Page 9 of Styx & Stones

CHAPTER SIX

ALASKA

Thirty minutes intomy second chemotherapy session and we’re all seated in a circle. Mostly, it’s just a bunch of old people, one really hot guy who looks like a freaking supermodel, me, and ... Styx Hendricks.

I look up from my phone to find him watching me.

“So ...” Styx leans forward in the chair opposite mine. “What are you in for?”

“Excuse me?”

“Cancer?” He squints, staring at the bag with my medicine. I grab my pole and turn it away from him. “What kind of cancer?”

“Oh, um ... diffuse astrocytoma.” I shake my head and explain in English. “Brain tumor.”

“Told ya. Pay up, Jan.” He makes the one-handed, universal sign for bring it—which I guess also doubles forgive me my fucking money.

Harley—the cute older guy—glances between me and Styx, chuckles, and goes back to reading hisBetter Gardensmagazine.

“You bet on what type of cancer I have?”

Styx’s gaze slides back to mine. “Yeah. So?”

My hands ball into fists. “So what kind of people are you? Who does that?”

“Bored chemo patients,” he says with a level glare. “They do that.”

“You’re sick.”

He laughs. “I’m sick, you’re sick, we’re all sick here.”

I clench my jaw together. These people are crazy. Heartless and cold. Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I will not let him see me cry. No matter how callous he is. No matter how much I don’t like him. “Well then, since you’re all so open about discussing my cancer, what the hell do you have?”

“ARMS.”

“Arms? You have cancer of the arms?”

Styx rolls his eyes and shuts his magazine, no doubt preparing to school me on all of the things I don’t know about this stupid disease. “Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma—ARMS for short.”

“Never heard of it.” I tilt my chin.

“I don’t suppose you would have. I’m one in a million, baby.” He pats his abdomen, stroking the worn fabric of his T-shirt. “Peritoneum. Don’t bother trying to make them out—my little tumor friends are invisible unless you have X-ray vision. Though you’re welcome to slip your hand under my shirt and feel my abs, just to make sure.”

“You’re a pig.”