Styx & Stones

by Carmen Jenner

“I know that now.”

  “If you kids need anything—snacks, a wheatgrass juice, herbal tea—let me know.”

  “Mom,” Alaska snaps. “Can you go already?”

  Her mother’s face is blank as she looks between us and then her throat bobs, her eyes glisten with unshed tears, and she nods. “Okay, well, you know where to find me.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. S.”

  Stones’ mom leaves the room, closing the door behind her, and Alaska flops back on the bed and puts her pillow over her head.

  “Does she always drink at eleven a.m.?” I ask.

  “It’s a new thing she’s doing since my diagnosis.”

  “You should go easy on her.”

  “I know. I just can’t stand the way she hovers now.”

  “I get it, but this disease is terrifying for parents too. Sometimes they don’t get that we’re forced to become adults, and we have to make some very adult decisions about our bodies, and our futures. Sometimes we’re more ready for those decisions than they are.”

  She slides the pillow off her head and frowns. Her eyes are rheumy with unshed tears.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “What isn’t wrong?” Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and seep into her hairline. “The scan yesterday showed that the tumors have grown.”

  “Shit. How bad?”

  “Grade two, but there are a lot more undefined clusters now. Seems little dude threw a rave at his new home and his friends never left.” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “They’re consulting with some specialist from London because they don’t know how to operate.”

  “Scoot over,” I say. She does and I lie down beside her, pulling her into my arms. “Do you know why I call you Stones?”

  “Because you thought it was a clever play on my last name?”

  “No, because you’re a badass who takes no fucking prisoners. Freshman year, you poured your pink milkshake over Chad Hoover because he fat shamed Alison Park in the cafeteria.”

  “Well, he was a douche, and all she had was a fucking salad on her plate.”

  “All true, but in a cafeteria with three hundred kids—myself included—you were the only one to do something about it. That takes stones, babe.”

  “Anyone else would have done the same.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. They didn’t.” I slide my fingertips up and down her arm in lazy strokes. “Even I did nothing but look on because I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. You’re not afraid to be seen, you’re not afraid to do the hard things—the moral things. You’re a fucking rock star, Alaska, and you’re going to kick the shit out of cancer’s ass.”

  “I’m not sure anymore.”

  “Come on.” I slide out of bed and tug her hand. “Get up. Get dressed.”

  Stones shakes her head. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “I get it, believe me I do. But you need to get out of this room, and I have a surprise for you.”

  “No.” She pulls her hand free from mine and sits up. “Dammit. I don’t feel like being your project today, Styx.”

  “My project?” My brows crease in confusion. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means.”

  “No, I really don’t, but feel free to enlighten me.”

  “You make me a distraction. If you’re focused on me, you don’t have to think about the disease that’s trying to kill you.”

  She’s kidding, right? “Jesus, Stones. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Is it?”

  “You don’t distract me from my cancer. If anything, you make me more aware there’s a chance I might die without ever getting to touch you the way I want.”

  She sucks in a sharp breath. Her eyes are stormy with anguish and I close mine because this is not the reaction I’d hoped for when I told her how I feel. Fuck. I hadn’t even meant to tell her. It just slipped out. Though I guess, if she didn’t already know, she’s not as smart as I thought she was. I wasn’t exactly subtle on homecoming night.

  “That came out wrong,” I say, and then I shake my head because fuck it. We don’t have time for anything else. “No. It didn’t. I like you, Stones. This shouldn’t be a shock to you. If it is then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “Styx ...”

  I walk to the door, pulling back the handle. I lean my forehead against the wood, unable to look at her and see more tears in her eyes. “I got you a spot in Clarion Alley. Had to ring in a few favors—actually, my mom had to ring in a fuck-load of favors—but it’s yours. Whether you want it or not.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was still talking about the alley or my heart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ALASKA

  “You know, you’re really brilliant.” Dean folds his arms across his chest, appraising my work.

