Invincible (9 page)

I brace myself for Stella to say something horrible but it doesn't come. She's lost inside herself, somewhere infected and hot.

“Where is that goddamned wheelchair?” Moskowitz curses, and that's when I start crying. Even she is scared. Moskowitz is never scared.

“Stella?” I say.

The sliding doors open and Mr. Burns, the medical assistant, finally arrives with Stella's wheelchair. He and Nurse Moskowitz help her into it and cover us both with blankets. As they push us to the elevators, Moskowitz continues to berate us. “I can't believe you got Caleb mixed up in this with you. You know that poor boy would do anything you asked him.”

We get into the elevator and she presses the button for the fifth floor. “And Evie, that you of all people would do this. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Don't blame Evie,” Stella mumbles through her haze.

“Especially with Stella being neutropenic,” Moskowitz continues. “She has virtually no immune system right now. Do you have any idea how dangerous it was for her to leave the hospital?”

My heart drops. “What? Stella, you didn't tell me that. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I have leukemia,” she says flatly. “‘No Immune System' is my middle name.”

It's my fault. Stella did this for me. She caught something while we were out and it's all because of me.

“Mr. Burns,” Nurse Moskowitz says when we get to the fifth floor, “please help Evie back to her room and ask Nurse Jill to help get her back in bed. I'll take care of Stella.”

“Yes ma'am,” he says, and starts pushing me away. I turn my head to watch Stella as Moskowitz wheels her in the other direction toward her room. She looks smaller than I've ever seen her, empty somehow. She raises her head and for a split second the light comes back in her eyes. She winks at me and I mouth
I'm sorry
, but she shakes her head. So I mouth
Thank you
instead, and she nods, satisfied.

I turn the corner into my room and Stella disappears from view. My hand tightens around the CD she made me, perfect and solid in my lap.

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HarperCollins Publishers

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“I BROUGHT YOU A BAGEL,” KASEY SAYS AS SHE LOWERS herself into the chair next to my bed. She places the paper-wrapped bagel on my bedside table, and the smell of garlic and herb cream cheese makes me nauseous. Not because I'm sick. Not because of my body. Because of the pale, tired light barely making it through the window. Because Kasey's skin is still somehow tan.

“Thanks,” I say.

“God, I can't believe what you guys did last night,” she says. “Your parents told me all about it on the way here. They were so worried about you.”

“I feel really bad about that,” I say, and I mean it. After everything they've gone through. After everything they've already suffered because of me.

“It was really stupid, Evie.”

“I know.” Like I need one more person to tell me that.

“Do you know what's going to happen to you yet?”

“My parents and Stella's are talking to Dr. Jacobs and the hospital director right now.”

“They should kick that girl out of here.”

Did she really just say that? “
That girl
has leukemia. I think it might go against the Hippocratic Oath or something if they kicked her out.”

“Whatever,” Kasey says, and I kind of want to throw the bagel at her head.

“I'm not really hungry right now,” I say, pushing it away from me. She doesn't seem to hear me. She's looking at the bagel ravenously. “Do you want it?” I ask.

“Oh, no,” she says, breaking out of her trance. “I'm on a diet.”

“You look hungry.”

“I'm fine.”

“You're too skinny.”

“Really?” Her face brightens. “You think so?”

I forgot that in the outside world, that's supposed to be a compliment.

I decide to change the subject. “So what's happening? How are things going with that guy?”

“Pretty good. You know.”

No, actually, I don't. I don't know anything except that he goes to Skyline High School and she met him at a party and it's awkward for her to talk to me about it because I'll be dead soon.

She's looking at her pink polished nails. “Did you get a manicure?” I say.

“Huh?” She looks up. “Oh, yeah. Some of the girls from the squad got together last night at Taylor's and did our nails and facials and stuff. Lisa did mine. She did an okay job, but there's a spec of something on this one.”

