One Last Song Part 8

I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and keep calm, see how this would play out. For now, I wanted to just enjoy being out here with Drew.

"Ah," he said, stopping under the green-and-white-striped awning of a store. The smell of coffee was hot and strong in my nostrils. "First stop, French Press."

"Okay." I put my hand on the handle and pulled the door open, but Drew just stood there, motionless. Letting the handle go, I turned to face him.

Something about his somber expression made my pulse race. "What happened?"

I kept staring at him, playing dumb, being a coward. "What happened to what?"

But he only smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. "We kissed. And today I can't put my hand on yours without you pulling away?"

I looked down at my boot-clad feet. I was a complete and utter s.h.i.+t. I should tell him, right now, what I was doing. Why "us" was a bad idea.

"Hey." His voice was soft and I found myself looking up into those blue eyes. "It's okay. I know you want to take things slow, and I'm totally cool with that. But Grayson?"

"Yeah?"

He tapped a finger gently on my nose. "You can talk to me about these things, you know. You don't have to retreat into that sh.e.l.l of yours."

I didn't know what to say. I'd never known someone like him before-someone who was so forthright with how they felt, someone so unafraid.

Drew took a deep breath and pulled the door open. "Ready?"

I nodded, even though I wasn't. Not even close.

A bell on the door jingled when we went in and the young, cute male barista looked up at us and smiled. "Hey guys. Welcome to French Press."

"Thanks," I said.

But he only had eyes for Drew. "What can I get you today?"

"I'll have a macchiato, please," I replied.

He glanced at me, nodded, and then looked back at Drew with a coy smile, waiting for a response.

"I'm actually good on coffee," Drew said, pulling out papers from his messenger bag. I couldn't tell if he got that the barista had the hots for him. He was as calm and collected as usual. "But I do have something I'd like you to take a look at, if you have a minute."

"Okay," the guy said, eying us warily now. He probably thought we were here to sell him something.

Drew handed him the papers. "That's a pet.i.tion for Jack Phillips, a twenty-four-year-old man with end-stage lung cancer. The cancer has most recently caused a brain infection, amongst other issues, and Jack has virtually no quality of life left. His dying wish is to have a physician prescribe him a lethal c.o.c.ktail, which will end his life mercifully, at home, on his own terms. But New Hamps.h.i.+re currently doesn't recognize physician-a.s.sisted suicide as a legal medical option. This pet.i.tion could change that."

The barista was reading the papers with interest now, his eyes eating up the words. "Physician-a.s.sisted suicide. That's like what they have over in Switzerland, right?"

"Yes, exactly," Drew replied, his grip on his cane relaxed. I felt more nervous than he looked.

"I watched a YouTube video about this American dude who went to Switzerland to die. He, like, had this awful disease and he could barely breathe, but they wouldn't grant him permission either."

"Right to Die," Drew said. "That's a powerful movie."

"It totally is," the barista said, smiling again. "This is such an awesome thing for you to do."

"It's close to my heart," Drew said simply. He didn't explain that he had FA, that he was maybe fighting for his own right to die one day.

The barista signed the paper with a flourish and handed it back, his fingers touching Drew's. "I hope you get what you want," he said.

"Thanks."

When we were back outside a few moments later, I realized I'd never gotten my macchiato.

"Nice work," I said as we began to walk to the next store. "That was fast."

Drew stopped and took a mock bow, holding his hands out grandly. "Thank you, thank you. I'm glad you noticed. I just have that magic touch."

We began to walk again, and I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, well, you know, it helps when the person you're trying to sell on an idea has a ginormous crush on you."

A jogger jostled Drew as he ran by, and I grabbed his arm. When he'd recovered his balance, he said, "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on." I raised an eyebrow at his baffled expression. "You seriously didn't notice that dude smiling at you like you were the Mother Teresa to his orphan child?"

"Emphatically no," Drew said. "But tell me one thing." I looked at him, but he was staring straight ahead as we walked. "Do you smile a lot when you have a crush on someone?"

My cheeks felt hot, but I didn't think it was the fever coming back yet. Was Drew flirting? "Like, me specifically?"

"Yeah, you specifically."

"I... honestly don't know the answer to that question." I tried to laugh, but it just sounded squeaky, like I was gasping for air. "I don't think I flirt. At least, I don't know how to flirt. I'm not generally the flirty type." I knew I was babbling, but I couldn't stop myself. This was the closest to girly I'd ever been. I didn't care for it too much.

