Baseballs in the Stars (boyxboy)

Baseballs in the Stars part 2

Baseballs in the Stars part 2

After the first session, I had a week off from chemo. I spent it doing what makeup work I could for school. Since I was in and out of the hospital so much, the school and my mom had come up with a rough curriculum that would scrape me through to graduation, assuming I lived that long.

                None of the teachers, of course, ever said this out loud, but the statement was so blatantly clear to me all the time I almost thought they had.

I think the longest I ever spent in school for any length of time was a month and a half. That month and a half was glorious to me- I got used to classes, memorized my locker combination, even made a friend or two.

Then I relapsed. Burned up unexpectedly during school and passed out in the hallway after third period.

Needless to say I haven’t been back, so thank God for email.

It’s been three days since chemo- three days since I met Sam. And even though I just met him, I can’t seem to get him out of my mind. His bright green eyes, casual smirk, the way he smiled at me…

God. He’s probably straight, I thought to myself. Get a grip, Leo.

But… what is he isn’t? My mind argued. What if he’s…

What? Gay? And what makes you think he’d be interested in me? The sick kid?

He is too, my mind said snidely. He’s been through what you have.

“I seriously doubt that.” I said out loud, then smacked myself on the forehead.

Jesus H… I’ve already got Leukemia, I do not need schizophrenia on my plate too. I ran my fingers through my hair, dropped my hand, and sighed.

“Mom!” I called, as I stared at the clump of brown hair in my palm.

                Two days later, my head completely bald again and covered with a Bruins cap, I was sitting on my porch with Javert and Jean Valjean, our dogs. My mother named them after she went to go see Les Miserables  on Broadway. It’s an awful mouthful when you try to call them. It’s like a tongue twister. I barely stopped her from naming our parakeets Fantine and Eponine.

A wave of heat prickled suddenly through my body, catching me off guard. I swallowed, bracing my hand on the floor.  My head whirled and colors danced in front of my eyes. Jean Valjean’s bark was the last thing I heard before my world faded to black.

I guess waking up in the hospital is strange, for some people. But for me, it feels like home. Familiar.

I try to remember the first time I woke up to the steady beeping, but I can’t. Hospitals have been such an ingrained part of my life I can’t think of them as weird or different.

I blinked my eyes open and saw that I was in my usual room in the oncology ward. Groaning, I reached for the call button and jabbed it once.

Five or so minutes later a familiar nurse came in with a mask over her face.

“Hi, Leo honey, how are you?”

“Peachy keen, Amelia.”

“Good to hear.”

Amelia came up next to me and felt my forehead. “At least your fever went down. You passed out on your porch three days ago. You got an infection, which you still have.  But luckily it’s pretty mild. If your mother wasn’t so good at keeping your house practically antiseptic you could have contracted one that would have killed you.”

I passed a hand over my head. “Lucky me.”

As odd as it may sound, I was completely expecting this. Frankly, I was surprised they even let me go home after the first round of chemo.

You see, chemo wipes out all of your white blood cells, hopefully killing the cancer cells with it. But when it kills your white blood cells, it kills any protection you have against disease, leaving you extremely vulnerable. So I’m usually admitted for the duration of the chemo and kept in a clean room until it’s over.

I touch my mouth, feeling the familiar whisper of a paper mask.

“I’ll call your mom and tell her you’re awake,” Amelia said. “She went home to feed J and J.”

I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. Even the nurses find the dogs’ names too much of a mouthful.

Strangely, Sam darts across my mind, and on impulse, I stretched out my hand to stop Amelia.

“Amelia, wait. Is a boy named Sam Mitchell here? Probably down in the IV room for platelets?”

She cocked her head, giving me a funny look. “I’ll check. You want me to send him up here if he is around?”

“No! No, I-um, just… wanted… to see if he, you know, was here.”

When Amelia left I sank down into my pillows. What the hell was that? Why had Sam come into my head? Talk about random.

I closed my eyes, trying to drift off, when I heard the door slide open and the rustle of paper booties and the plastic bodysuit required of visitors to a clean room.

I opened my eyes and my mouth dropped.

“Sam?”