Текст книги "Revived"

Автор книги: Cat Patrick

Соавторы: Cat Patrick
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

eleven

At dinner, the adults encourage Wade and me to hang out together tonight. I can see through Wade’s forced smile and gritted teeth that he’s as thrilled about the idea as I am. When Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman stand to clear plates and get dessert, Wade starts texting under the table and Mason leans over and whispers in my ear.

“I really think you should do this,” he says.

“I wanted to watch a movie at the hotel,” I protest. “And you know how I feel about…” I jerk my thumb in Wade’s direction so he doesn’t perk up at the sound of his own name.

“That’s the point,” Mason says. “Maybe you just need to get to know each other better. I think it’s important that you have friends, and at least Wade understands your past. You can talk about it with him.”

Mason looks at me pointedly, reminding me that I can’t talk about the program with Audrey or Matt.

“Except that he’s in denial,” I mutter.

“It’ll be fun,” Mason whispers before straightening up, signaling the end of the conversation. Mrs. Zimmerman returns carrying a coffeepot and Mr. Zimmerman trails behind with pie.

“Who likes blueberry?” Mrs. Zimmerman asks. Normally it’s my favorite, but right now, facing a night with Wade, and with Audrey and Matt back in Omaha, where I want to be, not even blueberry pie can make me happy.

An hour later, I’m riding shotgun in a car no teenager should own, listening to some weird rap-country hybrid on full blast, wishing upon wishing that I was a better debater when it comes to Mason. When there’s a break in the noise, I reach over and turn down the radio dial. Wade looks at me like I just slapped him, but he doesn’t turn it back up.

“So what are we doing tonight?” I ask.

“I thought we’d chill with my boys and my girl at The Field, and then hit up a party later.”

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing at the personality one-eighty. Wade would make a great Disciple someday, if he weren’t so ashamed of the program. Then again, I haven’t talked to him about it in a while. I decide to try again.

“So, how’s the test going?” I begin.

“Fine,” Wade says. “You know….”

“Yeah,” I say. “How far did you get today?”

“Just through the physical,” Wade answers. His tone is not necessarily encouraging, but it’s not dismissive, either. I decide to dive in with one of the biggies.

“So, Wade, how much do you remember about the day of the bus crash?”

Wade’s head snaps in my direction and he stares at me for so long that I’m afraid he’s going to crash the Porsche. Finally he looks away.

“Nothing,” he says flatly before turning the music back up. He ignores me for the rest of the drive.

As it turns out, The Field isn’t some hipster hangout downtown—a play on “playing the field”—nor is it a great wide expanse of landscape. It’s a soccer field.

And it’s lame.

We’re sitting with Wade’s girlfriend, Brittney, and his friends Colin and Nate on the top two benches of movable bleachers flanking a community play space. In thin jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt, I’m warm even though the sun’s almost down.

“How do you know my boyfriend again?” Brittney asks defensively before sipping something that makes her shudder.

“Our dads are friends,” Wade answers quickly. He catches my eye and smiles, but underneath I can see a warning: Don’t go there.

“Oh, right,” Brittney says, tossing her satiny dark hair off her shoulder, hitting me in the face with it in the process.

Wade and Colin sit in front of Brittney and me. Nate, a little too broody for my taste, is sitting four rows down and to the side, by himself.

Colin turns to look at me and smiles. Muscular, blond, and blue-eyed, he’s nice-looking, but nothing close to Matt. Colin’s the guy next door you can’t believe lives in your town; Matt’s the one so striking you can’t believe he lives on your planet.

The obvious way that Colin flirts with me grosses me out a little.

“I almost didn’t come out tonight,” he says in a low voice that tries too hard. I look over and realize that Brittney and Wade are actually making out. Right next to us. I turn away quickly. “But I’m glad I did,” Colin continues, looking me up and down. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Thanks,” I say as I inch away from him. I try to look at anything other than the PDA to my right, so I watch Colin take a swig from his cup. I don’t even like the way he drinks.

Finally, Brittney and Wade come up for air, and though I’m happy that I don’t have to listen to any more smacking, sloppy kisses, the silence is uncomfortable. And frankly, the night is boring so far.

I consider the blood-red contents of my cup. Mason would call it a cup full of brain damage, but being with Wade and his friends might be doing me more harm than the booze. And Mason’s the one who forced me to come anyway. Shrugging, I down it all in one drink.

“More?” Brittney asks, seeming to like me a little better now. She holds up a thermos and shakes it a little.

“Sure,” I say. “Hit me.”