“That sounds fun,” I say, but it doesn't. Compared to what I did last night, it doesn't sound fun at all. Normally, I would have loved a night like that. Before I got so sick, there's nothing I would have rather done than sit around with a bunch of girls, green goop on our faces, excited about my pores getting opened, excited to talk about boys, about school, about so many innocuous things, back when happiness was so easy, when it was just there all the time, hovering around us, waiting to be picked like fruit.

“Oh, Evie,” Kasey says. “I wish you could have been there.”

“Me too.”

She shakes her head. “I shouldn't have told you.”

“Why not?”

“It must be terrible for you to hear about the fun stuff I do without you.”

I shrug. Maybe I should be upset. Maybe I should be jealous and heartbroken and yearning to be back in that world with her. But right now I'm too busy worrying about Stella. I'm worried about her getting weaker. I'm worried about what's going to happen to us for last night, what kind of punishment we have in store.

I want my morphine back.

“What's going on with you?” Kasey says.

“What do you mean?”

“It's like every time I see you, you're further away. And now you run off with that girl in the middle of the night, when you're so sick, when everything is so . . . fragile? It's not like you, Evie.”

“It was eight o'clock, not the middle of the night,” I say. “And all we did was walk around the neighborhood. I'm sick of being in here. I'm tired.” My default line. No one can argue with a cancer kid who says she's tired.

So we say nothing. We sit there staring at the bagel neither of us is going to eat. There was a time not too long ago when we could talk on the phone for hours and never run out of things to say. Now we struggle to have a conversation longer than five minutes. And soon we won't be able to have a conversation at all.

“Hey, bitches!” Stella's voice breaks the silence, and I take a big breath of relief. Even Kasey looks grateful for the diversion, and I know she can't stand Stella.

Stella's in the doorway with Caleb behind her. But she's in a wheelchair. Stella's never in a wheelchair. At least she's still wearing real clothes and her signature red lipstick. But even all that color isn't enough to hide how frail she is, how unlike herself.

“Like my new ride?” she says.

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“Hi, Kasey,” Caleb says.

“Hi, Caleb.” Then, after a pause, like she has to talk herself into saying it: “Hi, Stella.”

“Pep Squad,” Stella says. “So good to see you.”

Kasey doesn't try to hide her suspicion.

“Let's get Evie into her chariot.”

Caleb gets one of the medical assistants to help me into a wheelchair. It's not nearly as difficult as it has been. I woke up this morning and it felt like my arms suddenly decided they have muscles; I'm actually able to help hoist myself up out of bed. But that's not all of it. It's like last night changed something even deeper, like everything inside me has been turned upside down, or like the balance of the universe is off somehow. Whatever it is, I am not the same person.

“Girl, you're a machine,” Stella says.

“Yeah,” agrees Caleb. “You look really strong today.”

Kasey looks at them, and then at me, trying to see what they saw so easily.

As Kasey and Caleb roll us into the hallway, I whisper to Stella, “Have you heard anything?”

“Nope.”

“They're still in there?”

“Yep.”

“God, what could they be talking about?”

“Probably how they're going to give us extra cancer as punishment.”

“At least Dan's with them, though. Right? He'll be on our side.”

“I hope so.”

“Did you hear from Cole? Did he get away all right?”

“He's fine.”

“What are you guys whispering about?” Kasey says.

“Nothing,” we say in unison.

We pass by five-year-old Shanti's room. She's been in and out of here her whole life with sickle cell anemia. Her door is open and we can see her tiny figure wrapped up in blankets, attached to a bag of blood.

“Hey, Evie,” Kasey says in a thin, desperate voice. “Remember that time we toilet-papered David Halloway's house in fifth grade? And your mom made us go over there and apologize and clean it up?”

“Yeah?” I say.

“That was hilarious,” she says, but her voice trails off almost before she finishes.

“That sounds really funny,” Caleb says, and I wish I had some of his sweetness right now. I wish I could at least try.

