First Love

by Patterson, James

  I sat down on a bench. My parents had taken me to church about three times before they lost interest in shushing Carole Ann and me every other second. Now I was the only one in the room, so I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I put my face in my hands. Anyone who poked a head in would think I was praying.

  I thought of Carole Ann and Robinson—and myself, too. How we’d all been affected by forces that felt terrifying and supernatural but were actually just terrifying and basic. Cancer is abnormal cells dividing without control and invading other tissues. It’s that simple. But it was still always a mystery: Why in the hell is my body trying to kill me?

  Before I went into remission, I hated my body for betraying me. And considering that I was being treated for cancer at the same time I was suddenly growing breasts and having to shave my legs and stick giant pads in the crotch of my underwear—well, it felt like my body was adding insult to injury.

  Having Robinson with me on that journey meant everything. We were able to laugh at how weak we were. We had contests over who had the worst mouth sores (chemo causes them; they’re awful). We goaded each other to eat food when food was the last thing we wanted.

  We’d saved each other, Robinson and me. Or at least, he had saved me.

  But why me? Why was I doing so well when Robinson was so sick? When Carole Ann was dead?

  What I know about sickness—beyond the fear, the uncertainty, and the nightmarish drudgery of it—is that it builds a wall between the sick and the well. Back in the pediatric oncology ward, Robinson and I had been on the same side of that wall. Now I couldn’t bear the idea of any wall between us. I wanted to experience what he was experiencing. I wanted to be with him. For everything.

  In a way, I felt like my body was betraying me again—but this time, it was killing me by keeping me well. I knew that wasn’t rational. It wasn’t like I wanted to get cancer again… right?

  I stared at the flickering lights for a long time. When no priest or angel or epiphany from above came to answer my question, I decided to go back to Robinson.

  He was getting the intravenous antibiotics for his chest infection. They’d given him morphine, too, because otherwise the medicine hurt too much going in.

  Robinson turned toward me and smiled. His eyelids were heavy, his skin pale. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” he asked.

  I straightened the edge of his blanket. “That’s the morphine talking,” I said.

  But still I blushed. And I hoped and prayed that it was really him talking.

  30

  I WAS STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE cliff again, and dream-Robinson was beside me, holding my hand. I knew he was supposed to tell me something that would reassure me, but he was so silent he could have been a ghost.

  I took a step forward, about to plummet into the depths—

  I woke with a start.

  In the darkness, there was soft rock playing from the radio at the nurses’ station, a kind of music that Robinson liked to claim was as deadly as cancer. The nurses always had a good laugh at that one.

  I was about to close my eyes and roll back over when I saw the shape at the side of my bed. Robinson. He moved forward and touched my shoulder. Even in the darkness, I could see that he had his clothes on—not a hospital gown. “Axi?”

  I pushed myself up.

  “It’s time to leave,” he said softly.

  He placed my backpack at the foot of my bed and held out his hand to help me up. His fingers were warm and reassuring, as if I were the sick one. Robinson was always so careful with me. I remembered walking the long halls of the Portland hospital with him, the two of us so weak we shuffled like octogenarians.

  “Octo-what?” he’d said.

  “Octogenarians. People in their eighties.”

  He’d laughed. “Oh, I don’t have to worry about living that long.”

  I’d stopped in my tracks. What about that coin toss? Didn’t that mean anything? “What are you talking about?” I’d demanded.

  Robinson grinned. “Axi, I’m going to be a rock star—I’ll wear out my body by sixty-five,” he explained. “Too many decibels. Too much rock ’n’ roll. You can read about me in books someday. I’ll be the guy slayed by music. I knew that dude, you’ll say. He was cool.”

  Now, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, I touched Robinson’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Faintly, I could see him smile. “I think I’ve seen enough of La Junta,” he said. “We’d better be moving on.”

  31

  I DIDN’T BOTHER ASKING HIM TO LOOK away while I changed into ever-so-slightly-less-grimy clothes. For one, it was dark, and for two, what secrets did I still have from him?

  Besides the fact that I loved him, obviously. But maybe it was time to let go of that secret, too, if only I could be brave enough.

  Robinson had moved over to the window, his face dimly lit by the orange glow of the parking lot lights. When I was dressed in my jeans and a rumpled sweater, I went to stand beside him.

  “Did you know that Cancer is the dimmest constellation of the zodiac?” he asked.

  When I shook my head, he pointed to the dark sky. “It’s over there. And it doesn’t look anything like a crab.”

  “I didn’t know you were such an astronomer.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see his grin. “Axi, I have facets you can’t even imagine.”

  I felt almost dizzy when he said that. Is it possible that you can love someone more than you love life itself, and yet you’re still never going to know for sure everything he’s thinking? I wanted—I needed—to see every facet of Robinson that I could, for as long as I could.

  “And the crazy thing?” Robinson went on. “Every star that you see out there is bigger and brighter than the sun. They only look small because they’re farther away.” He was still gazing out the window as if a message were written for him in the sky.

