by Kylie Key
“Will I see you tomorrow, Chase?” he asked, his soft brown eyes lighting up with hope.
“Uh, it’s Christmas Day tomorrow,” I said, finding it difficult to swallow. “Um, I think Santa will be visiting.” I handed him the glass of milk and patted his head. “I’m not rostered on,” I said, “but the Borellis will be here.” He lowered his eyes, and I was overcome with a swell of guilt. It was a sad reality that he was stuck in this place for Christmas. I patted his shoulder reassuringly and said, “But I’ll be back to see you the day after that.”
“The little boy in the room over there didn’t come back.” Jordan pointed to what I presumed was Room 4b. There was something chilling in the way he said it, causing me to freeze.
“What?”
“Yesterday,” he said, his voice getting smaller. “The little boy never came back. Nurse May said he would be back, but he isn’t, and everyone was crying. I heard them.”
A lump formed in my throat and I thought about May’s misty eyes. Had a little boy...? I didn’t want to think the worst, but it would be reckless to reassure Jordan when I didn’t know what had happened.
“Hey,” I said, my voice husky, “You’ll see me again, I promise, buddy.” I picked up his controller and handed it to him. “Now, you save the castle, okay?”
Jordan nodded vigorously, the smile back on his face. Moving along the quiet corridor, I scurried past 4b and noticed that rooms 7a and 7b were empty, too. I hoped that didn’t mean there were more patients who hadn’t retuned, but for the first time it hit me that some of these kids were seriously ill. Jordan’s condition wasn’t life threatening but others could be. The door to 8a was open a sliver. I tapped on it and pushed it open, announcing myself at the same time.
“Hot chocolate delivery for Angel,” I said. The body on the bed stirred and I cursed myself for interrupting someone’s sleep. I waited before entering further, wondering if I should drop it and go. But before I could consider where to place the mug, the shape popped up and the volunteer girl was staring straight at me.
Her wide eyes and gaping mouth indicated she was as surprised as I was. Volunteer girl—or Angel—brought her legs into a cross-legged position and pulled the top blanket around her like a shawl.
“I must have dozed off,” she said.
“You’re...Angel?” I said, my heartbeat having accelerated at the speed of light, my eyes darting around the room. Behind her bed was a wooden angel, the type that would hang on a tree, and on the bedside cabinet was a bowl and a miniature Christmas tree, and strands of tinsel decorated the walls. And then there was the medical chart hanging on the end of the bed, and the IV pole on the other side of the room and a whole bunch of equipment.
“Angelina. Yeah.” She brushed her hair off of her forehead, then pulled the blanket tighter and said something I didn’t hear.
“You’re not a volunteer?” My face was feverish as the enormity of my mistake was revealed. This girl was never a volunteer—she was a patient! And only now I could see that her defined bone structure was due to hollow cheeks and her heavy eyes were a result of fatigue.
There was a barely perceptible shake of her head as she moistened her lips. I was flustered by a flood of thoughts, namely that I’d snapped at a patient to help with my work! To decorate a tree, to tidy away chairs!
“Hey, I’m sorry, I thought that...I didn’t know...” I stuttered an apology—a rock would be a good place to hide under about now.
Her expression was one of embarrassment—for me. Then she coughed and cleared her throat.
I stepped in closer, holding out the tray for her. “Mrs. Borelli said you needed a drink?” She took the mug with two hands, thanked me and sipped it.
“Jordan, the kid with the broken leg, he had me watching video games so it might be a bit cold,” I said. “I had to wait for him to conquer the castle.” Nervousness was making me talk too fast. Why did this girl put me on edge?
“Thank you,” she whispered. “It’s the perfect temperature.” She smiled and took another drink, giving me a chance to take a deep, calming breath.
“So,” I said, slipping the tray under my arm, muddled by the mistakes I’d made, “So, uh, are you stuck in here for Christmas Day?” As soon as the words left my tongue, I wished them back. My sensitivity left a lot to be desired.
