“It’s . . . okay.” Something was off. I looked up, alarmed. Had I really injured her?! It wasn’t that big of a bump. My elbows were bony, but could they really have done damage? Then I heard a sniff and, from my peripheral vision, saw her wiping her eyes.
“You’re crying! Oh god. I’m sorry! Did I really hurt you?” My words tumbled over each other, in a pathetic attempt to soothe her.
“It’s not you. It’s . . . It’s . . .”
There was no need for her to finish the sentence. It could only be one thing. One person.
“Steve.”
She nodded and began to cry harder.
The asshole had assholed her even quicker than I thought he would. And while there were so many things he could have done to hurt her, it didn’t really matter. I didn’t need to know the specifics. But maybe she wanted to talk about it?
“What did he do?” I asked gently.
She shook her head, unable to speak. I wondered how Steve could just cast her aside so easily like all the other girls he’d dated. I mean, this was Kaia. Feeling mostly helpless, I reached out tentatively and put my hand on her shoulder. I could feel it trembling. This seemed to release even more pain, and she suddenly swiveled and threw her arms around me.
Around me!
Her cascading hair was a soft curtain on my face. As I inhaled, its mysterious scent exploded in my brain, muddling my thoughts. The Wall of Service bulletin board spun around us like a disco ball of community engagement. Thankfully, my shoulder could absorb her tears as I tried to regain my bearings. With great focus, I summoned the basic agility to pat her back.
“I’m sorry. Whatever happened, you don’t deserve it. You’re amazing. Really, really, really amazing . . .” I sucked in another breath. I wanted to say the right thing. The perfect thing. The blood in my heart crested, overflowing with emotion. I searched for the words until finally . . .
“Is that coconut?” Crap. That damn shampoo smelled so freaking good!
“What?” she asked, and I prayed she meant, What did you say? and not, What are you doing talking about the luscious scent of my hair?
“Steve!” I sputtered. “That Steve! What an ass—”
“Steve has cancer.”
Certain that her intoxicating shampoo must have somehow affected my hearing, I searched for possible homophones—“Steve likes canned pears”? or “Steve has back hair”? or “Steve makes Cam scared”? Accurate. But since none of that made any sense in this situation, I bravely asked her to repeat herself. “What?”
“He hasn’t been feeling well, so he went to the doctor. And . . . they felt something. A lump. So they did a bunch of tests. And . . . it’s cancer!”
“Steve has . . . cancer? Like, ‘cancer’ cancer?” I searched for something that would keep those words from being real. “But he just threw that enormous party . . .”
She pulled herself from me and reached into her bag for a tissue as she explained, “I know! His parents let him throw it to cheer him up. He . . . he . . . didn’t tell me . . . till yesterday!”
As she blew her nose, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. Steve Stevenson was indestructible. He was The Rock. Literally every year for Halloween. And he looked healthier than anyone else at his party. How could he have cancer? Obviously, I knew anyone could get cancer, but Steve always had a force field around him that made it seem like the whole world just moved out of his way. And now . . . cancer . . . How?
“That’s . . . terrible . . .”
“He keeps saying it’s no big deal. ‘Hodgkin’s is the good cancer.’ But how can he not be freaked out? His mom’s a mess. His dad had to take leave from his business to care for him because his mom’s the one with insurance. Which totally sucks. I mean, that house. The payments are so high. And I guess their insurance isn’t that great because they’ve already got like twenty thousand in medical bills. . . .” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry, it’s not your problem. . . .” Then she wiped her eyes and tried to regain her composure. For a moment she seemed okay, but then the news hit her all over again. “It’s just so messed up!” Another wave of grief washed over her.
She leaned into me and I cautiously put my arm around her. She was right. This was so messed up. I thought about poor Steve. And his family. And Kaia. And how life was so delicate. And how we were all just a moment away from death. And Kaia exhaled and let her full weight rest on me. And the scent of the Hawaiian Islands swam in my head. I wished this moment would never end.
How could I make this never end?
“We should do a fundraiser for him!” I blurted. Wait. What did my mouth just say? But then Kaia pulled back, blinking away her tears, and I just went with it. “Get them the twenty thousand dollars, you know?”
“Oh my god. That’s a great idea!” The hopeful light in her eyes was like rocket fuel.
“I mean, you and I, we can fundraise anything! Can’t we?”
And then she paused and looked a little confused.
Crap! Was that too familiar? I shouldn’t have assumed she knew everything I volunteered for. I was just some guy she saw around.
“I mean, saving the shark is just my latest thing. I also did a book drive for the local homeless shelter and I campaigned for bike lanes to be added to Main Street. And didn’t we work together on the Straw-Free-Campus campaign and the Santa Clara Wetlands Preservation?”
“Oh, wow . . . I didn’t . . . I mean, I knew about the wetlands.”
“And we did dune restoration, too, didn’t we?” Okay, that sounded desperate.
“I didn’t realize we’d worked together so much.” But she seemed surprised and not creeped out, so air once again filled my lungs.
“And last year you ran the Fun Run for No Guns and the Love Is Love Valentine’s Day Bake Sale, right?” I added, to let her know it wasn’t all about me.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “But they were small.”
“Well, I think we’d make an amazing team.” Was “team” too far? But then she smiled. A big, happy smile, directed right at me. But just like that, it faded.
“Look, you don’t have to do this. I mean, you’re not really friends with Steve, are you?”
It was true that there was no universe, not even in a multiverse scenario, where I was friends with Steve Stevenson. But I didn’t see that as a problem. “Just because Steve and I aren’t best friends doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him. I’m not friends with the shark either, and I’m still trying to save it.”
She laughed. Oh my god. I needed to hear that again. Should I go for a joke? I was going to go for a joke. “And the shark doesn’t even have cancer!”
She laughed again, and damn, I could listen to that forever.
Kaia breathed a sigh of relief. “God, just the thought of doing something is already making me feel better.”
“Right?”
“You really want to do this?”
I wanted to say, I want to do this more than anything in the whole world. But I went with, “Yeah. Totally.”
“Okay then.” She pulled out her phone. “Put your number in.” She held it out to me, its purple biodegradable case sparkling in the light. It was just a standard phone, but feeling it in my hand and staring at its unlocked screen seemed suddenly so intimate. Her whole life was in there and she was letting me stare into it. Well, at the blank page of the contact app, but it still rattled me. It took me way too long to get my info right as I debated adding email, social media, home phone, address, birthday . . . Finally, I settled on just my number and handed it back before things got too weird.