I blinked at the small screen. “You spelled my name wrong.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I gave him a dubious look. “I know how to spell my name.”
“I didn’t. Your name has never been awesome because it’s alliterative. Remember, Mi, I’m Italian.”
“What does that mean?” I yawned.
“You’re a smart girl; you’ll figure it out.” Gyver squeezed my hand, then released it to cup my face. Slowly, making intense eye contact the whole time, he leaned in and brushed his lips down my cheek. “You sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Doctor?” I called as he held the door open for Gyver. “Can I talk to you?”
“Sure.” The doctor looked young and driven. Four pens spaced evenly in his pocket, short hair gelled into perfection. His face was focused determination versus Dr. Kevin’s endless cheer.
“How sick am I? Did you say pneumonia?”
“You’re sick. You’ll be in here for about a week while we get your fever down and lungs clear. Maybe longer.”
“No, I mean, other than that: the cancer?”
He frowned. “That hasn’t changed—you’re doing well. Responding to treatment. I checked your records and your last counts were excellent. I know you’re supposed to begin your next round of consolidation chemo next week—we’ll have to push that back until you’re better. But it won’t be a problem.”
“But I’ve been getting these pains. My heart races and it feels like I’ve forgotten how to breathe. It feels like I’m dying.”
The doctor appraised me. “Rapid pulse? Shallow breathing? It sounds like anxiety.”
“Aren’t I sick?”
“Yes, but that sounds like anxiety.” He reached out and put a calming hand on mine, which was so twisted in my necklace it was cutting trails in my fingers.
“I’m not dying?”
“Not today. But you need to take better care of yourself—you shouldn’t have let yourself get this sick before telling anyone. Have you been sleeping? Eating well?”
“No.” I plucked at the sheet, pulling my knees up toward my chin. “I can’t. It got so … It just seemed like too much.” My heart was starting to throb and something began to beep.
“Take a deep breath.”
I did, but it made me cough. I tried again with more success.
The doctor nodded encouragingly as my pulse slowed and the beeping stopped. “You are responding to treatment, but there’s a mental toll as well as a physical one. I’m going to have a counselor visit you.”
Yesterday I would’ve scoffed and rejected his advice. But yesterday I’d been ready to give up and accept death. I wasn’t anymore. “Okay.”
“Cancer’s part of your life; it isn’t your whole life. You need some long-term perspective, and we need to get that anxiety under control.”
“Thanks.”
“Now get some sleep,” he insisted.
Like I had a choice. My eyelids were already sealing out his words and the world. Anxiety? I fumbled closed-eyed until I found the Play button on Gyver’s iPod.
“Mark, do you speak Italian?” I asked drowsily. I’d been fading in and out of sleep as I tried to focus on the songs Gyver’d chosen. I’d fall asleep in one song and wake up coughing in the next. Fall asleep and wake up during the same song—did that mean I’d slept only seconds, or through a whole repetition of the playlist? The fever wasn’t helping either. Not much was making sense.
My parents—thinking I was asleep—had exited at Mark’s entrance.
“Are you worried about school? You know it’s 3:30 a.m., right? I guarantee your teacher will give you an extension.”
“I’m just trying to figure something out.” I rubbed a sleepy hand across my eyes and tried to focus. “Gyver made me this. Does this mean what I think?” I tapped the dial to illuminate the screen.
Mark chuckled. “Clever boy; great play on your name.” “Humor me. I’m not sure I believe it,” I said, wider awake now.
Mark grinned. “Yup, ‘Mi Amore’ means ‘my love.’ Like I said, pretty clever.”
“Oh. I thought so, maybe. I hoped …”
Mark laughed at the blush creeping up my neck. “Should I send him in? He’s in the waiting room. You can have a quick visit as long as you remember the infection rule …” He looked at me expectantly, but I stared blankly. “No kissing,” he reminded.
“Mark said you wanted Gyver, but I asked to see you first.” Ryan’s eyes were red and his suit was rumpled. His blue tie was crushed half in his pocket.