With lips pressed together she nodded repeatedly, a mistiness clouding her eyes. Oh help, I’d made her think about being separated from her family. I had the tact of a bull in a china shop.
I immediately moved to the side of the bed, sitting down. “Hey, I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out to comfort her. I’d had to comfort Jordan a few minutes before when his chin wobbled while mentioning Christmas Day. An arm on his shoulder had made him smile. Instinct made me do the same, though I wondered about the appropriateness, a girl who looked like she was wearing her boyfriend’s sweater.
Yet, her watery eyes told me it would be wrong to pull away. She needed someone right now. And I was the only one here.
“Christmas Day isn’t going to be as bad as you think.” My motor mouth revved into top gear. “The staff have organized an awesome day, and Santa is making a visit...but you didn’t hear it from me.” I shook my head and winked, “There may even be a few elves floating around. With presents.”
Angelina blinked rapidly, attempting to halt the flow of tears. She tried to smile amidst her sniffles. Her sadness caused an ache in the pit of my stomach, her devastation mine.
“Heeyyy,” I said, because I suddenly wasn’t good with words. And I wasn’t good with dealing with emotion. Yet, there was an innate need to protect, to care, to save this girl. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I thought you were a volunteer,” I attempted an explanation, “May said someone else was coming in to help out. So I assumed it was you.”
She tilted her head back as she sipped from the mug and I should have removed my hand from her shoulder, but it was like it was glued to her. I didn’t want to lift it away, didn’t want to lose the connection because there was something extraordinary about it. Look, I’ve dated, I’ve held hands, sat arm in arm, kissed before. But this was like no other feeling. Angelina made my heart pound with the ferocity of a drum in a marching band. She made my blood pump through my veins like an adrenaline rush. This was like my whole world turned upside down and inside out.
And it was more than her stunning features mesmerizing me; there was a striking aura of beauty and grace about her.
“And you fixed the tree, right? That was you?” Her lips curled shyly. “My effort was bad, wasn’t it?”
She nodded, hiding her smile in the mug. I longed to see it, full, wide and unrestricted. My heart jumped as I sensed my charm was starting to work.
“I’m Chase, by the way. Chase Masters." I held my fist out for a knuckle bump, because there was no way I wanted to detach my right hand from her shoulder.
She peered up out of the mug, gray eyes piercing the middle of my heart, a fragility, a purity I wanted to embrace. And without knowing why she was here, I yearned to take her pain away.
She released one hand from the mug and tentatively bumped it to mine, almost as if it was a foreign gesture to her, and I swear I saw a spark of light in her eyes. But just as quickly it was extinguished, and she retreated from my touch.
“I’m really tired,” she whispered, handing the mug back to me and, cocooning herself in the blanket, she curled up on the bed.
I had no doubt that she’d given me another rejection, though this one was somewhat gentler. Yay for me.
The swirling in my stomach returned—or maybe it had never left—and all I could do was leave.
I was in a daze as I walked back to the kitchen, staring into the mug her lips had touched. May came padding out of a room, also carrying a tray.
“Ah, there you are,” she said in a hushed voice, “I wondered where you’d gone.”
We entered the kitchen right then, which was good because my throat had tightened and my chest constrict
ed, and there seemed to be no air in the room. I put the tray down and leaned on the counter looking across to May, searching for oxygen.
“Chase? You okay there?”
“Angel,” I said, “Angelina.” And I knew that my anxiety had nothing to do with her rejection of me.
“Yes? Angel?”
“I thought she was a volunteer,” I said, my eyes focused on the blue mug. “May, I made her unravel the Christmas lights.” I was ready for May’s look of disdain, wouldn’t expect anything less. “I thought she was a volunteer.”
May’s thin, perfectly arched eyebrows rose. “Oh? That explains why she was so worried about stacking the chairs. She seemed distraught about letting you down.” May chuckled, yet I couldn’t find humor in the situation.
“She made the tree great,” I said in a low voice. “I just threw all the stuff on it. She fixed it. She made it look awesome. Not me.”
