Page 58 of Styx & Stones

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

STYX

Iturn the stereo offand glance at Stones. She’s out cold, snoring lightly with a thin line of drool pooling on her shirt from her chin. I pull my phone from my pocket and turn it on. I’ve pretty much had it switched off since we left SF. I think Stones just turned hers to silent because our parents were calling so much.

I dart my eyes between my Instagram app and the road. I go live, whispering to whoever might be watching, “She sleeps, ladies and gentlemen. She looks like a fairy princess, commandeers my heart like a queen, and snores like a wildebeest. She’s not any of those things. She’s just a girl who’s trying to live while dying. A girl this court jester loves.”

I turn the camera back to my face and wink. “And I think the girl might even love me. Say what you want about how tragic our lives are, our diagnoses, but the way I see it, Alaska Stone and I are the luckiest kids alive. Now, I gotta quit talking before she wakes and mauls me like the beast for filming her with drool on her shoulder.”

I tag her IG handle, end the video, and wince when her phone chimes on the dash. Stones doesn’t wake, and I tuck my phone in the console and drive. We’re so close. Just a few more hours from the happiest place on Earth, but in a way, a part of me doesn’t even care if we make it, because this right here, her asleep and me driving into the night in our shitty little truck is everything. And I can’t imagine a happier place on Earth than right here, with her by my side.

An hour later, I’m fighting to keep my eyes open when we drive into a hotel at Pismo Beach. I shake her gently and she breathes deeply, her lips curling into a sleepy smile. “I was having the best dream.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“You and I stole your father’s car and we went on a road trip to Disneyland.”

“Wow, that must have sucked. I bet we drove each other fucking nuts.”

“We did. But I also dreamed that we were dying.”

My brow furrows—I can’t help it. My features turn to ice; my face shuts down. “Also not just a dream.”

“It’s okay though, because when we died, it was just like flying. The two of us together, we flew, across Disneyland and Big Sur. We flew across cities and oceans and we held hands the entire way, and our lips were flapping in that way they do when people skydive.”

The absurdity of her words hits me like an anvil, and I burst into laughter instead of tears. I swipe at my eyes and clear my throat. “Flapping lips, huh?”

“Yep.” She smiles up at me and grabs her cheeks, pulling them apart rapidly. “You looked so funny too. Do it with me. I wanna see if the dream is anything like the real thing.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Oh, come on, I did it for you.”

“No.”

“Come on, Styx. I did it for you; do it back.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Boo, you suck.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “You really want me to flap my lips?”

“Please?”

“The things we do for love.” I raise a brow. She sucks in a breath, and I ignore it. Grabbing my cheeks, I pull them in and out until they’re making squishy sounds of their own. I do it until my face aches. She grins like a loon.