Lylah’s door had been open every day of my first cycle. On Monday, room 612 was closed, and nobody would tell me why.
I’d been in room 614, right next door, since nine that morning. I’d recognized the nurses at the desk on the way in and known which direction to turn before Dad checked the room number. The lemon disinfectant caught in my throat while he wheeled me past the supply closet.
My counts had been slow to recover after the fever, and until Friday’s labs nobody was sure the second cycle would start on time. It had, barely. This cycle meant five days of ifosfamide and etoposide. The first bag had gone up at eleven. I’d spent most of the afternoon watching the tubing and trying not to look at the empty visitor chair. Dad had been with me for admission, but he’d stepped out to take a call and find something I might be able to eat.
It was supposed to be Maekynzie’s day. She’d claimed it in purple marker on the calendar now pinned to the corkboard in my downstairs bedroom, with a heart beside her name. On Saturday night she’d come over, cried over my Mohawk, and tapped that heart before she left. “I’m coming,” she’d said. “Monday. Me.” At eight that morning, an hour before I was due, my phone buzzed.
Maekynzie: i can’t do the hospital. i thought i could. i’m so so sorry
Maekynzie: i’ll be at your house the second you’re home. anything u want
I read it in the Suburban. Chandler’s beanie was suddenly too warm, and my stomach pulled tight. I typed it’s fine, deleted it, then turned my phone over on my thigh without sending anything. Dad saw me do it from behind the wheel and didn’t say anything.
Just before six, Noelle stood in my doorway with her backpack still over one shoulder, rubbing sanitizer into her hands. Her eyeliner had smudged beneath one eye during the school day, and she still had her jacket on.
“Came as soon as I could get the keys,” she said, dropping her backpack against the wall. She looked at the IV pole before she looked at me, which made me wish I’d turned the recliner around.
“It’s Maekynzie’s day.” The words sounded uglier out loud than they had in my head all afternoon.
“I know whose day it is.” Noelle dragged the visitor chair closer and sat down, her knees nearly touching the recliner. “Maekynzie texted me too.”
I looked down at my hands until I could trust myself to answer. Noelle didn’t make me. She took off her jacket and draped it over the chair.
She pulled a pack of UNO cards from her backpack and dealt seven to each of us. I played a blue three on a green six, and Noelle let it slide.
Even with Noelle there, I kept looking toward the hallway. I’d asked about Lylah when we arrived, and the nurse at the desk had only smiled and said she was resting. When Dad came back, I asked him to check whether she could have visitors.
“There’s a sign asking people to see the nurse first,” he said, setting a covered bowl on my tray. “I’ll ask Renata when she comes in.”
When Renata came in to check my pump, I waited until she’d finished reading the screen. “Is Lylah…” I couldn’t figure out how to finish without asking a question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered.
Renata turned from the pump. Her cartoon cat badge reel had flipped backward against her purple scrubs. “I can’t discuss another patient’s care, hon.”
I nodded, although she hadn’t answered the part I needed to know. After she left, Noelle put down a Draw Four. I watched the hallway until she reached over and tapped the card.
She stayed until eight. Before she left, she stacked the UNO cards on my tray table and told me to practice before she came back, because my game was an embarrassment to our entire friendship. I told her I’d consider it, although neither of us had been paying much attention to the cards.
At the door, she stopped to clean her hands. She kept rubbing them together after they were dry, then lifted one in a wave. I waved back before she turned away.
On Wednesday, Lylah’s family came. I was near my doorway when a woman stepped out of the elevator, tugging at the hem of her cardigan. One side hung lower than the other, the buttons fastened a hole off. She stopped outside room 612 and pressed her fingers to her mouth.
“Mom?” a girl behind her said softly.
The woman turned. She had Lylah’s violet eyes. The man beside her rested a hand on the back of her neck, his canvas work coat creasing at the elbow. “Amber. I’m right here,” he murmured, drawing her closer.
Dustin. Lylah had told me about him during one of the nights neither of us could sleep.
The girl shifted a cardboard drink tray from one hand to the other. Four cups, all with lids, but she kept checking them anyway. Her college hoodie was bunched beneath the strap of her bag.
Amber told Alexa she didn’t have to carry all the drinks, but Alexa tightened her grip on the tray and insisted she had it. One cup tipped anyway. She caught it before anything spilled, then stood staring at the lid for a second too long. Two little boys came off the elevator behind them, their matching light-up sneakers blinking against the tile. One tugged Alexa’s sleeve and asked whether they were getting food afterward. She promised Camden they’d find something, then told Colby he could have fries when he asked. She kept her voice steady through both answers, even while her eyes stayed on room 612.
Dustin opened the door and held it for them. Nobody moved until he said, quietly, “Come on. Let’s go see her.”
They went into Lylah’s room, and the door closed behind them. An hour later, Alexa came out alone and stood in the hall with her back against the wall. When she noticed me in the recliner through my open door, she pushed herself off the wall.
