Hallie
Saturday, June 5, 11:11 p.m.
My eyes are fixed on the small sliver of moon in the starry sky as the bus heads down the highway toward Los Angeles at a steady sixty-five miles per hour. I’m physically exhausted, and by all accounts, I should be sleeping, but now that I’m alone, the silence is deafening, and my mind is on hyperdrive.
The bus is freezing cold, and the guy next to me fell asleep and is precariously close to leaning on my shoulder. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt Jack bought me and lean my head against the window. I breathe against the glass. It fogs, and I draw an upside-down happy face in the condensation. I feel a pang of missing Jack, which is weird because we’ve only just met. I mean, sort of; not really. Being with him was the perfect distraction.
Without him here and being in constant motion, the reality that Owen is gone is finally sinking in. It’s surreal.
Owen is dead. Owen died. Owen no longer exists.
My eyes well with tears. I dab them with the cuff of my sweatshirt. It’s impossible to imagine he’s not on the planet and that I’ll never speak to him again. Of all the kids I’ve met on the message board these past two years, he and I connected in a different way than the others. He was probably my closest friend. He helped me find the light in the darkness. I’ll miss his optimism and his twisted sense of humor. Having someone who understood me on so many levels was everything.
People say they understand, but they don’t. They don’t know what it’s like to be a teenager and not be able to do all the stuff your friends do because you feel weak or nauseous, to be watching numbers and checking levels and getting invasive tests and taking pills that make you feel worse than the illness itself. To be terrified to let yourself care about anyone and leave yourself vulnerable. Once they find out I have cancer, let alone see the scars on my stomach and soon potentially on my chest, it inevitably gets uncomfortable.
My hand reflexively reaches for my bracelet to rub the words on the metal band, my reminder to be strong and believe in myself, but I only find the skin of my wrist. The bracelet must have worked its way up my sleeve. I dig higher, but it’s not there. It must have fallen off somewhere. A momentary feeling of panic sets in, but then the thought occurs to me that maybe it’s time. It’s not enough to merely say alis volat propriis without living it.
It’s time to take the training wheels off the bike. Something has to shift. Happily ever after isn’t the sort of thing that’s just going to happen to me; I have to go out there and make it happen.
I have cancer, but it’s up to me if I let it control my life or define me. It always has been. Attitude is key. I can’t count on Owen or my parents or Jack or anyone else to make me feel okay about everything; I have to find that inside myself. While I’m here, I want to focus on enjoying as many days between as I can get instead of dwelling on what bookends them.
The guy next to me starts snoring loudly and wakes himself up. He adjusts in his seat, and I’m grateful for the extra two inches of space it creates.
I close my eyes and try to get comfortable. I’m still a long way from home. I’m hoping my parents will already be gone when I get back. Sunday mornings are super busy at the Pancake Shack. I’ll have all day to think about what I want to say.
The motion of the bus lulls me to sleep, and the next time I open my eyes, the bus is pulling into the station in Los Angeles. I reorient myself, stretch, and collect my things, following the other passengers into the terminal. Everything is exactly as it had been the night before when I’d been there with Jack, except the faces have changed. I look over at the spot where we’d been sitting when he invited me to go with him. The seat is now occupied by a woman knitting a really ugly scarf. Raisinets Guy has moved on, and Tuxedo Guy must have found a ride. The older lady and her granddaughter are no longer stretched out on the bench where we’d been at first. It seems like I’ve been gone forever, but it’s only been a little over twenty-four hours, and in that time so much has changed.
I’ve changed.
The rideshare drops me in front of my house sometime just before six. I don’t see my dad’s car in the driveway, so that’s a good sign. I put my key in the lock and quietly close the door behind me so I don’t wake Dylan; he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut.
As I tiptoe down the hall to my room, the door to my parents’ bedroom opens, and my mother comes out, still in her pajamas. We are both startled. She clutches her hand to her chest.
“Hallie! You scared me to death. What are you doing home so early? Is everything okay?” A concerned look crosses her face. She reaches for my arm.
My whole body is pins and needles from the adrenaline of having been caught without time to prepare. I say the first thing I can think of. “Yeah, Lainie wasn’t feeling well, so she drove me home.” I feel awful for looking her in the eye and lying to her, especially while wearing an I Heart SF sweatshirt.
“So early? Gosh—you look exhausted. Did you guys stay up all night?” She doesn’t even question any of it. That’s how much she trusts that I would never keep something from her.
“Yeah. She has some sort of stomach virus, I think, so I was up trying to—um, help her.” I try to change the subject. “How come you’re here? Don’t you have to be at work?”
“Dad is holding down the fort. I wasn’t feeling well last night either, so I thought I’d play it safe. I wouldn’t want to get the customers sick. He brought Dyl with him to bus tables, so he should be alright. Gosh, I hope you don’t get whatever Lainie is coming down with. Or whatever I’ve got. Clearly stuff is going around. Make sure you pop some Vitamin C today.”
“Yeah.”
I freeze. I can’t think of what to say next. She’s worried I’ll catch Lainie’s imaginary virus. She has no idea it is so beyond that, and I feel myself cracking wide open. I break eye contact, and that’s all she needs for her mom radar to kick in.
“Hallie? What’s going on?”
It builds inside of me until it can no longer be contained, and then I completely lose it right there in the hallway. Mom’s arms are around me in two seconds, and I’m certain if she weren’t holding me so tightly, I’d fall straight to the floor. She strokes my hair and makes little shushing noises like she used to when I was little, and I fold into her.
