Page 1 of Styx & Stones

PROLOGUE

STYX

Cancer sucks.

And then you die.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to go.

Only sometimes, fate likes to screw with you. It makes you hold on just long enough to lure you into thinking that you’re gonna make it, that you won’t lose the most important things to you—like your epic collection ofRolling Stonemagazines dating back thirty years. Like family, your youth, or your sense of self. Like the girl who walked into my chemo session and stole my heart.

Stones was unlike any teen I’d ever met.

We thought we had forever.

We were wrong.

Sounds like some fucked upRomeo and Julietshit, right?

Only it wasn’t the Capulets and Montagues trying to keep us apart.

It was life. It was cancer.

This isn’t one of those poor-me-I’ve-got-cancer books. It’s a race against the Grim Reaper. It’s a fucked-up fairytale—if Prince Charming was a cynical, bratty eighteen-year-old ... who dies.

Oops! Spoiler alert.

You might not want to get too attached. But don’t feel bad, because despite making my grand exit at the tender age of eighteen, I lived.

If nothing else.

I lived.










CHAPTER ONE

STYX