“You’re the girl next door?” she said.
“Sloane,” I said. I lowered my phone into my lap, although I hadn’t been looking at it.
Alexa shifted the drink tray to her other hand. A strip of glittery tape was stuck to the cuff of her hoodie. “It’s from Nessa’s birthday,” she said when she caught me looking. “We made her a crown and sent a box of stuff. There’s still tape all over my bag.” She picked at the strip. “Lylah made me help with a video, too. She rejected every transition I used. Apparently dissolves are for boring school presentations.”
Alexa smoothed the tape with her thumb. “Nessa watched it four times. She called to tell Lylah the cake looked like a crime scene.”
“I helped pick the song,” I told her.
Alexa looked up. “That was you? She said her new friend had better taste than the rest of us.”
“She called my taste suburban-dad music,” I said, and Alexa laughed.
“Yeah. That sounds more like her.” Alexa pressed her thumb over the glittery tape again, still smiling. “She told us about you. Said you were cute and looked like you were about to pass out, so she adopted you.”
My mouth did something halfway between a laugh and a sob. Alexa glanced down at the drink tray, where one cup was still full, and offered me the vanilla latte Lylah hadn’t wanted. I couldn’t imagine drinking coffee with my stomach turning like this, but I thanked her anyway.
She set the cup beside my water, and I asked if she wanted to sit down. She shook her head, glancing back toward Lylah’s room.
Later, I scrolled through the Dashiell photos Chandler had sent: on the training mat, with his chin on Chandler’s knee, asleep in a patch of sun by the window with one paw over his nose.
I went back to the last one twice. Then I locked my phone and set it on the tray table, screen down. I didn’t answer. Not yet.
Around four, Lylah laughed behind her closed door. I turned toward the sound, but she stopped before I could make out what she was saying. One of the boys laughed with her, high and bright. I left my own door open that night, listening for her.
On Thursday morning, a nurse I didn’t know drew the privacy curtain across the entrance to Lylah’s room. The rings clicked one after another, hiding the strip of room I could see through the open door.
I asked Renata whether I could sit near my own doorway for a little while. She checked my line and helped me settle in a chair with my IV pole beside me, a blanket around my shoulders over Pops’ hoodie and Chandler’s beanie pulled low over my eyebrows.
The curtain swayed every time somebody went through. Amber carried a box of tissues past my door, and Alexa went looking for a phone charger. A doctor spoke quietly with the family, and later a chaplain arrived. Dad asked if I wanted to go back to the recliner, but I shook my head.
Around eleven, a guy I didn’t know got off the elevator. He looked about twenty, with short dark hair and a black puffer jacket, and held a grocery-store bouquet of yellow roses still in the plastic. He stopped outside Lylah’s room and stayed there without going in.
Then he walked to the nurses’ station, set the roses on the counter, said something I couldn’t hear, and got back on the elevator. Later, Alexa stopped beside the flowers and pulled the little card from its plastic holder. She opened it, and her mouth went flat.
“Logan.” She slid the card back and walked toward the elevators, leaving the roses where they were.
Colby and Camden came out with an aunt I hadn’t seen before, holding hands, their sneakers squeaking, and she walked them to the elevator. The younger one turned around halfway down the hall and waved at the curtain, like Lylah could see him through it.
Dad was beside me, bent over a message on his phone, one finger resting against his mouth. I’d seen him sit like that through my own appointments. When he looked up, I asked him to stay a little longer.
At two, Renata changed my bag. I asked how much longer I had, then turned back to Lylah’s curtain before she’d finished answering. One more treatment day. Friday. I’d known that when we came in.
Late that afternoon, as the light faded in the hallway windows, the curtain moved, and Amber came out. She came to my doorway. Up close, her eyes were red all the way around, and her cardigan hung open over her shirt.
“Sloane?” Amber held the doorframe for a moment. “You’re Sloane.”
I nodded, and she told me Lylah was asking for me.
Renata helped me into my wheelchair without putting weight on my left leg. Dad brought my IV pole while she wheeled me to Lylah’s room. I remembered Renata bringing her to meet me on my first day, the jangle of her bracelets before she’d even reached the chair.
The room was dim, lit by a small light over the sink. The lavender lotion Lylah liked sat beside her water cup.
Her lilac wig rested on a foam head by the window. The bracelets she’d worn every day were gathered on the tray table, silver and beaded and braided, all fifteen of them. Her frog socks peeked out from beneath the blanket. I concentrated on those socks until Lylah turned her head and looked at me.
“Cute hat,” she said, so quietly I leaned closer to hear her.
“Chandler gave it to me.” I tugged at the edge of the beanie.
“Good.” The smallest smile touched her mouth. She said my name, and I eased my wheelchair closer, careful of the tubing.
“I’m here,” I told her.
I waited for her to ask about my hair or Chandler, but she only kept looking at me. I rested my hand beside hers on the blanket.
“Don’t wait,” she said.
