Chapter 3
ALL.
A word that means everything. At least that’s what the online dictionary says. But in my reality, it means something else.
Philadelphia is another innocuous word. It’s a city in Pennsylvania.
Birthplace of American democracy. Home to the Liberty Bell.
The town where our nation’s Founding Fathers drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
But tack on the word ‘positive’ to Philadelphia and you get something horrific.
My vocabulary for the past week has transformed to include words and acronyms that I never would have thought I’d use on a daily basis. Acronyms such as ALL and BCR-ABL, or words such as allogenic donor, bone marrow, and ablative chemo. But the words I abhor the most? Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
The man I love more than life itself—the boy who stole my heart when I was only nine years old—is now a statistic. A horrifying, ugly statistic.
If I had one wish, I would wish that life were words written in pencil on a piece of paper.
Then, I could erase life’s mistakes and rewrite our stories.
Eventually, however, the eraser at the end of the pencil would be used up, rubbed down until only the metal casing scraped the surface of the paper, and life could no longer be altered and recrafted.
“Liz, you need to eat something.”
I blink several times to see Jayson standing in front of me. When did he get here?
“I let myself in,” he says, watching me with concern as I just stare at him blankly.
“What time is it? Why aren’t you in class?” I ask him. It’s a school day. I remember Hailey and Daniel coming into the kitchen at some point and saying something to me.
I stayed up all night holding Ryder in my arms and just watched him sleep.
I don’t know when I got up and left him in my bed.
After throwing up a few times in the hall bathroom, I came into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk.
I look down at my hands at the still full glass between them. The milk has already started to curdle.
“It’s half nine, and when you didn’t show up for school or answer your texts, I left class to come check on you,” he says, approaching me.
Ryder is taking the week off school for all his doctor appointments and tests. Mitch and Faith have already cleared it with Principal Stubbs. I decided to stay home today with Ryder. His parents let him sleepover last night.
Jayson gently cups my face and touches his forehead to mine. “I’m going to make you some toast, yeah?”
I nod, knowing I need to eat something.
“You need to tell him,” Jayson adds softly.
“No.”
“Liz—”
I meet his silver-gray eyes. “No, Jayson. We’ve already had this conversation.” But apparently that hasn’t stopped him from bringing it up.
“At some point, you’re not going to be able to hide it from him or anyone else.”
“I’ll tell Ryder before it gets to that. But right now, we need to focus on him.”
Because Ryder is Philadelphia positive, his oncologist wants him to begin treatment as soon as possible.
One option is for him to have ablative chemotherapy to wipe out his bone marrow cells, and then an allogenic bone marrow transplant.
But that can’t happen unless we find a suitable donor.
Everyone’s getting tested. I won’t be able to because of the baby, and the guilt at knowing that I will be useless to help save Ryder’s life is killing me.
The second treatment option is similar to the first, but it would be autologous where doctors would harvest Ryder’s own stem cells to use in the graft.
However, it may be less effective in treating the disease.
So, with everything going on, I can’t just blurt out that I’m pregnant.
I haven’t even told Daniel or Hailey. Besides, after that one night I spent with Jayson when my memories returned, I can’t be one-hundred percent sure that the baby is Ryder’s.
He or she might be Jayson’s. God, I hate myself.
How has this become my life? Mom would be so disappointed in me.
Warm arms wrap around me, and I startle at the unexpected touch. Jayson’s face gets blurrier as tears spill from my eyes.
“Everything’s going to be okay, princess.”
“No, it’s not.”