Dying to Live

Chapter 19

⏳ ADAM, May

I was just minding my own business, getting chemo, the usual, when I saw two pairs of feet in my peripheral vision coming closer. The smaller pair was wearing bright purple converse. I looked up from my sketchbook and grinned.

"So we meet again," I said as the little girl with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma was led to the chair directly opposite mine. She sat down gingerly and the nurse started prepping her. I had my anti-sickness drugs twenty minutes ago and was now hooked up to my IV for the chemo treatment. I'd been here a while already.

"Yeah, I guess," she smiled shyly.

"Which book did you bring this week?" I asked her and she picked the book up from her lap to show me the cover: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

"You read all the others already?" I wondered, genuinely impressed.

"I read really fast," she shrugged.

"Yeah, no kidding, it takes me a month to read a single book... I watched two whole seasons of Parks and Rec this week though," I retorted, like I had something to prove to her. I wasn't much use to anyone when I was busy puking my guts out and being generally miserable, but I could sure as hell watch a shit ton of television.

"I've never seen that," the girl admitted.

"It's pretty good. Do you like Chris Pratt?" I wondered. She nodded and ducked her head shyly. If she had any color to her face left, I might've even seen her blush. "Well, he's in there."

She opened her book and I watched her read for a while. When that got boring I looked back down at the sketchbook in my lap. I flipped to the next page.

"What's your favorite Harry Potter creature?" I asked.

"Um, I like Hippogriffs," she replied.

I started to draw, my pencil running swiftly across the page. I was working against the clock, knowing I probably only had forty minutes left to finish what I'd started.

Challenge accepted.

By the time the nurse came back to relieve me of the tube in my arm and do her usual post-chemo checkup, I was all done. There was a black and white hippogriff on the page, flying toward me with its talons outstretched, like it was grabbing for something. There was a little girl, twelve or thirteen years old, sitting on its back. She wore Hogwarts robes, had a couple eyebrows, and long hair flying behind her in the wind.

I showed it to my little chemo buddy as I was getting ready to leave.

"Is that me?" she gasped and stared up at me.

"That's you," I replied.

"I'm riding a hippogriff and I have hair," she giggled and instinctively reached to adjust the baseball cap on her head. Magic was pretty cool. People could use it to escape a really crappy situation for a while. Sometimes, it helped little girls with cancer fly. "Can I keep it?" she asked, looking at me almost defiantly, like she expected me to rip it away from her.

"Of course you can, it's all yours," I told her.

"Thank you!" she said with as much excitement as she could muster while her veins were being filled with poison.

"You're welcome." The way she was smiling at me, I was pretty sure I'd just made a little girl's whole month. I hesitated for a moment on my way out the door. "Hey kid," I said, turning around again to face her. I just realized something I still hadn't asked her yet. "What's your name anyway?"