Page 6 of Styx & Stones

CHAPTER FOUR

ALASKA

Three hours into myfirst chemo session, and I’m bored out of my brain. Mom leaves to stretch her legs and grab a coffee. I’d go too, if it weren’t for the damn IV in my arm and the giant pole that’s attached to it. It might garner a few strange looks.

“All I ever see is you,” the hero says from the TV as he sweeps the heroine off her feet and lays one on her.

Fucking rom-coms.

“Bullshit,” I whisper-yell at the TV and make a gagging sound. “You were totally chatting up some other chick a minute ago.”

“Hey.”

I flinch, glancing in alarm at loner boy standing inside my curtained cubicle. His head is covered in a knit cap, his shirt is too big, his jeans are slim but baggy in the right places, and his flannel shirt is tied around his waist. He looks like an emo Jughead Jones.If Jughead carried a chemo pole.

“Hey,” I say flicking off the TV.

“Bad time?”

“Just cursing Hollywood for their unrealistic viewpoints on romance. You?”

He shrugs and shoves a hand in the pocket of his jeans. “Just tryin’ not to die.”

I laugh so loudly, and so unexpectedly, that I snort. I raise my PICC line in the air and say, “Cheers to that.”

“I didn’t know you were—”

“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. I swear to God if one more person says, ‘I’m sorry’, I’m going to slap them.”

“Actually, I was gonna go with, ‘I didn’t know you were such a heartless bitch.’” He tilts his chin toward the TV. “But sure, we can go with sorry if you want to make it all about you.”

I gape at him. I don’t know whether he’s being serious or not. I don’t think any guy has ever talked to me like that.

“Styx Hendricks, you leave that girl be, you hear?” Carissa comes marching down the hall and slides my curtain back. “We don’t need you scaring her off on her first day.”

“Just initiating the welcome wagon, Carissa. Don’t worry, though; she’s not the neighborly type.”

“Go sit your butt down, boy. I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

“See ya, ’round, Stones.”

“It’s Stone. Singular,” I say with a bored expression. “Alaska Stone.”

He grins and mock-bows, almost toppling his pole in the process. “I know.”

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