We pass eleven-year-old Leo's room. He just got out of the surgery that removed his right arm below the elbow. On the other side of the curtain is his roommate Jonathan, four years old and here for his first round of chemo.

And now we've reached the end of the hall. We're face-to-face with a too-cheerful painting of monkeys hanging from a tree under a smiling sun. There's nothing to do but turn around.

“We could go down to the teen lounge,” Caleb says. “They're doing crafts in there right now.”

Stella sighs as Caleb and Kasey face our chairs the other way. “Remember my hair, Evie?” Stella says.

“Yeah. You could have sold it for someone's cancer wig,” I say, and we all laugh at the irony. Everyone except Kasey.

“I stored all my power in my hair,” Stella says dreamily. I only now notice something off about her, something slow and hazy. She has the pain-meds look. She has the look of being half-gone. “Now I keep all my power in my hat.”

“It's a good place for it,” I say.

“But you can take a hat off,” she says, and I know there's some hidden meaning there, but I don't want to think about what it is.

“So where do we want to go?” Caleb says. “Cafeteria? Teen lounge?”

“Or how about the teen lounge?” Stella says. “Or maybe the cafeteria?”

This is a joke we say multiple times a day. It has never been funny.

“Let's race,” I say. “Whoever makes it to the nurses' station first wins.”

“Now you're talking,” Stella says.

“I don't know,” says Caleb.

“Are you crazy?” Kasey says behind me. I almost forgot she was there.

“Come on,” Stella says. “Live a little.” Another cancer ward joke that is not funny.

“No,” says Kasey.

“Okay,” Caleb says. “But we can't go too fast.”

“Three out of four is a good start,” Stella says. “Pep Squad, what do we have to do to convince you?”

“No,” Kasey says again. She steps out from behind my wheelchair and faces me, furious. “I'm not doing it. You could get hurt.”

“It doesn't matter,” I say, with a laugh in my voice that is much crueler than it should be. “We're already in a hospital.”

She practically stamps her foot. “I'm not going to help you be so reckless. You have to be careful. Your leg. It's fragile.” Her voice is shaking; her hands are fists by her side; her eyes are full of fear. I forgot she's not like us; she can't laugh this world away. She's still holding on. She still thinks there's some way for us to control it.

“I'm sorry,” I say, taking Kasey's hand and squeezing it. She relaxes a little. “No racing. You're right.”

“Thank you,” she says. We hold each other's eyes for a moment and our shared past comes rushing back to me. It fills me up with a warm, thick sadness, and I realize I miss Kasey. I miss us. Even though she'll never be able to fully understand the Cancer Kid world, she was my world for far longer than I'll spend in here.

Stella starts coughing. Deep, cavernous coughs that shake her whole body.

“Stella?” Caleb says.

Stella shudders so hard that her hat falls off, revealing her pale, bald scalp. She stretches her neck, mouth opening and closing, gasping for air, tendons straining. She is a baby bird, shivering, featherless.

“Nurse!” Caleb calls. He shuffles as fast as he can to the nurses' station.

Kasey picks Stella's hat off the floor and places it gently on her head. She puts her hands on Stella's thin shoulders, says, “Shh.” She wraps her arms around her and holds her as her body quakes. The kindness of this kills me and I start to cry. My beautiful girls. I reach for them but they are so far away.

Caleb comes back with the nurse on duty. She's new and we don't know her. She is all business. It shouldn't be her. It should be someone who loves us. Dan should be here. Even Moskowitz would be better.

“Excuse me,” the nurse says, using her hip to push Kasey out from behind Stella's wheelchair. “Dr. Bernstein is on her way. I've got to get Miss Hsu back to her room.” She wheels Stella away from us, her shoes squeaking in double-time. I want to run after them. I want to do something. But all I can do is sit in my chair, watching as Stella's bony back disappears down the hall, listening to her cough rattle the walls.

“Oh my god,” Kasey says. I am crushing her hand in mine.

“It's going to be okay,” Caleb says. “It's going to be okay.” But none of us believe him.

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