Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,22
stars above me, a blanket. The thick grass beneath me, pillows. Every inch of me smells of burning wood and of Leo. Tiny thrills run through me as I never want to smell of anyone else ever again.
It’s very late at night. So late that I can almost taste the dew of dawn on the tip of my tongue. I typically love sunrises, but I never want this sun to rise. This is the night that needs to last forever. Tomorrow, today, Leo leaves.
Leo and I sit on his open and laid-flat sleeping bag, watching the dying fire. We sit tight, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. The air is heavy with moisture, warm from the summer, yet has the coolness of night. On our legs is the thin blanket I brought. My eyes are heavy from exhaustion, but there’s no way I’m giving in to my body’s urge for sleep. My desire to be with Leo is much stronger.
The only other downfall of the evening is my headache. It’s an ache that keeps growing in intensity, but I do my best to ignore it. My brain is not going to ruin my last moments with Leo. But for the first time tonight, a spike of pain blasts through my skull. My hands shoot up, and I cradle my head.
“You okay?” Leo asks.
I force my hands down. “Yes.”
Leo pops his knuckles, inches away from me and won’t look me in the eye. My stomach sinks. Leo’s nervous and it’s over my pain. That’s the one thing I would change about Leo if I could—he gets awkward whenever anything with my head is brought to attention.
I watch the fire and give Leo time to get over whatever goes on in his mind whenever my head aches. Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long for Leo to reclaim his spot. When his bare skin touches mine, I close my eyes as I shiver with happiness.
“Can I ask you something?” Leo says.
Anything. “Sure.”
“What’s it like to have a brain tumor?”
My eyes snap open. Anything. He could have asked me anything, but he had to ask me that? Disappointment feels a lot like anger as I fall back onto the sleeping bag. I rub my eyes as they’re watering. I could say it’s from the bonfire smoke, but it’s not. Leo, like always, breaks my heart.
I clear my throat, and when I finally peel my hands off my face, I find Leo lying on his side watching me. I don’t know what it is Leo wants me to say. Besides doctors, he’s one of the few people who know about my tumor and he knows all that anyone needs to know. Like bullet points, if I were to write about my tumor in my English journal:
• I have a brain tumor.
• It’s small and, since finding it, it has never grown.
• According to the doctors it’s “harmless.”
• It does give me migraines, but due to the location of the tumor, the doctors feel that surgery or any other course of treatment is a risk they aren’t willing to take at the moment.
• Our course of treatment is called “watchful waiting,” which means annual MRI scans.
“My head hurts at times,” I finally answer and do my best to sound lighthearted, “but other than that, I don’t know it’s there.”
Leo looks past me and into the night. His eyes are red, remnants of the many beers he had earlier this evening. “That’s not what I mean. Do you wonder if what happened to your mom will happen to…”
Me.
Leo trails off and it’s like he stabbed me with a knife. The pain in my chest is worse than the one in my head.
“Yes,” I say as a hoarse whisper. “I wonder.”
My mother’s tumor was malignant. Mine is benign. My mother died, and I’m still alive. The wound of her loss is still fresh, and I don’t like discussing her tumor or how she died. I swallow to help the tightening of my throat. “But I also know that what happened to Mom won’t happen to me.”
I won’t allow it.
“Because your tumor is different?” Leo asks.
Is mine different? “Yes.” Is that why it won’t happen to me? No.
Before Mom died we had very long talks. Deep discussions about her choices, my choices and how I was free to choose the same path or a different path from hers if my tumor changed from something benign to something disastrous.
My mom’s demise was long and torturous. In return for more time,