Opposite of Always(56)

I wipe away her tears.

I pull her into me.

I feel her nose burrow into my shoulder.

I’m happy she’s told me. I am.

But mostly, I’m afraid.

“Listen, Kate,” I say. “If we’re gonna do this thing, you and me, then you’ve gotta promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“You’ve gotta stop running away.”

“I think I can do that.”

“It’s just that, well, you’re too fast for me.”

She laughs.

I keep going. “I can barely keep up, I’m telling you. I mean, you really move.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve gotta promise me something, too.”

“What’s that?”

She grins. “Promise me that you’ll kiss me again within the next four seconds. One . . . two . . . three . . .”

And I promise her. Over and over again.

I Google everything I can find on sickle cell when I get home.

I’m so focused I don’t even hear Mom come into my room.

“Sickle cell, huh,” she says. “What made you think of that?”

“Oh, uh, Kate, it turns out, she has it. I didn’t realize how serious it is.”

Mom pulls the chair out from my desk, sits down. “I’m a carrier.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Before we had you, your dad and I got screened. Sickle cell is a big concern, especially in the black community.”

“I just read that eighty percent of the people affected are black.”

She nods. “Yeah, it’s a lot. But honestly, I remember being surprised at how many people from other communities are affected, too. There are quite a few Spanish-speaking regions that are just as impacted. Plus, people in India, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. One of my best friends in college, Mira Hassan, she lived with sickle cell. She was this amazing sculptor, Jackie. She made this one piece, it was two people embracing, it must’ve been ten feet tall. She was brilliant. And then . . . I remember visiting her in the hospital, and like you, I had no idea what sickle cell even was. She was so sick. She had to drop out of school.”

“What? Why?”

“They kept her admitted for almost two months.”

“Two months?”

“She had good days and bad days. On her good days, I’d walk up and down the hall with her. She’d be clutching her IV pole, shuffling her feet. I remember thinking how unfair the whole thing was. Here was someone who was so full of life, normally so energetic, and then suddenly, without warning, she could barely hold up her head.”

“What happened to her?”

Mom bites her lip and looks away. “They didn’t know as much back then as they know now. You make sure you’re there for Kate, okay, Jackie?”

“I will.”

She stands up, squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll bring your dinner up tonight. You just keep reading.”

I nod. “Thanks, Mom.”

I Google the doctor Kate mentioned.

Dr. Sowunmi.

I dial his office but it’s already closed.

The next morning, I phone again. The appointment scheduler confirms that he’s all booked up the rest of the month, do I want to make an appointment for next?

Yes, please, I tell her, hopeful that next month isn’t too late.

And I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

If I can do anything.

But that has to be the reason I’m here.

To try.





He’s Got No Game


The Elytown Panthers come up short in the second playoff round again. Franny plays lights out again. The Coupon’s in jail. Again.

“At least when he’s locked up, I never have to wonder if he’s gonna show or not,” Franny says as we climb into Jillian’s car. “That’s messed up, right? Saying life is easier when my father is behind bars?”

“Baby, that’s the least-messed-up thing about all this,” Jillian says, taking his hand.

“For half a second, right after they announced the starting lineup, I look up and I swear I see him in the crowd. Like, I woulda put money on it. That somehow he’d found a way to make it. Like, he’d dug a tunnel with his prison spoon just to make it to my game.” Franny fiddles with the window button. “But that’s stupid. You’d think I’d know better by now, but . . .”

“This isn’t on you, Franny,” I say from the back seat.

“No?” Franny asks, staring out the window. “Then how come my shoulders feel so heavy?”





Graduates


Graduation is a collage of group hugs, no-filter-picture posing, and cap reapplication. Mainly because my cap is sized for a giant and swallows my head.

Meanwhile, Franny’s cap sits crisply atop his freshly sculpted curl-fro, looking dope as always.

And Jillian, our super-worthy class valedictorian, looks hella cool and destroys us with her speech: “Go forth and conquer,” she concludes, throwing her hand into the air.

Our class goes crazy, hats and tassels leaping into the air.

Afterward, I find Kate.

“Hey,” she says, smiling.