she gave in to a life stuck in bed in the hospital. It’s what my dad wanted. It’s what he begged her to do. It’s what he would expect me to do, and I don’t want it. Not now. Not ever.
I’m not an idiot. I’m quite aware that seeing my mother’s ghost may signal a change in my tumor, but then again, does it? Our house is haunted. Like Lucy, when I was younger, I also saw a child in the first-floor bedroom. For years, I’ve heard the footsteps, the cries, and the laughter.
My mother loved me, and she loved my dad. Is it too much of a stretch to think she’d stick around to make sure that the loves of her life are okay?
Besides seeing Mom, there have been no other changes. My headaches and migraines are the same. There have been no other physical signs or symptoms from the telltale list I memorized since being diagnosed at eleven: dizziness, tingling, problems with sight, numbness or seizures.
If I tell Dad about Mom, I’ll be in a hospital so fast I’ll suffer from whiplash. Dad will quit his job, he’ll watch me twenty-four/seven and he’ll ruin both of our lives. And then I’ll be just like Mom—I’ll die in a hospital, filled with every possible poison to fight the cancer.
My next MRI is in June. If my tumor has grown, Dad will find out then, but I have almost a year between now and then to live life completely.
“The only reason this world has anything redeemable in it is because of you,” Leo says. “Promise you’ll never stop being you, V.”
“As long as you promise to not forget me while you’re away.”
“I could never forget you.” But his eyes are sad, as if he’s already grieving me—because he’s leaving, because when he looks at me he only sees my tumor and my impending death.
“I don’t care for a lot of people,” Leo says softly, with an expression that I must misread. One that suggests, as his eyes linger on my lips, that he’d like to kiss me. I’d love for him to kiss me, but what I’d really love is for him to love me. “But I care for you.”
Cares. Not loves, but the way he looks at me, as if I’m the most desirable girl in the world, softens the blow.
We’ve done it—kissed before. It’s a game Leo and I have played many times over the years, and each time the rules keep changing. He leans in, kisses me, my heart explodes and then he runs. Far and fast. Making us friends again until he, once more, takes a risk on me.
Leo reaches over and his fingers graze my cheek. Just a whisper of a movement that causes my heart to stutter. Kiss me, Leo. Please, kiss me.
But he rips his gaze away, sits back up again and his face hardens as he stares at the fire. I’m left cold and empty.
“Maybe, next year, when you leave town and go to college,” he sputters out, and while his words don’t make sense, I understand what’s happening. He’s running again. “… maybe you’ll go to my college … maybe…”
“Maybe,” I whisper.
“I hate that you’re sick.”
He had given me the gift of his touch then snatched it back so quickly that he left an emotional scrape. “I’m not sick.” Not as long as I don’t tell Dad and end up weak and puking in a hospital bed.
“You know what I mean. I hate your tumor.”
Me, too, and I hate that it keeps him from loving me. I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t have a tumor or if I had the presence of mind in middle school, way before I fell for Leo, to never have told him about the foreign entity in my brain. Would we be kissing right now? Would I have lost my virginity to him? Would we have gone to dances together and have pictures of each other up on our bedroom walls of us locked in an embrace? Would he be currently holding my hand, holding me close, whispering that he loves me?
But I did tell him and that was the right thing to do. It would be unfair and selfish of me to allow someone to fall in love with me when my forever won’t last nearly as long as theirs. And once they know the truth, no one in their right mind would fall in love with someone like me, and