybe I could insist on self-protection rules with Hunter, too. I tried that an hour later, when Hunter and I were emailing back and forth, this time about other girls.
K:
Believe me
.
Once your guy parts start working again, the appeal of the cute girls in the short cheerleader skirts will be clearer.
H:
You got it wrong. Also, cheerleaders are too coordinated to fall over themselves going after bald cancer guy.
K:
Trust me. I know how romantic you areâcute senior boy fighting cancer.
H:
Says the girl who captured her guy's heart with messages about barf. Figured you for a realist, not romantic.
K:
Ha. Goes to show what you know
.
Scratch a realist, and you find a scratched, hurting romantic. Plus, I'm a girl. We're allowed to be complicated.
H:
Another reason I love you.
That was the opening.
K:
We have new rules, shiny-head: (1) You don't get to use the “L” word with me except “I loved what you wrote.” Seriously. You're going to hurt me too much already. (2) No talk about us being together after you get well. It's a fantasy. I know you're just trying to keep up your morale, but it rips up my heart, a piece at a time. Got it?
H:
My girlfriend Kat
,
who talks her way past the 10
P.M.
no-call curfew, says silly rules are to be broken.
K:
(*Crossing my arms over my small chest to protect myself, but then realizing that won't help, so trying once more, by typing*) These are rules for my protection, DBF. So you don't tear my heart out. I mean, even more. You have to follow them.
H:
Or what? You'll disappear?
I waited to respond, so he might worry that I'd disappeared already, even though I wouldn't, then typed again.
K:
Don't hurt me more than you have to. Please. On your way out. Or your way back. Either way, I'll hurt a bunch. I do hurt. Okay?
H:
I'm sorry. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I wanted to not screw things up, but my brain barely works anymore, especially when I'm tired but pretending not to be. At least you know I'm not kissing other girls. With my ANC under 300, one little lip peck could kill me.
That's the one upside of a possibly dying boyfriend. Who needs trust when there's rhinoviruses and drug-resistant pneumonia?
K:
Yeah. Especially after all those girls kissed the same phone. You've got one giant cross-contaminated female germ colony over at your school now. Plusâyou forward one more picture a girl sends you of her nip slip, and maybe I'll kill you. Joking. I think. Stillâdon't be mean.
H:
You worry too much about girls at my school. Why?
K:
Oh, I don't know: A school full of girls who'd love to nurse you back to health, with large chests to use for that? Who sent you prom pictures of those chests? Gosh. No idea.
H:
You have a self-image problem. And too much imagination, thinking about other girls' breasts in my face. First, I've always preferred the streamlined, athletic types, like you. Second, remember the dying part in possibly DBF? So probably not an issue. They can't even shove those chest pillows into my face in the casket, 'cause I'm getting cremated.
K:
You type the nicest, sweetest things.
H:
Back at you, Sarcasm Angel. (*kisses the computer screen, so Kat will know I say this with love and affection.*)
K:
Argh. Someone is not reading my messages carefully. Or at all. Behave, or I'll tell Nurse Nancy to cut your morphine. Plus, don't kiss your computer screen. It's not hygienic.
H:
I read everything you write. Then go back and reread it with the other things you wrote. “Love and affection” means I love (among other things) what you write. Love (what you write) and xoxo, your DBF. Also, actual Love love.
Argh.
“So,” Hunter said casually the next night, while we were Skyping. “I've got a DNR order now.”
DNR means “do not resuscitate.” If heart or breathing stops, no chest compressions, electric paddles, or breathing machines to bring him back. I didn't say anything. It felt like the world's biggest chest compression hit me.
No. Not yet
.
“Your DBF is DNR.” He went on. He must have seen my reaction in the video window on his computer. “No, it's cool. Now if I hold my breath and an alarm goes off, there's no big fuss. So far, I don't miss the extra attention. You'll have to pay more attention to me to make up for itâlike maybe come out in person?”
I couldn't say anything. The words stuck in my throat.
“Really, it's okayâjust doing my part to save electricity.”
“I'm not ready for you to go.” My voice broke.
“I know.”
But he didn't say he wasn't ready.
Philosophy of Life Part 3:
The Role of Hope II: A Fire?
Hope isn't just a weed. It's also a pain. It burns, like the most caustic chemo through a drip that's already oozing and infected. Because hope comes with its evil twin: disappointment, the flip side of the spinning coin that sometimes comes up tails, once a kid has AML and a third course of chemo with no remission.
You fight anyway, like you play soccer when you're two goals down with a minute left. Not because you're probably going to win. But because there's at least some hope. Someone's going to come back three times from infections, from teetering right at the ragged edge of death. Into remission and into five years cancer-free and then a whole, long life.
Even when there's only a twenty percent chance of survival, someone will be that one in five kids who walks out of the hospital, leaning on a parent, hair starting to grow in again, stepping back, blinking, into the bright outside light of life.
Hope doesn't guarantee survival. I wish. Then they'd sell it, along with the silver helium-filled balloons, in the hospital gift store. But you use it, like you use the drugs and the radiation. Because that's the only way to play, when you're two goals down, without much time.
If you disagree, teachers, and complain I haven't provided two separate supporting evidence paragraphs, then it's
your
education that's incomplete. Spend a couple of months of your summer vacation at the ICU, whichâon a bad night in a bad weekâis a high-tech warehouse for the might-soon-be dead. You'll see how to play, two goals down, in life. Only then come back and hassle me about “needs citations for assertion.”
