Ryan convenes us all for lunch, his need for order overruling Luis’s plan to play it by ear. At the food court we split off to different places, coming back to crowd around a table meant for four.
My body feels the strain of the day as I drape myself over a chair, melting into the hard plastic like it’s a pillow top mattress. I let out a groan, pushing back a few strands of hair that have escaped their clip. I haven’t done this much physical activity in months. Exhaustion wraps around me like a blanket, tucking me in as if to say This adventure is now over, back to the couch. No one ever talks about how when you’re sick, moving sometimes feels like the air is made of pudding and your limbs may get stuck or even fail to push through.
Ryan comes up with his tray. “You mind?” he asks when he takes the seat across from me. I want to ask how he knows to ask that, because any seat to the side of me is always hard for me. My neck doesn’t move very well, so whatever conversations happen around me—they’re a bit more difficult. Best to be head-on.
I shift in my seat. I’m not going to read into this. Not one bit. No matter what Veronica said. Ryan and I have just spent too much time together, he’s picked up on it … it means nothing.
I want it to mean nothing.
Mostly.
Thoughts of last night replay in my head, pushing for more. One more laugh, an inside joke, the touch of his hand—enough!
Forcing a smile, I take a large bite out of my burrito to keep myself from saying something I don’t mean. This is just hospital emotions getting to me. Nothing more.
Caitlin has a supersized smoothie but looks longingly at my burrito.
“Surgery this week.”
“First meal?” I ask. It’s a small ritual. Every eight weeks, Caitlin has to have her esophagus dilated so she can swallow properly again. Until then, she goes down to a liquid diet. This time I pull out my phone.
“I thought you said no pictures?” Caitlin looks at me skeptically.
“You need the practice. One take.”
“At least give me two.”
I shake my head and press record. This isn’t so bad, being on the other side of the camera. “First meal?”
“Tacos.” The word is a prayer, a benediction, hope in the form of food to one day be delivered. “Salsa. Guac. Chips. So many chips.”
I replay the clip and Caitlin leans over. “I don’t like—” She reaches for my phone and I pull it away.
“Absolutely not.”
Everyone else at the table stares at one another with looks that say they might be running for cover. Caitlin and I aren’t exactly normal lunchtime companions. We’re a bit of an acquired taste.
“You two realize you’re weird, right?” Luis asks.
“This isn’t actually weird—this is totally normal,” Caitlin replies. Her solemn face breaks into a smile that seems to curl around the corners of her eyes. “Just wait, you’ll end up like us.”
“Is that part of the treatment plan?” Luis is easygoing, but I spy Veronica’s look of concern out of the corner of my eye. She looks like she might say something, but Luis turns back to her and holds her gaze as if to say I got you. Well, that’s a development I did not see coming.
“Only if you’re lucky.”
Caitlin and I pull meds out of our purses and line them up on the table. Little soldiers here to help fight an invisible battle. I eyeball a dose of cough syrup and swig it back without flinching.
“What?” I ask, staring at the group’s shocked expressions. I drop the bottle into a plastic bag before putting it back in my purse.
“You all need a crash course in how to live disabled.” Caitlin says this with all the matter-of-factness of a doctor presenting a case.
“Umm, what?” Veronica says. At least she’s taking one for the team.
“You’re gonna be doing this, it’s not weird, it’s just life.”
“Just little things,” I say, fishing out my bottle of ibuprofen. I dry swallow three without even thinking about it. “Like taking meds. Living your life and assessing risk.”
“Learn from us, we’re here to help. I’ve been doing this for years.”
“Years?” Luis asks, his eyes going big. Everyone assumes that what we do here is a temporary thing, like we’re just passing through. And maybe for some of them—like Luis—it might be.
My gaze shifts to Ryan, who’s gone quiet, picking at his food court burger. He’s probably wondering how long he’ll live in this limbo of not knowing his diagnosis and what treatment plan will make him better. I want to know what he’s thinking and I want to tell him he doesn’t need to be worried, because I’m right here. I nudge his foot under the table and his head jerks up, his dark eyes finding mine.
I raise an eyebrow. This is what friends do—we pick each other up.
He seems to shake it off and nods to Luis. “You haven’t gone through chemo yet. So what happened to your hair?” He flashes me a quick grin. He’s okay. Plus he’s learned to wait until you’re actually friends with a person before butting into their life.
Veronica catches my gaze and just raises an eyebrow. I scowl at her. This means nothing. Ryan and I are friends. I was checking in on a friend. She shrugs, but her smile says she doesn’t believe that we’re “just friends” for an instant. Butterflies come alive in my stomach because maybe I don’t want that either?
No. I put a stop to that line of thinking.
“I didn’t want to ask, but you’re, what, maybe having radiation?” Caitlin adds.
Luis smiles and pulls off his beanie, displaying his bald head. “I heard cancer and thought, Why wait? Only later did they tell me I’m not gonna lose my hair.”
We all laugh and Caitlin just shakes her head. “What did I say about listening to doctors?”