"Interesting." Drew smiled at me, but before I could ask him what he meant by that, we were turning into the next store, a place that sold rare used books.

Chapter Eighteen.

We went to thirteen different stores up and down that block and twelve on the next one before Drew's balance got so bad he began to walk into people instead of around them. So we stopped.

"I'll bring the car around," I said, as he sat down on the stoop of a clothing store. "You stay right here."

"Oh no, I think I'm going to run away." I glanced at him to see if he was mad, but he wore a grin about a half mile wide on his face. "Smile, Grayson," he said. "What's the point of life if you can't be a little sarcastic?"

I shook my head and took off for the parking garage.

When I pulled up beside him, Drew started to stand, wobbled a little, and fell back down. He grabbed on to the stair railing to pull himself up, his jaw hard, face closed off. I could see the tremendous effort he was exerting, the way the muscles in his arms were straining as he tried to remain vertical. But his legs didn't seem to want to cooperate. This, I realized, looking at him fail with a creeping sort of horror, was what he'd been training for. This was why he'd been building up his upper body. So he wouldn't be humiliated this way.

I put the gears.h.i.+ft into park and ran around the car. People gave him a wide berth as they walked right past where he lay sprawled on the sidewalk, as if they couldn't see that something was wrong. When they were past him, they turned to gawk.

I put a hand around his bicep and helped him stand, seething at the audacity of the pa.s.sersby.

But Drew didn't seem too bothered by it. "Thanks. Someone took my legs and filled them up with Jell-O."

He leaned heavily on me as I led him to the car, and I was a little afraid we might both slip on the snow and ice and fall, but we made it. I turned on the heat as we pulled away from the curb and into traffic.

My head felt a little foggy. I blinked hard, then glanced at Drew. "Are you all right?"

He shrugged. I could see how hard he was trying to downplay what I'd seen-the naked, ugly truth in the glaring daylight, the unvarnished part of living with a progressive disease. "All right and upright," he said, grinning suddenly.

Before I could stop myself, the words spilled from my mouth. "You don't have to do that with me."

He looked at me askance.

I continued quietly before I lost my nerve. "I don't need to see you with a mask on, you know. That painted-on overbright twinkle in your eye with a smile to match? I've worn that mask before, many times." That was an understatement. The back of the mask was contoured to the lines and planes of my face. I took a breath. "Anyway, it's dumb, but I just wanted you to know that... you don't have to do that. Not with me. It's okay to be mad or sad or whatever."

When he was quiet, I darted a look at him. He was staring at me, but I didn't know what that expression was on his face. "Thank you," he finally said, his voice just as quiet as mine had been.

I reached over and squeezed his hand awkwardly. "You're welcome."

We drove in silence for a few minutes. My eyes started to burn.

"You okay?" I could feel Drew watching me. "You're s.h.i.+vering."

I knew what was going on. My fever was back now that the ibuprofen had worn off. I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and it was past four o'clock. I tried not to smile in spite of the lightness in my chest, a helium balloon expanding.

"I'm fine."

"But-"

"Really." I heard him sigh, a defeated sound. "So. Where to next? Or do you want me to take you home? I can go drop the car off at Zee's, too."

Drew got the pet.i.tion papers out of his bag and looked at them as we drove. "If you don't mind, I'd like to visit Jack. I think you'll like him."

There was a voice of reason in the back of my mind of which I was aware. It said this was crazy, that this couldn't go anywhere good. Drew and my friends.h.i.+p-or whatever this was, maybe a developing something-was based on a very obvious lie.

I didn't have MS. I wouldn't be getting sicker. There were people he could run into at any time who could tell him the truth. Linda Adams or Sh.e.l.ly at the hospital. My mother or father. Dr. Stone, my therapist.

But if it was the voice of reason that attempted to prod me back in line, there was another, more insidious voice that was much more pleasant to listen to. That voice of madness sang of other, more compelling things. It insisted that the chance of Drew running into any of those people was slim. Its whispers caressed the soft sh.e.l.l of my ear. Don't you like Drew? it asked. What harm are you doing, really? He's funny, and smart, and talented, and he wants to spend time with you. Come on, Saylor. There's always tomorrow for good-bye.

Maybe I was a hateful person for listening so easily to that second voice. But the pull I felt toward Drew was indescribable. The only time I'd experienced anything like it was with my syringe or the laxatives or the myriad other ways I'd made myself sick. I didn't know what exactly it was about him; maybe just the fact that he had a fuller life than I'd ever had in spite of having FA. Maybe I wanted to know what it was about me that he seemed to like so much. There's something about you, Grayson, he'd said. I wanted to find out what he meant by that. It couldn't just be my supposed MS, could it?