  The message is right here, Robinson, I wanted to say. Look at me, and I’ll tell you.

  Still, though, I was mute. I tentatively moved closer to his side and clumsily knocked into him with my hip. For a moment I worried the bump I’d given him was too hard. How fragile was he? But when he didn’t seem to notice, I wondered if I should try it again. I wondered if I should grab his hand. I wondered if I should tackle him, throw him to the floor, and kiss every inch of his frail, beautiful body.

  I scooted closer to him again, and this time it felt like it registered. He was suddenly more aware of me. He stayed very still as energy seemed to ripple in the air between us. I held my breath, and I think he was holding his, too.

  Now is the time, Axi, I thought. Carpe diem.

  I reached across him to his far hand and turned him toward me. “I have something to tell you,” I whispered.

  “I’m all ears,” he whispered back.

  He waited silently, giving my eyes time to search his face: his high forehead, his deep-set eyes, his full mouth.

  I opened my lips, but nothing came out. I was the writer, the reader—and now, when I truly needed to say the things I’d been wanting to say for what seemed like forever, words were utterly failing me.

  “It’s okay,” Robinson said softly.

  What’s okay? I could have asked. Nothing is okay! We’re in a hospital because you could be dying! How many more chances will I have to chicken out before you’re suddenly gone?

  If I couldn’t say anything, I had to do something. Right this second. Or I might never get to feel the sensation of his lips touching my lips.

  I couldn’t live without that.

  And that was all it took. I wrapped my arms around his neck and brushed my face so close to his that his unshaven chin tickled my skin. And then—I kissed him.

  When our lips met, in a rush of warmth and softness, electricity flooded my body. I was sure that I began to glow. That I was full of starlight.

  Finally. This was what I’d been aching for. And from the way Robinson’s breath inst
antly melted into mine… I felt for all the world like he’d been aching for it, too.

  Why on earth had we waited so long?

  Robinson’s arms tightened around my waist, and his hands found their way into my hair. A tiny moan escaped from his throat, and he kissed me full-strength, like he’d never been sick and never would be again… like he was more alive than ever.

  And so was I.

  After a minute, or an hour, we pulled apart, breathless. My cheeks were burning, and my whole body felt like it was vibrating. Like it was singing.

  At first Robinson’s eyes looked so solemn that my breath caught in my throat. Then, like a light blinking on in the darkness, came the smile that I craved, that crooked grin full of life.

  “I love you, Axi Moore,” he whispered. “What else can I say?”

  I shook my head and smiled, my eyes glistening. I was still so overwhelmed that I couldn’t say a word.

  If this was what life was like without words—a life of doing, not just talking—I just might be willing to give them up forever.

  32

  IT WAS TIME TO GO. WE HURRIED OUT into the darkness, Robinson’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. It was like a hug—as if now that we’d finally really touched, we couldn’t bear to let go of each other—but it was also him using me to hold himself up.

  I was still glowing. I felt brighter than any of the stars.

  Kissing Robinson was like coming to the end of the desert and finding a spring. It was sunshine after years of winter. It was Christmas in June. It was—oh, give me a break, why bother with dumb poetic phrases?

  What I felt was joy.

  Joy that totally swept away the anxiety of breaking out of a hospital against medical advice. My list of rebellious feats was growing longer by the second.

  At the edge of the parking lot, Robinson leaned down and gave me another deep kiss. Then he pulled away, smiling. “Suddenly I feel like I can do anything,” he said.

  I felt exactly the same way. Everything would be fine. Or even better than fine. Magical. “Just tell me that anything doesn’t include taking a different car,” I said, pressing my hand against his scratchy cheek. “This is excitement enough.”

  Robinson kissed me again, his lips soft but urgent. At this rate, we’d never leave the parking lot—and maybe I didn’t even care, as long as this kept happening.

  “I’d never ditch Chuck the Truck,” Robinson said after a while. “He needs to see Detroit.”

  I laughed giddily—clearly the making out was messing with my head a little. “Chuck the Truck?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Robinson said. “Second cousin to Charley the Harley.”

  He laughed at his own joke and climbed into the truck. He started the engine, revving it a few times to warm it up. Then, for some reason, he scooted over into the passenger seat, where I was about to sit.

  I quit my giggling. “Um, Robinson?” I said, eyeing the empty space behind the steering wheel.

  He leaned back against the headrest. “Yeah, I know I said I felt like I could do anything… but I think it’s probably better if you drive right now.”

  I noticed that his voice had become raspy again, and he had his hand over his chest, as if he were having trouble breathing.

  “Then we should turn around and go back to the hospital!” I insisted. “Detroit will still be there in a couple of days.”

  Robinson shook his head. “No way, Axi. I’m done with that place.”

  “But what if it’s not done with you?”

  He patted the seat. “Come here, Axi. Sit beside me.”

  I went around to the other side and clambered onto the truck’s high bench seat. Robinson put his arm around my shoulders, and I buried my face in his flannel shirt. It smelled like the hospital, but underneath that, like him. Like soap and pine and boy.