“Hi.” I failed my weak attempt to sit up. “You didn’t go home?”
“Chris came. He took Hil home and me to get my car, but I came right back.” His words had the flavor of confession.
“You didn’t have to. You should get some sleep.”
“Gyver stayed.” Ryan’s posture went rigid, then slumped in resignation. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. How’re you feeling?” He sat in the chair beside my bed.
“Better. Tired. Sick. It sounds like I’ll be here a while.”
“Yeah.” Ryan swallowed and fidgeted with the pockets of his suit coat. “I’d take back all the crap I said last night, but …”
I reached for the hand that had been my lifeline, and he crushed my fingers one last time. “No, you were right, I just wasn’t brave enough to say it first. We weren’t happy.”
“God, this sucks.” He extracted his fingers from mine and stared out the window. “What happens now?”
“I hope we can be friends.”
“Yeah …” He sighed. “I should let you sleep. Or see Gyver.” The second sentence was harder for him to say.
I thought about denying it, but I was done lying. “Thanks, for everything. Will you send him in?”
Ryan nodded; it was a quick, tight motion. “Mia, I’m not going to visit for a while. I need some time.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’ll miss you.”
He smiled, but it was a small, sad, dimple-free smile. “Ditto,” he said, and backed out of the room.
Chapter 49
“I keep asking for Gyver and getting everyone else.” I held out my arms for parental hugs, expecting coos of “Kitten, how are you?” and offers to hunt down Popsicles. Instead, Mom sat in a chair and Dad frowned from the end of my bed.
“You knew,” Mom said simply. “You knew you were sick and you didn’t tell us.”
It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Dad’s voice was a thunderstorm, crashing and making me tremble. My throat began to constrict. “Why would you take risks with your health? You’re smarter than this.”
My mother reached for a tissue. My father turned his back to me.
“And your grades? I spent an hour on the phone with Principal Baker this afternoon.” Dad’s voice rebounded off the wall but didn’t lose any of its anger.
This surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. Fall Ball was the deadline I’d agreed to, and I’d ceased pretending to catch up after Jinx died.
Dad stomped to my side. “Goddamn it, Mia! What have you been doing? It’s like you’ve given up.”
“I had,” I whispered.
“What?” The emotion drained from Dad’s face as he uncurled his fingers from the bed rail and sank into a chair.
“I had given up,” I explained, trying to fight off the chest tightening and continue. “I was so tired, and I didn’t think I’d make it. It didn’t seem worth it to keep trying so hard.”
“How could you do that to me? You can’t give up.” Mom sobbed and held her arms out to Dad, but he stayed frozen on the other side of my bed.
“How could you expect me to handle all of this? Mom, you put so much pressure on me. My life was hard before—it was impossible once I got sick. It got so bad; giving up seemed like my only option.”
“You should have told us,” she countered. “How are we supposed to help if we don’t know what’s wrong?”
/>
“It’s always been so hard to make you proud and so easy to let you down; I don’t know how to flat-out fail at something. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
I watched the tissue flutter from Mom’s hand as she reached out to squeeze my fingers. Tears flowed down her cheeks undabbed.
Dad looked lost, his mouth gaped.
“I was just so scared.” I let the tears salt my cheeks; I shook with months of fear, coughing convulsively.
Dad reacted first, coming to rub my back and offer me water as I choked. Mom stayed still: confusion, then something else, passing over her face. She picked up the box of tissues and murmured, “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay! I can’t do it all.” I continued crying, alternating sobs with coughing fits that hurt enough to make me cry more and left me woozy. “I … I can’t worry about being your perfect daughter with the 4.0 and pretty friends and popular boyfriend and fight cancer at the same time.”
I wiped my cheek on my sleeve and took a few deep breaths. “I don’t want to do it all.” Paused to cough. “And I need it to be okay if I don’t always do what you want.” Paused again to catch my breath. “Or live your dream for my life.”
