I hooked my finger through the lock hole and dangled my arm above my head, leaning against it as support.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she didn’t even have cancer. Maybe it was just some ploy to get me to call her. She did love drama in all forms.

I yanked myself up by my finger and slunk through the quiet hallways to my own locker. The hall monitors were usually busy at major intersections on the first day of school, ushering frazzled freshmen to and from their big kid classes. The combination on my locker wasn’t even a series of numbers in my head at this point, just a memorized, measured distance between spins. I could do it with my eyes closed and had. Inside my sagging, empty, first day of school backpack was my phone, off-limits during school hours or guaranteed confiscation, a rule solidified by last year’s infamous Trig Texting Scandal. Even if I got caught, what could I possibly be texting the answers to on the first day of school? My gym locker combination? Someone’s What I Did Over the Summer essay?

As I dialed Becca’s cell, my entire body tensed at the prospect of speaking to her after two months of silence. And not just speaking to her, but speaking to her about having cancer.

To my sort-of relief, she didn’t answer. I hung up, having too much to say in a message. I thought about calling her home line, but the possibility of talking to her mom about her daughter having cancer felt too meltdown-inducing for a hallway on the first day of school.

Footsteps from somewhere down the hall forced me to toss my phone back into my locker. I was jumpy as hell, with no answers and no inspiration for an excuse as to why I wasn’t in class. When the feet that were stepping finally made their physical appearance, I saw the worn, black Chucks of Leo Dietz, a senior with rusty red hair who wore the same tattered tan army jacket come sun or snow. Leo intrigued me ever since I saw him leaving a midnight showing of Evil Dead 2. Horror movies were my one thing, my grotesque passion and pastime, especially classically gory yet hilarious ones like Evil Dead 2. I spent the entire summer poring through online collections of brilliantly titled movies like Rabid Grannies and Frankenhooker. They were the things that helped keep me sane when everything was so insane. Leo and I made eye contact that night, but I was with Doug Dunhill, another ex, tongue permanently affixed to my ear. It pissed me off that Leo thought that was the company I kept. If he thought about me at all. I dumped Doug later that evening (morning, really) after he touched my boob one too many times without my blessing.

When Leo passed me at my locker, I caught a hint of his green eyes. I couldn’t tell if they were looking at me. Then he walked completely out of sight, and I sagged a little at my inappropriate hope. What had I hoped for anyway? Thinking about Leo and horror movies was wrong at a time when I was supposed to be consoling or assisting or mourning my best friend who may or may not have cancer.

The footsteps that should have been getting fainter became louder again. And then Leo reappeared, looking at me with that intense, serious look he always had. As many scary movies as I watched, Leo’s gaze made my heart beat harder than any of them. He must have been at least six foot three, maybe four. At five two, I was petite but not dainty, at least I liked to think. Still, it helped his imposing presence. He stuck his left hand into his jacket pocket and with two fingers pulled out a cigarette. “Smoke?” he asked, and I almost looked around me to see who he was talking to. Since it had never been me.

My brain Jell-O, all I managed to say was, “No. I don’t smoke.”

He shrugged, tucked the cigarette behind his ear, and walked away. For good that time.

If things were different, would I have thought more clearly to accept his offer? Not that I smoked. Or liked when other people smoked. Or normally ditched class.

I wasn’t going to allow myself to think any further about Leo. Not until I could get to Becca. Wherever or however she was.

CHAPTER 4

AFTER SCHOOL I CAUGHT JENNA in the hall. She wasn’t easy to find, with her dwindling size and her always-abuzz social persona. I discovered her in a locker section one over from mine, regaling with woe what I assumed was Becca’s story—my story to hear, and certainly not hers to tell. When she saw me, she actually let out a “Ssshhh!” to the gathered crowd, and the people sea parted to allow me by. “Jenna.” I glanced around at the group she had amassed, mostly drama club folk who I only knew from visits to Becca backstage. Freshman year I joined stage crew, but when I learned about the long hours required I quit. I already had my time-sucker of horror movies, whether it was watching or attempting to write my own. Spending my weeknights in the catwalk with a bunch of people dressed in all black versus splayed across my bed watching Basket Case was a no-brainer.

I never knocked Becca for her acting aspirations, nor did she knock me for my filmmaking dreams. It actually worked out perfectly, seeing as I always had an actress for my movies and she then had experience for her college applications. Or her résumé. Sometimes Becca spoke grandiosely about her dream to skip college altogether and make it straight to Hollywood, do not pass go, do not even wait tables until her big break. Becca strictly believed in becoming famous instantly, and I never for a moment doubted she could manage it.