  Of course I wanted to leave. I wanted to be alone with Robinson again. I wanted more of what we’d started in the hospital. A lot more.

  But was this a mistake?

  When Robinson spoke again, his voice seemed stronger. It also seemed like he’d been reading my thoughts. “Who cares if leaving here is a mistake? I’d make this mistake again, a million times,” he insisted. “We’re together. That’s what matters. I want to take this trip with you. That’s all I want. That’s all I need. I’m not going to be irradiated or scanned or biopsied or whatever it is they want to do to me.”

  I spoke into his shirt because I didn’t want to move away from him, not even a single millimeter. “But what if it’s a death sentence? To refuse treatment now?” I whispered.

  Robinson scoffed. “A hospital is a death sentence. You can cut your finger, get a staph infection, and the next thing you know, you’re checking out the grass from underneath. Leaving now, Axi, is choosing life.”

  I could hear the quick beating of his heart. “But what if it’s a shorter life?”

  He shrugged. “Well, as Kurt Cobain said, ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away.’ Although, actually, he was quoting a Neil Young song.”

  I sat up suddenly. What in the world was I going to do with this infuriating person? “May I remind you that Cobain used it in his suicide note?”

  “Well, you have to admit he had a point, GG,” Robinson said mildly.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, calming myself. Robinson’s hand reached out, and his fingers slipped between mine, trying to reassure me.

  What if doing what you wanted and doing what was right seemed like two entirely different things? What if by living the life you chose, you somehow doomed yourself—or worse, someone you loved?

  After a minute, I opened my eyes. We couldn’t know the future or how long it would last. We could only choose to be happy and alive right now.

  “Okay, okay, you win, Robinson,” I said. “But only on these conditions.” I held up two fingers. “One: do not call me GG, remember? Two: you are not allowed to die. Do you hear me?”

  Robinson grinned and saluted me. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Agreed. Ten-four. Et cetera.”

  We shook on it, as if it were just that simple.

  And then I gritted my teeth and started driving.

  33

  ROBINSON FELL ASLEEP ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. This was fine with me, because I needed complete and total focus on my new assignment: piloting a speeding death-and-dismemberment trap across the country.

  Because, FYI, car crashes kill way more kids than cancer does. Those crosses you see on the side of the highway, the little white ones hung with fading silk flowers? They’re for people my age. (“People who were texting,” my dad liked to remind me—because he never wanted to blame Budweiser for anything.)

  I managed not to become a highway statistic in those early hours, but there were occasional… problems. For instance, I pulled into a Texaco for gas but didn’t know how to operate the pump, and Robinson was sleeping so deeply I couldn’t wake him. After I begged some nice old man to help me fill my tank, I got back on the highway going in the wrong direction. For thirty miles.

  After I turned around, I tried playing the radio softly. It barely worked, so I turned it off and had only my thoughts to keep me company:

  I never knew how damn big the United States is.

  Where’s the nearest Starbucks?

  How come my dad hasn’t found me yet?

  The miles ticked by, monotonous but nerve-racking. Eventually, I just started talking out loud to keep myself company.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, though I knew Robinson was still in dreamland, “but I don’t think I ever believed we’d make it this far. Like, wouldn’t my dad call the cops when he woke up and found me gone? Or even just call Critter? That guy’s a human bloodhound.”

  Critter had even found the diamond that had fallen out of my mom’s engagement ring—in a river. Not that having the diamond back encouraged her to stick around.

  “Obviously, I’m not saying I want to be caught. I want to keep going. But I guess I wonder if we�
�ve just been really lucky so far? Or is there a certain amount of… disinterest on my dad’s part concerning the location of his remaining daughter?”

  I took a sip of cold truck-stop coffee. It felt good to talk about it, even if—or especially because—Robinson wasn’t listening.

  “And then there’s you,” I said to Robinson’s sleeping silhouette. “Where are your parents? Aren’t they worried about you? Do they have any idea where you are?”

  When I met Robinson on the cancer ward, he’d brushed off all talk of his family. No sad-eyed father sat with him while he got his chemo; no weeping mother held his hand while he was bombarded with radioactive particles.

  He was, for all that the rest of us could see, 100 percent alone.

  On the other hand, no one was more popular. Robinson could turn a Domino’s delivery guy into his new BFF in five minutes. Once I heard two of the nurses talking about how they wanted to adopt him. And of course he could’ve had his pick of girls, on or off the ward. He was magnetic.

  Out of everyone, he’d chosen me. I was his family.

  When we were discharged, Robinson followed me to Klamath Falls. “We need to stick together, Axi,” he’d said. “Plus, I have an uncle there. Says I can live in his basement.”

  I didn’t question it—all I cared about was not saying good-bye.

  I realized now how much he’d left behind in the course of his life: his parents, his uncle, the doctors who wanted to treat him. It was as if he’d run from everyone but me.

  “Am I enough, Robinson?” I heard myself ask. “Can I really be everything you need?”

  He shifted in his sleep, stretching out his long legs. But he didn’t wake up to answer that critical question.