Mom handed me tissue after tissue. She wasn’t saying anything, but she was listening. That was a start.
Between gasps, I managed to convey the conclusions I’d reached. “I was focused on the wrong things. Everything I gave up and couldn’t have. I stopped realizing how lucky I am. I mean, treatment is going well, right, Dad?”
“Very well. Your latest platelet count—” Mom held up a hand and he nodded and let me continue.
“If I can’t go to college far away, or can’t go full time, or even can’t go right after graduation—it’s not the end of the world. Neither is not cheering or not having hair.”
“I can make a list of colleges near hospitals with good oncology programs,” mused Dad.
I nodded; list making was his form of comfort. It was the Dad version of superstition, but I needed more than that. “I want to have conversations where you hear me, not just compile facts and make mental graphs. Do you get the difference?”
Mom shot him an I-told-you-so look, but I took one last shaky breath and finished. “What I’m saying is, I’m sorry I lied to you. I get it now.” I wiped my face.
“Feel better?” Mom asked, her voice hopeful.
I would have nodded and smiled yesterday. Today I shook my head. “No. But can I see Gyver?”
“Now?” Dad asked.
I lost my battle with a yawn. “I need to talk to him. I’ve been waiting all morning.”
“All morning? It’s four thirty. You need some sleep, kitten.”
“After I see Gyver, I promise.”
Dad spoke up, “No. No more promises or bargains. I listened, I heard you, but you’ve got to earn back our trust. Right now, your top priority has to be your health. You need to sleep, not socialize.”
“But …” My voice rose in pitch as my eyes filled again.
“But nothing. Sleep and eat breakfast; then you can see him.” Dad’s voice was firm.
Mom looked between Dad and me. She nodded. “Get some sleep and then he can visit. It’s just Gyver; he’ll wait.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” I whined like a toddler protesting bedtime, my argument undermined by a second traitorous yawn.
“Then I guess you don’t want to see your friends,” Dad countered.
“Fine.” If it’s possible to slam your eyes shut, that’s what I did. Of course, all it did was jar tears loose and send them disloyally down my cheeks.
Mom wiped them. “He can visit after ten. I’ll send him home to get some sleep too.”
Chapter 50
Since I slept until eleven, my parents compromised and allowed Gyver to visit while I ate breakfast. They even allowed me to see him alone—after a stern “Make sure she eats”—because they were speaking with the counselor I’d soon be meeting. Mom still wasn’t keen on the counselor idea. “What are you going to tell her about me?” Gyver rolled his eyes, and Dad shooed her out of the room.
“If I eat the toast, will you eat the rest so they get off my case?” I bargained when the door shut.
“Nope.” Gyver smiled and sat on the edge of my bed. I didn’t like the table with my breakfast tray between us, but my parents would be peeking in, so it stayed.
“I’ve been asking for you since three thirty,” I confessed.
“I know.” He grinned wider.
“I did some translating.” I reached under the table for his hand and blushed. “How do you say ‘kiss me’ in Italian?”
Gyver’s forehead wrinkled, and as the seconds stretched silent, my smile melted. My eyes itched with the tears of the rejected. I wrestled for composure, but my heart sprinted and my irregular breath caused a coughing fit. Gyver’s fingers had tightened when I’d asked, but now he released my hand and passed me a cup of apple juice.
I fought for control of my breathing, fought the tears blurring my eyes. I sipped, sending stinging juice down my raw throat.
“Forget I said anything,” I whispered, studying the banana browning on my tray. I wanted to shove it all aside and pull my knees to my chest.
“No, Mi—”
The door opened and we turned toward my father. “You okay? I could hear you coughing down the hall.”
I nodded and held up my juice, hoping he wouldn’t look too closely at my stricken face.
“I’ve got her, Mr. Moore. I’d come get you if anything …”
Dad smiled at Gyver. “I know you would. Just checking.” He pointed to the tray. “Eat,” and backed out of the room.
