Radiate (34 page)

Everything speeds up—almost on fast-forward. I bow down before the team on the sideline, pulling Melanie down with me. She does the same to Lauren and on down the line. We do this a couple of times in celebration as the clock ticks down to zero.

“We won!” Melanie screams at me, and then hugs me.

The cheerleaders huddle together, jumping up and down, and acting as though this was our first victory of the year. Behind us, the linemen have hoisted Phillip up on their shoulders since he accounts for all nine of tonight’s points.

Hannah shakes me and dies laughing. “That was awesomely awesome! I loved bowing at the goal line. We’re totally going to have to do that every time we kick a field goal.”

“I don’t know what Chloe will think about that,” I say.

“Who cares? We won!”

We did indeed. Everyone floods the field. I limp out and pat passing Patriots players on the back or helmet with my poms. I can’t even get anywhere near Phillip, the hero of the game.

“We’re gonna party tonight!” Phillip yells out.

I catch up with Gabriel, who’s gathering towels and bottles together on the sideline. “Wasn’t that amazing?” I ask.

“Best game of the season,” he says. “Everyone played his heart out.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Daniel. He’s still got his helmet on, and he’s not celebrating the victory at all. If I know him—which I do—he’s beating himself up for not catching that pass. Serves him right for being such a pompous ass to me. Let someone else enjoy the spoils of victory.

Daniel turns and looks at me. I don’t dare move. I don’t blink, smile, motion, or acknowledge his existence. He knows what I think of him, because right now, it’s what he thinks about himself.

“See you in about half an hour?” Gabriel says.

“The dance! Yes! Do you think a girl like me can get ready for a homecoming dance in half an hour?”

Gabriel stands and contemplates. “Well... it’s not like you have to do your hair or anything.”

I burst out laughing and smack him with my poms. “Meet you in the gym.”

Yeah, this is going to be a fun night.

***

Two hours later, I’m having the time of my life. I’m dancing. I’m partying. I’m hanging with my friends.

“This is the best DJ ever,” I say above the music mix to Gabriel.

He’s an awesome nondate. We have a great time kidding around and hanging out. There are mostly up-tempo songs that everyone’s grooving out to and very few slow songs. We just head over to the soda and snack table when those happen. I’m having such a good time that I don’t even stop to notice Daniel and Chloe slow dancing. Okay, so I notice, but I don’t care. Now he knows what it’s like to be judged and stared at by the whole stadium. Dropping a pass isn’t exactly cancer; however, it can ruin any chance of a college football scholarship if he continues to make stupid errors like that.

The DJ begins spinning a funky House/Techno number, and Lora and Ashlee run up to me.

“We have to steal her, Gabe,” Lora says.

The cheerleaders line up in the middle of the dance floor and start doing the routine we (they) took to cheerleader camp. As we line up, Chloe slices her eyes on me.

“You should sit this one out, Hayley, since you didn’t do the routine with us at camp.”

“Like hell I will,” I say with a smile. I watched the video of this dance so many times, I can do it in my sleep.

“Chill out, Chloe,” Lora says. “It’s homecoming, not a competition.”

I slide into the lineup and snap into the first dance move to prove the captain wrong. Every beat of the music pulsates through me. I’m stoked as I move along in unison with the rest of the girls. Gabriel stands in front and claps me on. I smile at him, at the crowd... at everything. It feels amazing to be free of the crutches. There’s still a little pain in my leg, but it’s nothing bad. It is what it is.

When the song ends, we huddle together and cheer out, “Patriots Number One!”

Gabriel holds out an icy soda to me when I’m done. I gladly accept it and down most of it in two gulps.

“You rocked it out there, Hay.”

“I’m starting to feel more like myself.”

He reaches over and rubs my head. “Hmm... the peach fuzz is starting to turn into real hair.”

I chuckle at how he’s always feeling my head. It’s not weird at all. Sort of our own private ritual. His smile is genuine, and he’s not staring past me to see if there’s a better conversation or someone more important to impress.

My chest aches in a sweet way. Maxwell wasn’t the same after Gabriel and his family left. Now, the sun shines a little brighter with him back in town.

