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“Sor…sorry about that.”
His face flushed. “I didn’t mind it.”
It felt like pins and needles were pricking me. And not the kind from the chemo.
It was hard to leave that room, but I forced my feet to move, forced myself not to look back.
There was a lump in my throat the whole way home, like I was leaving him to die there. Okay, that was being dramatic. But I felt so closely tied to him through our shared experience that it was hard to imagine parting ways. I had never felt that connected to another human being before, not even my parents.
I carefully opened the envelope in the back seat, hoping my parents didn’t hear the rustle of paper. A watermelon Jolly Rancher fell to my lap, and I smiled.
I pulled out the folded note and read it.
Henners,
You mean a lot to me.
I’ll never forget you.
It’s been really hard, but you made everything better.
I’ll be rooting for you. Good luck.
XOXO,
Lark
I sucked in a sharp breath at theXOXOwritten there. That meant like, hugs and kisses, right? I could still feel my lips tingling from that accidental kiss.
Was it accidental?
My heart clenched, aching the entire way home.
“You mean a lot to me.”
I resumed my life almost immediately—my parents made sure of that—and soon enough the hospital stay became a blur. Like looking out of a back window as you drove away from a lengthy trip abroad. Not that a hospital room was a vacation, but Lark had helped alleviate some of the stress.
We never saw each other again. But I would never forget him either.
1
LARK
With my nosepressed against the glass, I watched the sparrows in one of the many feeders Mom had hung outside. She was obsessed with birds, and though our two-bedroom trailer wasn’t really conducive to her dream of looking out a bay kitchen window to the trees in her backyard, we made do. Since our trailer park was near some woods that led to a man-made lake, plenty of birds came to visit.
My heart was throbbing this morning as nerves set up camp in my stomach.
I curled my hands into fists, feeling the blunt edges of the Band-Aids on my fingers, two on each side.
I won’t chew my cuticles raw,I’d told myself last night. Then promptly failed.
My nervous habits had taken a turn for the worse since my hospital stay as a kid, despite my making it through. But as the saying goes, habits were hard to break. The pediatrician said my anxious condition was likely something called dermatillomania, and he gave me pamphlets on it, which I ignored. No way would we be able to afford more doctors or therapy. Besides, I’d come up with my own solutions that worked—sometimes. But certainly not the night before a major turning point in my life.
I heard the padding of small feet before I felt Star, my four-year-old sister, twist her tiny hand around my finger and yank. “I’m hungry.”
“What are you doing up so early?”
She shrugged and pulled me toward the kitchen table. Her name was short for Starling, so you could tell Mom was on a roll naming her kids after her favorite subject. Add in her so-called pagan worship, hello summer and winter solstice, and you could imagine how our family was seen as unconventional in certain circles. Hopefully, I’d blend in better in college. Famous last words. “I’ll fix you some cereal.”
