Page 46 of Styx & Stones

I pull myself over the threshold, wincing when my body hits the floor with a thud. I pause for a beat to listen for my mom, but her terrible singing echoes down the hall. I push up onto my elbows, but I’m slammed right back down when Styx lands on top of me.

The wind is knocked from my lungs, and thank God, because I’d probably tear him a new one if I had the voice to speak.

“Shit, sorry.” He rolls off me. I take shallow half-breaths until my lungs will allow them to deepen. “I thought you would have moved out of the way.”

“No, jackass. I didn’t have time,” I whisper. “It’s not every day I have to climb in my freaking window with this pathetically weak chemo body. It took all the strength I had just to climb out of it last night.”

He turns his head towards me and whispers, “Please tell me there’s a back way out of here?”

I roll my eyes, rise, and grab my overnight bag from the closet, then empty out the paint supplies as quietly as I can onto the bed. I throw my meds, clothing, underwear, shoes, and several sterile dressing kits for my PICC line into my bag, and hoist it on my shoulder.Safety first. Then I remember my goddamn brain cells and go back for my makeup essentials: gloss, concealer, foundation, mascara, and my Kat Von D Tattoo Liner. The tip is so damn sharp I may be able to stab Styx with it if he annoys me on this trip.

I toss in my favorite black nail polish too, just in case I have to touch up. Or use it to paint his face while he sleeps.Payback for crushing me under his weight.

He shakes his head like I’m a total girl, and I shoo him toward the window. At the last second, I eye my chemo blanket—a hideous pastel pink and blue faux-mink blanket with rainbows and ice creams, and which is only redeemed by the black bats, grim reapers, and crooked tombstones that readRIP. My friends gifted it to me before chemo, back when they were friends who didn’t treat me like my cancer was contagious. I debate leaving it behind—hell, I even debate calling them and telling them to come with—but I wad it up in my bag and toss it out the window to Styx who’s waiting on the stairs below. Then I climb through the window, and gently ease it closed behind me.

The descent is faster than the ascent, but the soles of my feet still sting with the impact when I jump from the portico column to the stairs. Once we’re on the sidewalk, I smile at Styx.

“Last chance to back out,” he says.

I tilt my chin defiantly. “Not on your life, loner.”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here before anyone realizes I’m stealing you away.”

“Still scared of my dad, huh?”

“Terrified.” He grins and hefts the bag high on his shoulder. We run across the street, and I let out a “whoop” when Styx starts the truck and we peel away from the curb.

I pull out my phone and hit Live on my Insta story. “What’s up, Addicts? Okay, so it was totallyMission Impossiblekind of stuff, but we did it. We snuck into my house, grabbed my things, and escaped without the mom monster being any the wiser. No thanks to loner boy, who practically crushed me to death when he came in the window.” I angle the camera toward Styx.

“Hey, how the hell was I to know you hadn’t moved?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe guess that I’m not an athlete and therefore have some idea that I’d be recovering on my floor after leaping through my window.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a leap; you flailed for a good long while there.”

“You suck. So we’re currently stuck on the 101 in traffic leaving SF, but we have tunes—mine, of course, because Styx would likely make me listen to Led Zeppelin the whole way.”

“Hey, Led Zeppelin were the founding forefathers of hard rock. Don’t knock the Zeppelin.”

I roll my eyes. “We’re gonna make a stop for snacks, right? You can’t have a road trip without snacks.”

“Of course.”

“Styx is a little freaked that my dad is still going to come after us.”

“Thanks for going public with that shit, Stones,” he mutters. “I don’t look like a pussy at all.”

I poke my tongue out at him. “Our parents are going to kill both of us,” I tell the camera. “But hey, it saves the cancer from doing it, right?”

Styx smiles. “Right.”

I chuckle and sign off, promising to update my followers as any new developments arise, but as much as social media has been my life for the last few years, it’s not everything. Being here with loner boy, feeling freedom thrum through my veins, the butterflies in my belly as Styx grins at me, and the feel of his lips on mine? Those things are everything.

***

We stop at a dinerin a place called Davenport for lunch. It overlooks the water along the coast. It isn’t until we sit down that I realize something I should have thought of long ago. “Styx?”

He doesn’t look up from his menu. “Yeah?”

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