I wasn’t expecting May to show me any compassion, not an ounce of it, after all I’d purposely not corrected her earlier. But May reached out to my hand, covering it with a light squeeze.
I appreciated her touch but it only added to my tension. Only the sickest kids stayed in over Christmas. That’s what May herself had said. I had a question to ask but by no means did I want to hear the answer. My words quivered with a feather soft beat. “Angelina...why is she here?”
I wanted to cover my ears because I feared the answer. Ignorance was bliss. Chase Masters needed to finish his 50 hours of service and disappear back to the snow slopes and Snow Ridge High where his charmed life awaited. He didn’t need these stresses, of sick kids, of illness and injury, of little kids who never made it back to their hospital rooms.
“Angelina’s having chemo treatment,” May said so softly that I was sure I’d misheard. I wanted to mishear, I wanted my ears to be totally wrong. Chemo meant cancer, that’s what I knew. Chemo wasn’t good, cancer wasn’t good. Ever.
My heart plummeted and I sucked up a lungful of air. I looked to May, begging for her to tell me it wasn’t true. May’s gentle nod was full of strength. “But she’s doing great, our Angel. She’s doing great.” Her fingers squeezed tighter. “Her leukemia is in remission, and this is a maintenance cycle. Our Angel fights hard. Every time.”
I didn’t care that my eyes were fighting back tears, that May Taylor was witnessing me having a meltdown. I’d never known pain until that very moment. Sure, a bruised rib when falling, a twisted ankle on an awkward landing. But not comparable to this.
This cut through to my deepest emotion, to my very core.
To feelings I didn’t know I could feel.
And I’d made her untangle a string of Christmas lights and stack furniture.
I don’t remember sitting down at the table but there I was, seated, pulling a tissue out of the box, dabbing at my eyes as May told me about Angelina’s courage and resilience. Nothing about pain and suffering, but about a girl who was fighting a disease with everything she had.
I felt particularly weak, shallow and ashamed.
May produced a glass of water which I drank without stopping, and she checked the watch pinned to her chest. “I think it’s time you went home,” she said, her own eyes mirroring the heartbreak of mine.
“How do you deal with it?” I asked, “How do you cope when you see kids in so much pain?”
“It’s tough,” May admitted, “But helping people, that seems to be my calling. Working with people when they’re going through the worst times in their lives is like a blessing. It’s an honor to experience all they go through, the hard times and the hope. There’s always hope, Chase, remember that.”
“Jordan said there was a little boy,” I hesitated, my chin twitching, “a little boy who didn’t come back to his room.”
May’s eyes closed as if she was saying a silent prayer. “Yes,” she breathed out deeply. “We lost little Austin. But his three years were a miracle. He brought such joy to his family and all the staff, such joy and love.”
The lump in my throat made it difficult to swallow and before I left May walked me back down to Angelina’s room and let me peep through the door at her sleeping. I needed to know that she was all right. My heart was beating fiercely as I watched to make sure her chest was rising and falling.
“Come now,” May said, and she wished me a Merry Christmas. Rather than take the elevator I walked down the three flights of stairs, then out into the parking lot.
Everything had changed.
In one day, my whole outlook on life had changed.
Chapter 6
Chase
MOM HADN’T BEEN PLEASED when I arrived home from my last minute dash to the mall. The three texts and two missed calls were an indicator that I was in for an earful. I had raced around the crowded store grabbing what I could for my sisters and Nene, ignoring my buzzing phone in my pocket. Hoping to sweet talk Mom later I picked up some flowers for her and chocolates for May Taylor and the other volunteers.
Yep, it worked. Emotional at the bouquet I handed her, and asking her to help me wrap the presents was genius. I was back in her good books and for a moment I was forgiven for my transgressions.
