Dr. Giacherio gave us the good news first, which was how I knew there was bad news.
My scan was up on the monitor. My left femur, gray and white, with a shadow inside it I’d seen enough times now to recognize. He moved the cursor to its edge, and I followed it, trying to work out what had changed before he told us.
Dad sat beside me in the other vinyl chair, still in his court clothes, tie pulled loose, a legal pad on his knee with nothing written on it. Pops stood behind us in his fleece vest, both hands resting on the back of Dad’s chair. When Dad shifted forward, Pops moved one hand to his shoulder.
“The tumor is smaller,” Dr. Giacherio said. “That’s encouraging.”
I waited. Dad’s pen stayed above the blank page.
“But we’d hoped to see more change by this point.” He brought up another image beside the first. “There’s still a substantial area involved.”
Then he pulled up the surgical team’s review. The tumor sat in a difficult part of a bone I needed for standing, walking, everything. Dr. Mehta would need to explain the surgical options in detail, but taking it out now could mean removing a large section of my femur. They were weighing that against how the tumor had responded so far and how my body was tolerating treatment. I understood maybe half of it. The other half was words I’d learned in October and wished I could forget.
“We’re recommending a consultation with radiation oncology for local control,” he said. “That decision isn’t final today. If the team agrees it’s the best approach, treatment would likely be on weekdays for several weeks after the new year, coordinated with chemotherapy. The radiation specialists will explain the benefits and risks, and Dr. Mehta will continue evaluating the surgical options. We aren’t recommending surgery right now.”
Pops leaned forward over the back of Dad’s chair. “And after the radiation?”
“We’ll review the plan together after the radiation consultation, and we’ll repeat imaging after treatment to assess the response. That will help us decide what comes next, including whether surgery is possible,” Dr. Giacherio said.
Dad finally put his pen to the legal pad. He wrote Radiation and underlined it twice. Pops’ hand stayed on his shoulder.
I’d had the question ready since the elevator, but I couldn’t get it out. Pops looked at me, then back at the doctor. “What about volleyball?”
Dr. Giacherio rested his clipboard on his knee. “Radiation to a weight-bearing bone can increase the risk of a fracture, including later on. Your tumor and the bone around it already make high-impact activity unsafe.” He turned his chair toward me. “I can’t promise you’ll return to volleyball. I also don’t want to tell you today that every possibility is gone.”
My right hand had curled on my thigh, fingers bent, wrist cocked back, the shape it made right before I swung. I didn’t know it was doing that until Dad’s hand closed over it.
“Thank you,” I said. Dad’s hand tightened around mine, and I looked back at the scan because I couldn’t look at him.
My phone buzzed in the hallway outside the clinic.
Maekynzie. She’d claimed Tuesday on the Chemo Calendar pinned beside my team photo, even though today wasn’t a chemotherapy admission. In the square for December second, she’d written: Tues Dec 2: Mae!!! (scan day, lunch after, I’m buying).
Maekynzie: so sorry babe, family thing came up, can’t make lunch text me how it goes!!! love u
I read it twice. Family thing. She’d told me herself what that meant. Then I turned my phone off and zipped it into the pocket of my puffer. The beanie itched along the line where my hair used to start, but I left it on.
“Maekynzie can’t come,” I told my dads. “It’s fine. Family thing.”
I could practically see the reply I was supposed to send: no worries!! love u too. It was the third time I’d had to find a version of those words. I kept my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t turn the phone back on.
Dad suggested taking me home. I reminded him that Ms. Hensley cold-called people in fifth period, which was a terrible reason to go to school after hearing I might never play volleyball again. Pops gave me the look he used when he knew I was lying but couldn’t decide whether to call me on it. He asked if I was sure, and I nodded. In the parking garage, he kissed the top of my beanie and headed back to base in the Silverado.
In the Suburban, Dad kept both hands on the wheel and the radio off. At a red light, with the wipers pushing slush back and forth, he said, “Radiation isn’t the end of the world, Fiorellina.”
“I know,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I knew anymore.
“I’m saying it out loud so one of us hears it.”
Snow piled up on the median. He didn’t say anything else until we reached the school.
Just before noon, he brought my wheelchair around to the curb, helped me transfer, and made sure I had my backpack before I wheeled myself inside. The secretary gave me my pass and the head tilt everyone in that office gave me now.
