Invincible

by Amy Reed

  Stella sings her heart out, but after a while she has to stop because she’s out of breath. “The altitude’s getting to me,” she says. I remember that we are sick. We are not as invincible as these songs make us feel.

  The van slows down. “We’re here,” Cole says, and does some kind of complicated parking maneuver.

  Part of me wants to stay where I am, in the dark. The world in the back of the van is small and manageable; it’s just me in this tiny space, with nothing and no one else to worry about. I don’t even have to worry about me. I can let go because Stella’s calling the shots. I can just let her lead. I don’t have to care about how everyone’s feeling. I can finally relax.

  When the back doors open, I am on the edge of the world. All I can see are the lights of Oakland over a thousand feet below me, the Bay Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, even the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. The moon is full and reflecting off the bay. Everything is clean and sparkling, the streets pulsing like arteries. From this height, everything down there seems to be working efficiently, as if the city is a healthy, flawless body. We can’t see any of the dirt or crime or poverty. We can’t see any of the disease. Up here, on the outside, everything is perfect.

  With Cole’s help, Stella hoists herself into the van and leans her back against my wheelchair. Cole follows and snuggles against her. We sit in silence for a while, looking out over the city, and I think I could sit here forever.

  I hear some movement and look down. Stella is rolling a joint. I watch, mesmerized, as her thin, graceful fingers work. I’ve never seen anyone roll a joint. I’ve been around weed a few times, smelled it, seen it being smoked at parties, but it was never something I was all that interested in trying.

  “I’ve never smoked before,” I tell her.

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “What if we get caught?”

  “This is Oakland. People smoke weed walking down the street.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Cole says. “I’m not since I’m driving.”

  “No,” I say. “I want to.” For some reason, it suddenly seems like something I have to do. Like I have to prove to myself, to Stella, that I am someone who can be wild. I can break out of a hospital. I can get strapped into the back of a van and not care where I’m taken. I can smoke pot at the edge of the earth, inches away from death.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever broken a law before,” I say.

  “But you’re not even breaking a law,” Stella says. “That’s the best part. It’s not even illegal. You have cancer and this is a prescription.”

  “Dr. Jacobs gave you a medical marijuana prescription?” I can’t believe it. Not Dr. Jacobs who took away my morphine. “Don’t you have to be eighteen to get it yourself? Your parents actually go to the pot club to pick it up?”

  “I didn’t say it was my prescription.”

  “That doesn’t sound very legal.”

  “Yeah, well, I have bigger things to worry about than a misdemeanor pot charge. It’s all about perspective, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess, what’s the point of following all the rules if you’re just going to die in a few weeks?”

  “Exactly!” Stella says. “Plus it really does help with the nausea. I couldn’t keep anything down without it. It really is medicine. All those medical marijuana activists aren’t just a bunch of potheads.”

  “Just most of them,” Cole says.

  “Are you nauseous right now?” I ask.

  “No, this time it’s purely recreational.” Stella lights the joint and a sweet, herby smell fills the air. I watch her take a couple of small puffs and hold it in. She passes it to me and says, “Don’t suck too hard.”

  “That’s what he said,” I say, and that makes them crack up. I take a little drag like she did, feel the smoke burn down my throat. I start coughing.

  “You okay?” Cole says.

  “I’m fine,” I say, and hand the joint back to Stella. We pass it back and forth a few more times, and just as I think I’ve gotten the hang of it, Stella decides I’ve had enough. “I don’t think I feel anything,” I say.

  “Just wait,” she tells me.

  I look out at the view and imagine I live up here permanently, that this is as close as I’ll ever be to the city below. For the rest of my life, I will only see beautiful. I will never have to go down there again, never have to sit through another round of chemo or radiation, never have to get another surgery, never have to get another piece of metal drilled into my bone, never have to wake up in that hospital bed, never have to eat that hospital food, never have to see my mother cry, never have to hear another doctor try to explain how I am dying. I will keep floating up, farther away from the city, farther away from the pain. I will never go down.

  “I think I’m high,” I say. My voice sounds weird, lower than normal. Like a grown-up.

  “Woo-hoo!” Stella cheers into the night. “Evie’s high! Congratulations, Evie!”

  “I don’t want to talk about dying,” I say.

  “Who said anything about dying?”

  “If we were in a movie about kids with cancer, this is the part where we’d talk about dying. We’d get all philosophical and some sad music would play and we’d have some sort of breakthrough and come to terms with something and it would be really cathartic. Then one of us would die.”

  “Fuck that shit,” Stella says.

  “Yeah,” Cole says. “Fuckity-fuck that shit.”

  “FUCK! THAT! SHIT!” Stella screams. “Come on, Evie. Say it with us.”

  Together we scream, “FUCK THAT SHIT!”

  “Come on, Cheerleader,” Stella commands. “Put your back into it.”

  We scream it over and over, faster and faster, until it’s a kind of chant, until we don’t even know what we’re saying anymore, just that we’re saying it loud, together, and on top of the world.

  “Fuck you!” someone yells outside, and we all laugh hysterically. Cole pokes his head out the back of the van.