  “Thanks.” I pick up the hot pink can and spray in long arcs surrounding the boy. “I owe a really brilliant apology.”

  “Pretty sure you’ve managed to succeed.”

  I smile. Despite the pain in my head, the lethargy in my body. Despite how my arms are aching, and my fingers are covered in paint regardless of the gloves. I pull off the mask and step back to look at my work.

  “So cancer, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is it treatable?”

  “Is it ever?” I reply, and Dean looks confused. “It’s only curable if I let them cut my head open and remove the tumor, assuming they can shrink it first.”

  “Shit. That’s heavy, dude.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You gonna do it?”

  “I don’t know.” I glance between him and the mural, wondering if it needs anything else. Wondering if I have the strength to lift my arm again and keep going. “How much do you know about Styx?”

  “Not much. He seems like a cool kid.”

  “He has it too, you know? Cancer, I mean.”

  “Damn, that’s rough. I’m sorry, man.”

  “Will you do me a favor, Dean?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Will you keep this up for Styx, but also for me? See, if I let them take my tumor, I may lose my ability to paint. I don’t know if he’ll get a chance to see it before you change the artwork in the alley again.”

  “I’ll keep it up. No matter what. No one gets this part of the wall.”

  “Thanks.”

  Now I just have to convince Styx to forgive me.

  ***

  My phone chimes and I glance down at the notification from my Insta account. I tap the screen and open it, close the door with my foot, and throw my keys on the table in the hall. “Mom, Dad? I’m home.”

  “Oh, honey. We’ve been calling and calling. Where have you been?”

  “Out with Styx.” I lie, because I seriously doubt my mom would be okay with me kicking it with some random adult male in a dark alley. No matter how cool Dean is.

  “I called his mother. She hadn’t seen you.”

  “You have his mother’s number?” I shake my head, deciding I definitely don’t want to know how that came about. She likely called every Hendricks listed in the Bay Area. “And she hadn’t seen us because we were at his dad’s.”

  “They’re divorced?”

  “Yes, Mom. His parents are divorced. Maybe you and Dad should try it sometime. It might save me having to listen to you argue about how much my cancer is costing you.”

  “That’s enough,” Dad bellows from his favorite armchair before finally joining us in the hall. “Apologize to your mother.”

  “Sorry, Mother.”

  Mom looks at Dad and smiles. Her eyes are bright with excitement as she grabs my wrist and squeezes. “Honey, we have a surgery date.”

  My blood turns to ice. No. No, no, no. I don’t want them cutting out a piece of my skull. I don’t want them digging through my head, turning me to mush. “What?”

  My mother’s eyes widen. “You’re shaking.”
/>   “She’s in shock, Joanie.”

  “But good shock, right? Alaska, honey, this is a good thing.”

  I nod, but it doesn’t feel good. There’s still a very real risk that I’ll wind up braindead or they’ll take out a piece of me that I can never get back. Sure, it might be life-saving surgery, but what if it’s not a life worth saving? What if this Alaska Stone ceases to exist? What if I don’t even make it out of the operating room?

  “Honey, where are you going?”

  “Headache.”

  “I thought she’d be happier,” Mom says to Dad.

  “Give her some time,” he reassures her with whispered words. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  I want to scream. Their whispers fill my head, making everything too loud, too harsh, making me see the betrayal, the deceit in not wanting to live. It’s a betrayal of their legacy.

  I’m supposed to go on.

  To continue the bloodline. That’s my job here—to carry on the gene pool, carry my father’s name until I’m old enough to surrender it to another man and take his name instead. This is what they’ve wanted since the day I was born, but the urgency to make that happen now, to see that I survive at all costs, seems to have replaced their obsession with me growing up, getting a solid job, and marrying a man who can provide for me and our offspring.

  I can’t tell them I don’t want this surgery. I can’t tell them I’m terrified, because it’s a betrayal. Not wanting the surgery makes me crazy. Anyone in their right mind would seize this opportunity. Everyone wants to live, right?