Wordlessly, she makes us a cup of tea, and we climb into her bed side by side. I tell her everything: the phone call on Friday, Owen’s post, taking the money from her tin, and my spontaneous trip with Jack to San Francisco. I find myself minimizing the Jack part, keeping the focus on going to see Owen unsuccessfully and coming home, as if Jack were a relatively unimportant part of the story. Mostly, I’m trying to convince myself, because if I get started talking about him, it will only make me miss him. I may never see him again anyway, so what’s the point?
When I’m finished, tears are streaming down both our faces. I tell her I’m scared. Mom leans her head against mine, takes my hand, and squeezes it in her own.
“You’ve already given up so much and are working so hard. I’m so sorry,” I sob into her neck.
“There is nothing to be sorry for. There is nothing we’ve given up that would ever be worth more than you being healthy, and that’s never going to change. We’ll figure it out.” She curls my hair behind my ear and kisses me gently on my forehead.
We talk for a while more about the call from the doctor’s office and my appointment Monday, and then finally she circles back to my trip to San Francisco. I was foolish to think I’d get off that easily.
“What were you thinking? Do you realize how dangerous that could have been, driving off with two strangers hundreds of miles from home without telling anyone where you’d gone? Who is this boy? And to visit yet another that you don’t even know without having any emotional support in place to deal with what you might find when you get there?” And then she notices my tattoo, and her mouth falls open.
“I know. You have every right to be upset with me,” I tell her.
“Honestly, I’m more upset that you lied to us or that you felt like you had to.” She looks so hurt. It makes me feel even more awful than I already do.
“I felt like if you knew everything, you would stand in my way. Find a reason to talk me out of it based on fear. These last few years, I’ve been living my life under a microscope. Nothing feels like it belongs only to me or like I have final say. But I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“I know that. But I’m always going to worry that you and your brother are warm enough when it’s cold outside, that you’ve gotten enough to eat, that you have a roof over your head, that you’re happy and healthy, because I’m your mom. You can’t expect me to turn that off like a light switch just because you’re suddenly eighteen.”
“I know.” And I do. I understand. She’ll probably still be telling me to take a sweater when I go out when I’m forty.
“I mean—am I upset? Yes. Do I think this was smart? No. But whatever pushed you there, and in this way, you had your reasons, and we have to accept that. But I don’t want you to ever think you can’t be honest with us, even if we don’t like it.” She squeezes my hand again.
It’s great that she’s being so surprisingly cool about this, because it’s exactly what I need, but at the same time, it’s almost worse. “I really am sorry.”
“For which part?”
“What do you mean?” I look at her curiously. She’s got this unsettling smile. What was all that literally two seconds ago about accepting that I had reasons? “I said I was sorry a bunch of times. I meant it. I’m sorry for lying and for thinking that by keeping the truth from you and Dad, I was protecting you somehow.”
“That’s not what I mean. Are you sorry you went? Was it at least worth it?”
My mouth hangs open—I’m unsure how to answer. Mom goes on, “Because the girl I know spends every day holed up in her room with the blinds drawn like it’s a cave. This same girl used to talk excitedly about wanting to travel the world collecting stones and making beautiful jewelry, would pirouette in the kitchen and could move a room to tears with her poetry and her art and in the next breath have them laughing. And suddenly she never wanted to leave her room. It’s like she got sick and placed herself in a self-imposed prison afterward she refused to be drawn out from.”
“It’s seriously creeping me out that you’re speaking about me in the third person. I’m right here.”
She laughs. “My point is—I hope it was worth it, because believe it or not, I’m glad that you found something powerful enough to make you leave that room. I’m glad you gave yourself permission to engage with the world. I’ve wanted that for you for a long time. I hope you found something out there that makes you want to keep coming out of that room, because nothing is going to change if you just stay in there feeling sorry for yourself. This too shall pass. You have a whole life ahead of you to see and do and be whoever and whatever you want. I want you to believe that. Not just because I’m telling you—because you truly understand that.”
I don’t say anything. She cups my chin gently in her hand and turns my face to look at hers. “I know you’re scared, especially because your friend died, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to. This is just something you have to deal with in your life, but you have, and you will. You are strong. And most of all, you are not in this alone.”
“Dad’s gonna be upset that I took off like that,” I say, anticipating he won’t take it as well as she has. When my father gets scared, he gets angry. He acts the exact opposite of what he’s feeling. I am already dreading the conversation we’ll have when he gets home, but I’ve earned it.
“I’m sure he will be, but it’s only because he loves you. If you speak to him from your heart the way you’ve spoken with me, he’ll understand where you’re coming from.” She runs her fingers gently up and down my arm from my elbow to my shoulder and back again. She notices the tattoo on my wrist again and lifts my arm, taking a closer look. “So you got a tattoo.”
I nod. I don’t regret it. For a moment I think she’s going to get upset about it, but then she smiles and says, “It’s pretty.”
“Thanks.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A little.”
She leans her head against mine. “Everything will be okay.”
I want to believe her. I close my eyes. I’m still listening, but I can’t keep them open a second longer. I’m completely spent. The pillow is so soft, and the blanket is so perfectly warm, and Mom stroking my arm like that makes me melt into the bed the same way it’s done since I was little. After a few minutes, she gently shifts position, extricating her arm from mine. The mattress creaks and gives as she stands.
I feel like I should answer her question, that I owe her that much.
I call out to her groggily, “Mom?”
She turns around. “Mmmm?”
“It was totally worth it.”
She smiles. “I’m glad.”