Styx & Stones

by Carmen Jenner

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Rough day?

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: The worst. Why is it that I finally start feeling better after chemo and then—BAM!—I’m hit with a migraine so severe I start praying for death?

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: That bad, huh?

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Yep. Every now and then, the little dude renting a room in my skull likes to throw a dance party. But hey, at least he’s sticking around ... unlike my other friends.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: You need new friends. Does he at least play any good music?

  I laugh, but even that makes my head ache. The glare from my screen doesn’t help with that either, but I’m so tired of sitting in this dark room for hours on end, unable to do anything but sleep.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Not unless you like house from the 90s.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Nooooo! Not house. Anything but that. You should evict him.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: You sound like my mother. I think she’s threatened every surgeon in the Bay Area to move up my surgery. I wish she wouldn’t.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: You don’t wanna remove UR tumor?

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: No, it’s not that. More like I’m worried when they remove it, they’ll remove a part of me too. I know it sounds dumb.

  I swallow the lump in my throat, wishing I could say this to my mom, but she freaks and bursts into tears every time I mention not having the surgery.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Don’t get me wrong, as soon as I found out there was a tumor on my brain, I wanted it out of me. It’s like I thought my body had betrayed me by allowing the little dude to grow.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Little dude?

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: That’s what I call my least-favorite tenant.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: That’s weird, but also kind of cool. And I get it. I only had surgery on my abdomen, but I was convinced I was going to wake up a different person. Of course, I was ten at the time.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Is that you calling me chicken?

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Never. You’re way too beautiful to be a chicken.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Wait. I didn’t know you had stomach cancer?

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Yep. Gotta go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  STYX

  “Fuck!” Joe, my neighbor, tosses the Xbox controller on the couch beside him and rakes his hands through his hair. “You just killed us, man.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter, swiping my thumb over my iPhone. “Chemo brain.”

  “Bullshit. When are you gonna stop using that as an excuse?”

  “When I’m no longer in chemo, I guess.” I pull up Instagram and see Alaska has a new story. I click on it, and her face comes up, covered by another cheesy filter. She still looks fucking cute though.

  “Hey, Aerosol Addicts. Alaska here. So yesterday was tests, tests, and more tests—”

  “Seriously?” Joe says. “We lost our lives and everything we’ve worked for because of a girl on Instagram?”

  “Dude! Shut up. She might say something about me.”

  Joe rolls his eyes. “She’s not gonna talk about you. Chicks like that don’t know we exist.”

  “Maybe not you, but she knows I exist.” I focus on the screen. We were friends now, right? I mean, she did hang out at my house after our lunch date, and we didn’t fight or kill one another ... so there’s that.

  He shakes his head. “You’re delusional. How long have you gone to school with this girl?”

  “Since junior high.”

  “And has she ever spoken to you?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah—”

  Joe narrows his. “Other than in your dreams?”

  “Fuck you, dude. We hung out just the other day. I took her to lunch and then we came here.”

  “Really?” He rests his head on his palm and tilts his head to the side, a mocking smile on his face. “This I would love to hear. Is she fucked in the head?”

  “Kinda, yeah. She’s got a brain tumor.”

  “Oh, shit. Dude, I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did. But you’re an asshole so we’ll make an exception. You can’t help that your mom dropped you on your head as a baby.”

  “She really has cancer?” He screws up his nose. “I mean, she’s smokin’.”

  “So what? Pretty people can’t get cancer? Then what the hell am I, dumbass?”

  “Oh, yeah. For sure you’d be considered pretty in some ... circles, but even you must know this girl is way, WAY out of your league.”

  “Whatever.” And just to prove him wrong, I DM her.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Hey. Sorry you’re going through it right now. That sucks about the migraines.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Thanks.

  I angle the phone toward him so he can see. Joe screws up his face. “Pfft. That proves nothing. She probably talks to all of her followers.”

  I type again.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: You know, I’m always here if you want to talk.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Do you mean that?

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Of course.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Then what’s your number?

  “Dude, no fucking way.” Joe crows like the maniac he is.

  “I told you,” I say, and then remember that I haven’t exactly been honest with Alaska. All this time I’ve known who she is, but she doesn’t know it’s me she’s been talking to. Icy dread eats away at my gut. Fuck. What if she thinks I’ve been catfishing her? What if she shows up on my doorstep with Nev and a camera crew, and I become just like all those other assholes who’ve pretended to be someone they’re not on the internet?

  “Don’t leave her hanging, man.” Joe smacks the back of my head. “Give her your number.”

  “Ow!” I rub the tender spot. It was a pussy slap, but fucking chemo makes everything hurt ten times more than it normally would. “I can’t.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I’m not who she thinks I am.”

  Joe glares at me like I need to elaborate right-the-fuck now. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means, she doesn’t know it’s me she’s been talking to online.”

  “So you were lying about the two of you hanging out?”

  “No, I ... it’s complicated.”

  My phone buzzes and I glance down at the screen.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Hello?