I took the elevator to the second floor, rolled down the History wing, and stopped outside Ms. Hensley’s door. Through the narrow window, she paced in front of the whiteboard, mid-sentence, one hand chopping the air. Chandler was in his seat by the wall with his chin on his fist. Tahni was two rows over, platinum hair down her back, scrolling her phone under her desk like it was her constitutional right.
I stayed outside the door until someone passed behind me, then wheeled to the accessible bathroom at the end of the hall. There, I turned my phone back on. Three texts from Noelle, one from Pops with too many sunflowers, nothing new from Maekynzie. I texted Chandler.
Me: you in fifth?
Chandler: Yes. Where are you?
Me: outside your class. can you meet me by the elevator?
He was in the hallway a few minutes later with his backpack over one shoulder and his jacket half on.
“Told Hensley I needed to check on you.” Chandler slipped his jacket the rest of the way on. “She said to tell you she saved your packet.”
He held out his hand for my backpack. I gave it to him, then rubbed the marks its straps had left on my palms.
Number five on Lylah’s list was Skip school for something better. (Not for a doctor’s appointment.) This didn’t feel like something better. Not yet. I looked at the exit anyway.
The student lot was gray slush and white ridges where the plows had piled everything. I waited inside near the doors while Chandler checked the cleared strip of pavement beside the curb. When Pops answered my call, I told him I couldn’t make it through the afternoon. Chandler could take me for a drive, if that was all right.
There was a long silence. Then Pops asked if I was safe, if my leg hurt any worse, if I had a fever. I answered all three. When Chandler came back inside, Pops asked to speak to him. I handed over the phone, and Chandler listened, then said, “Yeah, Uncle Zack. Before dinner. I’ll bring the Jeep up to the door.”
Pops said we’d discuss the missed classes tonight, then called the attendance office. Chandler texted his dad while we waited to sign out. I kept looking toward the stairwell, half-expecting Ms. Hensley to come down with my packet.
Chandler retrieved his Jeep and brought it to the cleared pickup area so I wouldn’t have to cross the icy lot. He helped me transfer into the passenger seat without putting weight on my left leg, folded the wheelchair, and secured it in the back beside my crutches.
He started the engine and blasted the heat. “Where to?” Chandler asked as the windshield cleared.
“I don’t know.”
He glanced at me once, put the Jeep in gear, and drove. The school parking lot shrank in the side mirror.
That was number two on Lylah’s list, too. Let a boy drive you somewhere with no plan. I hadn’t pictured doing it in my school joggers with a hospital wristband still on.
He drove past Vista Ridge Park, where the swings hung over the snow and nobody had shoveled the loop trail. He drove past the grocery store, where a man in a Santa hat was trying to shove a Christmas tree into the back of a Prius.
The heater was cranked too high, and the windshield fogged at the corners. Chandler reached over without looking and turned up the defrost. His canvas sneakers were already dark around the soles from the slush.
Twenty minutes later, his phone lit up in the cupholder. Stetson.
Chandler glanced at the screen at a red light. It went dark before the traffic moved.
My own phone was on silent in my pocket. Stetson had probably heard I’d left school. He hadn’t heard it from me.
We drove through the neighborhood off Ridgeline where people put up lights the day after Halloween. There was an inflatable snowman the size of a minivan, slumped forward in the wind like it had given up on December. Somebody had wrapped every branch of a dead aspen in blue LEDs.
A few streets later, Stetson called again. Chandler pulled into a cleared parking space before picking up the phone. He typed a reply and waited until it sent before pulling back onto the road.
“Your brother knows you’re with me,” Chandler said once we were moving again.
“Great. He’ll have a whole speech prepared about skipping school.”
“He can give it to both of us.” He dropped his phone into the cupholder.
I waited for him to ask about the scan. At the next light, I almost started telling him, but he glanced over and I looked out the window again.
We passed the Conoco where Pops bought two scratch-offs every Friday. He had never won more than four dollars, and he said that wasn’t the point.
“Warm enough?” Chandler asked. I nodded and wiped beneath my nose with my sleeve. At the next red light, he pulled a coffee-shop napkin from the console and handed it to me.
He’d done the same thing at Thanksgiving. Both families around our table, Uncle Jake carving because Pops lost a bet, my hands shaking too much that week to trust with a knife. Chandler had leaned over and asked if I wanted help. I’d nodded, and he’d cut my turkey into small pieces while Stetson argued with him about fantasy football. I’d been so sure nobody else saw.
