U R AMAZING!
HEY HAY!
I GOT UR FLOWERS. OMG!
MY MOM HELPED PICK THEM OUT
THEY R GORGY!
WISH I COULDA BRAWT MYSELF
THAT’S OK
COACH HAS US DOING 2-A-DAYS
YIKES. I’M SURE
HOW MUCH LONGER U IN?
A COUPLE MORE WKS.
:(
SAME HERE :(
MAYBE I CAN GET AWAY
THAT WOULD B AWESOMEM
I’LL C WHAT I CAN DO
SWEET. THX.
WE’RE ALL PULLING 4 U
THX DANIEL
TXT ME L8R
WILL DO. BYE!
“Everything good?” Mom asks, the worry lines starting to show on her lack-of-a-good-night’s-sleep face.
“It’s all good,” I say with a smile, and gaze adoringly at my flowers.
Knowing that Daniel is thinking about me is all I need.
***
“I need a break!”
Tossing my e-reader to the rolling table next to my bed, I feel as if I’m going to literally expire from boredom. It’s Tuesday. My second biopsy is tomorrow. The interns come in every afternoon to question me. No new news. Very few texts. It’s July. People are starting to forget about me as I atrophy here on the seventh floor of UAB Hospital.
Mom jerks up from her knitting. “Are you okay, Hayley? Are you in pain?”
I wave my hands around. “Mental anguish,” I say in a perfect teenage whine. I despise the sound of my own voice. I need a vacation from myself.
Actually, I need to get back to my life.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” Mom suggests.
“Good idea.” I slowly ease out of the bed and hobble to the bathroom, holding on to the wall and the nearby chair. Mom moves to hand me the crutches, but I want to do this on my own. Besides, the bathroom isn’t far. The five stitches in my leg itch and sting like all get-out and make me feel as though my skin’s going to tear apart. The “lesion” still throbs with a dull ache. My leg will never be the same. Tomorrow, there will be a bigger slash. More stitches. Less of me.
After a long, hot shower, I towel off, put on my PHS cheerleader shorts and a Patriots T-shirt, and head back into the room. I’m surprised to see Cliff and Lily standing there grinning like they’ve committed a crime.
“What?” I ask, my eyes wide.
“Get dressed,” Cliff says.
“Um... I am dressed.”
Lily smacks him on the arm. “Ignore him, Hayley.”
“I’ve been trying to do that my whole life,” I say with a giggle, and then stick my tongue out at my brother. He swats at me playfully, and, for a moment, the world is all right.
Cliff sits on the chair and tosses me my tennies that are on the floor. “Seriously. Get presentable for the outside world.”
My hopes soar. “We’re leaving the hospital?”
“Busting you out, kid!” Cliff says with a laugh.
Mom just smirks from across the room. “I told you to be patient.”
“What’s going on? Where are we going? Home?”
Lily helps me get my left shoe on since it hurts to bend my leg too much. “We’ve got a wonderful surprise for you. You have to trust us.”
I don’t care if they’re taking me to the zoo and leaving me in the cage next to the lion. I’m busting out of here. Sunshine! Blue sky! Fresh air!
Fifteen minutes later, I have an afternoon pass from the hospital from Dr. Dykema and I’m waiting outside on the curb while Cliff brings his SUV around to pick us up. Mom hops in the front with Cliff and Lily sits in the back with me; my crutches on the seat between us.
As we weave through the streets of downtown and up into the mountains, I roll down my window and let the sticky-hot July sunbeams shine on my face. My long hair blows in the wind and into my eyes, blocking my view of the stores, shops, billboards, and traffic.
“We’re almost there,” Cliff announces.
I roll the window back up and sit back, excitement trilling my pulse and making my toes wiggle.
My brother turns the SUV in to a long driveway that leads up to a bunch of large buildings. A sign reads “Welcome to Birmingham High School, Home of the Patriots.”
“Oh, my gosh! It’s the school where Emma and the other cheerleaders are from.”
Lily reaches for my hand. “Wait! There’s more.”
Cliff turns right into the circular drive around the school. An expansive—expensive—marquee lit up with scrolling information for the students. “First Day of School August 21... Band Camp August 14... Patriots vs. Lakewood Warriors, Friday, August 25 . . .”
Mom sees it first and gasps.
I’d do the same if it weren’t for the lump of emotion in my throat.
I watch as the red dotted letters scroll . . .
“Welcome, Hayley Matthews, Honorary Patriots Cheerleader!”
Chapter Twelve
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
—Tennessee Williams
Emma and the rest of the squad surround my brother’s car as we pull up to the Patriots’ gymnasium.
“Hey, Hayley!” they all call out when I open the door. I carefully swing my bum leg out and hold it up as I put my weight on the crutches.
“Y’all are amazing!” I screech out.
“Lily and Miss Lynda, our sponsor, talked, and agreed you need a break from the hospital,” Emma says. “So, we thought it would be cool for you to come to a practice.”
“It’s beyond cool!”