I can’t stop staring at him—his close-cropped hair, his deep brown eyes. Am I seeing him—I mean
really
—seeing him for the first time? My earwig warrior... my trainer... my friend.

“What?” he asks with a smile. “Do I have something on my face?”

I giggle. “No, Gabriel. I’ve just... missed... this.”

“This?”

“You. Our friendship.”

He wraps his arm around me and escorts me slowly back to the dance floor where the music has shifted to something slow and romantic. He turns me to face him and then places his hands on my waist. “I’m not going anywhere.”

With that, I place my hands on his shoulders and let him lead me around to the sexy melody. There’s an ache in my chest momentarily that I can’t quite pinpoint, and then I’m back to normal. “I’m glad.”

Another hour dancing and then an hour feeding our faces with burgers, fries, and shakes at the Burger Barn, and Gabriel drives me home.

“I had a great time,” he says.

“Me too,” I agree. “Thanks for going with me.”

“Any time. You’re a great dancer.”

He steps out, comes around, and opens the door for me. Together, we walk in silence to my front door. Mom and Dad have left the porch light on. I move to hug Gabriel at the same time he moves to—oh my God! Was he going to kiss me? I laugh nervously, and then we do the awkward cheek kiss thing like complete idiots.

“G’night,” I say, and then slip into the house before he sees how discombobulated I am.

I float off upstairs (okay, hobble mostly) feeling super-juiced over such a wonderful homecoming.

In my room, I snap on the light, disturbing Leeny who’s curled up at the foot of my bed.

I turn and look at myself in the mirror, not afraid of what I’ll see.

Instead of looking at a bald chick or a girl stricken with cancer, I view someone I haven’t seen in months.

Me.

And I’m happy.

I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for.

—James H. Boren

Just when I think my life is turning a corner,
more
shit happens.

It always does.

But the last week of October, before Halloween, two things hit the fan and splatter.

I come home from school the Monday after homecoming to find our postman trying to shove a bunch of stuff through our mail slot.

“Hey, Mr. Sayner,” I call out. “Can I take that from you?”

“Hello, Hayley. Yes, you sure may. Quite a lot of bills from Birmingham in there,” the old man says, like it’s any of his business. I bite back the urge to ask him if he’d like to pay them, and I don’t pose the question. Instead, I take the mail and thank him.

Once inside, I spread the plethora of various correspondences out on the kitchen table.

There’s one from Dr. Tanner Dykema.

Another from the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital.

A separate statement from the anesthesiology department at UAB.

Tons of envelopes from Home Health Providers, Mom and Dad’s insurance company.

Bills from the radiology department.

Oncology.

An orthopedic group.

Pathology.

I can’t take anymore
ologies!

I reach my fingers up to cram into my hair, only remembering that I don’t really have any. I rub at my head, massaging the throb that has now settled over my left eye. Dare I even open any of these to see the damage my hospitalization, surgery, and treatment have cost and are costing my parents? They have insurance, so shouldn’t those greedy bastards be paying for everything?

It’s bad enough that I know Dad is struggling to keep Matthews Hardware afloat in this economy. Now this? Geesh... with so much debt, how will I be able to go to college?

I hear Mom coming through the back door, obviously on her cell phone. “I picked up a bucket at Crower’s Fried Chicken along with some sides for dinner. If you’re not home in time, I’ll leave it in the oven. Then we can talk about—” She freezes in place when she sees me at the kitchen table. “Jared, I’ll call you back.”

Mom places the chicken dinner on the butcher block in the middle of the room and slowly walks over and sits down next to me. Her eyes shift downward to take in the bills from all of the ologies and such. Quietly, she gathers the mail into a neat stack and slips everything into her purse.

“You shouldn’t be concerning yourself with all of these,” she says softly.

“Mom! That’s a shitload of bills... all because of
me.
”

“Language, Hayley. I raised you better than to use words like that.”

I slam my hands to the table. “You also raised me not to lie. Which is what you’re doing right now.”

“What have I lied about?”