The nurses had talked like that to Lylah’s family. Low and careful, handing them things before they asked. Kind, the way people get kind at the end.
The thought made me turn toward the window. Chandler had cut my turkey because my hands were shaking. That was all. I knew that. I made myself think it twice anyway, because everybody else had started handing me things before I asked.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Stetson this time.
Me: i’m with chandler. i’m okay
Once it sent, I looked out at the plowed streets. We’d been driving for almost an hour, and the school no longer felt like the place I was trying to escape. I took the hospital band off and folded it into my pocket. My fingers still remembered the shape they’d made in the exam room, ready to swing.
The outdoor sand court behind the athletic complex was where I’d spent whole summers practicing until my legs shook. The place I’d gone when I wanted to be better at something, before I knew a leg could become the thing keeping me from it.
“Can we go somewhere?” I asked.
Chandler glanced over. “We’ve been going somewhere for an hour.”
“Somewhere specific, smartass.” A thin line of melted snow traveled down the glass. “The sand courts. Behind the athletic complex.”
He didn’t ask why I wanted to return to the school we’d just left. He waited until the next intersection, checked for traffic, and turned toward the practice fields.
The access road behind the athletic complex was nearly empty. Beyond the practice fields, the sand court lay behind its low fence, the net still hanging between the poles. Chandler parked where I could see it through the passenger window and left the heater running.
Stetson’s name lit up his phone again. Chandler read the message before getting out. My brother wanted to know when we’d be home.
“Soon,” I said, although I wasn’t ready to leave.
Snow covered the sand in an unbroken sheet. The path to the gate was packed down, with a glaze of ice where shoes had pressed it flat. I couldn’t cross it on crutches.
“I can’t go out there,” I said.
Chandler came around and opened my door. Beyond him, the top tape of the net sagged between the poles, furred white with frost. Somebody had forgotten to take it down in October.
“We can stay here,” he said, stepping aside so I could see. I pulled my jacket tighter and kept my eyes on the net.
Cold air slipped around the open door. My breath went up in front of me in short pieces. Beyond the fence was the left side of the court. Outside hitter. I could picture my approach without moving: right, left, right-left, arms back, then up. I’d done it thousands of times on that sand, every summer since sixth grade, until my calves burned and Roxie yelled that I was late on the ball.
I looked down at my left leg, supported in front of me. I couldn’t even get to the place where I’d take off.
Chandler stood beside the open door, snow gathering on his stupid canvas sneakers. I kept staring at the court until the words came out. “He said he can’t promise I’ll play again.”
Chandler’s jaw shifted. “He said that today?”
“He said he can’t promise anything. That the radiation could make the bone weaker.” I looked back at the net. “It feels like he’s telling me it’s over.”
Chandler looked toward the court, then back at me. “I don’t know what to say.”
The wind came across the practice fields and stung my cheeks hard enough to make my eyes water, and I let it take the blame.
“You still get to play.”
He looked down, his hands buried in his jacket pockets. “I know.” I waited for him to say something else, but he stayed beside the door.
Chandler studied the snow collecting on the hood of the Jeep, then at the shallow drift beside the parking space. He checked the ground with his shoe, stepped into the soft snow, and lowered himself backward into it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Snow angel.”
Chandler swept his arms and legs through the shallow drift. There wasn’t enough snow to leave much of an impression. One sneaker caught on the pavement, and he had to stop to move it.
“You’re bad at this,” I informed him.
“I’m from here. I’m supposed to be good at this.”
He lifted his head, eyebrows full of snow, and caught me laughing. “Don’t say it.”
“You look like a windshield wiper.”
“That’s a very specific insult.”
I laughed, then had to pull my sleeve over my mouth when he tried to move his arms faster. He stayed there until I told him his joggers were going to freeze to the pavement.
He stood and brushed snow from his sleeves. When he came back to the open passenger door, I reached for his hand before he could close it. “Thank you,” I said.
“For my athletic performance?” He was still brushing snow off one sleeve.
“For not telling me it’ll all work out.”
That made him stop. He nodded, and I leaned toward him before either of us could turn it into a speech. He met me halfway.
We kissed in the open doorway of the Jeep, in daylight, with the Science Wing windows overlooking the athletic complex and the court I’d played on since I was eleven.
