Pops put the rules on the refrigerator the night I came home from my first round of chemo.
He’d slid the clinic’s instruction sheet into a plastic sleeve, pinned it under the soccer-ball magnet, and called everybody into the kitchen to read it. Stetson leaned over his shoulder, read the fever line out loud, then squinted at the plastic.
“Did you laminate this?”
“It’s a plastic sleeve,” Pops said, pressing one corner flat. “So it doesn’t get ruined.”
I’d come home that afternoon wrapped in the ugly plaid fleece Pops kept in the back seat of the Silverado for emergencies. Bernard heard us before the front door was all the way open. He came skidding around the corner from the kitchen, nails scrambling against the hardwood, his whole back half swinging with excitement, and Dad caught his collar before he could launch himself at me.
“Easy, buddy. Gentle.” Dad kept a hand on Bernard while I reached down just enough to scratch behind his ears.
“Missed you too, Bernie.”
The house smelled like Pops’ stress candle. In the guest room, I tried to ease Pops’ hoodie off, but moving my right shoulder tugged at the tender skin around my new port, so I gave up and lay back still wearing it. I wanted to sleep for a week, but every time I closed my eyes, I heard the pump humming beside my hospital bed.
Bernard settled on his rug beside my bed, close enough for me to scratch behind his ears without letting him bump my leg. He gave the mattress one hopeful look, then put his head on his paws. Nobody was letting him leap onto my bed until my leg was safer. I reached for the hand sanitizer on my nightstand after petting him, and Bernard sighed and closed his eyes.
Now he was nosing the bottom of the refrigerator while Dad read the sheet twice, then took a picture of it with his phone, which was such a Dad thing to do that I almost laughed.
Pops turned to me. “Sunshine, if you hit a hundred point four, you tell us immediately. We call the oncology team, even if it’s three in the morning. Promise me.”
“I promise.” I looked at the sheet again. I knew where the thermometer was, and both dads had the clinic number saved in their phones. I just hoped we wouldn’t need it tonight.
On Saturday, Chandler pulled into the cul-de-sac a little before nine. I’d spent most of the time since Thursday in bed. The guest room had my comforter and my pictures, but I was tired of being in it. Even sitting in somebody else’s driveway sounded better.
Dad had checked with the oncology team about how I was recovering. They’d approved a brief drive, not a return to volunteering. I could stay in Chandler’s Jeep, keep my distance from other people and the dogs, and come home if I felt worse. Dad checked that I was fever-free before we left. Pops added a blanket, my water bottle, a charged phone, and approximately forty-seven check-ins.
“You’ve got your phone?” Pops asked as he tucked the blanket around me.
“Same pocket as last time you asked.” I patted it through my hoodie, and he finally stepped back.
Chandler set the blue step stool beside the Jeep and waited while Dad helped me transfer into the passenger seat, keeping all my weight off my left leg.
The Jeep smelled like cold air and the pine-scented air freshener swinging from his mirror. Chandler drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh, his thumb tapping out something only he could hear.
We didn’t talk much on the drive. He asked whether the seat was comfortable. I told him it was, then asked him to move it back a little farther. He did without commenting. He parked in the front row of the Happy Paws lot, where I could see the lobby doors through the windshield.
“Thirty minutes, maybe forty,” Chandler said, checking the clock. “He’s been better in the mornings.”
“He knows you.”
“He knows the treat pouch.”
“That’s basically the same thing to a dog.”
Chandler checked the heat before climbing out, leaving me with a view of the training-room window. He’d left the engine running, and I locked the doors once he was clear. My phone buzzed before Chandler had even made it through the lobby doors.
Pops: there yet?
Pops: feeling okay?
Me: i feel like i’m sitting in a jeep
Pops: that’s allowed
Pops had added a thumbs-up and a yellow heart. I smiled and set the phone on my lap.
Ten minutes later, the lobby doors opened, and Miss Davison came out. She wore her Happy Paws polo, a clipboard tucked under one arm. She walked straight to the passenger side, and I rolled the window down halfway.
“Hi, honey.” Miss Davison looked first at my mask and the blanket over my knees, then toward the training-room window. “I’m glad your dads let you come by for a little while.”
“Me too. I’m pretty sure Pops packed enough supplies for a trip across the country.”
She smiled, but her fingers tightened around the clipboard. “I’ve been thinking about the day you fell,” she said. “I’m glad I called your dads, even if you were furious with me.”
“I was pretty mad,” I admitted. “You were right, though.”
“I wish I’d known how bad it was sooner.”
I glanced toward the building. Dashiell was somewhere inside, probably deciding whether Chandler’s shoes were trustworthy today. Miss Davison followed my gaze.
“Did you know Chandler gave up his Saturday shifts at Walmart?” she asked. “So he can be here with Dash every week.”
I turned back to her. “He what?”
“Starting this weekend. He talked his manager into it.”
I’d known Chandler would find a way to help. He’d been coming in before school and squeezing in sessions whenever he could. Just last Saturday, he’d gone straight from Walmart to Happy Paws to work with Dashiell while I coached him over FaceTime. I hadn’t known he was changing his regular schedule. Miss Davison tapped the top of the open window frame. “He’s a good kid.”