Who knows how long later, I wake up on foul-smelling carpet in a dark, red-lit room with walls that are oozing bass. I have no idea where I am, and for the first few minutes, I don’t care. I don’t care about anything other than how I feel right now. And how I feel is bad.

Gutter bad.

I’m freezing and sweating at the same time. If I could move my limbs, I would cover myself with a blanket. I would cut off my head, it hurts so badly. I would curl up into a ball and die, assuming I haven’t already. I pinch the skin on my bare arm to make sure that I’m alive.

Then, in flashes, it all starts coming back.

Running around the soccer field with Brittney.

Doing a keg stand on a dare from Nate.

Singing Karaoke—“No Air,” no less—with Colin.

Cornering Wade on the dance floor to confront him about the program.

“Why won’t you talk about it?” I slurred. He wiped his face before walking away, and I’m mortified to realize now that I must have spit on him.

I groan from my place on someone else’s floor. I lick my teeth and they feel furry, coated in sugar and alcohol and something else—maybe hot dogs. I smell puke nearby but don’t want to move to see where it is. Just then, the bass gets really loud, like someone opened the door.

“I think it’s in here,” a guy’s voice says. “Hang on.”

Footsteps crunch on the carpet as the guy navigates the tiny room. I hold my breath because I don’t know if I’m supposed to be in here. The boy steps so close to my right hand that my fingers touch his treads. He gasps when he sees me.

“Holy shit! You scared me!” he says.

“Sorry,” I mutter. My mouth is dry as dust.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Resting,” I say.

“How long have you been in here?”

I shrug.

“Uh… okay. Well, stay as long as you like,” the guy says, inching his way back toward the door. “Or do you want me to call someone?”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I already called my friend Audrey.”

I did? I don’t remember talking to her.

“Oh, good,” the guy says, backing away carefully so as not to step on my listless body. “I’ll have the doorman watch out for your friend. I’ll tell him to tell her where you are.”

I don’t answer because my eyes are closed.

Three minutes or three hours later, someone jostles me. I want to protest and roll into a ball and kick them away for disturbing my coma, but my mouth doesn’t work. My body doesn’t work. So, without any say in the matter, I’m carried into the night, tucked into a car, and driven far, far away.

twelve

“Daisy? Are you awake?” Mason calls from across the food court at the mall. He’s sitting at a table with Cassie and Nora Fitzgerald, and they’re all staring at me. He knocks twice on the table, like he’s rapping out some kind of code. He knocks a third time, then looks at me expectantly like I’m supposed to know what he’s saying.

“Daisy?” he calls again.

Confused, I look across the table. Matt is there.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Answer him.”

And then a firm hand on my shoulder pulls me from the dream.

I open my eyes to a startling but welcome sight: Matt is lying on his side, facing me, in real life. I suck in my breath at the sight of him.

“Answer your dad,” he whispers calmly. I furrow my eyebrows.

“Answer him or he’ll want to come in,” Matt explains.

Getting it, I try to call back, but nothing comes out. I clear my throat, which reminds me of Mr. Jefferson. I wonder if his issue is that he drinks. Finally, I manage to find my voice.

“I’m awake,” I say loudly, cringing.

I stare into Matt’s dark eyes; he stares into mine. I’d ask what he’s doing here if words didn’t hurt.

“Good,” Mason calls back through the wall. “Cassie and I are going to get some eggs at the hotel restaurant before heading to the Zimmermans’. We need to be there at eight. Are you coming?”

I wonder for a moment if Matt thinks it’s weird that my dad would call my mom “Cassie” instead of “your mother,” but he doesn’t seem to notice. Then my stomach sloshes in a very bad way and I quit wondering.

“Ask if you can stay here today,” Matt whispers. I nod.

Concerned about dragon breath, I turn my head away from Matt when I speak.

“Would it be okay if I hung around here today?” I ask the wall. There’s silence on the other side of the door. “I want to catch up on some reading,” I add, trying to sound normal but feeling anything but. Mason doesn’t answer for a bit, as if he’s considering what I’ve asked. Finally, he says:

“Stay inside the hotel.”

“Okay,” I call out. “Thanks.”

My stomach lurches again and I curl into the fetal position.

“Are you going to be sick again?” Matt whispers.

“I don’t know,” I whisper back.

“We’ll be back at seven,” Mason says through the wall. “We’ll eat together.”

Wishing Mason would stop talking about food, I gather all my strength to answer, “Okay, sounds good.” My stomach lurches again.