  I’m no different. I want to live. I want to be a normal teenage girl obsessing over the perfect prom dress, but the reality is ... I’m not normal. I have cancer—not a little cancer. Not an easily treatable cancer. I have cancer on my fucking brain. A cluster of lumps, no bigger than a book of matches, but plenty big enough to fuck shit up. The surgeons want to carve open my skull and sever the tumor growing on my brain, and I’m just supposed to let it happen? Lie down on their table, take their anesthetic, and hope like hell they don’t scramble the contents of my head like I’m a zombie extra on The Walking Dead?

  I don’t want this.

  I don’t want to be a teenage girl with cancer, but I am. That’s reality. And not having the surgery will kill my parents just as surely as the surgery will kill a part of me.

  ***

  I told my mom I had one of my migraines so that they’d leave me alone. I couldn’t deal with her hovering, with Dad’s casual way of ignoring the subject. I sometimes wondered if he knew I was sick at all. I mean, obviously he knows, because he’s pulling overtime at the office now, and his insurance is covering ’most everything, but I still hear them arguing about money all the time.

  I’m tired. My heart hurts. My head hurts, and I’ve spent too many hours alone in my room. My fear is crippling, and instead of sleeping, I’ve been staring at the ceiling.

  I’ve written countless texts to Styx and deleted them all. I’ve paced and scribbled on my walls in the dark, and I can’t deal with the weight of this knowledge anymore. Earlier, I regretted saying those things to Styx, but now I really feel guilty because the truth is that while he may be using me as a distraction, I understand why. I know what he meant when he said I made him more aware of his cancer, because being with him reminds me to live while I have the chance.

  With that in mind, I get up and change out of my pj’s into jeans, a tee, and an oversized grandpa cardigan. I throw on a light jacket because I don’t want to get my coat from the hall closet and risk waking my parents, and then I write a note for my mom and tell her I’m staying at El’s house. El lives two blocks from me, and we’ve done this since we were kids. We may not be talking anymore, but Mom doesn’t know that. Mom’s too invested in her wine to notice much of anything these days.

  I pocket my phone and climb out my window, then close it quietly behind me. I almost fall off the portico roof, because the fog is so thick, I can barely see my hand in front of me. After sliding down the pillar, I hurry down the stairs and bend double on the street, trying to catch my breath. When my head stops spinning, I walk a block away from my house and call a Lyft.

  Outside Styx’s dad’s apartment, I contemplate throwing rocks, but this is San Francisco, so there are none. Instead, I pick up an abandoned aluminum can, tip out the liquid inside, pray like hell it wasn’t pee, and hurl it at his window. It clatters to the ground without so much as grazing the glass, so I crush it underfoot and throw it again.

  This time it does connect. The light comes on, and Mr. Hendricks opens the window. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh ... um. I’m really sorry, Mr. Hendricks.”

  “Let me guess—you’re looking for Styx?”

  “Yeah.”

  The window to the second room slides up and a shadowy figure leans out into the pool of light from the streetlamp. “Damn, Stones. I knew you were ballsy, but I didn’t expect you to try hitting on my dad in the middle of the night.”

  “Very funny, jackass.”

  “Do your parents know you’re here?” Mr. Hendricks asks, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  I grimace. “If I say no will you make me leave?”

  “That depends on what your intentions are with my son.”

  “Well, for a start, I wanted to tell him they booked my surgery.”

  “Holy shit,” Styx says.

  Styx’s dad scrubs a hand over his face. “You sick too?”

  “Brain tumor. The chances of dying before they remove it are just as high as if they do crack open my skull like a melon and scoop it out.”

  “I swear to God, you kids use cancer like a free pass for everything. Come on up. You can stay the night, but Styx ...” He turns to his son’s window. “... if you get her pregnant, you get to be the one to tell your mother, and I had nothing to do with this sleepover. I didn’t even know about it.”