“Something about them walking on water,” I add with an eye roll.
Veronica looks lost. “Aren’t they supposed to help you get back to your normal life?”
And there goes the jovial atmosphere, sucked out of the circle. Luis, Ryan, and I all suddenly find our food the most interesting.
“I guess she gets it,” I mumble, not really thinking. Normal life—life-life—whatever you want to call it, that’s why we’re here. This place, for most, is not meant to hold a lifetime.
“It’s that kind of thinking that got Ellie into this mess,” Ryan starts.
“Yeah, Ellie likes to take that to the extreme,” Caitlin adds. I don’t miss the shared look between her and Ryan, like they’re in on a mission together.
“Excuse me, when did this become the dump on Ellie hour?”
“When you decided to hire me,” Ryan says at almost the same time that Caitlin says:
“When I became your best friend.”
I feel my cheeks heat, which is probably evidence for Veronica’s argument. Two people who have an instant claim to me, and I feel like I’m back at school, caught between Brooke and Jack.
“And when you don’t want to explain it to your friends, you’ll be like Ellie,” Caitlin says.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Luis says—speaking, it seems, for the table, who all look lost. “Back up, what?”
“Ellie doesn’t believe in mixing her social groups. Friends at school stay there, friends here stay here.” Caitlin preens and I almost want to slug her. I mean yes, this is what I believe. It’s what’s worked for me for the past how many years of my life? And if all goes according to plan, it will work the same now and I will go back to my life.
I don’t miss the doubt and hurt in Ryan’s gaze, like he’s only now realizing that what we have isn’t meant to last. And I don’t like how that makes me feel.
“Because how many of your friends at home get it?” I shoot back, wanting to explain my position.
“Some?” Ryan says.
“Most?” Luis adds.
“Right, but you, like, sugarcoat it, right? Dumb it down to make it palatable? It’s not like they’re living this with you.”
“But they’re your friends,” Luis counters. “They want to be there for you. I have way too many cards from my classmates.”
“I used to get cards from my classmates for surgeries, but then there’d be weird questions—Why didn’t they fix you?” I say. This feels like intentionally showing people my scars. Letting them gape and gawk at what has been done to me.
Everyone at the table flinches except Caitlin, who mutters something like “Assholes.”
“So because some five-year-old was an asshole, you just don’t tell them anything?” Luis asks. He shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me. I press my lips together around the words threatening to escape. What would he know about terrible five-year-olds?
My mind chooses that moment to bring up the girl from the bookstore. Wasn’t she different? It’s so cool.
Luis was right once and only recently did I start to believe that maybe there is still hope for this world. I mean, this is why I am here, right? At Morelands. To see Jack. To try to blend, at least in part, these two worlds. It’s definitely not a fifty-fifty mix, but it’s something more than I was willing to give.
“Let me guess, all your friends want you to beat cancer?” Caitlin adds. She knows where part of this is going, I think.
“Yeah. I mean the alternative is I die.”
I sigh. That question didn’t exactly come out the way Caitlin intended it to, but I know the point she’s building toward.
“And that’s the difference,” Caitlin says. “Your friends’ll get you back and you might never have to come here again.”
“I’ll be back here for at least the next five years.”
Caitlin and I exchange looks. This is a delicate dance. We’re lifetime pass holders at hospitals. Do I want Luis to join that club? Hell no. But also there’s a difference between the ones who get to go through this and then rarely look back and those of us who will always come back.
“Okay, I’ll be back in eight weeks. And then eight weeks after that. And then another eight weeks after that.” She goes on and on, making her point. Luis shrinks in his seat. “Ellie, however, just takes shielding people to the extreme. It’s not healthy.”
I glare at Caitlin. “That’s why I keep—kept—it separate. Because people want an end. They want to say You beat this, this is done, you are free—and that’s not possible for some of us.”
I focus on my burrito. Each word feels like a ton to say, to get off my chest, but even as the weight lifts, another heavier stone seems to crowd in, because the truth is Jack may never understand my hospital self. Because how is he supposed to understand that this will always be a part of my life?
Veronica clears her throat and I look up to see her eyes full of amazement and glossy with tears. So help me, if she says we’re all “fighters” or some abled phrase meant to bestow kindness on disabled people, I will duct-tape her mouth shut.
“Eventually you have to trust people.” Ryan looks me in the eyes, and the whole world seems to fall away. Trust, sure, I can do that. I trust that my friends know what’s best for me. I trust that they trust me.
“And that’s why I’m here—because I want to show Jack just a bit of what this is like.” Ryan looks away from me like my words were a knife severing our connection. I don’t know why it hurts, but I want to reach out. Take his hand, rekindle a version of what we’ve had, that understanding he had of me.
“I’ve even been promised an introduction,” Caitlin says, adding a flourish to the word introduction.
“Okay, but if he doesn’t pass our test, you have to break up with him,” Luis adds. “Hospital friends know what’s up.”
Everyone—well, everyone but Ryan—nods in agreement. As if they have a say in my love life.