On Monday, Autumn wasn't in class.
The lecture that day was about galaxies, and the professor talked about Andromeda. He mentioned Andromeda being on a collision course with the Milky Way. I smiled, thinking of what Autumn said about stars from different galaxies forming couples. I couldn't really pay attention to most of the rest of the lecture. My mind was buzzing with worry about why Autumn was missing. I shot her a text but received no reply.
When the class was over, I headed straight for her dorm room to see if she was at least only playing hooky, though after what I witnessed Saturday night, I suspected something might be wrong with her.
I knocked on her door. It swung open, and another girl I didn't recognize stood before me.
"Hi?"
"Hi, I'm looking for Autumn."
She raised her eyebrow like she was confused. Like she had never heard of the name before.
"Autumn doesn't live here."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have misread the directory."
The girl smiled. "No, you read it correctly. This is her room. I'm her roommate. Well, supposed to be. She hasn't been living here."
"Oh... really?"
"Are you a friend of Autumn's?"
"Uh-huh," I replied. "Sort of. We're working on a project for a class together."
"Don't you know?"
"Know what?"
In a hushed and gentle voice, as if we were chatting at a wake, she said,
"Autumn has cancer. She's living with her mom while she's going through chemotherapy."
I breathed in and held it and clutched my chest as if to clutch onto my heart before it fell to the ground and shattered into pieces. Too late. My heart just exploded.
"I'm sorry," the girl said. "If she's not in class, she might be at the clinic. Westwood Pediatric Orthopedics Center."
"Thanks," I said and left without saying anything more. I was in shock. A lump formed in my throat. It all made sense now. The bout of nausea. The floppy beanie which she wore not only as a fashion statement but to cover her hair loss from chemo. Her skipping out on our meeting on Friday night, which I felt so much self-pity for, and now felt foolish for what I did. I felt like an idiot for not seeing it. Then I felt angry. Not only at myself but also at Autumn for not telling me about any of this. For pretending like she was just a normal college student. Don't I deserve a heads-up?
I ran back to my dorm room and lay in my bed in a daze, thinking about Autumn. Seeing her smiling face so vividly in my mind. So cheerful and her eyes bright as when she talked about Andromeda and Jupiter and the Galilean moons. I felt sick to my stomach. I thought of lying there all day to devolve into a heaping pile of depression. But then I thought about what Autumn must be going through now, and my head pounded with frustration, not knowing anything more about what was going on with her. What sort of cancer did she have? How bad was it? Why on earth was she in classes when she had cancer!?
I was frustrated at myself for not knowing any of this information and frustrated at Autumn for not telling me. I stared at my phone at the lonely line of text I sent her asking her if she was planning on coming to class that morning. I stared at it as if staring hard enough would will a response from her. Then it occurred to me. Couldn't I just drop by to visit her at the clinic? They allow visitors, don't they? She'd be happy to see me, wouldn't she?
I did a quick google search for Westwood Pediatric Orthopedics Center and saw that it was just a half-hour walk from campus. Deciding that the worst that could happen is that they turn me away at the front desk and having a real itch to see how Autumn was doing, I went.
