Julie Halpern - The F- It List

“Fuck you. I’m not adorable.” I whacked him in the chest.

“You are until you open your mouth,” he decided. “Fess up.”

I exhaled a deep sigh. “Fine. But you owe me, like, a foot massage or something for this.”

“A foot massage?” he laughed.

“Yeah. Isn’t that what couples do for each other?”

“Couples? Are we a couple?”

“You’re killing me, Leo.” I covered my face with my hand and attempted to spill. “I just realized that it’s okay to give and get good things sometimes, and it doesn’t make me a bad person if my life isn’t one hundred percent hell.” There. I said it.

“Aw.” He patted my head. “Was that so hard?”

“You’ll find out later when I kill you in your sleep.”

“I get so turned on when you talk like that.” He moved my hand away from my face and kissed me. I couldn’t fathom how I found a guy who liked me for my good and evil parts. But there I was, in the arms of Leo Dietz again, and I wasn’t hating myself for it.

THAT MONDAY, AS I NAVIGATED the hallway at school, I felt different. The dread was still there when I thought about Becca, the “what if” of the rest of her forever-pending test results. But Becca had returned to the person I knew as my best friend. Not fighting her discomfort anymore, she chose to stay home from school until she was ready. Her mom was more than okay with that, since it went along with her whole doomed vibe. Luckily, her mom spent so much time out of the house it allowed Caleb that much more time in. Becca drew an old-timey picture in my mind of her recuperating in bed while Caleb sat next to her reading love poems and refreshing her mint juleps.

Jenna Brown strode up to my locker as I finagled space for my backpack. “I hear Becca’s still sick.” She pouted overzealously.

“Her mom tell your mom that?” I was ready to jump down her throat.

She nodded. “The drama department put some money together to get her this.” She handed me a small box with a card attached. “It’s an iTunes gift card. So she can download TV shows and movies to keep her busy.” Jenna had a slight look of panic as she explained this, as though I would have an abusively snarky comeback. I thought about it, like why it took them so damn long or how would her mom know how she was because she was never around anyway. I stopped myself. What they did was a good thing. I couldn’t fault them for taking a while to do it.

“Thanks. I’ll give this to her. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

Jenna stood stock still, waiting for the punch line. I thought about fulfilling her expectations, when we were interrupted by the appearance of a super-tall figure behind her. I looked up at him and smiled. If I were one of those people, my eyes might have welled up with tears.

“Excuse me,” Leo said to Jenna, and stepped between her and me.

“Hi,” I breathed. He didn’t say anything, just leaned down, hands cupping my face, and kissed me. It was my first instance of hallway PDA, something I held so much disdain for I made it a point to mock regular culprits as a sport.

But Leo’s lips on my lips, his hands on my cheeks, and I wasn’t even in the hallway anymore. It was only me and Leo. Heavenly.

Until Jenna interrupted with a giggle and an overly enthusiastic “Are you guys dating? That is so cute!” She squealed.

“Leo and I are not cute,” I blasted her. But what was I really fighting about? I wrapped an arm around his waist, and he draped his over my shoulder. “And, yes, we are dating. Or whatever,” I admitted.

“Adorable!” she squealed again. I willed myself not to kick her in the shin.

“We have to go,” I announced, and pulled Leo along as best I could through the hall to the book closet. When we arrived, Leo fished out his key and unlocked the door. Inside for the first time in months, Leo looked around. “Something looks different. Did you rearrange the books?” he asked.

“Maybe. Long story,” I dismissed. He kissed me again, and I wanted to pull the clocks off the wall to stop time.

Every day of school after that started the exact same way. I had never looked forward to school, or a guy, as much in my life.

I prayed that the third bad thing had come and gone.

THREE WEEKS PASSED faster than any I could remember before my dad died. For so long, time stood still, dragged, or even moved backward as I focused on every negative, painful thing that happened and wondered what would come next. My guard was only down the tiny bit I allowed myself, as Becca waited for the test results of her cancer treatment. Her radiation was over, and instead of us spending more time together as her health improved, we saw each other less and less. I hated to admit it was because of a guy, but Leo and I were hanging out whenever we could, watching movies, studying at the library, brainstorming a movie I might make someday. Not that Becca wasn’t busy with her own guy. Now that she was starting to feel human again, hair growing back, weight filling out her sunken frame, Caleb was in the picture a lot more. They went from romantic notes between windows to sharing her twin bed most nights. I wondered if Becca’s mom knew what was going on, considering Caleb was a rather large guy to hide. Maybe she was of the mind that Becca went through hell and deserved her little slice of homeschooled heaven. Or maybe she was too cracked out on God to notice.

Leo and I hung out with Becca and Caleb from time to time. He was nice, mind-blowingly smart, but definitely a little pop-culture deprived. I feel like if I were homeschooled it would be impossible not to waste the day in front of the television or computer and try to pass it off as “homework.” But Caleb was all about actual learning. He did deign to come to a midnight screening of The Exorcist with us. Leo and I disagreed on its brilliance. “I think there’s way too much plot and not enough scare,” I argued.

“Which makes the scary parts all the scarier. Plus, there’s all that subliminal stuff,” Leo countered. We discovered on a Blu-ray of the film that the director did all of these extra-creepy secret things, like inserting random, terrifying faces into scenes and playing the squeals of actual pigs being slaughtered to make the movie especially unsettling.