  “Some dude is parked down the road,” he says. “Probably trying to put the moves on a girl and we’re totally ruining the moment.”

  “Good thing for the girl we’re here,” Stella says, but we calm down.

  “I wish the world looked like this all the time,” I say.

  “It can,” Stella says. “It can be whatever you want it to. You get to decide how you live in the time you have left.”

  “Are you getting sentimental on me? Where’s Stella? What’d you do with my friend Stella?”

  “Sometimes she gets a little sappy when she’s stoned,” Cole says, and kisses her softly on the ear.

  “I’m serious,” Stella says.

  It is too much for me to think about, so I watch the night sparkle.

  “Are you going to live big?” Stella says with a softer voice than I’ve ever heard from her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Promise me, Evie,” she says. “Promise me you’ll live big.”

  “I promise,” I say, even though I have no idea what that means in the little time I have left. I reach out my hand and Stella takes it in hers. We sit like that for a long time, holding hands, looking out over the world made beautiful by our distance from it.

  When we get back to the hospital, the news vans are gone, but a couple of police cars are still in front. “Do you think those are for us?” I say as Cole turns the corner to drop us off out of sight. “We’re going to get in so much trouble.”

  “What can they do to us?” Stella says. “Withhold our pain meds? Refuse to empty your pee bag? It’s not like they can ground us. We already can’t do anything.”

  Cole helps me out of the van and gives me a long hug. “I’m so glad I met you,” he says softly. “Stella loves you so much.” His voice cracks and he turns away, but not before I notice the tears in his eyes. And then I remember, in the midst of feeling more alive than I’ve felt in months, that I am going to die. My life
is almost over, even though I feel like something huge was just born.

  “Oh, we can’t forget Evie’s mix,” Stella says, and moves toward the van. She stumbles and Cole catches her just in time.

  “I’m okay,” she says with a laugh. “That weed was strong, huh?”

  “Hold on to Evie’s chair,” Cole says. “I’ll get the CD.”

  I look up at Stella and see something like fear in her eyes. I open my mouth to ask her what’s wrong, but she puts a finger in front of her lips and says, “Shh.”

  “I’m going to walk with you,” Cole says as he hands me the mix.

  “No,” says Stella. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “It’s not a choice.”

  “Fine,” she says. “But only halfway. Just until we turn the corner.”

  Cole pushes my chair as Stella leans on him for support. Even though it’s barely two blocks, we have to stop twice so Stella can catch her breath. The relaxed and friendly Cole I spent the evening with has transformed into someone serious and strong, someone Stella trusts to hold her up. Just like that, the magic of the evening disappears. Minutes ago we were weightless, but now we are so heavy we can barely move.

  “Okay,” Stella says when we reach the corner. “You have to go now.” Cole holds her for a long time as they whisper their love, and I am suddenly so cold, I am freezing, and the only thing in the world that can warm me up is Will’s arms around me.

  “He can be such a drama queen sometimes,” Stella says as Cole walks away, but I can hear the sorrow behind her weak attempt at humor.

  We turn the corner and are immediately assaulted by the blinking of police lights. Nurse Moskowitz is talking to a police officer. Her head snaps in our direction.

  “Oh crap,” Stella says. “Here comes Nurse Ratched.”

  “Where have you two been?” Moskowitz bellows as she comes storming toward us.

  She grabs Stella’s arm and I think she’s going to start lecturing like she always does, the same tired old sermon she gives Stella every time she breaks the rules. But instead, she puts her fingers around Stella’s wrist and takes her pulse. Her movements are almost gentle, which is not a word anyone would ever use to describe Nurse Moskowitz.

  “Is all this fuss for us?” Stella says. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “In my eighteen years here, I have never, ever had a cancer patient leave the hospital AMA. Never. Do you realize we had to put the whole hospital on lockdown? Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused?”

  “A lot?” says Stella.

  Moskowitz glares at us as she speaks into her walkie-talkie: “They’re back. Send Burns down immediately with a wheelchair and some blankets. Call their parents and let them know we found them.”

  “I don’t need a wheelchair,” Stella says, and starts coughing so hard that Moskowitz has to hold her in a bear hug to keep her from falling down.

  “Evie,” Moskowitz snaps, and it makes me jump in my chair. She has never raised her voice at me. I am not the one who gets in trouble. “Didn’t you stop to think how risky it is to Stella’s health to leave the hospital like this? She needs round-the-clock care. What if something had happened? How would you feel then?”

  I don’t understand how this became my fault, but I say I’m sorry anyway. I look to Stella for some clue, but her eyes are glazed over and dim, like she used up every last ounce of strength she had in her for the trip, and now that it’s over she’s only a shell.

  “We just went for a walk,” I say as a policeman approaches.

  “For two hours?” Moskowitz says. She puts her hand on Stella’s forehead. “Jesus, you’re burning up.”

  What’s happening? What happened? Why is Stella so sick all of a sudden?

  “We had cars patrolling the neighborhood,” the police officer says, eyeing us skeptically. “It’s surprising we didn’t see you.”

  “It’s not our fault you couldn’t find us,” Stella says from somewhere behind her fever.

