Side Effects May Vary

I stood in front of the bathroom sink, splashing water on my face. I’d spent the entire previous day puking up every piece of food I’d ever so much as looked at. The prospect of Christmas Eve felt better, as long as the nausea didn’t kill me.

Pushing my hair back to put it half up, I ran my fingers through to the ends to find a clump of hair in my fist. I’d noticed it before, in the shower and in my brush, but this was the most at one time. I dropped the hair into the sink, wishing I could count the strands. I closed the lid to the toilet and plopped down.

I’d never been all that vain.

Okay, that was a lie. But I’d never had to try with my looks. They just were.

Tucking my knees into my chest, I pulled on another small patch of hair, just to see if maybe it was a fluke. A drill. I loosened my fingers and let the strands fall to the ground, hitting the white tiles of the bathroom floor.

I was fine.

I was absolutely fine until I realized the last person who had played with my hair had been Luke. And I would never put my hair into a sleek dancer’s bun again. I had this certainty about death, and, for me, there was never a possibility of it growing back. I knew it the way most people expect they’ll wake up in the morning.

“You all right?” called my mom through the door. “Everyone’s ready for pictures.”

“Just a minute,” I said, my voice a little shaky.

I pulled my fingers through my hair once more and a fistful of hair fell into the sink.

My mom knocked on the door. “Alice?”

I turned the thumb lock, unlocking the door, and the minute it clicked she twisted the knob. She looked me over once before noticing the hair in the sink and the loose strands on my shirt. Reaching for me, she tucked me beneath her arm. I was too tired to pull away. She spoke to me in a soothing language only she and I knew. For that moment, her lies dissolved and I melted into her side. She held me, as though the sheer force of her could keep me on this earth.

The next day, we shaved my hair in the kitchen with the brand-new electric razor my mom had bought my dad for Christmas.

There were no family pictures that year.

Alice. Now.

Harvey was pissed at me. I really didn’t care, though. My first day of school was horrible, even worse than I’d expected. And Harvey’s feelings weren’t at the top of my list right now. He was livid the entire way home, making sharp jerking turns and shifting his foot between the brakes and the gas.

When he pulled into my driveway, he didn’t even cut the engine to come inside like usual. He sat there with his hands on the wheel, drumming his long fingers. I leaned across the center console and gave him a kiss on the cheek. That was exactly what I needed to keep Harvey in reach. Not too close, but still in my line of sight.

My mom watched from the porch.

“You’re home late,” she observed as she followed me into the house.

“Yeah, lost track of time.”

“I see. Got home a minute ago—court was shit today. I knew I wasn’t going to make it in time to pick you up.”

I doubted court was the only reason she was held up. How’s your boyfriend, Mom? I’d carried this knowledge of her with me for so long that it had become as much a part of me as the cancer had. And now when I saw her, I saw nothing else.

“It was very nice of Harvey to drive you home.” My mother was impatient by nature, and her job always showcased the worst sides of people, so she wasn’t very forthcoming when it came to caring for others. But she loved Harvey. In the eyes of my dear mother, Harvey hung the moon. Hell, he was the moon. “Why didn’t you invite him in?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Why didn’t you invite him in?”

“Drop the attitude, Alice.” She thumbed through her box of teas and pulled out two different individually wrapped tea bags. “After school teatime. Lavender or hazel?” she asked, holding them up.

“Neither,” I said. “Hot chocolate.”

She closed the tea box.

“With extra marshmallows,” I added.

When our bags of grainy powder had turned into steaming mugs of cocoa, she sat down next to me at the kitchen table.

“Talk to me.”

Talking. It’s something we used to do all the time, just talk. I’d tell her all about school and dance and even Celeste. Two summers ago, when I was headed to tenth grade, we even talked about going for birth control soon. I told my mom over and over again that Luke and I weren’t having sex, but she insisted that we take the precaution and that I could always be honest with her.

“How was it?”

Horrendous. “Nothing to report.”

“Anyone give you a hard time?”

“Not really.” Lie.

“And Celeste?” she asked.

“Didn’t see her.” Another lie.

“Girls can be barbarians. But you know that—you are one.”

“A girl or a barbarian?”

“Both.” She paused. “I talked to Natalie on my way to work this morning. She’s not doing any spring-break camps at the studio this year. She was thinking maybe the five of us could go on a little mini vacation. What do you think? I mean, if you’re still feeling okay.”