“I’ll take a midnight show of Casablanca over this any day,” was Caleb’s response. Becca stared at him dreamily. It was a good look for her after so many pained ones.

And still we waited for the news of her life.

Becca began making school appearances again, not full days but enough to get some work done. One day at lunch, her phone rang. Becca’s cancer was like a get-out-of-jail-free card and allowed her to carry her cell phone in case of emergency. “Emergency” most of the time meant texting sappy I miss you texts to Caleb, but it was nearing the time of her lab results. Post-chemo, post-radiation, she’d soon find out if the cancer was zapped, if she needed to go through hell again, or the worst possibility: Treatment didn’t work at all.

When her phone rang, Becca announced, “It’s my mom,” which it often was. When Becca was the one out of the house, her mom called to check in every hour or so. She admitted to wishing Helen could follow Becca around school so she didn’t have to worry so much. I don’t think anything could have stopped her mom from worrying. It felt a tad more appropriate than a facial.

“Hello?” Becca stood up and plugged one ear to hear the phone better. The lunch crew followed her expressions. Anticipation. Disappointment. Aggravation.

“Mom! Stop calling me! Seriously. Unless you have news, don’t call anymore. You’re going to make me have a heart attack before I even find out if my cancer is gone.” Pause. “Yeah, love you, too. Crazy woman,” she mumbled at the end.

* * *

The following Saturday morning I was busy slicing cucumbers at Cellar when my phone rang in my pocket. I normally didn’t answer it, mostly because then I had to wash my hands for the millionth time. Winter dryness was killing me. But all phone calls had become critical. I knew any day Becca would learn of her post-chemo scans, which would basically say whether her cancer had gone away. Seven months. That’s how long I watched Becca have cancer. That’s a long fucking time to be sick with anything, to have to watch and wonder what was going to happen to my best friend. Could this finally be the call?

I walked into the back room, away from the kitchen scraps and music from the stereo. “Hello?” I answered.

I played out this phone call a billion times in my head. Sometimes it went:

“I have to tell you something, Alex. The cancer’s still there. And it’s spread.”

And when I’m feeling particularly morbid, Becca adds,

“They say I have one month to live.”

I also have the other conversation, where Becca screams at the top of her lungs, “The cancer’s gone!!!” We dance, and I hug whoever’s closest to me, preferably not some sub-slinging douche.

“Hello?” This wasn’t in my head. This was the real deal. The phone call that determined our future. My hands shook as I answered. I hadn’t realized how terrified I was.

There was no dramatic pause. Instead, unlike any of my pre-enactments, Becca blurted out, “I’m clear. No cancer spots. Normal blood.” She was breathlessly quiet.

“That’s good, right? I mean, it sounds good. I just never know if there’s something else coming.”

“Eighty-five percent full remission rate. That’s really good. I go back again in three months. And three months after that.” I let the tears of relief tumble down my cheeks.

“That’s a lot of waiting,” I told her.

“It’s not waiting, Alex. It’s living. For the next three months, I’m going to live like we’re gonna die young!” she screamed.

“That was Ke$ha, wasn’t it?” I wiped my eyes with my palm.

“Brilliant woman, she is.”

“Doesn’t she have the words ‘suck it’ tattooed inside her lip?” I asked.

“Don’t you have a tattoo of a dead guy smiley on your leg?” She got me.

“Brilliant woman, she is,” I concurred.

I exhaled at the realization that, indeed, for the next three months there was no more cancer. We could end our senior year like normal teenagers. Or, at the very least, like normal teenagers with a shitload of baggage.

“DO WE HAVE TO do this?” I asked, bundled in twelve layers of clothes and still freezing my ass off at Baynes Beach.

“Bucket list, remember?” Becca still held that Fuck-It List over my head, as if the fact that I started it with her made me obligated to finish it, too.

“I believe we decided it was a Fuck-It List, and that is what I’d like to declare right now. Fuck it. It’s too cold out, Becca!” Becca used her cancer card to convince me, Caleb, and Leo to fulfill number 13: Sleep on a beach and watch the sunrise.

“I’m calling a technicality. It doesn’t actually say we have to stay all night. Let’s just watch the sun set and then get up really early for the sunrise.” Leo was my glowing voice of reason.

“Yes! Excellent idea.” I clapped.

“You guys can leave after sunset. We’re staying.” Becca linked her arm through Caleb’s massive one. He was scoutly prepared with a tent, heater, and probably a bearskin rug he skinned himself.

The four of us sat on a blanket in the cold sand. Caleb passed out hot chocolate made from cacao beans he grew in his greenhouse. Probably. As miserable as the late March temperature was, nothing could really make the moment bad. Here we were, together, happy, alive. So little else mattered.

Still, the instant Caleb marked the sunset with his Swiss Army watch, Leo and I were out of there. “Call me if you stop feeling your toes,” I yelled from my car. Leo and I sat inside as the engine attempted to warm up.

“Just drive. We’ll be back at my house in five minutes. We can warm up there.”

In the time Leo and I had been back on speaking terms, closer than when it was merely physical, we hadn’t yet had sex. At first, we held out so as not to make things too intense too quickly. But as the weeks passed—the long, yearning, painful weeks—I didn’t think I could hold out much longer. It surprised me, that while getting emotionally close to someone I could feel even more attracted to him than when I barely knew anything about him. I knew that sounded stupid, but I had never experienced anything different. The physical and the emotional never went together. Maybe because I had never had the emotional before.