Mom, Lily, and Cliff sort of fall into the background as I’m surrounded by the BHS varsity squad. They set me on the first row of the bleachers in the gym while they get to work. My eyes nearly pop out of my head watching their tumbling passes and funky dance routine to a fast-paced Hip-Hop/Dance mix. They execute the moves like they’ve been working together for years. Pop. Lock. Clap. Slap.
“That was awesome!” I call out when they take a quick break.
Emma, trying to catch her breath, plops down next to me and hands me a bottle of water. I accept it and immediately quench my thirst.
“I love the pyramid y’all do at the end of the tumbling run. That girl with the braids can really fly,” I note.
“That’s Serena. She’s my little sister. Freshman and first year on the squad.”
“Are you hard on her?” I ask, thinking of how Chloe rides me because I’m new.
Emma nods and takes a long sip. “I have to be; otherwise people will think I’m giving her special treatment. She has to prove herself early on if she wants this to be her squad one day.”
“That makes sense,” I say.
“So, Hayley,” Emma says, turning to me, “are you a flyer or a base?”
“A base,” I say.
“Me too. There’s no way you’d get me up toward the top of a pyramid like that.”
We laugh together, and then I have an idea. “Hey, you know how your two end girls just did splits?”
“Yeah,” she says, listening.
“You should pair them up with the two girls in back who lifted the flyers into place. They could do a shoulder sit or stand and bridge their arms to your sister and that other girl on top.”
Emma thinks it out, and then her eyes light up. “I think that’s a great idea, Hayley!” She stands and then tugs on my arm. “Come on over and help us.”
“I shouldn’t—”
Tug, tug. “You should.”
Feeling the muscle in my left leg tighten and stretch, I balk again. “I can’t—”
Laughter bubbles from Emma. “Hell you can. If you’re going to overcome all this surgery, you need to have a positive attitude and just do it. Don’t ever say ‘can’t.’”
Shocked in place for a moment, I shake it off. Her words are like darts tossed at a balloon at a carnival, on target and popping my negative attitude. It’s like a spotlight of understanding has been turned on for me. “You’re right. So right
. I can do anything I want.” I reach for my crutches and adjust them under my armpits. “Show me to the team.”
“Awesome!” Emma says, leading the way back to the pack. “Hey, y’all, Hayley’s got a great idea for our routine. Tell them.”
Just like that, I do.
***
My excitement is at an all-time high when Cliff and Lily return me to UAB Hospital. Even though I’m hopping along on my crutches, I feel like I’m walking on clouds.
“They were actually asking my opinion,” I say to Mom. “I mean, they let me show them that move that Ashleigh and Madison have been working on. Emma’s little sister, Eva, is really tiny, and they can toss her really high into the air with a basket toss.”
Mom hugs me to her side and kisses my temple. “I was so proud of you today, Hayley. You blended in with those girls perfectly and were practically one of them.”
“They made me feel needed,” I say, rounding the corner on my floor. I nod at Ginger and Rochelle and the other nurses as we pass by their station on the way to my room.
“Ms. Matthews,” Rochelle calls out. “Y’all had a visitor a few minutes ago. Good-lookin’ young man here to see your daughter.”
I thought Daniel texted me that he couldn’t come see me. But maybe he made it so.
“I don’t know his name, but he’s still here,” Rochelle says, clicking her ballpoint pen rapidly with her thumb. “He either went down the hall for a soda or he’s in your room.”
Moving as fast as I can with one leg up off the floor, I propel myself down the hall and push open the door to room 211, expecting to see Daniel’s smiling face.
Instead I see a welcome, friendly face.
“Hey, Gabriel. What are you doing here?”
He knows he’s not the one I was hoping to see, although he’s kind enough to smile through the awkwardness we’re both sensing.
“My dad had to come up for a business meeting, and I asked him if I could ride along so I could check on you.”
Disappointment melts away into complete appreciation for my old friend—my once-again friend. “That’s so sweet of you, Gabriel.”
I scoot past him on the crutches and flop up onto the bed, being careful not to hit my leg against anything. He moves to take the supports from me and then leans them against the wall just within my reach.
“Hello, Gabriel,” Mom says when she enters the room. “What a nice surprise.”
“Hey, Mrs. M.,” he says, and then reiterates to her why he’s in town. “So, I had to stop by.”
Mom eyes a bundle wrapped in tissue paper on the table. “What do we have here?”
“Oh, right.” Gabriel stands, crosses the room, and then brings the package to me. “I picked these at my grandfather’s farm.”
I unwrap the paper to see a couple of fistfuls of wildflowers in pink, red, yellow, and a lot of green. Honeysuckle permeates the room, and I breathe in the fragrance of... home.
“Thanks so much,” I manage to say. “Mom, can you put them in water?”
She takes the flowers and nods at me, as if that was some sort of secret code. So not! “I’ll be back. You kids chat.”
I roll my eyes at her. Honestly, could she be a bit more obvious?
“Sit, sit, sit,” I say to Gabriel.
He does, on the edge of my bed toward the end. I finger the TV remote next to me, but decide to leave the set off so we can just talk.
“How’s the food here?” he asks.
