Free Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy Page A

laughed.
    â€œWhat?” she asked.
    I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “Do you think you’ll be eligible for handicapped parking?”
    â€œYou’re kidding, right?” Without giving me a second to respond, she continued. “That would be incredible.” She paused. “I don’t drive yet, though.”
    â€œYeah, but I bet your parents could get one.”
    â€œYeah.” She agreed, and then after a moment, “I could, like, sell it online.”
    â€œI don’t think it works like that.”
    She sighed.
    I wanted to ask her if whatever was going on right now, between us, would end when we turned the lights on and she walked out of my room.
    â€œI have something I want to talk to you about.” Her voice filled my dark bedroom.
    My stomach flipped in anticipation. “Okay.”
    â€œI’ve got some research to do first.” She shimmied down to the edge of my bed and made large steps over piles of clothes and books, ranging in height and mass. She headed for the door, and I wished there was a dead bolt on the other side so she could never leave. So we could never leave.
    â€œGood night, Harvey. I’ll be in touch,” she said, like she was the godfather of cancer. She flicked the light back on and slunk out of the room. Did girls with cancer even slink? Alice did.
    This felt like a dream. Tonight had been the best and worst night of my life, and the only logical explanation was that it had been a dream. I stretched out my limbs like a starfish with my feet hanging off the edge of my bed, staring at my plastic stars, their colors muted and dull beneath the bright lights. My room was too small for everything inside of me.
    After a while, my mom came in my room without knocking. Normally, I would have made some smart-ass remark about things teenage boys did behind closed doors, but not tonight.
    She sat on the edge of the bed, right where Alice had been only a little while ago.
    With her eyes glued to the empty space ahead of her, my mother wiped a tear from each cheek. She squeezed my hand once, stood up, and left without a word. On her way out the door, she flicked off my bedroom light, leaving me to my stars.

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    Alice.
    Then.
    â€œH arvey, I appreciate you being here,” I said, taking a seat at my kitchen table.
    I had seen Harvey at school, but I hadn’t talked to him since last week when I told him I’d been diagnosed. In the last year, his obnoxiously curly hair had relaxed into waves, but his face would always have that permanently sleepy look to it. His thin, muscular build had finally stretched past my five foot nine by at least two or three inches. When we were kids, Harvey used to say we were going to get married, as if it was predetermined, like the color of your eyes. “Not going to happen,” I would say. “You’re shorter than me, and girls can’t marry boys shorter than them.”
    When I told him, last week, that I had leukemia, it was the first time that the cancer had belonged to me, the first time the news was mine to share. His optimism broke me, but I didn’t have time to be broken.
    â€œYeah, why aren’t you in school right now?” he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.
    I guess he wasn’t impressed when I phoned the school claiming to be Natalie and said that there was a family emergency. The good boy that he was, Harvey had turned his phone off during school hours, so I went about getting him out of class the old-fashioned way. After turning his phone on, he would have found this text from me: CALL ME. And call me he did, but amused he was not.
    â€œFaked sick. Told my parents I didn’t feel well. They propped me up on pillows with stacks of magazines, Sprite, and a bag of mini marshmallows.”
    â€œSeems a little callous, Al, don’t you think?”
    â€œWhat do you mean callous