  I’m shocked she’d talk to a police officer like that, but he just ignores her. “I don’t think we’re needed here anymore, are we, Nurse? Unless you want to press charges.”

  “What?” says Nurse Moskowitz, preoccupied with checking Stella’s vitals. “Jesus, no. Thank you, Officer. And sorry for wasting your time.”

  “Girls,” he says. “Think a little before you do something next time, okay? I don’t think you have the same freedom to be as stupid as other people.”

  I brace myself for Stella to say something horrible but it doesn’t come. She’s lost inside herself, somewhere infected and hot.

  “Where is that goddamned wheelchair?” Moskowitz curses, and that’s when I start crying. Even she is scared. Moskowitz is never scared.

  “Stella?” I say.

  The sliding doors open and Mr. Burns, the medical assistant, finally arrives with Stella’s wheelchair. He and Nurse Moskowitz help her into it and cover us both with blankets. As they push us to the elevators, Moskowitz continues to berate us. “I can’t believe you got Caleb mixed up in this with you. You know that poor boy would do anything you asked him.”

  We get into the elevator and she presses the button for the fifth floor. “And Evie, that you of all people would do this. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “Don’t blame Evie,” Stella mumbles through her haze.

  “Especially with Stella being neutropenic,” Moskowitz continues. “She has virtually no immune system right now. Do you have any idea how dangerous it was for her to leave the hospital?”

  My heart drops. “What? Stella, you didn’t tell me that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I have leukemia,” she says flatly. “‘No Immune System’ is my middle name.”

  It’s my fault. Stella did this for me. She caught something while we were out and it’s all because of me.

  “Mr. Burns,” Nurse Moskowitz says when we get to the fifth floor, “please help Evie back to her room and ask Nurse Jill to help get her back in bed. I’ll take care of Stella.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says, and starts pushing me away. I turn my head to watch Stella as Moskowitz wheels her in the other direction toward her room. She looks smaller than I’ve ever seen her, empty somehow. She raises her head and for a split second the light comes back in her eyes. She winks at me and I mouth I’m sorry, but she shakes her head. So I mouth Thank you instead, and she nods, satisfied.

  I turn the corner into my room and Stella disappears from view. My hand tightens around the CD she made me, perfect and solid in my lap.

  eight.

  “I BROUGHT YOU A BAGEL,” KASEY SAYS AS SHE LOWERS herself into the chair next to my bed. She places the paper-wrapped bagel on my bedside table, and the smell of garlic and herb cream cheese makes me nauseous. Not because I’m sick. Not because of my body. Because of the pale, tired light barely making it through the window. Because Kasey’s skin is still somehow tan.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “God, I can’t believe what you guys did last night,” she says. “Your parents told me all about it on the way here. They were so worried about you.”

  “I feel really bad about that,” I say, and I mean it. After everything they’ve gone through. After everything they’ve already suffered because of me.

  “It was really stupid, Evie.”

  “I know.” Like I need one more person to tell me that.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen to you yet?”

  “My parents and Stella’s are talking to Dr. Jacobs and the hospital director right now.”

  “They should kick that girl out of here.”

  Did she really just say that? “That girl has leukemia. I think it might go against the Hippocratic Oath or something if they kicked her out.”

  “Whatever,” Kasey says, and I kind of want to throw the bagel at her head.

  “I’m not really hungry right now,” I say, pushing it away from me. She doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s looking at the bagel rav
enously. “Do you want it?” I ask.

  “Oh no,” she says, breaking out of her trance. “I’m on a diet.”

  “You look hungry.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re too skinny.”

  “Really?” Her face brightens. “You think so?”

  I forgot that in the outside world, that’s supposed to be a compliment.

  I decide to change the subject. “So what’s happening? How are things going with that guy?”

  “Pretty good. You know.”

  No, actually, I don’t. I don’t know anything except that he goes to Skyline High School and she met him at a party and it’s awkward for her to talk to me about it because I’ll be dead soon.

  She’s looking at her pink polished nails. “Did you get a manicure?” I say.

  “Huh?” She looks up. “Oh yeah. Some of the girls from the squad got together last night at Taylor’s and did our nails and facials and stuff. Lisa did mine. She did an okay job, but there’s a speck of something on this one.”

  “That sounds fun,” I say, but it doesn’t. Compared to what I did last night, it doesn’t sound fun at all. Normally, I would have loved a night like that. Before I got so sick, there’s nothing I would have rather done than sit around with a bunch of girls, green goop on our faces, excited about my pores getting opened, excited to talk about boys, about school, about so many innocuous things, back when happiness was so easy, when it was just there all the time, hovering around us, waiting to be picked like fruit.

  “Oh, Evie,” Kasey says. “I wish you could have been there.”

  “Me too.”

  She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It must be terrible for you to hear about the fun stuff I do without you.”

  I shrug. Maybe I should be upset. Maybe I should be jealous and heartbroken and yearning to be back in that world with her. But right now I’m too busy worrying about Stella. I’m worried about her getting weaker. I’m worried about what’s going to happen to us for last night, what kind of punishment we have in store.

  I want my morphine back.

  “What’s going on with you?” Kasey says.