Side Effects May Vary

I tried not to think about that because this moment felt perfect. Her lying here, next to me, her body curving into mine. It was perfect except that she was dying and I was living and I didn’t know how we could do both at the same time.

She had these good days every once in a while, and those were bold-faced lies that I fell for every time. Last week she had three good days and two the week before. The closer we got to what Alice affectionately referred to as her “expiration date” the more I was fooled into believing all of this wasn’t real.

I knew that I should have left so she could turn the TV off and get some rest, but I was selfish. I wanted every moment. When Alice was gone, she was going to take a giant Alice-shaped chunk out of me and it would go with her, wherever it was that she was going. I was scared to think what might be inside that chunk of me. Whatever it was—our past, our present, our never-going-to-come-true future—would die with her. Everything about the situation made me manic. But when the girl you loved was dying, it was hard not to let yourself go with her.

I shut out Alice’s wheezing breaths and pretended that she was 98.6 degrees and healthy. I watched the movie all the way through the end of the credits and well on into the copyright info. Finally, the TV stereo began to buzz and I knew it was time to go home. Normally, I would have turned off the TV and snuck out of her room. Instead, I sat there next to her in her little twin bed. Her hipbones protruded through the blanket while her chest rose and fell with each jagged breath. Medicine on her nightstand was stacked high like a fortified city. The huge box of tissues too. For a little while Alice was getting these insane nosebleeds, and she would sit around for hours with a tissue stuffed up each nostril. But those had petered out and tonight she was just congested, I guessed. Or maybe this was the next step down in her declining health.

I closed my eyes and we were old and wrinkly, sitting side by side, watching reruns of Wheel of Fortune or something.

Shadows passed beneath her bedroom door. Alice’s mom, Bernie (short for Bernice), walked down the hallway, talking on the phone in a hushed voice. “It’s not a good time.” Pause. “She’s already asleep, Mom.” Pause. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Bernie’s family lived on the other side of the country, and as far as I knew, Bernie didn’t mind. She hung up the phone and a few minutes later she and Alice’s dad, Martin, flicked the hallway lights on and off, talking loudly about going to bed. A little show to let me know it was time to go home even though they would never come in and actually tell me to leave.

I swung my feet off the bed and tied the dirty laces on my sneakers. I got up and immediately sat back down and did something I had never done before. I woke up Alice to say good-bye because these bad nights reminded me that we only had so many nights left. When I squeezed her bony shoulder, she moaned in protest. Her lips were dry and cracked, the sound barely escaping her mouth. I dipped my head down next to her ear, my cheek pressed against her bare skull.

“Alice,” I breathed. The buzzing TV cast a blue light over her. “Alice, don’t leave, okay? I’ll come here every day, just don’t leave.” A single tear cut a path down my cheek, and I wiped it away before it felt real. This seemed like good-bye, not good night.

But then she opened her eyes. “Hi.”

I tried to smile.

“That movie sucked.”

I laughed. “Yeah. It sort of did.”

Her eyes crinkled a little and her lips curved upward, like she’d remembered something funny from a time that wasn’t now. “I’ll miss you most, Harvey.” She sat up on her elbows. “I don’t know what it will feel like after, but I know I’ll miss you most.”

We’d gone through so much shit together, but this was the first time she’d ever told me that I was important. And that I mattered to her. I wanted this. I wanted to keep it forever. But you don’t ever get what you want how you want it.

I cleared my throat. “Alice, I—”

“Don’t.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Save that for someone who’s not about to bite it.”

I nodded. I loved Alice. It was so obvious that I didn’t even need to say so out loud. I stood and opened her bedroom door.

“Harvey,” she said.

I turned.

“Me too.”

Alice. Now.

Before I could stop myself, I reached for my hair, my fingers smoothing over my naked scalp. Gone, it was all gone. Even now, over a year later, it still came as a shock. I did this several times a day, like clockwork. It was a phantom limb, my hair.

My oncologist for the last year or so, Dr. Meredith, bustled through his office door. Noise from the hallway bled through for a moment before the door shut behind him, sealing us in. My mom drummed her fingers on her leg, a nervous habit. Dad reached over and took her hand in his, absorbing her tension.