Page 79 of Styx & Stones

Wah, wah, wah.

Alaska turns her attention to me and smiles. I stare at my girl and press my hand against the glass separating us, but I don’t hit the button to open the door.

It’s a blood infection, you pussy. She can’t catch it by being in the same room.

I know this. I’ve spent the last two days reading up on sepsis and all the ways I could put her at risk. The truth is, I can’t. Not unless I plug a needle in my arm and give her a blood transfusion, but I still feel like a ticking timebomb. I’m still afraid I’ll detonate, and she’ll be caught in the blast.

I stand outside her room, and watch her smile disappear completely. All the color drains from my face. I feel it. Just like I feel the weightlessness of my body as I stumble back from Alaska’s door.

“Styx? What are you doing out of bed?”

I turn toward Maggie, who’s watching me as if I’m the Unabomber, about to press the trigger. My heart rate soars, my head feels woozy, and I pitch forward, stumbling into her.

“I need a wheelchair here,” Maggie shouts to her colleague—the ball-busting nurse from last night.

I’m vaguely aware of them putting me into a chair and the breeze on my face as they rush me toward my room. They don’t even call for another nurse to come lift me onto my bed. I guess because I weigh next to nothing nowadays.

Alaska pounds on the window to my room as she screams my name. I lift my head to see her through the commotion. Her mom is trying to pull her away but our eyes lock. She presses her hand against the glass wall, the way I did just a few moments ago. Her face is twisted, tormented, and tortured with pain as tears stream down her cheeks.

Don’t let this be the last time we see each other. Please? Don’t let this be the end.

I pray to whatever god or entity who will listen. The truth is, I don’t believe in any of it anymore. Life is cruel. Alaska just had her skull cut open, my blood is trying to poison me, and I’m likely going to die without ever getting to kiss the girl I love goodbye.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

ALASKA

For an excruciatingthree hours, they wouldn’t let me near him. They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with him or if he was even okay. The Hendricks rushed into his room about thirty minutes after Styx’s fall, and ten minutes after that, they wheeled him downstairs to run more tests.

It’s close to four p.m. when Styx’s mom comes to tell me that he collapsed from exhaustion. He’s still so weak from the sepsis, and he hasn’t been resting—which is likely my fault. She doesn’t say that, of course, but she doesn’t have to. I know it just as well as she does.

The doctors come to visit me again. They’re moving me from the ICU to the children’s hospital just as soon as they can free up a room for me. I don’t want to leave, but I have no choice. I’m well enough to leave the ICU, but not well enough to go home, it seems. Our next chemo session is in four days, and they’re still not sure how to handle it, given puking up my guts will likely cause extra pain in my head and increase my risk of an aneurysm. So, for now, all I can do is wait. Wait to live, wait to die, and wait to find out whether Styx will ever make it out of this hospital.

It’s funny how the terminally ill spend so much time waiting, while death creeps closer every second.

Waiting fucking sucks.

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