“Why is that?”
“I wanted football for a career. We thought I would do the treatment, then come back. If no one knew, I’d still get scouted just the same. Now they would find out—they look at your medical records—but I’d still be in the running. I could still move forward.”
It didn’t happen that way. I don’t know the whole story, but Kellan’s chemo consent forms say that this will be his seventh cycle. My stomach aches.
“Anyway, that didn’t happen, did it? I was fucking bitter after he died. I was here for a while. So that’s when I asked for your info. I was going to write you and say ‘fuck off, he died anyway,’ but I don’t know…” He shrugs. “I guess I couldn’t.”
I smile softly. “No. You couldn’t.”
“I wrote you more letters.”
“What do you mean?” My head goes cold.
He rubs his eyes, looks into mine. “I wrote to you all the time from my family’s cabin. I was so fucked up. My head was fucked. I was up there by myself, until they brought me Truman. I started telling you things, talking to you like some kind of fucking freak. That’s how I ended up in Georgia. Figured at least one good person was there.”
“Wow.” My eyes water. “I didn’t know that. Can I…sometime can I see the letters?”
“I brought them for you.”
Wow. That really…makes me feel good. And more secure. As if he really does care for me. Love me, even.
“I’m surprised we met.”
He nods. “The you being a dealer part of things—that was just some crazy shit. Coincidence.”
“I wouldn’t call it that...”
“WHAT MAKES THE DESERT beautiful,” said the Little Prince,
“is that somewhere it hides a well...”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Today is Kellan’s last day of chemo. Yesterday after we talked, we had our best evening here so far. Arethea gave us a chess board, and Kellan was a total shark, acting like he felt really shitty and then checkmate-ing my poor, sad self in no time flat.
We played three more times before bed, and every time, he kicked my ass. And then the lights went out and we had the best night. So much better than I ever would have thought would be possible in a hospital.
It wasn’t just what we did—although that was pretty damn good too—it was the time after. Kellan stretched out on his back and pulled me to his chest, and wrapped his arms and leg around me and played with my hair. And as we fell asleep, he made the ASL sign for “I love you” with his hand... and followed it with the sign for “I’m sorry.”
“Kellan—no. You’re not sorry. No sorry.”
He sighed, but I got him to agree. We fell asleep with him more in my arms than me in his. Arethea and Dr. Willard lowered the dose of steroids he got through an IV overnight, so he slept better.
He woke me up with a cinnamon roll he ordered for me from a nearby bakery. Unlike back at his house, I noticed when he didn’t have any breakfast besides a few sips of the TwoCal.
All morning, he talked to me and touched me and looked at the quotes I wrote inside another batch of origami sparrows. When the PT person came and made him do a leg workout, he didn’t complain. When Dr. Willard came in with a bowl of rice and awful gravy, Kellan downed most of it—and then lounged on the bed with a can of Dr. Pepper.
We watched the first episode of Orphan Black sitting side by side, shoulder-to-shoulder, and then Kellan fell asleep against my shoulder.
Nice, right?
But not nice. Because about this time, the room phone rings. The transplant unit’s mail person tells me I have a package.
Gotta get it fast. It’s marijuana tincture from Manning.
I slip my Ugg mocs on, strap on a face mask, shimmy my hands into gloves, and hunt down Arethea. Then I walk to the opposite end of the BMT ward, get my package, and notice a homey little sitting room, where I decide to stop off and call my mom.
She knows nothing about my situation. Just that I came to New York about a week ago. Now that Kellan and I have talked more, I’m feeling braver, so I drop into a leather wing-backed chair and dial her number.