Send Me a Sign(27)

“Thanks.” My eyes strayed to where Sarah whined to another freshman; Ally was headed over to do damage control.

Hil released a slow breath. “I meant it—we need you. You’re the heart of this squad and camp wasn’t the same without you.”

I hugged her, but she brushed me off. “You might as well go home—the rest of the practice is tumbling; it’s a waste of time for you to be here.” Having dismissed me, Hil stomped off to critique a sophomore with bent elbows.



I drove a roundabout route home, then sat at the kitchen table and watched for the mail truck. It was just collecting mail, but I was glad to have something on my calendar that wasn’t a trip to the doctors for endless blood work to test liver function, kidney function, and always, always white blood cell counts.

The only other things on the kitchen calendar were the first day of school, cheerleading, and a red circle around September 21. Mom, Dad, and I all knew what it meant, and none of us needed to have the words “chemo” or “hospital” staring down while we ate breakfast.

School would at least be something distracting. Right now cheerleading filled my mornings, but my afternoons were empty. The girls came over some days but were preoccupied with back-to-school shopping. I wasn’t allowed at the mall—it was number eight on Dad’s list of germiest places. Avoiding it required a complicated series of lies and excuses—made slightly easier by Mom’s online shopping sprees. I could honestly say I had no need to buy any more new clothes.

I embraced the mail collecting and plant watering and tried to ignore how weird it was to be in Gyver’s house without him. It was weird just to be without him, and I’d begun carrying one of his guitar picks in my pocket—something to hold on to when I was stressed or lonely.

The mailbox was nearly empty today, just a catalog, a bill from the cable company, and a red bug crawling across a college brochure. Were all ladybugs lucky, or did it need to have a certain number of spots? I tried to remember as I gently nudged it off the envelope and onto the mailbox post.

I tossed the mail and paper on the Russos’ counter. The plants were still damp from yesterday. It occurred to me that Gyver’d been in my bedroom recently, but I hadn’t seen his since elementary school. Would it be like Ryan’s—the smell of sweat and a shrine to all things athletic? Not likely. Before I could talk myself out of it, I slipped off my flip-flops, stepped through the archway connecting the Russos’ kitchen to their dining room, and crossed to the stairs.

The floor plan was identical to ours. I knew which door at the top of the stairs led to the bathroom and the master suite. I stood in front of the door that would’ve been mine if this were my house. In this house, it was his.

And it was just like him—slightly disheveled, but more attractive because it wasn’t orderly. The walls were green beneath the music posters. I touched the corner of the Radiohead one from the concert we’d attended last year. Ticket stubs everywhere. There were spools of blank CDs on his desk and burned ones scattered about. Favorite and local bands were interspersed with Gaiman, Auster, and Bradbury novels in a wide bookcase that took up most of the space under the two windows facing his bed. A few photos were stuck on the corkboard and on his bureau. Some of the pictures were of Guyver and me; some were of family; most were from concerts he’d played in or attended. I resisted the urge to edit the photos, taking out the ones where I looked hideous or had braces. I couldn’t look at his bed without imagining him on it and blushing, so I turned my attention to his desk.

More ticket stubs. Wristbands from clubs. His laptop with band stickers on the cover. An external hard drive to back up his music. There were sticky notes and paper scraps in his undecipherable handwriting. Sheet music—mostly printouts of songs he was learning, but also a few pages that were covered with pencil marks.

I picked up the top sheet, a smudged mess of notes that didn’t make sense to me. The notes only reached the third line of music bars, and there was an angry slash across the page. The second sheet was full, not just of notes but lyrics as well. Lyrics that were incomprehensible, just a couple of legible words: sweet, soft, held, kiss, mine. A love song? By Gyver? I blushed and studied it, picking out additional words: the, for, first, now. Nothing revealing. At the top, in all capitals—which he used when he was trying to be neat—he’d printed: “FOR M.A.”

For ma? Gyver didn’t call his mother “ma.” No, there were periods there; definitely M period, A period. My hand shook as I replaced the paper and backed out of the room. I closed the door and leaned on it. The hallway felt small, like the walls were tightening. Gyver—the boy who’d visited every day in the hospital, whose voice chased away my fear, and whose hands knew just when to hold me—wasn’t mine. I couldn’t swallow and I felt sick—but this time I couldn’t blame it on the chemo. I couldn’t blame it on anything but my own stupidity.

Back in my own room an hour later, I was still studying the yearbook. There were four girls with the initials M.A. attending East Lake. A fifth graduated last June, but Maggie Arturo had been on the squad and was a Hillary clone, definitely not Gyver’s type.

Mindy Adler was attractive, but she smoked … and not just cigarettes. That wasn’t Gyver’s thing. Maddy Appiah made it clear she didn’t like boys. Michaela Abbot was a cute soccer player, but she’d been a freshman last year; I doubted they’d met.