“Shit, Becca, what do you want me to say? I don’t know what to do.”
I stood with my backpack weighing me down as Becca and I said nothing. Finally, she broke the silence. “Sorry. I guess cancer has turned me into a bitch.”
“At least you have an excuse.” I smiled. “Let me know what happens tomorrow. Try to focus on your upcoming nuptials.”
“I will.” She broke a smile.
We said good-bye, and I left Becca’s house, the guilt of the healthy friend weighing more heavily on my shoulders than the backpack.
CHAPTER 22
SCHOOL FELT LIKE an impediment to actual life. Tests, homework, fucking gym class. Did any of it really matter? I spent much of the day staring at Becca’s list. What if I died tomorrow? Would my life have been fulfilling? Would I have regrets? Would any of my thoughts or feelings matter once I died? Therefore, did anything that I did now matter?
I ran into Leo at my lunch hour, and he asked if I was still coming over that night. I told him yes, and as we parted ways I wondered why I didn’t feel more excited. I liked Leo a lot, but something about turning a fantasy into a real person took away the excitement, the sexy mystery. At the same time, Leo managed to surpass many of my fantasies with an even more satisfying reality. Is that all that mattered anymore? Satisfaction? Immediacy? One moment of pleasure to eclipse the mundane, the horrific, the tragic? I didn’t know what I wanted. Nothing felt important, not my current life, my future, my death.
Becca texted me near the end of the day.
Done w shit for a week. Maybe back at school next week. We can make out in the book closet.
Instantly my mood changed. I never knew what to expect from Becca’s cancer treatment. It seemed like a lot of up and down, sick and normal, Regular Becca and Cancer Becca. If she were to be at school next week, it would mean jokes in the hall and instant updates on ridiculously unimportant things. Things that weren’t worth typing into an email or holding for our Skype conversations. Toilet paper on shoes and whose hand grazed someone’s ass in gym or who farted in AP Spanish. Laughter at lunch and looks in the hall that spoke louder than words. That’s what I was missing from my life. Even alive, cancer took away my best friend.
AJ, Mom, and CJ were playing Jenga in the kitchen when I got home from school. “Whoa,” I pronounced. “Am I in the right house?” I looked around suspiciously.
“We wanted to show Mom how expert we are,” AJ explained.
“They’ve been playing at lunch in the school library,” Mom bragged, the pride of her boys spending lunchtime in a library too great not to share.
“I remember that from middle school. Is Ms. Nelson still the librarian?” I asked, sitting at the table, careful not to knock it.
“Yeah. She’s hilarious when we play Scattergories.”
“Yes! We used to play that, too. And a lot of Guess Who for some reason.” I missed that. The games. The innocence. Me and Becca in middle school.
CJ wiggled his finger into a precarious slot near the bottom of the Jenga tower and artfully slid out a block.
“Very nice move,” I commended him.
“Thanks. You want to try?”
“Sure.” I stood for better leverage and selected an easy target at the top of the tower. As I shimmied the block out of its hole, my hand twitched and the top half of the tower crumbled to the table.
“Jenga!” Mom yelled, with her hands thrown into the air. We all looked at her. “What? Aren’t I supposed to yell that when it falls?”
AJ, CJ, and I looked at one another with eye-rolling glances and busted out laughing.
“I’m so glad I amuse you.” My mom smirked. “So, pizza okay for dinner?” She stood and opened the menu drawer. AJ and CJ were all over it, but I had to decline.
“I have plans,” was all I offered.
“Yes?” Mom goaded.
“I’m going to a friend’s house to watch the Basket Case movies. He’s never seen them.”
“He?” Mom caught the slip instantly.
“Yes, Mom. There are boys who like horror movies, too. It’s fascinating.”
“I’m sure it is. Does this boy have a name?”
“Leo Dietz.”
“So he has the same name as the boy you saw a movie with last week. Friday nights. Movies. If I weren’t a confused old lady, I’d say it sounds like you’re dating.”
“It’s called hooking up, Mom,” CJ corrected her.
“You are both wrong, and promise me you’ll never say those words again, CJ. Especially if it ever involves you.”
“Then what is he?” Mom tried to hide a smile.
“I don’t know. Why does it matter? We’re not running away and getting married or anything.”
“That’s called eloping,” CJ interjected.
“Have you been watching Lifetime or something?” I chided.
“He likes those movies where Tori Spelling gets stalked,” AJ pointed out.
“Shut up.” CJ punched AJ’s chest.
“You shut up,” AJ retaliated, and in an instant they were on the kitchen floor, on top of each other.
“Is that a scene reenactment?” I asked over their screaming.
Twin boy legs flailed, and a clatter of Jenga tiles rained down on top of them. “Enough!” my mom cried, and while she attempted to pry the gangly pair apart, I made my hasty exit, running upstairs to grab the Basket Case movies and calling “Good-bye!” as I escaped out the front door.
When I got to Leo’s, his parents were in the front hall getting ready to leave. I was early, and I hadn’t anticipated the dreaded meeting of the parents. I put on my most pleasant girl face, the one that says “I’m just a friend and your son will not be impregnating me this evening.”
“So nice to meet you, Alex. Wish I could say we’ve heard a lot about you, but Leo doesn’t talk to us much.” Leo’s mom was tall and polished, with his same dark, coppery hair. She wasn’t overly friendly, and I wasn’t sure if I actually liked her. Not that it mattered. Friends’ parents were always at the bottom of the list of people I needed to like. Or like me back. As long as it didn’t get in the way of said friendship, neutral territory was fine.
Leo’s dad didn’t say anything, but he shook my hand when Leo introduced me. “This is Alex,” was what Leo said. I was relieved he didn’t precede it with “my girlfriend.” They left soon after I arrived, and Leo and I did the awkward dance of what now in his front hall. I looked at the framed pictures his parents had along the wall. Gapped-tooth school pictures, family vacations on mountainsides, and military portraits of who I assumed was Leo’s brother, Jason, covered the walls.
“He looks like you,” I noted about Jason.
“Yeah. Except the halo over his head.” Leo sounded peeved.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know, every family has one kid who’s perfect and one kid who’s a fuckup. He’s not the fuckup.”
“I don’t think every family has to be that way. Like, what about families with more than two kids?”
“They’re lucky. The perfection and fucked-up-ness get distributed more evenly. Way less pressure.”
I mulled over this theory and chalked it up to baggage I wasn’t in the mood to delve into.
“I brought the movies.” I held up the DVDs to change the subject.