Our noses were cold. When we parted, Chandler glanced toward the Science Wing windows.
Over his shoulder, somebody in a dark coat walked along the fence by the bleachers. I couldn’t see their face. Before I could point them out, they disappeared behind the concession stand, and I pulled back.
Chandler followed my gaze toward the bleachers. “What?”
“Nothing.”
I watched the corner of the concession stand, but nobody came back out.
Chandler closed my door and came around to the driver’s seat. He checked his phone before pulling out.
Stetson: you said she was okay. when are you bringing her home?
Chandler typed a reply and showed me the screen before sending it.
Chandler: She’s with me. She’s okay. We’re heading home now.
“He’s going to have questions,” I said.
“He already has questions.” Chandler put the phone down. “But I’m not going to keep dodging him.”
He put the Jeep in gear. We’d promised in the living room that we’d tell Stetson together the next day. The next afternoon I’d said Stetson had soccer, then I’d said I needed to get through chemo, then I’d stopped suggesting a time at all. Chandler had brought it up twice. I’d asked him to wait twice. He had, but today he’d made it clear he wouldn’t keep covering for me.
Today I’d managed to kiss Chandler where anyone looking out of the Science Wing could have seen us. I kept looking back at the building as we pulled away.
That night, Stetson knocked on my bedroom door at nine. Not his usual two bangs with the door already swinging open. Just one knock, followed by actual waiting.
He came in carrying a can of ginger ale and a sleeve of saltines, the same things Pops brought whenever one of us was sick. He set them on my nightstand beside the photo of me and Chandler as kids, which I suddenly couldn’t look at.
“You could’ve texted me sooner,” he said. “I called Chandler because I thought something happened.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I picked up the can and turned it so the label faced away from me.
Stetson pulled my desk chair closer but didn’t sit yet. “You don’t have to tell me everything, Sloane. But when you disappear in the middle of a school day, I need to know you’re okay.”
“I should’ve called you.” I stopped turning the can and looked at him. He still hadn’t sat down.
“Dad told me about the scan,” he said finally.
I picked at the edge of my blanket. “The radiation?”
Stetson nodded and sat. Bernard immediately pressed his head against Stetson’s knee, expecting the usual wrestling match. My brother just rubbed behind his ears.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He looked at the unopened ginger ale in my hands, then back at me. “Drink the ginger ale,” he said, nudging the saltines closer.
As he stood, his gaze passed over the photograph again. Chandler and me, little enough that his arm barely reached around my shoulders. “Stet,” I said, before he reached the door.
He paused. I could have told him right there. But he’d just carried in Pops’ sick-day ginger ale like it was his job now, and I knew exactly what telling him would cost. Since October, my cancer had taken his parents’ attention, his quiet house, and every dinner that wasn’t about my counts. Chandler was the one thing left that was only his. The second Stetson knew, his best friend would turn into one more person sitting beside my bed, and my brother wouldn’t have anywhere left to go where I wasn’t the subject. Chandler wanted us to tell him together, but he hadn’t asked me to keep finding reasons not to.
“Thanks for checking on me.”
He nodded and left the door open a few inches, the way I liked it. His footsteps went down the hall and up the stairs. The can sweated a ring onto my nightstand. I didn’t open it.
Wednesday, Tahni didn’t say a word to me in Ms. Hensley’s class. Thursday, she smiled at me across the cafeteria, then went back to her salad. I checked my phone beneath the table, although I hadn’t gotten a message.
Friday morning, Tinsley was leaning against my locker when I got to Hall A. She had on her black cropped puffer and baggy cargos, coffee from Java Junction in one hand, her cinnamon-red layers sticking out from under a black beanie.
She waited while I got my locker open, then leaned closer so I could hear her over the speaker playing at the other end of the hall.
“Snow angels in the parking lot by the sand court,” she said, taking one last sip of coffee. “Very subtle.”
I stopped with my hand on the zipper of my backpack. Tinsley pushed off my locker and lowered her voice. “I saw you from the Science Wing. You can see the whole athletic complex from up there. Tahni’s been asking questions.” She glanced down the hall before adding, “You two need to be careful.”
I thought of the shape moving behind the concession stand. I’d told myself it was nothing. Tahni’s smile on Thursday suddenly felt less like nothing.
She was halfway down Hall A before I could ask how long she’d known.