I crumbled some toast and peeked at Gyver with a hummingbird’s heart thrumming in my chest. “I assumed … Forget it.”
“I’m thinking. I know mostly kitchen Italian. If you want to know how to say something food related, I’m your guy. ‘Kiss me’ doesn’t come up at the dinner table.” He laughed and I raised my eyes to him.
“So you do …?” I trailed off. “The playlist wasn’t so subtle by the end.”
“I tried subtle, Mi. You didn’t get it.”
“And the last song? It’s you singing; you wrote it for me?”
“I could make you a whole playlist with the songs I’ve written you,” he confessed.
“Please do.” I put down my juice and leaned forward. “Gyver, I believe I’m going to get better—I do—but I’ve got lots of this left. Are you sure it’s what you want?”
“Lots of you—in bed? It’ll be torture, but I think I can manage.”
I frowned. “Be serious.”
“Mi, I’ve waited years for you already. I know what you’re saying, but I’m in love with you. Did you really not know? It’s going to take something worse than cancer to scare me.”
I shook my head. “You’ve called me ‘Mi’ forever. How long have I been oblivious?”
“Only since I was ten. Don’t you remember? You caught me repeating your name in the backyard.”
“You told me you liked alliteration. You were lying?”
Anyone else would have blushed; Gyver smiled and handed me a slice of toast. “Eat or I’m gonna get kicked out.”
I took a hasty bite. “All these years I’ve been collecting alliterative names for you—”
“Baciami!” Gyver interrupted, satisfaction settling on his face.
“Ba-cha-me?” I repeated slowly, my initial grin falling to a pout. “It’s not fair. I want to kiss you and can’t.”
“I don’t know; last time I initiated a kiss, you dropped ice cream on me.”
I laughed. “I didn’t do it on purpose! Is that what you thought?”
Gyver shrugged and nodded.
“Seriously? You think I’d waste perfectly good ice cream? That was a poorly timed clumsy moment, which I interpreted as a very bad omen.”
Gyver groaned. “You and your signs.”
“I’m done. I promise. I’ll cancel my horoscopes and thr
ow away the Magic 8 Ball.”
“Keep the Magic 8 Ball. I gave you that.” He picked up and rubbed my hand. It was a gesture that should’ve been familiar and comforting, but it felt new and electric.
“Gyver, just so you know, Ryan and I didn’t …” I blushed and stumbled over words. “That day in the kitchen it looked like—But we never.”
He cupped my face, thumb stroking my cheek; there was a smile in his voice. “I didn’t think so. At least not that day.”
“How were you so maddeningly calm? I can’t believe you invited Ryan over for lasagna while we were standing there half-naked.”
“Rest assured, I went home and lifted till I threw up, but I didn’t think you’d … I knew you’d interpret my interruption as a very bad sign and cancel your plans.” His smile was smug. “But I don’t want to hear the words ‘Ryan,’ ‘you,’ and ‘naked’ in the same sentence again.”
The door opened too soon. My parents and the counselor entered the room. Far too soon for me to tell Gyver everything I needed to. “Come back later?”
“Tomorrow,” Dad corrected.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Dad repeated himself.
Gyver squeezed my hand under the tray. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mia Moore.”
I twisted my hand in his, tracing the guitar-string calluses on his fingertips. In a voice as steady as a statue and only slightly raspy, I answered, “I love you too, Gyver.”
“Did she say … to Gyver?” Mom looked from the door where Gyver exited to my father.
“Dear, let’s go,” said Dad.
“But what about Ryan?” she asked.
“We broke up.”
“You and Ryan broke up?” Her voice climbed from confused to baffled.
“Mom.” My voice was stern. She stopped fussing and turned to me. “You’ve got to start trusting me to make my own decisions about what makes me happy.”
“Of course, kitten. I do.” She smoothed her already smooth hair and laughed nervously. “Gyver Russo, really?” It wasn’t criticism, it was curiosity.
Send Me a Sign Page 26
