Hope and Other Punch Lines(66)

“That doctor needs to work on her bedside manner,” my dad says, and then scoots into bed on one side of me, and my mother comes in on the other, and they close their arms around me.

We hug and cry and scream with joy until our voices are hoarse and our throats go dry, and even then we only stop when an unhappy nurse comes in the room and shushes us quiet.





It’s ten o’clock at night and Jack and I are at the twenty-four-hour diner drinking milkshakes and toasting Abbi even though she’s not here to see us. My face hurts from smiling.

“I feel like we should switch the word wart with the word tumor. The stuff that can kill you should be called warts because those sound gross and dangerous and the things that look funny and grow on your toe because of bad gym hygiene should be called tumors. We have it all wrong,” Jack says.

“Not laughing. New subject.”

“So Brendan came over the other day and my mom freaked,” he says.

“Why?” I ask.

“She was all, Oh my God, where’s Noah?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m so glad Abbi’s going to be okay. I mean, I knew it all along, but it feels so good to know for sure,” Jack says. “You know, things are looking up for us. Perhaps this summer will involve more than just you, me, and YouTube.”

“That would be quite the plot twist,” I say.

“Nah. We’re both going to blow it,” Jack says. “No pun intended.”





Three days later, I’m back at home, in my own bed, again contemplating the ceiling, though this time Noah is lying down next to me. The door remains wide open, a surprising last-minute rule imposed by my mother. I guess the possibility of my having sex was only okay when it was a distant hypothetical.

“I still can’t quite believe it,” I say, and I trace my fingers lightly over my incision. “I mean, the doctor actually cut something out of my body. I’m not delusional.”

“No one thought you were delusional,” he says, and turns so he’s looking at me. Now we are side by side, perched on our elbows. Mirror images of each other.

“I kinda did. I was convinced I was going to die. For real. And now it looks like I should be okay—”

“You will be okay,” he interjects, and for a minute, he sounds disturbingly like my dad.

“It was all real, though. This actually happened. Baby Hope lives another day,” I say, not sure if I’m kidding. Because there is bizarre relief too, in knowing that I won’t be torn off people’s walls in disappointment. I realize the irony of my re-surviving.

I think about the tumor, its taste of blood and fear and mortality, day in and day out, metallic and bilious and rancid, and how I was wrong. It will not invade and conquer and grate me into dust. At least, not yet. It was only a warning shot: Pay closer attention, it said. You don’t have the luxury of not.

My future has come back to me, a gift returned to sender. My heart has unclenched itself from a fist to an open hand. But something happens when the story you tell yourself turns out not to be your story at all. You have to figure out what to replace it with. Something needs to grow in the space left behind.

Courage, I tell myself. That can fill me up.

“Those are my favorite kinds of punchlines. The curveballs that make total sense. Like you think the joke can only end with A or B, and somehow the comedian finds a C. Not that I think this was a joke. But you get me,” he says, and I do. I get him. It’s nice to apply some overarching rules to all this. I like to think in terms of story or even poetry. He frames it with comedy. But in the end, it’s all the same thing.

Noah traces his finger up and down my arm, a lazy, tender stroke that thrums under my skin.

“How are you doing?” I ask, since I realize this week has not only been about me. Those damn towers play on a forever loop. He’s not unscathed.

“I had a long talk with my mom. I feel weirdly okay. It turns out my dad didn’t just die. He went out with like this amazing mother-effing ninja kick-ass hi-yah. He saved a freakin’ pregnant lady. These are some epically good genes I have,” he explains, and his smile is equal parts proud and shy and sad.

“I could have told you that you have some epically good genes,” I say in a mock-flirty voice, and reach out to touch his hair, because I’m totally allowed to do that. He rewards me with a small kiss on the nose.

“I looked up the technical definition of benign growth last night. It literally means something harmless that has grown or is growing,” Noah says.

“What?” I ask.

“Right? Like when you think about it that way, it almost sounds like normal life. Like what’s supposed to be happening to us,” he says. Our eyes catch, and a warmth spreads through my body. Like he’s holding me closer just by looking at me. “Anyhow, the other day at that party, I had it all backward. I said that I thought when we left Oakdale our life was suddenly going to get exponentially bigger. But I think that can happen without going anywhere. We don’t have to wait.”

“We can rock our capes now,” I say.

“Exactly,” he says. And then he kisses me.





Jack and I play video games in his basement, and as usual, his blue-haired anarchy girl is kicking my ass. I give up mid–space dino attack and pick up my phone.