  Shit. I’m an asshole. She’s just lost her only friends

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: So clearly you didn’t mean you wanted to actually talk—that’s just something people say, right? I don’t know why the hell I’m surprised though. I don’t even know your name.

  Fuck. I have two choices here. One, I can ignore her and she’ll never speak to me again. Or two, I tell her who I am right now, and she’ll also never speak to me again because she’ll think I’m a catfishing asshole.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: I do want to talk to you. It’s all I’ve wanted for weeks, but I have people over.

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: Of course you do.

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: It’s 415-509-6205

  @alaskasaerosoladdiction: You’re in San Francisco?

  @zedatwoodsbellybuttonlint: Yep. Born and bred. Just call, okay?

  I glance down at my phone, waiting for it to ring. I close my eyes and silently will her to call me.

  She doesn’t.

  “Dude!” Joe says, flopping back on the couch beside me. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  My phone rings and I hit answer, but I chicken out at the last minute and thrust it at Joe. He waves his hand dramatically and mouths, “No!”

  I’m so fucking nervous, I toss it in his lap. A beat passes where we both make wild gestures to the phone and to each other, and then I glare at him. He picks it up and clears his throat.

  “Hello,” he sa
ys in a deep voice that definitely doesn’t belong to him. I gesture and mouth, “Speaker. Put her on speaker.”

  He finally takes the hint and Alaska’s voice fills the den. “You sound different than what I thought you would.”

  “What did you think I would sound like?”

  “I don’t know. This is weird, isn’t it?”

  “Totally weird,” Joe agrees. “So, listen, why don’t we skip the phone convo and just meet in person?”

  “What? No! What are you doing?” I whisper.

  “Um. I don’t even know your name. So I’m going to go with no.”

  “It’s Styx,” he says, jumping off the couch and bolting for the stairs. “Styx Hendricks, and I live at 431 Alvarado St Dolores Heights.”

  “What the hell are you doing, man?” I shout.

  “Styx?” Alaska says.

  “Okay, gotta go. Bye,” Joe continues as I stalk toward him and rip the phone out of his hand.

  I put it to my ear. “Alaska, listen to me.” The disconnect tone mocks me from the speaker. I glare at Joe. “You have no idea what you just did.”

  “Hey, I did you a favor. You’ve been pining over this girl for years.”

  “That doesn’t mean I was ready for her to know.”

  “Why the hell not? You’re not getting any older. Left to your own devices, you’d be dead before you made a move.”

  I glare at my best friend. The kid I’ve known since I was five years old. “Get the fuck out.”

  Outside, a car screeches to a halt in front of my house and a few seconds later, someone pounds on my door.

  “Shit.” Joe rakes his hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean that. I just ... I want you to be happy, dude.”

  I shake my head. “Just go.”

  The pounding comes again, and I trudge up the stairs toward the front door. I open it.

  Alaska’s fist is raised in the air, as if she was getting ready to bang her fist against it for a third time. Instead, she pounds her fist into my face.

  I see stars. My head spins and I stagger back, holding my hand to my jaw. “Ow.”

  For a little thing ravaged by cancer, Alaska has a mean right hook.

  “Ouch,” Joe says, slinking by the two of us. He gives a wave and wanders across the drive to his house next door. “I’m just gonna head home now. Leave you guys to it. Nice to meet—”

  “Fuck off, or you’re next,” Stones says, and Joe disappears inside his front door, leaving me alone with one hell of an angry teenage girl.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ALASKA

  “Was I just a joke to you?” I demand, shaking out my hand. Now that the adrenalin has subsided a little, I see how crazy I must look.

  I flew over here in my mom’s car. A drive that would normally take me two minutes, I conquered in thirty seconds flat. I wonder if chemo gave me some kind of angry superpower, like I’m the She-Hulk? Or maybe it’s just teen angst and the fact that the boy in front of me is a complete fucking liar that has me so wound up.

  “I can explain.”

  “Then start.” I fold my arms over my chest and glare at him.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “No. I wanna hit you again, but my hand really hurts.” I flex my fingers. Pain shoots through them. I try not to wince. He reaches out to grab my hand, but I yank it back. “What are you doing?”

  “Let me see.” His tone is soft, too soft, as if he’s playing the part of the caring boyfriend. Slowly, I hold out my shaking hand and he takes it, massaging my knuckles.

  “Ow, ow, ow.”

  “I don’t think it’s broken, but you need ice.” He flexes his jaw. Guilt sluices through me. “And so does my face. You wanna come in and I can explain while you ice your hand?”

  “Fine, but only because it hurts too much to drive right now.”

  He glances at my car parked across his and the neighbor’s drive, the door wide open and the car chiming its annoyance at me for having left the lights on. “Gimme your keys. My mom will pitch a fit if she comes home.”

  I frown, a little embarrassed by my She-Hulk impersonation, and I press my keys into his waiting palm. “I was really angry.”

  “Was?”

  “Am,” I rectify with a scowl.

