Side Effects May Vary

I had seen Harvey at school, but I hadn’t talked to him since last week when I told him I’d been diagnosed. In the last year, his obnoxiously curly hair had relaxed into waves, but his face would always have that permanently sleepy look to it. His thin, muscular build had finally stretched past my five foot nine by at least two or three inches. When we were kids, Harvey used to say we were going to get married, as if it was predetermined, like the color of your eyes. “Not going to happen,” I would say. “You’re shorter than me, and girls can’t marry boys shorter than them.”

When I told him, last week, that I had leukemia, it was the first time that the cancer had belonged to me, the first time the news was mine to share. His optimism broke me, but I didn’t have time to be broken.

“Yeah, why aren’t you in school right now?” he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

I guess he wasn’t impressed when I phoned the school claiming to be Natalie and said that there was a family emergency. The good boy that he was, Harvey had turned his phone off during school hours, so I went about getting him out of class the old-fashioned way. After turning his phone on, he would have found this text from me: CALL ME. And call me he did, but amused he was not.

“Faked sick. Told my parents I didn’t feel well. They propped me up on pillows with stacks of magazines, Sprite, and a bag of mini marshmallows.”

“Seems a little callous, Al, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean callous?”

“You just found out you have leukemia, and you lied to your parents about being sick. I think they’re on edge enough as it is without you lying to them so you can skip school.”

In light of recent developments, I could see his point. “I hadn’t thought of that.” And really I hadn’t. Technically, I hadn’t lied. I had leukemia, therefore I was eternally unwell. I only took advantage of my circumstances, but still, a small bit of guilt twisted in my stomach.

I’d stayed home for two reasons. One, to snoop around my mom’s office, which yielded no evidence of her cheating. And two, I needed time to gather my thoughts. Since being diagnosed, no one had left me alone, and I just wanted one day. Dad had been home twice to grab “some stuff” he’d forgotten. I knew he was here to check on me, and him not saying so irked me.

“I needed the house to myself.”

I scooted my chair closer to Harvey. Animosity seeped through his roll-with-the-punches exterior. Turning into him, I pressed my full body against his side and placed a hand on his thigh. His resolve crumbled beneath my touch and his whole body tensed. I loved the way this control over him made me feel. The feeling scared me, but not enough to do anything about it, because now all I felt was assurance and purpose.

“I need your help.” I told him with my hand still on his thigh.

He watched my hand. “With what?”

“I’m sick. You know that. And because of that, there are some things I need to do, and I need to know that you’ll be there to help me when the time comes.”

“What do you mean, things?”

I shrugged.

“What do you mean, like, a bucket list?”

“Well, I guess you could call it that, but I think Just Dying To-Do List has a better ring to it.”

“No,” said Harvey, his voice solid. “Those are for old retired people.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, shaking his head; my hand fell away. After a moment, he threw his arms up and said, “God, what the hell, Al? This is so screwed up. You don’t talk to me for a year and now—no, this is ridiculous.”

He didn’t get it yet. He didn’t get that the blood inside of my body was revolting against me. He hadn’t been there for the cold sweats in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t have to go through chemo so that he could be infused with the very thing that was killing him. I had to make him understand this, for me. “Harvey, what about ‘I have leukemia’ don’t you get? I mean, maybe we should all have a list. You could get hit by a car tomorrow and die a virgin.”

“How would you know if I’m a—?”

“Harvey.”

He looked the other way, out the window above the sink.

“Harvey, if I . . . if I die and you don’t help me with this, you will always regret it. Doing these things with you, that’s part of my list in a way.” I bit down on my lip. “Maybe there are some things that you want to do with me that are on your list, ya know?”

He sat in silence, watching his fingers, woven together in his lap. “What’s on the list?” he asked, his voice low and scratchy.

“I can’t tell you.”

He laughed to himself in a sad way and rubbed his eyes. “You want me to help you with a list of things you won’t disclose to me.” He leaned forward and bit the skin around his thumb. “Classic.”

“I would tell you on a need-to-know basis.”

Writing down a list and showing it to Harvey made this thing more tangible and more of a commitment.

“This isn’t going to be, like, riding a horse bareback down the beach type of shit, is it?”