“I know.”
She smiled and went back inside, leaving me with the training-room window and a piece of information I wasn’t sure what to do with. I spent the next half hour watching the building and trying to decide whether I was touched or irritated. Both, apparently. Chandler had given up a regular shift for Dashiell. I wished he’d told me instead of leaving me to hear it from Miss Davison.
When he came out, he had dog hair on both knees and a treat pouch clipped to his belt. He got in, turned the heat up a notch without asking, and pulled out of the lot.
I waited until we were on the main road. “You gave up your Saturday shifts?”
Chandler kept his eyes on the road and turned down a radio that was barely audible to begin with. “Miss Davison told you.”
“Apparently somebody had to.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
I turned toward him. “It’s your job, Chandler.”
“I kept my other hours. It’s one shift.” He checked his mirror. “It made sense.”
“Did you want to give it up?”
“It works, Sloane.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He checked the mirror again and didn’t answer. I let it go, because the road was busy.
“That’s still a paycheck,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
His hand tightened on the wheel. “Because I didn’t want you thinking you had to thank me for it.”
I looked out the passenger window. The trees along the road were beginning to turn, patches of yellow and orange scattered among the green.
I’d been counting on Chandler to keep working with Dashiell, but I’d never asked how he was going to fit it in. “You can tell me stuff like that,” I said. “I’d want to know.”
“Okay.” He glanced at me before looking back at the road.
“Is he doing better?” I asked.
“He came over while I was sitting down. Didn’t even have a treat out yet.”
“He was checking.”
“Probably.” Chandler smiled, and I pulled my blanket a little higher. He drove me home with the radio low, and when we reached our street, he waited until Dad came outside to help me transfer before getting the wheelchair from the back.
By Monday, I was restless enough to negotiate a half day at school, third period through lunch. Dad had cleared the plan with my oncology team, then arranged accommodations with the counselor and Nurse Haviland. I had to wear a mask, avoid anyone who seemed sick, use the elevator, and call for a ride if I got tired. The rule about putting absolutely no weight on my left leg hadn’t changed.
Pops drove, with my folded wheelchair secured in the back and my backpack on my lap. I’d brought the crutches, too, for transfers, but Dad had made it clear that crossing the entire school on them wasn’t happening. I’d worn loose slip-on sneakers I could manage without bending down.
Stetson was waiting by the entrance between classes, his soccer bag over his shoulder. He came over while Pops helped me into the wheelchair, then took my backpack and hung it over the handles.
“Text me when you’re ready to come home,” Pops said, checking that my left foot was supported.
“I will.” I tucked the blanket around my leg while Stetson shifted his bag out of the way. Pops waited until we reached the doors before heading back to the Silverado.
By the time Stetson pushed me into Hall A, my mask was already too warm against my face. He stopped so I could pull the blanket away from the wheel, then waited while a group of freshmen moved past us.
People stopped talking as we passed. The crowd was still loud farther down the hallway, but close to my chair, it went quiet. People glanced at me and looked away too fast. A couple of freshmen stared and didn’t bother hiding it. A girl from my English class gave me a little wave and a sad face, like I was a dog in a commercial.
Somewhere behind me, somebody said, “…for attention, I heard.” I kept looking ahead while Stetson’s hands tightened on the wheelchair handles.
Tahni was at her locker halfway down the hall, in a fitted baby tee and low-rise jeans, her lip oil so glossy it caught the lights. Her eyes met mine. Then she turned back to her locker and kept her head down as we passed.
Down by the English wing, Maekynzie lifted one hand in a small wave. She didn’t come over. Emory was next to her, and he looked at her wave, then at me, then at her again. He lifted his hand, too, but Maekynzie was already looking down at her phone.
Stetson stopped beside my locker and handed me my backpack. I told him I could manage from there, and he hesitated before heading toward his own class.
“Text me if you need anything,” he said.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Wrong parent.”
“Debatable.”
He rolled his eyes and left, which made the hallway feel slightly less like an audience. I reached for my locker handle and stopped. A mesh ball bag hung from it, with a volleyball inside, scuffed gray along the seams from a whole season of practice. Every inch of it was covered in gold, silver, and rose-gold marker. Feral forever!!! was written in Roxie’s handwriting.
Come back and dig my bad passes. Nobody else will. Courtney.
We love you. Come back soon. Castle Ridge is still scared of you.
Underneath that was a drawing of a stick figure spiking a ball at another stick figure labeled Tahni. Somebody had tried to scribble it out and given up.
Taped to the bag was an index card in Coach Mathieson’s blocky handwriting. Your spot is waiting. Coach M.
I sat beside my locker with the bag caught against one wrist, reading the signatures until my eyes stung. I tightened my fingers around the mesh and couldn’t make myself open the locker. The hallway kept moving around me. Somebody laughed near the stairwell, and a locker slammed three doors down.
