Page 111 of Remember Us This Way

Dr. Sanchez glances toward him and holds his stare a second longer than necessary, watching him with a fierce curiosity as if trying to remember something. “You seem familiar,” she tells him before her eyes widen and she glances at me, then to my parents. “This isn’t little Noah, is it? The same kid who used to kick and scream outside Zoey’s door until I let him in.”

Mom grins wide. “The one and only.”

“My goodness,” Dr. Sanchez says. “Time really does fly. It’s good to see you two have stuck it out all these years and are still best friends.”

A smile pulls at my lips, and I don’t bother to correct her. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to catch up on the drama that’s been mine and Noah’s lives over the next five weeks. Hell, over the next few years.

A nurse comes in, ready to prep me for the day, and as if on cue, Dr. Sanchez glances at my parents and starts going through everything that’s going to happen today. As she explains the things we need to look out for, the nurse ushers me over to my bed.

I climb in, and before she can hook me up to machines, Noah walks over to my side and leans down, pressing a kiss to my lips as I clutch his old phone in my hand. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

I nod, trying to be brave for him, knowing if he sees me break, he’s going to spend his whole day sitting outside my door, kicking and screaming until someone lets him in, just like when we were little. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”

With that, he strides out of my room, stopping by the door to glance back at me. A million messages pass between us, but with Dad and Hazel walking out, he has to keep moving.

The nurse starts documenting my vital signs and doing all of her checks as Dr. Sanchez stays with us, going over everything that’s going to happen today and giving us the rundown of any reactions I may have to the drugs.

She explains how we’ll start by drawing blood and running some tests. The second those results are back, and everything looks good, I’ll receive some anti-nausea medication and be hooked up to a chemotherapy cocktail that will take me right through the afternoon and toward dinner time. Following that, my IV will be flushed with saline, and I’ll be free to spend the rest of my night how I’d like . . . within the safety of my room of course.

“Now,” she continues after all the nitty-gritty stuff is out of the way. “We have our treatment room, and there are a few other girls your age who will be receiving their treatment in there today. You’re more than welcome to go in there, or you can opt to remain in your room.”

I glance at Mom, who’s made herself comfortable in the chair beside my bed, knitting needles, magazines, a book, and her laptop protruding from the top of her bag. She just stares right back at me, leaving this completely up to me. “I, um . . . I think I’ll stay in here,” I tell her. “At least until I know how my body is going to react. I don’t want to be hurling all over everyone in there.”

“That’s perfectly fine,” she says before nodding toward the nurse. “Once Nurse Kelly is done drawing your blood, we’ll get it tested and hopefully have you started within a few hours. Do you have any questions?”

I shake my head, somehow feeling the kind of questions running through my head right now aren’t exactly appropriate, and considering what I’m about to go through, I should try to avoid being scolded by my mother.

Dr. Sanchez gives me a smile before stepping right up beside my bed and showing me the small remote. “If you need anything or have any questions, just press this button and someone will come,” she tells me. “All your meals will be delivered right to your room. Now I know food is going to be the last thing you’ll want, but it’s important that you eat, even if it’s only a little here and there. Keep yourself hydrated as well.”

I nod, knowing Mom will shove it down my throat if it might help me get better. “I can do that.”

“Wonderful,” she says, giving my foot a gentle squeeze. “I’ll come check on you later, but remember, I’m just one button away if you need me.”

I give her a real smile, liking how she makes me feel so at ease about something so terrifying. She gets on her way, probably to check on another patient, and before I know it, two hours have passed, and I’m all set up with my medicine hanging from my IV stand and slowly making its way into my body.

The nerves are like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and it’s not long before I feel queasy. I can only imagine how bad it would have been had I refused the anti-nausea medication. I get a constant flow of texts from Noah, Dad, and Hazel, and I do what I can to respond to them all, but I feel so heavy, and the sleepiness quickly overwhelms me.

I close my teary eyes as Mom holds my hand, her thumb brushing back and forth over my knuckles. She’s done what she can to try and stay positive, to comfort me through the worst of it, but it’s so damn hard.

I fade in and out of sleep before having to haul myself up in bed, scrambling for my little blue vomit bag, and damn it, I’ve never felt so sick in my life. Mom pats my back as I throw up. “Good girl,” she soothes, sounding as though she’s about to burst into tears. “Try and get it all out.”

“I can’t do this,” I cry. It’s only day one, and it’s already too much.

“You can do this,” she tells me, glancing at the clock on the wall. “You’re nearly halfway through your first dose. You just need to power through it, and it’ll be over for the day, and you can relax.”

Resentment pulses through my cancer-riddled veins. Easy for her to say. She’s not the one with leukemia. She’s not the one who has drugs pumping into her body that make her want to die.

Lying back on my pillow, I try to get comfortable, snuggling up on my side as tears roll down my cheeks. When my lunch is delivered, the smell of it instantly makes me queasy again, and as I take deep, calming breaths, I spy Noah’s old phone on the small table beside my bed.

Quickly grabbing it, I unlock the screen, grinning to myself when I find it has the same passcode as his locker combination at school last year—my birthday.

A smile pulls across my lips finding an old picture of the two of us as the wallpaper. I was nine or ten, and Noah was just a year older. His arm is around me, both of us grinning like idiots at the camera, completely unaware of the hell we had waiting for us.

I search through the phone, wondering why he gave it to me. It’s practically empty. No texts. No emails. Not even a few boring games to keep me busy, but when I open the gallery and find my and Noah’s whole life together, documented in pictures and videos, I finally get it.

My heart swells, and I scroll all the way to the bottom, passing years of images before finally reaching the ones from right after I was born. The first time Noah ever met me. He’s peering over the edge of my bassinet, his big eyes so wide.

I scroll to the next and then the next, each one filling me with such joy that I forget the way the potent chemo pumps through my body. One after another, I follow the journey of our lives, loving the videos the most.

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