There was absolutely no chance of sleeping late on Christmas morning, and as I’d gone to bed early, I was ready for my little sisters to be full of beans. The thought of waiting another minute to open their presents meant Nene was on her way over already, and the girls divided everyone’s presents into piles so we could take turns in opening them, which was the family tradition they’d invented. The girls typically started with their smallest presents, working their way up to the biggest. And as they had twice as many as the rest of us, they happily carried on long after we were eating Mom’s famous gingerbread pancakes. My haul had been pleasing, a new snowboard from my parents, though it was going to be a little while before I’d get to try it out, and new clothes, all my favorite brands as per my list. Nene had given me a new red hoodie, not my usual color, but Mom gushed about it and nudged me to try it on. Nene said how well it suited me so there was an obligation to wear it.
Funny though, my favorite gifts had been the bracelets from Annalise and Karolina, one red and one green. Christmas bracelets they’d made themselves. Yeah, they’d given me a host of other things as well, candy and pens and popcorn and reindeer socks. They giggled hard as I put them on, so there we were all in our matching socks. The girls squealed at every present they opened, their delight over a bottle of bubblebath as great as their new pairs of ice skates. And the little frog and turtle ornaments and pictures I gave them, you’d have thought they were golden nuggets. And Nene loved the cookbook I gave her, claiming it was one she’d been wanting. Not that there was much about cooking Nene didn’t know but she read cookbooks like some people read romance novels.
“That’s so thoughtful, Chase,” Mom said, giving my shoulder a squeeze, her eyes welling up and I’d have to say her pride in me made my chest puff.
Unfortunately, it was short-lived.
For once I wasn’t in a bad mood about having to attend the morning church service, because it was a chance to catch up with Toby, Ronan and Blanche. They all commiserated with me for having to volunteer and not being able to go to the mountain cabin. I had a thought that I wanted to tell them about Jordan and Angelina and the other kids who were stuck in hospital, but all they wanted to talk about was the snow conditions for the upcoming week. The overnight snowfall that blanketed the town had everyone excited.
“Never mind, Chase, there’s always New Year's,” Ronan said.
“No, I’m grounded till after New Year’s,” I said sheepishly.
“Man, that sucks,” he said, but he laughed. “If you want me to try out your new board, I’ll do it for you!”
“Not happening,” I said, jabbing him in the shoulder. “It can wait.” Though, strangely, snowboarding wasn’t on my mind, not in the slightest. And when Blanche said that Savannah and Oliver were back together, I barely batted an eyelid.
Until she add
ed, “She used that photo of the two of you to make him jealous.”
“What photo?”
“The other night. At my house, when you were grounded,” Blanche said.
“No way,” I said, annoyed. “That photo was nothing. And I wasn’t even at your house.”
“You passed by,” Blanche said, raising her eyebrows.
“I was there about five seconds,” I said, a sickening realization that Savannah had likely played me.
“Well, Ollie got all jealous and now they’re back together again,” Blanche said.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I said with an infuriated sigh. I was sure I’d asked Savannah not to share the photo.
And not only that, but somehow my parents found out about it. Yeah, after we were back home and I was avoiding my sisters playing their new ukuleles by making coffee and hot chocolate for everyone, Mom cornered me.
“You didn’t happen to go to a party the other day, did you?” she asked in a calm, non-threatening manner while slicing a loaf.
“Uh, no.”
“No? You came straight home after you finished at the hospital?”
“Uh...yeah,” I said unconvincingly, a shiver of unease running through me.
Mom’s eyes narrowed into an imposing stare. “Do you think I was born yesterday, Chase Masters?” she snapped.
“What?” I asked innocently, though my smile had transformed into a grimace.
“You’re grounded, right?” she said flatly, stopping her work. “No parties, no seeing friends, am I right?”
“Yepppp,” I said, stepping back from her hostile stance. Well, she was clutching a knife.
“Yet you blatantly went to a party and saw Savannah Adlam, right? While you were grounded?”
I told you everything gets back to the Mayor and Mayoress of Snow Ridge. Everything. Though it was pointless to ask who had told her.
“Yeah, that’s not exactly what happened,” I said.