I wondered whether Coach Mathieson had asked the girls to sign it or whether they’d done it themselves. I wondered who’d brought it in this morning. Mostly, I wondered what Coach meant by waiting, because none of us knew when I’d be able to play again.
Chandler crouched beside my chair. I hadn’t heard him come up. He waited until I nodded toward the ball, then eased the bag from my wrist while I opened the locker. He hung the ball on the hook inside, where nobody else could see it, and set my backpack on the shelf.
He took the elevator pass from the front pocket of my backpack and handed it to me. Elevator Access, with my name typed at the top and Nurse Haviland’s signature in blue ink.
“She told me to make sure you used this,” he said.
“I think she can trust me on that one today.” I slipped it into my hoodie pocket and nodded toward the elevator. Chandler moved behind the chair.
We rode up one floor together. The elevator smelled like floor cleaner and somebody’s old coffee, and Chandler stood beside me with my backpack slung over his shoulder. Neither of us mentioned the people in the hallway or the volleyball tucked safely inside my locker.
When the doors opened, he pushed me toward Algebra, telling me about a ridiculous pass Stetson had attempted at practice that morning. It had gone straight to Coach. I asked whether Stetson was claiming he’d meant to do that, and Chandler said he hadn’t stopped claiming it all the way to the locker room. Mr. Grzywacz was chalking an equation on the board when we came in. He glanced over, then went back to his equation while Chandler helped me get settled.
Chandler set my backpack beside my desk, then took his seat behind me. I opened my notebook and found the packet he’d brought me, hoping I’d be able to follow along.
Mr. Grzywacz wrote equations across the board, erased them, and replaced them with more equations. I copied what I could. Twice, I caught myself on the same problem without understanding a word he’d said.
At the end of class, while everybody else was packing up, he stopped at my desk and set a folded piece of paper on it. Then he walked back to the board without a word.
It was the quiz I’d missed while I was out. He usually gave us two days to make one up before the zero went in. At the top, in slanted red pen, he’d written:
Whenever you are ready. No zero.
I looked up. He was erasing the board with his back to the room, the way he always did, like nothing had happened. I folded the quiz carefully and tucked it into my notebook before he could turn around and catch me looking at him.
By the time my half day ended, I was exhausted. I’d spent more energy getting between classrooms than I used to spend at practice, and every time I shifted in the wheelchair, my thigh reminded me exactly why Dr. Mehta had been so strict.
Stetson met me near the front doors. He glanced at my face once, shifted my backpack onto his shoulder, and didn’t make a joke about how tired I looked.
“How was it?” he asked as he pushed me toward the parking lot. Pops’ Silverado was waiting by the curb.
“Educational.”
“That’s generally the idea.”
“I learned nobody in that school knows how to look at a person anymore.”
His jaw tightened. “Anybody say something?”
“Nothing worth getting suspended over.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Pops helped me into the passenger seat while Stetson secured the wheelchair in the back. My brother went back inside for his afternoon classes. Pops asked whether I wanted lunch, then left the radio low when I said I just wanted to go home.
The familiar streets slid past, and I thought about the volleyball in my locker. I hadn’t taken it home. I wanted it to stay there, hanging where it belonged, even if I couldn’t use it.
Monday night, I woke up hot. I pushed the blanket off, but it didn’t help. Sweat cooled on my arms while the rest of me stayed uncomfortably warm.
Bernard lifted his head from his rug beside the bed while I waited to see whether the heat would pass. My pajama shorts and the oversized college T-shirt I’d stolen from Pops’ drawer were damp with sweat.
I reached for the thermometer on my nightstand, then remembered I’d left it in the downstairs bathroom after Dad checked my temperature before bed. The television was playing softly in the living room. Somebody was still awake, although I would have called even if they weren’t.
The bathroom was only a short distance down the hall, but I didn’t trust myself to manage it on crutches when I felt this shaky. I reached for my phone instead and called Pops.
“Sunshine?” He answered before the second ring.
“Can you bring me the thermometer?” I asked, pushing myself higher against the pillows. “I think I have a fever.”
A moment later, his footsteps crossed the hall, and he appeared in my doorway with the thermometer in one hand and his phone in the other.
He didn’t ask whether I was sure. He sat on the edge of the bed, brushed the hair away from my forehead, and handed me the thermometer.
Bernard watched us from his rug while we waited for the thermometer to beep. It read 100.6. I thought about the sheet on the refrigerator and the promise I’d made on Thursday night.
Pops took the thermometer and checked the screen. “We’re calling, Sunshine.” He moved closer while he dialed the oncology team.
I leaned back against the pillows. Pops stayed beside me, one knee pressed against the bed, watching my face while he waited for someone to answer.
The call connected, and Pops gave my name, my temperature, and the date of my last chemotherapy treatment. He repeated the number, then turned toward me when the nurse began asking questions.
I answered what I could, and he passed each answer along. Dad’s footsteps came down the stairs.
Pops glanced at him, then back at me. He kept the phone against his ear while Dad came to sit beside my bed. Neither of them told me it was probably nothing. I was glad they didn’t.