Side Effects May Vary

I turned around and crossed my arms, mirroring her, as I leaned up against the sink. I wanted to say something equally low, like how it must be really nice for Luke to be dating someone his own size. But I didn’t and it was Harvey’s fault. He was the closest thing I had to a damn conscience. “What do you want, Celeste?”

“All I want is for you to feel welcome. It’s cute how people are so excited to have you back.” She took two steps closer to me. “They don’t know what I know. The cancer might be gone, but the bitch isn’t.”

I’d met Eric under the bleachers in the gym after my run-in with Celeste. I’d never seen him before. He looked as though he hadn’t been to class in weeks, if not months. A few copies of SPIN magazine sat piled up beside him, like he’d set up a little home there. He was playing a game of solitaire and chewing on sunflower seeds, spitting the shells on the floor for the janitors to clean up.

When I saw him there, I almost told him to leave because I intended to stay there until May. But before I did, he sprang up from his spot on the floor. He wore jeans tucked into combat boots and a black T-shirt. He looked older than most students, and I wondered if he was even a student at all. On the floor next to his pile of magazines were an olive green army jacket and a bright red scarf.

“Hey,” he said after looking me over, like he was trying to figure out if I posed a threat. He must have decided he was more interested than threatened because then he spread his arms out, displaying his little area. “Looking for a place to hide?”

“Yeah, I really am.” I pulled my red knit beret off my sparsely haired scalp as a warning: damaged goods approaching.

He didn’t flinch. I liked that.

After I sat down, I expected him to ask me about my wisps of hair, but he just offered a handful of sunflower seeds.

“I like to suck the salt off of them and that’s it. They’d be a waste on me,” I said.

He was unperturbed. “So suck the salt off and give them to me. I just care about the seeds.”

Normally, this would gross me out, but I had a feeling we’d be sharing germs before long anyway. Eric rolled over on his stomach, holding his face up by his knuckles, like a little boy watching Saturday morning cartoons.

“First day of school?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. You?”

“Nah. Started two weeks ago.”

And for the first time ever, I was the new kid. I didn’t ask any more questions and neither did he because I don’t think either of us was all that interested in answers.

We hung out for the rest of the day, under the bleachers. At lunchtime he treated me to a vending-machine buffet. My beret stayed on the floor all day, and when I shivered, he tossed me his jacket, which was big enough to use as a blanket. Without asking to, he put on my bright red beret, like we were even, and we continued our game of Go Fish. By the end of the day, Eric must have thought we were at the point in our relationship where we would trade “Daddy doesn’t love me” stories, because he asked me out of the blue, “Who are you hiding from, little girl?”

“The boogeyman. Go fish.”

Alice. Then.

After Christmas, I started school a week later than everyone else because of my second round of chemo. It felt pointless to keep going, but my parents didn’t seem to think so. Besides teachers and administration, no one had known I was sick. But when I came back to school without a head of hair, my health was no longer a private matter. There were whispers and questions, which at first I’d ignored, but then I figured the fastest way to stop the whispers was to answer the questions.

Within a week, I was Hughley High’s poster child for cancer. People offering to stand in line for me at lunch or carry my bag to and from classes became a regular occurrence. I usually declined, unless it was Harvey doing the offering.

I didn’t know how to explain it, and only the doctors seemed to understand, but my body always ached, and for the pain I was prescribed Tramadol. I wasn’t allowed to carry it on school grounds, so Miss Shelly, the school nurse, always held my stash for me and let me hang out in her office for as long as it took to shake off the dizziness brought on by the meds.

Today, I skipped out on English lit in favor of the nurse’s office because I couldn’t take the echoing sting my body felt every time I moved. Miss Shelly doled out my meds and set me up on the cot farthest from the door with the curtain pulled shut in front of me.

“Do you need anything else for now?” asked Miss Shelly.

I shook my head, my eyes closed.

“There’s a cup of water and some crackers on the counter if you need them.” The curtain rings scraped against the metal rod. “I’m going to run down to the teachers’ lounge for lunch and a slice of Mr. Welston’s birthday cake. I won’t be long.”

My brain told my head to nod, but I didn’t feel the motion of it. Drifting, my mind went places I wished my body could follow.