Page 101 of Promise Me Sunshine

He considers that and then wordlessly stands up and goes to his room. He comes back with his two hands cupped around something, like he’s caught a butterfly in there.

He sits next to me and holds his hands out. “You did a good job making friends, Lenny. And thank you for coming with me to the wedding.” He clears his throat. “If you’re feeling nervous about social stuff, I got you something that might help.”

I look at him and then at his hands and he waggles them when I don’t hop to.

I drag myself up to a sit. Instead of holding my hands out for the gift, I pry open a crack between his fingers and peerinside. The firelight flickers and I get a flash of silver. I reach into the cave between his palms and come up with a slightly tarnished silver locket. The initialsWGare engraved in stylized cursive. I look at Miles quizzically.

“I got it secondhand, so the initials are from some random person,” he says with a shrug. “But I actually thought you’d like that more than new.” He nudges me with his foot. “Open it.”

I slot a fingernail in between the two halves and it comes apart with a satisfying click. I gape for half a second before my eyes fill with tears. I recognize the photo immediately. It’s one of me and Lou when we’re about eighteen. It was her first attempt at giving us full faces of makeup and we were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe, falling all over one another. Crooked falsies and lipstick on our teeth. Queen Fuglies.

I laugh and swipe at my trembly tears.

“It’s not an eight-by-ten, like you wanted…” He clears his throat. “But I figured this would be a good way to carry a photo of her with you wherever you went. If she’s with you…then maybe you won’t feel so nervous.”

Studying it, I realize that he’s gone to the trouble to print the photo quarter size. It’s asymmetrically cut, slightly choppy on one side from where his scissors slipped. I’d bet my life there’s a careful dot of Elmer’s glue on the back of this photo.

The opposite side of the locket is grubby and empty. “What photo should I put in this side?” I ask him in a scratchy voice I barely recognize.

He cocks his head to one side and shrugs, a satisfied look on his face at my reaction to his gift. “You get to decide.”

There’s a distant roll of thunder from the storm that’s passed us. One last stab of lightning changes the room momentarily from a flickering gold to bright platinum. It’s like a camera flash.

I get one still of Miles’s face—dark eyes, dark hair—familiar and…beloved.

This lightning-photo of him embeds itself sharply in my heart.

I grip the locket so hard it creates heat.

I know exactly what goes in the other half.

Part Three

Forever After

I am laughing with my hands over my face so that Lou doesn’t know I’m actually crying. Shaving my head was a piece of cake. Honestly, it feels light and cool and lovely to have no more hair. But Lou? I can’t watch as the hairstylist hacks her gorgeous red hair to the ground.

But I’ve underestimated her. Because when I pull my hands down, her eyes are on me in the mirror, and she knows I’ve been crying. And she’s crying, too. And now we’re both bald and five feet apart and the world is rushing at us top speed.

She swivels in the chair to face me.

“We look…” She drops her chin. “Terrible.”

And that’s when the real laughter starts.

—

I finish folding myand Lou’s laundry right as the oven dings. I pull the lasagna out to cool. It’s about time for her to get home from work and I’m so excited to hear all about it. It’s her first real job since her recovery and it means that Lou gets to be in the world, the real world, and will hopefully go days, weeks, months, or years without thinking about cancer.

When she comes in through our apartment door, she kicks off one high heel and then the other, dumps her bag in a heap.

“I did it,” she says, doing the disco man pose. “I conquered corporate America.”

“In one day? Wow, I hope it came with a raise.”

“Nope, still broke. Is that lasagna? OMG! Should we get you a frilly apron? I’ll be so sad when you get married and you’re someone else’s actual wife.”

“God, I can’t wait for that. Get me out of this hellhole.”

---