“The cancer’s back. My mom . . .” And then my voice breaks, and I collapse into tears again.
“Oh, Anna . . .” Elise pulls me closer. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”
The bell goes off, but we don’t move until the door swings open and a rush of sound slips in from outside. “You can’t even ask him.” A familiar voice is midsentence. “I mean, he was—” The voice stops. “Um, hello?”
We look up to find Lindsay and a cluster of other girls in the doorway, looking down at us with matching expressions of disdain. “Elise?” Lindsay frowns. “What are you doing?”
“Find another bathroom, okay?” Elise doesn’t loosen her grip on me. “We’re busy.”
“I can see.” Lindsay’s voice drips with sarcasm. “You guys sure look cozy.”
Elise turns away from her, and back to me. “You think you can get up?”
I nod, wordless.
“Aww, did someone hurt your feelings?” Lindsay crows. I ignore her, taking Elise’s hand and letting her pull me to my feet. “Or did we, like, interrupt something?” She laughs. “Maybe that was the reason you wouldn’t go out with Carter, huh, Elise?”
“Oh, f**k off.” Elise glares at her. There are gasps from the chorus, more of delight than shock. Lindsay’s face changes.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. And get the hell out of our way.” Elise pushes me toward them, to the door, and I stumble forward, too drained to do anything but go where she points me.
The group parts, all except for Lindsay, who stands firm, blocking our path. “You want to think about this,” she tells Elise, her voice low and furious.
“No, I don’t.” Elise’s hand is on my back, steering me, but I stop. She shouldn’t have to do this, throw everything away because I couldn’t keep it together.
“Don’t worry,” I tell Lindsay quietly. “She was just . . . taking pity on me. She’s not . . . we’re not friends.”
“Anna—,” Elise starts, but I cut her off.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Really. I get it.”
I head for the door. This time, Lindsay moves aside.
“See you in gym,” Lindsay calls after me as I make it to the hallway and start walking away, my head bent in defeat. As I go, I hear her turn on Elise. “This is so not acceptable, do you even know—”
“What?” Elise’s voice echoes after me. “That you’re a skanky bitch with no soul?”
I stumble in surprise. She didn’t . . . ?
But she did. And she isn’t finished. “Sorry to break it to you”—Elise’s voice is loud enough to get the attention of even the students passing in the hall—“but pretty much everyone knows by now! And FYI, we are friends.”
I hear hurried footsteps, and a moment later, Elise falls into step beside me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say softly, tears welling in my throat again.
“Yes, I did.” Elise links her arm through mine. “Now, tell me everything.”
• • •
So I do.
I thought it would be hard, but I’ve spent so long holding it back that it’s easy this time. A relief. We head downtown again, and the words tumble out as I tell her about what happened last time around. The scans and abnormal tissue samples, and the hours spent waiting on hard plastic chairs in fluorescent-lit hospital corridors. Chemicals and radiation, hair clogging up the bathroom sink in long, curling strands. We tried to make a game of it, with DVDs and trashy magazines, and Popsicle Fridays, sucking ice treats by her bedside during chemo as her skin got paler, and everyone talked too loudly about “the fight” and “her journey” and being a “survivor.” But it was worth it, that’s what they all said. She got better, the tests came back clear, and it was over.
Until now.
“The worst part is, it’s like I’ve already lost her.” The words feel like a betrayal, but I need to get them out. “She faded so fast during treatment last time.” I explain. “Most days she could barely stay awake. And that was okay. I mean, it wasn’t, but I understood. She was sick. And I did everything—I sat with her, and fed her, and stayed up all night. . . . I forgot about everything else. It was like I could make her better just by trying hard enough, you know?”
Elise nods.
“I figured it would be okay. It had to be okay. She’d get better and go back to being my mom again. But, even when it was over, she wasn’t the same.” I stop walking. The streets are dark now, crowded with commuters shoving past, but I don’t move.
“She got . . . obsessed,” I continue, “with health foods, and meditation, and these support groups with other survivors. It’s taken over her whole life. She spends every day off at retreats and the yoga studio. She doesn’t even notice me anymore.”
Elise puts her hand on mine; a dark leather glove over my red mittens.
“I don’t think I can go through this again.” My voice twists. “It was like, I lost myself, trying to make her better, and I never got me back. I can’t do that again, I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Other girls would speak up now; reassure me that my mom does notice me, love me. That everything will be okay. But Elise doesn’t.
“Then we should do something,” she tells me at last. “Just for you. So you can remember yourself this time.”
“Like what?”
Elise slowly smiles. “Do you trust me?”
I shrug.
“Come on, Anna. Do you trust me?”
I want to laugh it off, but there’s something in her expression that keeps me standing there in the middle of the busy sidewalk: determination. Enough to make me believe what she’s saying, that I don’t have to be lost again. And God, I want it so, so much.
I can’t go through that again.
So I nod.
“I trust you.”
• • •
The pink streak is two inches wide, hidden behind my ear on the left-hand side. Elise had one done too, matching, in deep peacock blue. They’re invisible, until we pull our hair back, and then there they are: bold, bright. Brave.
You wouldn’t think a lock of dyed hair could make a difference, but it does. I look at it every night at home, as the chemo gets under way and my mom fades back into that pale stranger, drinking juice through a sippy cup and sleeping through my days. I stare in the mirror, and remind myself: I’m here, I exist.