Everything has changed.
Angela goes away to do some paperwork. She promises to be back soon. Left to my own depressing thoughts, I contemplate life without running. I bury my head in the pillow, hold my breath, and will myself to die. Nothing happens.
I toss the pillow aside and come up gasping for air. I pull the covers over my head and try to pretend that I’m somewhere else. It works for a few seconds, but I can’t escape my dark thoughts for long. They turn suddenly toward Gemma and how mad I am at her. How could she just disappear like she did? I thought she was my best friend. People who don’t know us think we’re brother and sister, which is nuts because she’s Italian Canadian! But I see what they mean. She looks more First Nations than I do! She tans really quickly in summer, so her skin is as dark as mine, and she has straight black hair. But hers is long, and she wears it in a ponytail. Plus we both love running and we both want to win. She’s definitely the fastest girl at Mercredi High, and I’m the top guy, but even so, we push each other to do better because we both want to win at the Regionals. We train together and hang out afterward, going for burgers or our favourite, New York Fries, even though our coach says we shouldn’t eat that crap. We’re inseparable. We were inseparable. As soon as she heard I had cancer … she vanished. What kind of best friend does that? It really sucks! I want to vent about everything I’m going through, and she’s not here! I’m mad at her. It’s not fair: she can still run. I can’t. Maybe that’s what bugs me the most.
I breathe deeply and repeat the phrase that I always recite before a race: Be still. Be present. Breathe. It doesn’t work. The memory of the last time I saw Gemma gnaws at me with fresh disappointment. The week I got my diagnosis, she came by the house with a get-well card from the runners at the Mac Island Club, but she just handed the card to Angela and left. By the time I dragged myself to the front door, she was long gone. If I’d had the energy, I would have followed her out into the street and told her what she could do with that card. Instead, I started to text her a really mean message, but I deleted it and tried again, hammering my thumbs on the screen so hard that Angela warned me not to break my phone. In the end, I tossed the phone down and just screamed inside my head, I hate you, Gemma!
I tried to hide the tears that pooled in my eyes, but Angela saw them, which was the worst. I hung on to the tears, though. I didn’t let them spill. At least Angela didn’t say something stupid, like Don’t cry … or everything will be okay. She told me that Gemma probably didn’t stick around for a visit because she didn’t know what to say to me. I wouldn’t know what to say to me, either. I’m not the same person Gemma liked to hang with. I can’t run. I can’t go out for burgers and fries. And I don’t want to play video games where we just start over when we use up all of our lives. The last few days have shown me that death isn’t like that. Plus now I’m miles away from home, so she couldn’t visit even if she wanted to. She could phone, though, or email, or text.
Angela says I should give Gemma more time to come to terms with what’s happening to me, but it’s not fair! I’m the one who’s sick. She should be giving me time, not the other way around.
I feel like a shaken bottle of Coke ready to explode, ready to spew rage everywhere. I clench my teeth to hold it in and repeat my mantra: Be still. Be present. Breathe.
Maybe it works a little. When I think about it, Gemma might have been mad at me before I got my diagnosis. Our relationship had changed, for sure. During the spring we spent less time running and more time walking. That was fine with me, because I was always tired — now I know why — but walking gave Gemma more time to talk. Even though she was my best friend, I often tuned out her constant chatter and let my thoughts turn to Chrissie, a girl from school who I really liked. But then, out of the blue, while we were walking along the trail, Gemma stopped and kissed me. Just like that! I have nothing against kissing, but the problem was it felt all wrong … like kissing your sister. Not at all the way I imagined kissing Chrissie would be. Anyway, I pushed Gemma away, saying something about being loyal to Chrissie, which was stupid, since Chrissie barely knew I existed then, and Gemma knew that. Anyway, she said it was fine, and she seemed okay with it. She said we needed to train harder, and she took off down the trail, running so fast I couldn’t catch up with her.
I wonder now if I hurt her feelings.
Being stuck here in the hospital with nothing but my own thoughts makes me wonder about a lot of things.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beneath the fish hawk’s weary wings, man-machines belch smoke and kick up swirling dust. She blinks and flies on through the haze. The scent of pine gives way to a smell that she recognizes from her southern home: the smoky stench that billows from the metal trees that grow in the warm ocean; the reek of the glossy slick that sometimes floats on the balmy water there, making it shimmer with rainbow colours. She has learned that this is not a good place to hunt. Not a good place to be.
The ward lights have been turned down low, but I can still see things dimly.
My bed is cocooned by curtains. Angela is trying to settle down on the narrow cot at my side. She doesn’t have to stay here. The government will pay for a hotel room, one of the few perks of being First Nations, but she insists on staying, at least until I’ve settled in. Her long black hair is stark against the white pillow. She curls up and then stretches out, obviously not comfortable, but then again, neither am I. A feeling of thankfulness spreads over me like a warm blanket. I’m glad that she’s here and that I’m not alone.
She’s been really nice to me since I got my diagnosis. She’s always been nice to me, but this is different. I wonder if she’s trying to make up for the first eight years of my life when she barely knew me, or maybe the last six, when we’ve lived together in the same house but have been miles apart. I guess it’s just possible that during those six years, the problem might have been with me. I never let her get close, even though she told me how sorry she was for leaving me with my grandfather all those years ago. She said that if she had her life to live over, she wouldn’t make that same mistake. Part of me wanted to believe her — it still does. But part of me wanted to hurt her, to make her pay for abandoning me. Now I don’t know what to think. It’s too much for my brain to handle. I’m relieved I’m not alone, though, so I’m kind of glad that Angela is here. Yes, I’m definitely glad that she is here.
“Good night, Adam,” she whispers.
“G’night,” I say, the word mom almost coming from my lips, but not quite.
Soon she’s breathing rhythmically, and I know she’s sleeping. I’m desperate to sleep too, to escape from here. But the mattress is too hard and the pillow is too soft. I toss and turn. I try breathing deeply, but nothing helps because my mind won’t switch off. It wanders back to Track and Field Day at Father Mercredi, just two weeks ago. I have to run the final leg of the boys’ 4 x 100-metre relay, because I’m the runner. It’s who I am. Or rather, it’s who I was. But I’m not a sprinter, and I tell them that. I’m a distance runner. There’s a big difference! But they don’t listen. My team is in first place as I take over the baton for the last leg. The crowd is roaring, and my legs are pumping, but they refuse to fly like they normally do, and my lungs are burning. One boy passes me, and then another. I throw myself across the finish line and collapse on the grass, gasping for air. My team curses me. I’m ticked that everyone is blaming me for losing. “I’m not a sprinter,” I repeat. “I’m a distance runner. I told you that. It’s your own fault.”
Mr. Seeton, the Phys. Ed teacher, is disappointed in me too. He says I need to work harder, that I’ve lost my drive. Just because he arranged for me to train for free on the indoor track at Mac