Free Tell Me Something Real by Calla Devlin Page B

his body, the way he holds the back of my head in his palm.
    He will be fine. Just look at him, I tell myself, a promise. This is what remission looks like, the inching back to life, skin looking like skin again, not like parchment, yellowed and thin. I kiss the place where his cheek meets his throat, tickled by his stubble, and whisper, “You’re not dying.”
    â€œTold you so.”
    He pulls me closer and I get my wish: not just the kiss, but the sound of his heart.
    â€œWill you play more?”
    â€œLater.” I lead him back to the porch and we sit on the steps.
    He nudges his knees against mine. His skin is still warm from the shower. “Come on,” he says. “Play more. It’s just me here.”
    â€œMaybe in a while, okay?”
    â€œYou’re really good, Vanessa,” he says. “I mean it. I’ve never heard someone play music like that except on a record or on the radio. No wonder you’re getting recruited.”
    I look at my bare feet, at my chipped cherry-red nail polish. “I love orchestra, but it’s a lot of traveling on weekends and events at night. My teacher wants me to do it, but I can’t bail on Adrienne like that.”
    â€œYeah, but how can you bail on something you’ve worked so hard for? And you’re really good.” He looks at me, waiting for me to keep going.
    â€œIt’s not about being good, though. Playing was the only time I could breathe at school, so I played whenever I could. Mrs. Albright knew that the only way I was getting through this was by playing. She gave me harder and harder pieces and I just blew through them. She says I need to think about my future, like transferring. But there’s no way, right? I mean, how can I do that, ask for that, when we have to take care of my mom?”
    â€œYou don’t have to explain,” he says.
    I nod and rest my head against his shoulder. When I open my eyes, tears spill down my cheeks. “I had science last period. My favorite class after music. I’d walk into class and my teacher, he’s really cool, would tell me to go see Mrs. Albright. He’d nod his head and tell me to go. That’s it. They always knew when I needed to play. You know, on the hard days. It was hard to be away at the clinic, and it was hard coming back.”
    â€œGoing back to your old life,” Caleb says. “Reentry sucks. Nothing’s the same, but everyone wants you to be the same. Even when I looked like this.” He rubs his scalp, but he doesn’t look like a chemo victim anymore. He is just a boy, maybe too skinny, with weird hair. “It’s ridiculous,” he says. “You’ll never be the same. No matter what.”
    I nod. “Exactly. Now I don’t have much time to play.”
    â€œWhy don’t you play in front of us?”
    â€œI don’t want the noise to bother anyone.” I don’t tell him that it scares the hell out of me, to be closely observed by people I know. I need the cover of a dimly lit auditorium.
    â€œYou have to play every day,” he says.
    â€œThere are more important things now. It doesn’t feel right to spend all my time practicing when your mom is taking care of the house. No one should be taking care of me.” I hang my head. “I’m not sick. You’re the one who had to go back to school and have everyone stare at you, even when you were doing chemo. I can’t imagine how you felt.”
    He doesn’t let go of my hand. My veins pound and my wrist tingles. He presses his finger harder, digging deeper into my life line and heart line, making our fates permanent, intertwined. I feel his illness, his slow recovery, how it must have felt when his dad left.
    He takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, relaxing his fingers. “I stopped going. I couldn’t take it anymore. I quit water polo. The coach waited for me to tell him. He wasn’t going to kick me