"Sure," I replied. "I'd love to meet Jack."

Chapter Nineteen.

Jack Phillips lived in a middle-cla.s.s neighborhood with Victorian-style homes and cheap vinyl siding. I pulled up behind a white Ford Focus in the driveway and turned off Zee's car. My hands were sweating; I wiped them on my jeans, hoping Drew was too busy getting out of the car to notice. What the h.e.l.l was I doing here? Was I seriously going into a dying guy's house under the pretense of being ill like him? I'd done a lot of f.u.c.ked-up things in my life, but I was still sane enough to realize that this was a first, even for me.

Drew waved at me from outside the car, a sort of "let's get going" gesture. It was too late to back out now. It'd raise too many questions. Besides, there was a small part of me that thought, I'm not here to laugh at or belittle them. I was there because I wanted to be like them, because I wors.h.i.+pped the mutation in their genes, the stutter and stumble of their limbs. Wasn't imitation the highest form of flattery?

I got out of the car. "Sorry. Just had to check something."

At the door, Drew knocked and stood back. "Jack's parents take care of him."

I nodded, not sure why he said that. Later I realized it was because he wanted to prepare me, in some small way. "Jack's parents take care of him" was code for what I was about to witness. Though Drew didn't know I was a complete liar, he did know that I was relatively new to the world of terminal illness.

The woman who opened the door was short and fat, her dirty blond hair greasy and graying at the roots. "Drew, honey. Hi." Her face broke into a genuine smile, and she reached up to hug him before stepping aside. "Come in, come in. He'll be so happy to see you."

She seemed to notice me once I was inside. We smiled at each other tentatively, waiting for Drew to make the introductions, for us to know each other.

"This is Saylor," Drew said, extending his hand out toward me. "She's new to TIDD. She actually helped me get our first signatures on the pet.i.tion today."

"Oh. Oh, I see." Jack's mom came forward, and took my hand between both of hers. "Thank you for doing that. I'm Jeannie, Jack's mom. You have no idea how much it means to me."

"Uh, you're welcome," I said, that feeling of guilt and self-revulsion lurching up in my chest like some sort of bile. "You really don't have to-um, Drew did it all. I was just along for moral support."

Jeannie stepped away and patted Drew on his lower back. "Well, I know Drew's a sweetheart. Always has been, since Jack getting diagnosed seven months ago."

Seven months? That was it? Seven short months since the dude had been diagnosed and already he was sick enough to want to die? And here I was, clinging to the parapet of life, not quite ready to let go, but not quite ready to clamber on and live it either.

"So where is the big guy?" Drew asked. I had a hard time imagining any man Drew would consider "big," let alone a sick and dying one. "In his room?"

"Resting," Jeannie said, the smile slipping off her face. "He's been resting a lot lately. He's just so tired."

By the look on Drew's face, I could tell this wasn't good news. Not that I couldn't guess that on my own.

We made our way down a narrow hallway into a bedroom that wasn't any more than ten feet by ten feet. It was dominated by a hospital bed that was bordered on the side closest to me by a chair for visitors, and on the others by a wheelchair, a giant tank of oxygen, and some other IV drips and machines that I had no idea what to make of.

The boy lying in the bed was easily as tall as Drew, if not taller, but he couldn't have weighed more than me-about one hundred and thirty pounds. His skin was the color and consistency of wax, and his bald head reminded me of that kid Carson I'd met at TIDD. I couldn't see much of his face because it was dominated by what must've been an oxygen mask, though it looked different from the ones I'd seen on TV. I had a vague recollection of it being some sort of medicine dispenser, one I'd seen in a medical catalog once.

Jeannie stepped up to him and caressed his cheek. "Hey, Jackie. Look who's here to see you, son."

His pale, veined eyelids fluttered open and he looked at his mother's face blandly. Then his eyes roved over to Drew and I saw a small spark of happiness. He motioned weakly to his face mask, and Jeannie pulled it off, swiftly replacing it in a series of magician-like coordinated moves with a nasal cannula. Once the little buds of the tube were in his nostrils, Jack fumbled for the switch by his bed that'd raise him up to a better level for conversing.

But Drew held up his hand. "Don't worry about that, man. I can talk to you just fine how you are."

Jack dropped his hand down, apparently grateful. Every movement of his reeked of deep, deep exhaustion, the kind I was keenly aware I'd never experienced.

"How's it going?" he asked, his voice raspy.