“Want to go to the bathroom?” Matt says quietly.

“I don’t want to move,” I whisper. Matt smiles weakly and brushes a piece of hair off my forehead.

“Then don’t.”

I gasp awake, heart pounding, eyes wide. Matt’s still here, next to me on the bed. He’s on his back now, staring up at the ceiling. I watch as he turns toward me, concerned.

“Bad dream?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, because whatever ripped me from slumber is already out of reach. Without moving to know for sure, I can tell that my body is on the mend. I smack my lips and deeply inhale and exhale.

“So… I called you last night?” I say.

Matt rolls to his side again, facing me, smirking. “You drunk texted me.”

“What did it say?” I ask self-consciously.

“Something like ‘save me from frat boys,’ ” Matt says. I see a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. Jealousy?

“What else?”

“I called you when I got the text and you said you went out with a gay guy named Wade and—”

“I said Wade was gay?” I interrupt, frowning.

“Well, you kept saying over and over that he needs to come out of the closet,” Matt replies.

I laugh in a quick exhale. “I think I meant that about something else…. Anyway, keep going.”

“Okay, so you gave me this totally cryptic description of where you were,” Matt says. “You said you were at Freckler with the moose.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask, embarrassed about my weird language and about getting drunk in the first place. It’s not me.

“Eventually, I figured out that you meant Specter Hall,” he explains. “They have holiday reindeer on their lawn, all lit up and everything. One is really huge and could be mistaken for a moose.”

“It’s September,” I say.

“Yes, it is,” Matt says back. “Anyway, that made it easier.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No worries—it was sort of fun,” Matt says. “I pretended I was on one of those reality challenges… like I only had three hours to get to you or I’d lose out on a million dollars.”

“Did you win?” I ask.

“No,” he admits. “But only by fifteen minutes.”

“I wonder what kind of trouble I was getting in while you were driving from Omaha,” I say.

“I think you were okay,” Matt says. “I talked to you a couple of times on the way. You were in that red room alone most of the time, except when you were in the bathroom, puking.”

Half-embarrassed, half-flattered that he took care of me, I keep quiet.

“You’re lucky your parents got you your own room,” Matt says.

“Yeah,” I agree weakly.

“Otherwise, you’d be in it for sure,” he continues. “That was pretty dumb of you, you know. Getting lit with strange guys in a strange city. You could have been…”

“I know,” I say quietly.

“Or, hell, even—”

“I know!” I say louder. “Shut up already!”

Matt looks at me, surprised, and we both can’t help but laugh a little. Then we grow quiet, staring at each other.

“Anyway, thank you,” I say.

“No problem,” Matt says. “But you should really be thanking me for washing barf out of your hair.”

My eyes widen before I pull the covers over my head and hide. I hear Matt laugh before he pokes me in the arm.

“I’m ordering food. What sounds good?”

“A cheeseburger,” I say quickly.

From my cocoon, I hear Matt call and order two cheeseburgers with fries and sodas.

“You ordered me regular instead of diet,” I say after he hangs up.

“So?” he asks. “I know that’s what you drink.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“That’s what you ordered at the movie.”

My stomach twists into a knot at the simple fact that Matt is paying attention. He yanks the covers off my face.

“You should probably shower,” he says. “It’ll make you feel better.”

His face is only inches from mine when he says it, which makes my stomach twist even tighter. We hold each other’s gaze for a moment, then a cleaning person knocks on the door and startles me out of la-la land. I walk on shaky legs to the door and tell her I’m all set with towels, then go to the bathroom to shower, feeling like I’m going to burst the whole time. Despite waking up feeling like hell, the day is turning out okay. Not only did I get out of hanging out with Wade, but Matt is here.

I can’t deny how much I like him. And if late-night reconnaissance missions and soda orders from memory are any indication, he might like me, too.

By one in the afternoon, I’m clean, fed, and almost human again. Matt starts a movie and we both sit back against the headboard to watch. I hug a pillow to my torso and try to pay attention during the first five, then ten, then fifteen minutes. But something is gnawing at me.

“Why hasn’t Audrey called?” I ask, my eyes still on the TV.

“Shh,” Matt says, waving a hand at me. I’m quiet for five more minutes, all the while wondering if I’ve royally screwed up my friendship with Audrey. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how.

“Seriously, Matt, is she mad at me or something?”

“No,” he replies without looking in my direction.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I just know.”

I try to focus on the characters in the movie, but my thoughts turn to Friday night at the mall. It was only two days ago, but it feels like a lifetime. I think of the ride home, and of Audrey’s distractedness. If she’s not mad at me, then what could it be?

