Page 2 of Styx & Stones

Balls.

This is balls. I sit in the front seat and stare at the hospital entrance.

Fucking balls.

I’m a kid. We’re supposed to do stupid shit, cut school, drink, do drugs, go to parties, have sex, get felt up in a theater, maybe feel up someone else in a theater, and make thoughtless, spur-of-the-moment decisions.

We’re supposed to outlive our parents.

We don’t die at seventeen. Cancer doesn’t kill us; middle age does. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

Reality is different.

Reality is sitting in a fucking chemo center while a frumpy nurse jabs a tube in your port and pumps your body full of poison to kill the cancer currently eating away at your insides.

Reality is watching your mom and dad argue over money when they think you’re asleep because they can’t afford the roof over your head and the medication that’s supposed to keep you alive.

Reality is walking into school and everyone knowing, everyone staring at you like you’re a pariah, or worse—believing cancer’s contagious.

Reality is puking up your guts for two days straight after a chemical cocktail.

Reality. Is. Fucking. Balls.

Luckily for me, I don’t dwell much on reality. Not when I was given the all clear at twelve, not when I just had time to grow my hair out again into kickass, flowing locks that I refused to brush no matter how my mom begged. And I definitely didn’t dwell when cancer came back again.

“You ready?” Mom switches off the engine and grabs her oversized purse. These days, it’s full of pills, contraptions, paperwork, and a defibrillator. Okay, she’s not really carrying a defibrillator, but she may as well be.

I glance at the entrance again, wishing I didn’t have to go in there, and silently cursing the cancer for not killing me the last time around. “Why don’t you go surprise Dad at work?”

“What?”

“This isn’t my first time. You’ll be fidgeting like you always do and it will drive me nuts. I’ll snap, and you’ll cry, and think you can fix me by grabbing snacks from the vending machine. Let’s just skip all that. Go see Dad at work, hang out like you used to when I was a normal kid.”

“Your dad and I are separated, Styx, and you are a nor—”

I hold up my hand to halt her words. “We both know I’m not normal. I’m dying.”

“Don’t say that,” Mom hisses. “Don’t you ever say that.”

“We’re all dying. Some of us just quicker than others.”

Mom’s almost gray hair is pulled back in a bun so severe it looks like it hurts. The lines on her face deepen as she frowns. She’s too thin, has permanent bags under her eyes, and a pinched look about her that she never used to have. She’s only forty-two, but my cancer has ravaged her body almost as much as mine.

She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving you in there by yourself.”

“Yes, you are.” I grab her face and kiss her cheek. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Her wide-eyed expression tells me she can’t remember either. I climb out of the car and grab my messenger bag full ofRolling Stoneand snacks that I know I won’t eat. “I got a stack of magazines, and Carissa will take good care of me.”

“No.”

“It’s not open for debate. I can’t fucking stand you hovering. I can’t”—I inhale and exhale slowly so I won’t lose it and say something I’ll regret—“you can’t be there. Go see Dad, and the two of you can cry it out or screw or whatever it is old people do when they’re alone, but I’m doing chemo on my own from now on.”

“You’re seventeen years old, Styx.”

“Yeah, and you gotta let me live sometime.” I shake my head and tap my hands on the car. “Don’t make this harder than it is.”

“Fine. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to sit right here until you’re done, and if you need anything at all, you call me.”

“I won’t.”

---