  “Nice, Dad. That’s really tactful.”

  “I’m just stating the facts, kid.”

  “The girl tells you she’s dying, and you tell me to go get laid, but to make sure we use protection?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to embarrass you both by asking if you’re having sex, and even I’m not that much of an asshole to make you sleep on the couch. Your dad is not a cock-blocker.”

  “Okay, Dad.” Styx puffs out his cheeks in a long exhale. “Don’t you have to be up early tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” Mr. Hendricks shakes his head. “Just don’t ... don’t tell your mom.”

  “Hang on,” Styx says to me, ignoring his father completely. “I’ll buzz you up.”

  “Thanks,” I say. He stares down at me with a smile and I smile back, wondering what the hell he’s doing. “Styx, it’s fucking freezing out here. Seriously, my nipples have turned to ice.”

  “Shit. Sorry. Coming.” A beat later, a loud buzz pierces the quiet morning. I head over to the metal grate between the two storefronts and push it open, then I hurry up the stairs, exhaling my hot breath into my cupped hands to warm them.

  Styx waits in the doorway at the top of the landing under a flickering fluorescent bulb. He has a duvet wrapped around his shoulders, and he opens his arms wide. I stare for a beat, and then I crash into him. I’m so damn cold my joints ache.

  “Nice to see you too.”

  “I was an idiot.”

  He chuckles low and deep, and the sound resonates through his chest and into mine. “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s okay if you did, Stones. We’re different, and it’s okay to not be okay. It doesn’t change us.”

  “Yeah?”

  He wraps the duvet tighter around us. “Yeah.”

  I snuggle closer, relishing his strong, steady heartbeat against my ear and the smell of teenage boy—an intoxicating mix of cologne, sandalwood soap, and laundry detergent. “How’d you get so smart for a seventeen-year-old?”

  “It’s cancer wisdom.”

  I laugh and stare up at him.
“Oh yeah? Think a little of it might rub off on me?”

  Styx grins, and I swallow hard because I never noticed he had flecks of gold in those deep brown eyes, or the way his cupid’s bow appears to be carved from granite with two sharp peaks and the cutest little dip in the middle. I knew he was hotter than the average seventeen-year-old, but I’d never had the breath stolen from my lungs when I looked at him. Not until now.

  “Stick with me, kiddo. I’ll teach you everything I know,” he says, but his smile is quickly replaced by a frown. Shit. He’s obviously reading the surprise on my face. I try to school my features, but it’s too late. Styx just caught me looking at him like a lovesick goober. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Can we go inside?”

  “Sure.” He slides his arm around my shoulders and turns us toward the door. I slip out from under his embrace and enter the apartment first, feeling awkward as fuck, and completely unsure of myself. What the hell am I doing?

  “Cool apartment.”

  “Yeah, it’s okay. I’m still getting used to having two rooms. You always think divorce is going to be awesome—two rooms, two sets of everything—but so far, it’s kind of a pain in the ass. Sorry about my dad, by the way. He thinks he’s cool, but he’s just old.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” Mr. Hendricks calls from behind his closed door.

  “That’s kind of the point.” Styx opens the fridge and grabs out a carton of juice, then drinks it straight from the lip. He finishes drinking and wipes the juice from his chin. For a split, crazy half-second, I think about crossing the room and licking the residue from his skin. Instead, I cross the room and take the carton from him.

  “Did you want a glass? Sorry. I just contaminated it with my cooties.”

  “I like your cooties. Besides, aren’t cancer cooties all the same?”

  “Yes.” He nods resolutely, a huge-ass smile bursting free. “Yes, they are.”

  I drink. Styx studies me. I close my eyes and tip my head back, swallowing down the sticky, sweet liquid. When I’m done, I close the carton and hand it back to him. I turn away because the awed look he’s giving me makes me smile and I don’t want him to see. I don’t know how to behave around him now. I don’t know how to be us when all I want to do is kiss him.