I nodded, although I wasn’t sure what she meant. Her eyes closed, and I stayed where I was, with Amber and Alexa close by. When I couldn’t keep my own eyes open, Renata wheeled me back to my room.
She came back after dark. Dad moved to the edge of my bed before she said anything. Amber had asked her to tell me.
Lylah had died.
I thought of her arguing over Nessa’s birthday song, inspecting my reindeer socks, making me laugh when I hadn’t wanted to. I kept expecting her bracelets to jingle in the hallway.
Later, Amber came to my doorway. She carried a small pouch with Lylah’s bracelets inside. “She wanted you to have these,” Amber said, holding out the pouch. “She talked about you so much.”
I took it carefully. The thin gold chain with the sun charm was on top, the one Lylah wore closest to her sunflower tattoo. I wanted to tell Amber how much her daughter had given me, but every sentence I thought of sounded too small. All I could manage was a thank-you and, “She was really good to me.”
Amber nodded. Her fingers stayed on the edge of the pouch, and I held it steady until she let go.
When she left, I put the bracelets on one at a time, the sun charm last. They jingled when I moved my wrist. I held my arm still and listened.
Later that evening, Dad’s phone buzzed. He read the screen, then looked at me. “Chandler’s downstairs with Jake. Do you feel up to seeing him?”
I looked toward the door. Part of me wanted him to come in, but I’d barely managed to speak to Dad since Amber left. “Not tonight. Can you tell him I’m just tired?”
“Of course.” Dad put his phone away. “I’ll be right back.”
I held my phone while he was gone, opening Chandler’s messages without typing anything. When Dad came back, he told me Chandler had gone home with Uncle Jake. I nodded and moved my phone onto the blanket beside me. Ten minutes later, it lit up.
Chandler: Get some sleep. We can talk whenever you want.
I started to thank him, then erased it. I left the message open until the screen went dark.
On Friday, after my last bag, Dad brought me home. Around six, Pops knocked softly on my bedroom door. I called for him to come in, but kept my eyes on the window while he set a covered bowl of chicken noodle soup on my nightstand. A folded note lay beside the spoon.
No questions. Just soup.
After he left, I ate a few spoonfuls while it was still warm. Chandler had sent a photo of Dashiell asleep beside his mat, followed by a message.
Chandler: Thinking about you. You don’t have to answer.
I looked at the picture for a moment, then set my phone beside the bowl. Late that night, it lit up again.
Chandler: Still here if you need me.
On Sunday, Stetson knocked and asked if he could come in. His voice sounded wrong through the door, too careful for a boy who usually barged into my room to steal my charger. I didn’t answer. After a moment, he tried the handle, then stopped when the lock caught.
He was breathing on the other side. He didn’t leave right away, and I sat in my wheelchair with my hand against the wood until his footsteps moved down the hall.
Later, I rolled down the hall to find Pops. Through the glass in the front door, Stetson was sitting on the porch steps. Bernard leaned against his knee, and he was scratching the dog’s chest. I watched until he looked up, then turned around and rolled back to my room.
The group chat kept going without me. Maekynzie sent seven hearts. Emory sent a song with no message. Noelle sent we’re here when ur ready. Tinsley didn’t send anything. I muted the chat before anyone could ask another question.
Late that afternoon, Pops brought me a clean sweatshirt. I found one of Lylah’s bracelets caught in the cuff of the one I was wearing and spent a ridiculous amount of time untangling it. I could hear her telling me that a girl with fifteen bracelets should really learn to dress around them. I almost smiled. Then I sat holding the bracelet until the light changed.
That night, I reached under my pillow and took out Lylah’s list. It was still folded into the same fat, uneven square, the sunflowers on the corner a little smudged now. I’d barely read it since she gave it to me. Now I wished I could ask her why she’d picked these particular things, or hear her argue that my taste in music was terrible one more time.
I unfolded it on my comforter.
Normal Things Sick Girls Don’t Get to Do
1. Dye your hair a color your parents hate. (Wigs count.)
2. Let a boy drive you somewhere with no plan.
3. Wear something that makes people stare, and stare back.
4. Slow dance where people can see.
5. Skip school for something better. (Not for a doctor’s appointment.)
6. Say it first.
7. Him. (Don’t pretend you don’t know who.)
8. Tell someone exactly what you think of them. To their face.
9. Make a wish somewhere you’re not allowed to.
It stopped at nine, right at the bottom of the page. I read number seven twice. Her handwriting got bigger on that one, like she’d pressed harder.
Don’t wait.
I folded the list back into its square and slid it under my pillow, keeping my hand on it. I lay there with Lylah’s bracelets on my wrist, Chandler’s beanie pulled over my ears, and the lights off.
A little after midnight, my phone lit up.
Chandler: Can you come sit with me? I’m on the deck.
I read it twice, then pushed the blanket back. I wasn’t sure I could talk about Lylah yet, but I wanted to see him.