Then I remember Friday’s barfing taco incident, and the fact that she lied about it. And her raspy breath at the movie. Her sweaty forehead afterward.

“Is something wrong with Audrey?” I ask, grasping. Matt’s face snaps toward mine.

“What do you mean?” he asks, more confrontational than questioning. His defensiveness tells me that I’ve hit on something.

“It’s just that her voice always seems raspy and she gets tired easily and Friday, after the movie, she looked super out of it and…” My voice trails off. It sounds silly when I say it aloud. Except Matt is staring at me as if I just ran over his dog.

“What’s wrong?” I ask softly. Without thinking too much about it, I reach out and touch my fingertips to his. I’m surprised by my confidence, but I don’t move my fingers from his. Matt turns his head away, but he doesn’t move his fingers, either.

“I’m not supposed to tell you,” he says flatly.

“Tell me what?” I ask, annoyed. “It’s so lame when people keep secrets. I—”

And then he says it.

“Audrey has cancer.”

thirteen

At three o’clock, there’s a note waiting under Mason’s door at the hotel in Kansas City, and Matt and I are more than halfway to Omaha.

We haven’t spoken for miles, but it’s a comfortable silence, not the kind when you’re scrambling for something to say. I can’t explain how it happened, but sometime between waking up with him in my bed and riding next to him now, my nervousness with Matt has faded. It’s not quite automatic, like it is with Audrey or Megan, but when Matt and I talk, it’s easier. And when we don’t talk, it’s easier then, too. Even though my chest feels full, my knee is still and my breathing is steady. Despite the heavy thoughts in my head, Matt’s presence is making me calm.

The particular stretch of road we’re on has a funny tread: The sound of the tires against the pavement makes me think of a zipper quickly going up and down, over and over. The strange rhythm lulls me into a zoned-out state where all I can do is listen to my internal dialogue.

Audrey’s dying.

She’s really dying.

I ran off without telling Mason.

I want to help Audrey.

There’s nothing I can do about Audrey.

Wow… it all makes sense. The hurling. Her mom letting her do everything she wants. The sad looks at school.

Is it terminal?

It has to be terminal. Yes, Matt’s face says it is.

I’m going to get in trouble.

Getting in trouble is insignificant compared to what Audrey’s going through.

I’ve never been in trouble.

Stop acting like a child. Audrey’s DYING!

Yes, but…

Wow. I have a warped view of death.

And finally:

I want to tell Matt about Revive.

The last thought startles me. I gasp, but the sound of the road blocks it from Matt’s ears. Never in my life have I dared to consider telling anyone about the program, and yet it would be so easy to open my mouth and let it out right now. I could tell him that I’m not exactly normal when it comes to thoughts on death. I could explain that being part of a program that makes death optional is sort of like wearing a protective suit through life. That it gives me confidence that other kids don’t have. Like when I was younger and I took swimming lessons, I didn’t bawl on the side of the pool like everyone else did because I wasn’t afraid of drowning. Sure, I didn’t want to drown—I knew what it felt like—but there was no finality about it to me.

Not wanting to die is very different from being paralyzed by the fear of it.

I could tell Matt how conflicted I feel right now, that I can’t believe my one non-program friend has cancer. That my instinct is to try to save her, but I know it’s futile: Even if Mason agreed to Revive someone outside the program, it doesn’t work on gunshot victims or cancer patients. But maybe…

My stomach twists tight at the thought of sharing secrets. My mouth dries out as I start to ponder the right words. Matt and I are all alone, with miles to go; I obviously like him and I think he likes me. I could do this. My heart begins to race as I seriously consider…

BUMP!

Like it was sent to stop me, the road suddenly mellows to smooth, fresh pavement, and with the noise gone I can hear my conscience. And what it’s saying is that exposing the program is not only wrong—it’s stupid, too. I barely know Matt: How can I trust him with something as monumental as this?

I’m embarrassed for even thinking about it.

To distract myself from going there again, I break the silence.

“Tell me what happened,” I say gently. “How did Audrey find out about her cancer?”

It’s a minute before Matt responds.

“Are you sure you want the details?” he asks.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” he says. I glance at him long enough to watch him thumb his hair out of his eyes and turn the music down to a whisper. Then he shares the story. “Two years ago we were on a weekend trip to Fremont Lakes with our parents. We ate these super-spicy tacos and Audrey got a stomachache. But then she threw up and could barely stand and Mom and Dad freaked out; they thought she might have extreme food poisoning or something.