“Semantics, Mom.” I point at her purse. “Those hospital bills. There are a ton of them. I had no idea how much I was costing y’all as I was going through all of those tests and procedures, X-rays and surgeries and—”

Mom’s lips flatten before she interrupts me. “Hayley, your father and I made the decision not to burden you with our financial situation. What were we supposed to do? Let you lose your leg?”

My hands tremble as I try to remain calm. “I think I deserve an explanation. Why isn’t our insurance paying for all of my bills?”

Sitting back, Mom takes a deep breath. “The insurance is paying for some of it. Not all of it.”

“Then that’s a crappy insurance plan.”

Now it’s Mom’s turn to slam her hands down. “Yes, it is. That’s been a problem for several years. We simply haven’t been able to afford a better plan. We have had severe financial problems in this family since your sister . . .”

Mom stops and puts her hand to her mouth.

“Gretchen? What does she have to do with this?”

Mom gets up and walks over to the refrigerator. She pulls out a bottle of water and quickly gulps it down. I don’t know whether she’s walked away from me or if she’s doing this in preparation of the truth.

“Mom? Please... I’m not a baby . . .”

Her eyes are full of tears when she turns to me. “You’re still my baby. Your father and I have done everything we can to protect you.”

I walk over to her and take her hand. We walk down the hallway of the house and into the den. As we are sitting on the couch together, I press her to tell me everything.

She takes a deep breath. “During her senior year of high school, Gretchen got involved with the wrong crowd. She was doing drugs, drinking underage, and generally getting into a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t remember this,” I say.

“You were too young and we shielded you from it.”

I’m glad she’s not shielding me from it now. “Go on.”

“We had a lot of medical expenses due to Gretchen and her addictions. We put her in rehab, but that didn’t work. We had her in therapy, but that didn’t help, either. Finally, things got so bad that our insurance carrier canceled us. We gave Gretchen an ultimatum that she was to straighten up her act or get out.”

“That’s when she left home,” I say.

Mom nods. “She left home... yes... and she cleaned out our savings account and a mutual fund that my parents had been building for years for the three of you to go to college. We had to settle on a less expensive insurance carrier to save money, and we’ve been scraping by ever since.”

“How did she do this?” I ask incredulously. “Was her name on the account?”

With a shrug, Mom answers, “She got the user name and passcode somehow.”

My blood boils and my head feels as if it will explode. I can’t believe Gretchen would do something like that. Not the sister I remember growing up. The one who played Barbies with me and the one who would judge my stuffed animal beauty contests. The sister who taught me how to pluck my eyebrows and wear eyeliner. I have trouble matching her up to a money-thieving drug addict/alcoholic who left home.

“Your father is going to be very angry at me for telling you this.”

“I would have been more pissed off if you hadn’t.”

“Hayley... language.”

I feign a small laugh although I’m feeling anything but happy.

“How did I never know this?”

Mom smiles. “We’re good protectors. Cliff got a scholarship for college, and we’ve been trying to save for yours, so it wasn’t an issue.”

“It’s an issue when I don’t have my big sister in my life. Did y’all talk at all when she was in Birmingham?”

Mom spreads her hands out and then lays them on her lap. “Very basic stuff. We mostly talked about you.”

I sigh long and hard. “So, let me get this straight. Y’all have virtually no savings—”

“Some.”

“There’s a stack of medical bills that could possibly be growing—”

“Possibly.”

“And the hardware store is losing money because no one is shopping mom-and-pop stores anymore, especially since Hometime Hardware built out on the highway.”

Mom nods her head.

“Do I need to get a job at the Burger Barn or somewhere after school?”

A comforting arm comes around me. “No, sweetie. That won’t really help.”

“But all of the medical bills. They’re from
me.
From my stupid cancer.” I choke on the words in my throat. “I—I—I didn’t mean to cause y’all financial problems.”

“Hayley, stop. It’s not your fault. You didn’t decide to have cancer and to stay in the hospital for a couple of months. Your father and I will find a way to take care of it.”

I shake my head, trying to knock the bad information out so it won’t hurt so much. “Gretchen’s okay now. She’s got a good job and has to make decent money to live in Boston. Why won’t she pay you back?”