  Styx moves past me and jumps in the driver’s side, adjusting the seat before reversing out of the drive and parking on the street. He climbs out and uses the fob to lock the door as he walks into the house. I follow, taking in the pictures of Styx that I didn’t get to look closely at the last time I was here. There are some where he looks happy and others where he’s frowning at the person snapping the pic. There’s even a photograph of him flipping the bird—which is odd, but it makes me laugh, and it’s so perfectly Styx that I can’t help but smile. I guess his mom felt the same because they gave it prime position on the mantel.

  The photos are like a timeline of his life: baby, toddler, and tween, Styx with short hair, Styx with long hair, and then Styx with no hair at all. I look closely at those photos, picking one up to study it further. With his shiny, bald head and dark circles under the eyes, he looked so sick, but his cheeks had taken on that chipmunk, chemo appearance that mine have right now.

  “Hey, you wanna stare at the embarrassing evidence of my childhood all day?” Styx leans against the wall, watching me as if I might attack him again. “Or do you want to come ice your hand?”

  I straighten and glance at him. “They’re not embarrassing.”

  “Yeah, they are, but that’s what happens when your mom’s a semi-famous photographer.” He pushes off the wall and turns toward the kitchen. I follow, opening and clenching my fist. It still hurts.

  Styx opens the freezer and pulls out a container of ice, then he grabs a kitchen towel from the holder over the oven and forms a tightly packed cold compress. He gestures for me to place my hand in his, and I hesitate.

  “Give me your hand, Stones.”

  “I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know. Give me your hand anyway,” he says softly. The way his lips turn up in the corners makes my insides tighten, and butterflies swarm my belly. It’s just chemo nausea. It has to be. I place my hand in his, wincing when he turns it over and gently places the ice pack against it. “Is this the first punch you’ve ever thrown?”

  “No,” I say defiantly.

  He levels me with a disbelieving glance.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, lucky for both of us, you hit like a girl.”

  I scowl, and a grin spreads across his face. “I could always try again.”

  “Hold this.” He tilts his chin toward the icepack. I take it from his hands, ignoring the brush of our fingers and the way my heart skips. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Styx puts together another makeshift icepack and presses it to his face.

  “I thought I hit like a girl?” I ask.

  “Yeah, well. I have a very low pain threshold. You want something to drink?” He turns to the fridge, fishes out two sodas, and places them on the counter before us. He pulls a bag of Cheese Puffs from the pantry and dumps them in a nearby bowl from the dishrack.

  “I want to know why you lied to me, loner boy.”

  He chuckles and heaves a sigh. “I didn’t think you’d talk to me if you knew who I was, and I figured you’d need someone.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Because I needed someone.”

  The breath gets caught in my lungs, burning, stalling. I gasp and blink back tears as a lump forms in my throat. “I did need someone.” I shake my head. “I do—I need someone. I don’t know how to do this without my friends and ... I just ... I don’t know why you didn’t tell me.”

  “Come on, Stones. We both know you never would have spoken to me at all if we didn’t end up in the same chemo group.”

  “That’s not true.” I shake my head, trying to tell him that he’s wrong, that I would have spoken to him eventually, given time. He was the one person I wanted to talk to after my diagnosis, only my st
upid pride stopped me. But deep down, I know he’s right. If I didn’t get cancer, I would’ve never uttered a word to him.

  My chest squeezes. The tears that I’ve been fighting since I arrived spring free and slide down my face. I don’t even know why. Because he’s right, and I’m a self-absorbed bitch? Or is it because this kid—who I barely knew just a few short weeks ago—cared enough to reach out, even though he knew I’d likely shut him down?

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  I laugh and sniff back my tears. “You think I’m crying over you? Pfft. As if. I’m only tearing up because my hand hurts, and your jaw is an asshole.”

  He laughs. “Oh, so this is my jaw’s fault, huh?”

  “Duh!”

  His lips twist with a crooked grin. “So, you wanna hug it out?”

  “Why, so you can cop a feel?” I throw a Cheese Puff at him. “Thanks, perv, but I’ll pass.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ALASKA

  “Does chemo ever not feel like you’re dying?” I ask Styx, as I stare at the mural on my ceiling. I should probably be staring at my phone, since we’re Facetiming, but we’ve done this at least a hundred times since his neighbor outed him last week, and my arms are so tired from yesterday’s chemo that I can’t be bothered to make sure I’m in the frame.

  “Nope. It’s kind of ironic, huh? The drugs that are supposed to save you make you feel dead.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought about that too.” I scratch at the edges of the waterproof bandage surrounding my PICC, as if that will help alleviate the itch. The plastic clamps and access caps clack together, and I cringe. “And what is up with this damn PICC line itching so much? It’s like I can feel it tickling the inside of my arm all the way to my pit.”

  “Oh man, I remember that itch. PICC lines suck. You need to get yourself an upgrade.”

  I scoff. “An upgrade? Really?”

  “Yep, the port is the way of the future, Stones. It’s the Bugatti of the CVC world.”

  A lazy chuckle escapes me. “Can the way of the future just not involve cancer at all?”

  “Yeah,” he says quietly. “That would be nice.”