“Dad rushed her to the hospital, and the doctor looked at her, and it turned out it had nothing to do with tacos. The doctor thought maybe she had a hole in her stomach or intestines or whatever. He wanted to operate immediately to fix it.”

I look at Matt and watch as he flexes his sharp jaw muscles. There are no tears in his dark eyes as he speaks, but there’s pain, pure and simple. I reach over and touch his hand to encourage him to go on. He does.

“When Audrey went into surgery, Mom and I went to the hospital to hang out with my dad, and then, when it was over, the doctor asked my parents to follow him to his office. I sat in the waiting room until they came out. When they did, my mom was crying and couldn’t stop. It was…” His voice catches; he takes a breath and finishes. “My dad told me that they found tumors in Audrey’s stomach and liver.”

“Oh my god,” I say, covering my mouth.

“I know,” he says. “It was insane.”

I’m quiet, so Matt continues.

“Then Audrey was in the hospital for five or six days. The first few she was on a ventilator. It was really weird because when she woke up, she couldn’t remember where she was or how she got there.”

“Sounds like me last night,” I joke, instantly regretting making light of the situation. Matt laughs weakly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Anyway, she kept falling back to sleep, and then she’d wake up confused again. We kept having to tell her the story over and over. Finally it stayed in her brain. The next time she woke up she remembered, and she just cried. It was horrible.”

“I can’t even imagine,” I say, and it feels flimsy.

“Eventually, she was well enough to get out of the hospital. We went home and she saw a bunch of different doctors, who gave her a bunch of different options.” Matt humphs.

“What?” I ask.

“Doctors,” he says flatly. “There’s no right answer. It’s all opinion. And some of their opinions suck.”

I think of the only doctor I know: Mason. He went to medical school, but did his residency in a very different way, as part of a covert team under the umbrella of the FDA. Shaking off thoughts of Mason, I ask about the only way I know to treat cancer: “Chemo?”

“No. I guess it doesn’t work on what she has,” Matt says. “Basically her treatment is giving her some experimental drug, waiting and watching. It’s bullshit.”

It reminds me of the program’s stance on Nora. It feels weak.

“Isn’t there more they can do?” I ask, instantly pissed at Audrey’s doctors. “Surgery or something?”

“I guess her liver has too many little tumors to take out,” Matt says quietly.

“What about a liver transplant?” I offer.

Matt looks at me with a sad smile. “They don’t give healthy livers to cancer patients, Daisy.” I feel childish for suggesting it, and I’m glad when Matt’s eyes turn back to the road.

“How long did they give her?” I ask.

“Three years,” Matt says. “It’s been two and a half. She was okay for a while, but now she keeps having pain. She keeps going back to the hospital.”

“Is that where she is now?” I whisper.

“Not anymore,” Matt says. “But that’s why she didn’t call you back or whatever. After the movie on Friday, she didn’t look so good, so my parents freaked out and took her to the ER. They ran some tests and then sent her home, like usual. But they gave her painkillers, and they knock her out. She’s been sleeping all weekend.”

I look back to the mile markers and watch them zoom past for a while. Somehow the landscape amplifies my feelings of sadness, anger, and helplessness. Again, I think of Revive; again, I’m reminded of its limitations.

When I was seven, Mason gave me a rabbit to make me feel better for falling out of a tree and breaking my arm. I named the rabbit Ginger and took good care of her. She lived in a very clean cage in my bedroom, and I let her out for hours every day to play indoors, and sometimes outside in our fenced backyard. I don’t speak rabbit, but I believe she was happy.

But then Ginger got cancer.

At first, it was a small lump. In the end, her feet barely touched the cage floor because the tumor eating her from the inside out was so huge. She wobbled around like a balloon animal with no legs, which would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. And then she died.

I pleaded with Mason to save her.

“Give her the medicine,” I cried, facedown into my bed so that I couldn’t see the dead rabbit in the cage near the door. Mason sat next to me, patting my back.

“Shh,” he said calmly. “I know you’re upset. I know you loved Ginger. But unfortunately, I can’t do it, Daisy.”

“Why?” I wailed.

“Because it won’t work on her,” he said softly.

“How do you know? Have you ever tried?” I cried. Mason smoothed my messy hair and sighed.

“Daisy, the rabbit had cancer. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes!”

“Well, we’re learning that there are certain limitations to Revive,” Mason said, like he was giving a report to his superiors, not comforting his pseudo daughter.

