Page 5 of Things I Wish I Said
Where’s a genie in a bottle when I need one? Screw three wishes, all I need is one.
Just one little wish and I can make the rest happen . . .
An idea sparks to life. I lift my head as a sudden rush of adrenaline spikes my veins.
Flinging open the desk drawer beside me, I rummage through all the junk I’ve accumulated over the years for the pamphlet I stashed there after the first and last Healing Community meeting I ever attended. Right now, when Mom thinks I’m at a meeting, I’m really just sitting in my car, staring out at one of the soccer fields I dominated since I was three years old, wishing with everything I have to go back in time, to before I was sick.
When the trifold pamphlet with a bright yellow star on the front catches my eye, I snatch it up. I have no idea what prompted me to take it when I was there. It’s not like I planned on using it. Maybe I took it because Wishing Well is a foundation catered to eighteen-year-olds through adulthood, and I was about to be eighteen at the time, so I knew much of my cancer journey would be completed as an adult.
Whatever the reason, I’m eternally grateful for the unexpected foresight.
I quickly open it up and skim the text, skipping over the foundation’s history, straight to the submission process.
I no longer qualify for the Make-A-Wish foundation, but I do qualify for this.
I wonder if they’ve ever had someone request a boyfriend before?
A dry laugh, more like a cackle, springs to life inside my chest as I jot down the submission email address, then read the instructions:
Complete the application on our site and give a brief summary of your wish, and why you or your nominee qualify.
Great. That can’t be too hard, right?
Except there’s no way they’re going to grant my wish.
Is giving someone a fake boyfriend even ethical? It’s not illegal, but it definitely gives ick.
And even if theydogrant my wish, it could take months—time I don’t have.
I purse my lips. This is stupid.
I start to shove the pamphlet back in the desk drawer, along with my only hope, before I growl and yank it back out. Since when am I a quitter?
Shot in the dark or not, if there’s even a chance they’ll hear my plea and grant my wish, I need to take it.
I have six weeks from now until the award ceremony. Six weeks to prove I have a boyfriend trustworthy of taking me on this trip.
I flick on the ancient PC sitting on my desk, waiting as the familiar whir of the monitor boots, then navigate to their website, complete the form, and attach it in an email along with my short request, using the subject line, TIME SENSITIVE.
I exhale, hovering over the send button, suddenly struck with the urge to ask for a little help from the big man upstairs. I’m not sure how much he listens to me these days since I only ever seem to call on him when I need help. Our relationship is definitely one-sided, but if there’s any chance he’s in the mood for granting prayers, I’ll take it.
I close my eyes, stumbling through a quick prayer before I blink them back open, and click the mouse, hoping that by some miracle, I’ll hear back before it’s too late.
Chapter two
GRAYSON
I accept the bluntpassed to me and take a hit before handing it back. I hold the smoke in my lungs for an impossible amount of time before exhaling. Beside me, Garret presses it between his lips, then drops his pants and begins to piss all over the No Loitering sign.
I roll my eyes. I’ve had half a handle of vodka and you don’t see me pissing on the scenery, but when Garret gets fucked up, his destructive side comes out and urinating on a sign is the least of my worries. The broken glass door of the abandoned Citgo and the graffiti he haphazardly scrawled all over the brick exterior would be a little more concerning if the old camera on the telephone pole was working.
I shift my attention to the sleek black Mazda pulling up beside Dustin while his right-hand man, Jaydon, stands at the other end of the lot, keeping watch.
The passenger window rolls down, a few words are exchanged, and then money and drugs are switching hands. I don’t need to be standing beside Dustin to know he’s handedthem something stronger than the grass Garret and I are smoking. Most of his clients have money like me. But unlike me, they’re the kind of rich that like to have something a little stronger at their parties than booze and Mary Jane. It’s either pills or cocaine he’s dealing.
I watch as the passenger drops his head, checking out his wares before nodding. The window rolls up, and I wonder how long he’ll wait before he’s cutting a line and snorting it up his nose. Probably won’t even make it down the street.
Dustin and Jaydon are only halfway across the lot when a loudbleepfollowed by a burst of red and blue lights flicker over the empty lot. “Fucking pigs!” Jaydon screams.
