He just looked sadly at me.
“No,” I said, more determinedly, this time. “No, she’sfine.This is bullshit, she’sfine!She’s justtired!”
He pressed his lips together and just waited.
“No!It’s a mistake! I want—I want more doctors. I want a second opinion!”
“We ran every test,” he said gently.
“Kids get leukemia and they get better,”I said. “They have chemo and theyget better!”
“Not this type,” he said. “Nothing in medicine is certain. But in this case, the best the chemo can do is buy her time.”
When we’d first been told to go to Oncology, it had felt as if I was on the verge of falling into a void. Now, though, the void was inside me. I could feel the hole growing, eating away at me. I was getting colder and colder. “Six months?” I whispered.
He nodded.
One hundred and eighty days.
Twenty-four Wednesday movie nights.
I sat there motionless as the hole inside me grew and grew, gnawing hungrily at its edges.
“There are things I can recommend,” said Dr. Huxler. “There’s a book—”
“A book?” I whispered.
“It can help you manage the journey.”
“Journey?”
“It can help you get ready to say goodbye.”
“A book?” I asked. Then the anger came, erupting out of nowhere. “Abook?!”I yelled.
Dr. Huxler just sat there and absorbed it, which somehow scared me more than anything. I’d become just another screaming, stubborn parent and all this—all of it—was normal. We were both just playing out our roles in a drama that unfolded in this office every single day.
It was already inevitable.
“We can tell her together,” said Dr. Huxler. “Or the two of you can talk first. Sometimes it’s easier that way. Whichever you prefer.”
I think that must have been when I started crying, at the thoughtof breaking it to Kayley. Dr. Huxler dissolved behind a haze of hot, wet tears but I didn’t move, couldn’t move. I just sat there staring at him as my face crumpled.
“You can stay here as long as you need,” said Dr. Huxler. “It’s okay.”
The first ugly, wracking sob broke the surface, the tears spilling over and falling like hot rain onto my top.I cannot deal with this.
Cannot.
Deal.
I wanted my mom and dad.
My eyes screwed shut as I thought about all the things Kayley and I had shared and all the things we now never would. I thought of losing her, of being completely alone in the world, and then cursed myself for being so fucking selfish and thinking about myself when I should have been thinking about her. I tried to imagine how she’d handle it: six months of watching the hours tick away, counting down the sunsets. She’d be strong, knowing Kayley. Strong and funny, until the end. That almost made it worse.
It wasn’t fair. Not after our parents. Nother,not after so little life.Take me, instead!I’d heard that, heard parents saying they’d change places with their kids when something like this happened, but I’d never really understood, not deep down. I did now. I would have changed places with her in a heartbeat.
The hole inside me had swallowed everything up, now. Every breath just brought an arctic, bone-deep cold, a nothingness where there should have been warmth and security. I cried out of loss and out of fear: this was worse than anything I’d ever imagined, but it was nothing compared to what was to come. My sister was going to be slowly ripped from me, one day at a time.