If she made it that long.

“Can we talk away from your mob scene, please?” I looked directly at Jenna, not wanting to inadvertently make eye contact with any of her gang. Looks of pity weren’t helpful. I needed facts, of which I had approximately none. She excused her entourage with a flick of her wrist. It made me smile. Two years and six jean sizes ago, Jenna was the chubby girl who only landed the supporting cast roles of mother, grandmother, or, once, uncle. Here she was, thirty pounds lighter, leading a group of underclassmen around like baby pull toys.

When we were relatively alone, aside from the people whose actual lockers were housed in that section, Jenna placed her hand on my shoulder and assured me, “Anything you need, Alex, I’m here for you.”

Gag. “What I don’t need is this bullshit pity party you’re throwing me. I need details, Jenna. What do you actually know?”

She straightened herself up, a little insulted, but still the Keeper of Information. Then she transitioned into gossip mode, complete with hand held next to her mouth as if she were hiding the news from those only on one side of her. Drama divas. “My mom takes pilates with Becca’s mom, and she told her that at the beginning of the summer Becca started to get sick. Like, sick all the time. They thought it was all sorts of things, like a pulled muscle and the flu and asthma, and finally she was in so much pain and they ended up in the hospital, draining fluid from her chest.”

“Jesus fuck.” My stomach turned. “Is she going through chemo? Is that what she has to do?” My knowledge of cancer was limited to what I read in books, watched on TV, and remembered from my mom’s friends. But, really, it wasn’t much. All I knew was wigs and death and probably a whole lot of awful in between.

“She started her first round this week. That’s why she’s not at school. Do you want me to give a message to my mom to give to her mom?”

That pissed me off. Just because I didn’t know anything didn’t mean that Jenna’s mom had some sort of one-up on me when it came to Becca. “No. I’m going over there now.”

“You sure? I don’t know if Becca wants visitors.”

“That’ll do, Donkey,” I warned Jenna. She meekly accepted defeat. I knew she meant well, but this was my best friend she was talking about. Estranged, maybe, but that would be over once I saw her.

Would she be bald? Hooked up to a machine? Gorier than the goriest of my horror movies? I felt utterly clueless.

I found my dad’s station wagon in the parking lot, bequeathed to me by my mom after his death. She said that my having a car would help alleviate some of the stress of trying to get everyone everywhere. It may have alleviated that stress, but the idea of me driving after my dad was killed in a car accident had my mom shaken and stirred. I tried to quell some of the anxiety by reminding her that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and he was in a taxi, being driven by someone we didn’t know. Mom trained me as a road warrior herself, and I wouldn’t dare leave the garage, or anywhere else, without a seat belt. That I promised her. She made me ditch my nicely aged Ford Escort for the upgrade to the safety-sealed Volvo. It was fine for driving to school, work, and the library, pretty much all I did. My brothers took most of Mom’s energy, which wasn’t entirely bad. At least she was forced to focus on something other than my dead dad. Too bad they were mutant turds with skateboards.

I drove on autopilot to Becca’s. The traffic gods were kind, and I made it to her house quickly. I parked my car on the street outside Becca’s house, just in case someone needed to get in or out of the garage in a hurry. Becca lived on a quiet cul-de-sac in one of the nicer subdivisions that fed into our high school. I lived in a one-step-down subdivision, which meant that the houses were a little older and a little smaller. Becca had the good fortune of having her own bathroom, being the only child. Did good fortune matter if you were the one with cancer?

Instead of sitting dazed in my car, I decided on the rip-the-Band-Aid-off approach and forced myself to get out. The doorbell, a classic ding-dong edition versus the bleepy, robotic one my dad installed at our house, rang in the pit of my stomach. The anticipation of are they home or not hung in the air, until the telltale shuffle of Becca’s mom’s slippers (it was a take-your-shoes-off-when-you-enter house) approached the door. Upon seeing me, her tired face brightened, and she opened the screen door and ushered me in. Before I could say “sorry,” or, “Is Becca home?” or whatever the appropriate thing was that wasn’t coming out of my mouth, Mrs. Mason enveloped me in her lean arms and said, “Alex, so good to see you. Becca missed you. I knew you’d fix whatever it was that you were fighting about this time.”