Free Radiate by Marley Gibson Page B

for you.” He reaches into the plastic bag and withdraws a white box. “Here . . .”
    I stretch my hands out and accept the nice gesture from him. I pull open the tabs to the box and see what appears to be a book. Then I look closer and see that it’s an e-book reader. “Cool! Thanks, Gabriel!”
    He moves toward me. “Yeah, and I downloaded a bunch of free books for you. Classic stuff like Dickens, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontës, and such, and then a bunch of romance books.” He tosses his hair out of his eyes and squints at me. “That’s what girls read, right?”
    A giggle explodes out of my chest. “Girls do read romance. This will be awesome.”
    “There’s sudoku, too,” he adds.
    I stretch my arms out and hug him tightly. I begin to tremble a bit and hold on to him for a bit too long. His arms are strong and sturdy, and I feel safe, just like I did six years ago when he protected me from the nest of earwigs.
    Gabriel rubs me on the top of the head and whispers, “You’ll kick cancer’s ass.”
    “Thanks,” I mumble back.
    Mom and Dad walk out of the house just then, and Gabriel and I pull apart.
    “Ready to go, Little Kid?”
    I lift my eyes to Gabriel’s and smile brightly. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
    ***
    Dad turns the truck onto I-65 north just outside Montgomery, and I finally tug the earbuds off and take a break from the Electronica I’ve been blaring into my skull the last hour. I’m in the back seat with my small suitcase packed with my new e-reader, my toiletries, a few changes of clothes and underwear, my favorite black Reef flip-flops, my netbook, my Bama teddy bear, cell phone, and a deck of cards that Mom threw in. You’d think I was going off to camp instead of to the hospital.
    “How much farther?” I ask like a little kid going to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. Too bad there’s hospital food at the end of the ride instead of a succulent turkey and all the fixings.
    “Two hours, if we don’t hit Birmingham traffic,” Dad reports.
    “That was nice of Gabriel to come over and see you off,” Mom says from the passenger seat. “He’s grown into such a nice-looking young man.”
    “I guess.” Never really thought of him that way.
    “Did you reach that other boy you were trying to get?” Mom asks.
    “Daniel. His name is Daniel,” I note. “I texted him.”
    “Daniel. That’s a nice name,” she says in such a motherly way.
    I giggle in spite of her.
    “That’s Franklin and Dora Delafield’s boy, right?” Dad asks.
    “Yep. That’s him.”
    “He’s the team quarterback?”
    “Wide receiver. Set the PHS record for receptions last year.”
    Dad smiles at me in the rearview mirror. He knows I’m a football fanatic. Especially when it comes to the PHS Patriots.
    “So, what did Daniel say?” Mom asks, nosily.
    I shrug. “He said he was sad we won’t get to hang out, but he’ll text me.”
    Actually, it was more like this:

CAN’T GO 2 SKIPPER’S W/U ON FRIDAY
Y????
GOING 2 B’HAM
PARTY IN IRON CITY?
NO... HOSPITAL
?????
LUMP IN LEG NEEDS SURGERY
WHAT? THAT SUX
YEAH, IT DOES
HOW LONG U B GONE?
NOT SURE COULD B COUPLE OF WKS
SUX ASS WILL U STILL CHEER
YES!!!!!!
GOOD
WILL HAVE 2 FONE CALL ME
ILL MISS U
MISS U 2
PHILLIPS HERE, GOTTA GO WILL TXT U!

    I lay my phone in my lap and stare out the window as the farmland and roadside billboards whiz by.
    Mom clicks her tongue. “I don’t think they let you have cell phones in the hospital.”
    “That’s such a 1990s rule, Mom.”
    “Well, what do I know?”
    We laugh together, but I’m anything but jovial. Back in Maxwell, the squad is at Madison Hutchinson’s house, practicing jumps and dance moves and formations. Daniel’s doing guy stuff with Phillip Bradenton, and everyone else is moving on with the rest of their summer.
    And me? I’m stuck in a truck that’s driving me to the hospital.
    Up until now, I’ve been pretty nonchalant about this whole thing, thinking it’s no biggy. But it