“What does limitations mean?” I asked, still facedown.

“It means that the medicine only works on certain types of bodies.”

“People bodies?” I asked.

“Yes, and rat bodies, too, but that’s not what I mean,” Mason said. “I mean that it only works on bodies that are healthy before they die. Bodies that die suddenly—not from a disease.”

“What’s a disease?” I asked, rolling over and looking up at Mason. My tears stopped when my inquisitive nature took over. Mason was quiet for a moment, probably trying to decide how to boil it down for a seven-year-old.

“A disease is a really bad sickness that—”

“Like a cold?”

“Shh, let me finish,” Mason said, lightly touching my hand. “It’s like a cold, but a lot worse, and usually it’s not something you can catch from someone else or fix with medicine.”

“Am I going to get a disease?” I asked, sitting up straight. “I don’t want to die again. It hurts!”

“No,” Mason said confidently. “You’re not going to get a disease, and you’re not going to die again. But Daisy, listen to me. Ginger had cancer. That’s a disease. An incurable one, which means it can’t be fixed. Hers is the type of body that cannot be saved with the Revive medicine. Understand?”

I looked at the cage near the door, at the motionless rabbit inside, and said nothing.

“Ginger had a nice life, Daisy. Knowing that should make you feel a little better.”

“It doesn’t,” I said honestly.

Mason gave me a weak smile. “Someday it might,” he said before leaving my room and taking Ginger the dead rabbit with him.

Matt and I stop at a gas station about thirty miles out. Matt pumps and pays, then says he’s going inside for food. From the car, I watch him walk the aisles, scrutinizing the snacks. He holds up a pack of Twizzlers and I shake my head no. He waves some chocolate and I make a face. Finally, he holds up a bag of chips. I give him a thumbs-up and mouth Coke, too, but he doesn’t get what I’m saying, so I text him. He reads it and we make eye contact and laugh, both of us grabbing on to something meaningless like texting about junk food because the meaningful stuff is too huge.

At around five, we pull back onto the highway. Just as I’m opening the chips, my cell rings. Even though he’s not supposed to be finished with Wade for a couple of hours, I know it’s Mason calling to check in. I’m not ready to talk right now. I don’t want to lie to him about where I am, and if I tell him, he’ll try to make me come back.

“You should tell your parents where you are,” Matt says, reading my mind.

“They’ll find out eventually; I left a note.”

“Yeah, but you should tell them you’re okay. Parents worry.”

“Oh, really?” I ask. “Where do your parents think you are right now?”

Matt looks at me, then back at the road. “With you,” he says simply. “They trust me.”

“How nice for you,” I say. I hear Matt laugh a little under his breath. “What, you said, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad, I know Audrey’s sick and all, but I’m taking off to go save drunk Daisy from a stupid situation.’ ”

“Something like that,” Matt says. He’s smiling fully now and, knowing all I do about Audrey and how sad his life is right now, his smile seems precious.

“What exactly did you say to them?” I ask, taking in his profile. The golden sunset illuminates his features and makes everything else hazy. It’s as if I’m seeing him through one of those filter apps that makes your pictures look old-school. I admire his thick black eyelashes and the straight line of his nose. I sit on my left hand to keep from reaching over and touching the scar on his perfect chin.

“I said that you’re from a small town and got lost in a big city,” Matt answers, pulling me out of my imagination. “I said that you were scared and needed help and I was going to go help you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Weren’t they mad that you weren’t staying home to be with Audrey?” I ask.

“They get it,” Matt says seriously. “There’s nothing for me to do but sit and stare at her. That drives her crazy. She told us all to leave her alone.”

“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me that she has cancer,” I say. “That’s a pretty huge secret to keep from your friends.” I’m distinctly aware of the irony of what I’m saying.

Matt glances at me again, warmly.

“It’s not like that, Daisy. It’s not like some great gossip she didn’t want to tell you. It’s just that her old friends sort of freaked and stopped hanging out with her when they found out.”

“That’s so bad,” I say.

“I mean, not all at once, but gradually. Everyone was supportive at first. But then she quit track and some of the clubs she was in and stuff, and she stopped partying. People stopped calling. You are Aud’s friend. In fact, I think you might be her only friend,” Matt says.

“She’s my only friend, too,” I say quietly, thinking to myself that since Megan is more of a sister, it’s not a lie. I turn to watch downtown Omaha materialize.

“Hey, what about me?” Matt jokes. “I’m your friend.”

I smile but don’t look at him. “Oh, right,” I tease. “I forgot about you.”