“Meh. The meat loaf was really gross the other night. But the breakfasts are good. They give me these awesome, buttery grits every morning.”
His eyes meet mine and he chuckles. “Remember that time your grandmother made cowboy grits for us?”
I screw up my face and cock my head to the side. “Um... no . . .”
“Sure you do,” he says. “We were in the yard playing and were, like, eating sand, pretending they were grits.”
“Oh yeah! I remember now,” I say, laughing at the silly memory. “You dared me, if I remember correctly.”
“Probably,” he says with a shrug. “Sounds like something I’d do. Your grandmother found us and washed our mouths out. We thought we were in such big trouble!”
“Oh, for sure! It wasn’t as if we were doing anything horrid or immoral, like playing doctor.”
Gabriel slices his eyes over to me and suddenly I’m hot with embarrassment. Fortunately, he steps around my verbal mess and continues down memory lane.
“Yeah, right. Instead of yelling at us or punishing us for being stupid kids, she made us some cowboy grits.”
I bob my head up and down. “Grits, milk, butter, cheddar cheese, and Worcestershire sauce all baked together.”
Now he turns his head. “Seriously? Worcestershire sauce? That’s her big secret?”
“The one and only,” I verify.
He laughs deep. “I just remember it was the best thing I’d ever had in my life. I don’t know if it’s because I was so hungry from eating dirt or if it was because I was with—” The sentence hangs between us like leftover Mardi Gras parade beads in the trees. I breathe. He does, too. He shakes out of the thought and then continues. “You know, having a good time with my friend Hayley,” he finishes.
I smile and glance down at my leg. “We had a lot of fun growing up. Lots of running and biking and just being goofy. I hope I can run, bike, and be goofy when all of this is done.”
“You will. I know it,” he says with more confidence than the group of interns that corral in my room daily.
I think back to the fun times we shared being silly little kids. My lungs tighten when I remember the day I took my new radio-controlled car down to his house and not only saw the For Sale sign in the lawn, but discovered that the Tremblay family was... gone.
Swallowing hard at the car wreck of emotions zuzzing through me, I ask, “Why did you just move?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he says softly.
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that.” Silence surrounds us momentarily. Then he says, “But I’m back, and I’m here for you, Hayley.”
My chest feels heavy and my body feels weak. Maybe I exerted myself too much today. Or, perhaps I’m merely gloomy for the lost innocence of children who used to think you could eat dirt and that was fine. Or “swim” in the monkey grass that surrounded the tree in our front yard. Now, I’m faced with... reality.
“Thanks, Gabriel,” I manage to say in a whisper.
“You can beat this, Hay. I know you can,” he says firmly. “You will beat this. Believe in yourself, hang in there, be tough, and above all, keep a positive attitude.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” I ask him.
His back straightens. “I’ve never had cancer.”
I press. “But you’ve had a challenge?”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying, Hayley. Be true to yourself.”
“That’s all I can do.”
Something tells me there’s a lot more to Gabriel Tremblay than what’s on the surface. I won’t press him... not now.
He stands and steps forward. “I’d better go. Dad’s meeting will be done soon.”
I sit up and stretch my arms out. It just feels like the right thing to do. Gabriel hugs me like the long-lost friend I am, and then he messes my hair when we pull apart.
“Thanks again for coming. And for bringing the flowers.”
He winks at me as he heads toward the door. “Give ’em hell, Matthews.”
After the day I’ve had, I honestly think I can.
***
Opening my eyelids is like passing an act of Congress.
I force them up with all the strength I can muster, which isn’t saying much.
Where am I?
What day is this?
The sound of my own heart beeping across the monitor next to me knocks me in the brain.
Right . . .
It’s Wednesday.
My teeth chatter together and my face feels wet.
I’m crying?
Yes. Wet, salty tears flow down my cheeks, pooling on the . . .
Oxygen mask?
I’m in recovery. Recovering. This was not how I saw my summer unfolding when Mrs. Ingram announced that I’d placed on the PHS squad. Lying helplessly flat on my back while people hack away at my limb isn’t what I’d call the ideal.
“Hayley? Can you hear me?” a female voice asks from above.
I squeeze my eyes shut in a halfhearted response.
“I’m Rayanne,” she says. “Can you talk to me?”
“I hurt,” I say through the annoying oxygen mask.
“Where?” she asks me. She must be a nurse or something.
I think to say, “All over more than any place else,” a favorite expression of my dad’s. Instead, I muster up all the fortitude I have to lift my right arm out from under the covers and push the oxygen mask away from my face. Away from my tears.
Rayanne’s wearing pink scrubs with pictures of bunnies all over the front. Her smile is bright and friendly, even though she’s missing two teeth on the side. I’m not judging her by that; I’m just noting it. Details matter now to help me climb back to consciousness.
“Hurt,” I repeat.
“It’s going to hurt, darlin’,” she says while making notes on a chart. “The doctors had to dig a little deeper into that tumor of yours to get the samples they wanted.”
Interesting choice of words. “Tumor of yours.” Like it’s a pet I went and picked out especially for myself at the shelter. I shudder at the thought.
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