I groaned and rolled over. I didn't know what had woken me up, and I really didn't care.
Still on the floor in the hall of my college apartment where I had plopped myself after my last bout in the bathroom after returning home from yet another round of chemotherapy, every part of me was worn out. I hadn't even had the energy to change clothes or walk the additional 15 steps to my bed.
The doorbell chimed again, accompanied this time by knocking. The fog that was my mind reminded me now that it had been the doorbell that had awaken me.
I didn't want company. Still, if it was my sister coming to check on me, she wouldn't stop until I'd let her in to do her official nurses' assistant checkup on me. . . . I pulled myself up, made sure I was dressed and that I didn't have any puke on me anywhere, and opened the door.
It wasn't my sister; I should have stayed on the floor where I was.
"Hi Joseph," Kirsten didn't wait for an invitation; she just walked in. One of the girls from church who regularly checked in on me, Kirsten lived in the next complex over. And it looked like she held another tuna fish sandwich in her hand. The last one had caused agony at both ends. I wanted to shove her back out, but I just didn't have the energy. I wanted to throw the sandwich down the toilet, since I knew it would end up there anyway, but I knew in my heart that I was too much of a sucker. I'd have to try to eat. "Hopefully, I thought, "I won't barf it up this time until after I can get rid of her."
"How are you?" Standing squarely, with one her hands on her narrow hip, Kirsten looked at me expectantly, as if she wanted an actual answer. She'd come over in just a yellow happy face t-shirt and green and red spotted pajama bottoms, and no jacket, even though it had been snowing just yesterday. She was way too thin to have any residual warmth to help ward off the February chill, so she was probably cold. I looked at the closest arm, the one on her hip, and, sure enough, I saw goosebumps.
She saw me look dumbly at it, and she shook it, as if the goosebumps had fallen on her without her noticing.
"I'm fine," she said, in her most authoritative voice, which I didn't think could possibly ever become bossy enough to intimidate anybody. "It's you that I'm concerned about." Since she was not yet proffering the sandwich, I reluctantly invited her the rest of the way in with a sweeping gesture that turned out to be nothing more than a twitch. She moved a few steps further down the hallway. I didn't try to hide the reluctance on my face, though. I wasn't sure I'd have been able even if I'd wanted to, anyway.
I looked at the sandwich, and then at her, again. Most guys thought she was cute, and would have been happy with the attention; I was too sick, and too doped up on sperm-killing drugs to care. And she was still waiting for a response. I didn't remember any question, though.
"Just trying to recover," I muttered. "On top of the chemo, the new stuff they've been giving me is causing a major headache." I looked at the sandwich. "I can't concentrate on anything."
There was real concern in her face. "I'm sorry."
She finally offered the sandwich, which I took over to place on the counter of my sorry little excuse for a kitchen. I glanced around, noticing the grimy dishes in the sink and the overflowing trash can, finally aware of the smell that probably permeated the small room.
Then I remembered how much I had been puking lately, and I realized that the smell of the kitchen was the least of my worries. I turned back to Kirsten. She was planning to become a social worker, and had the casually invasive personality for it; she got all the information she wanted, but you felt like you could trust her with it. I looked at her now, standing squarely on both feet in front of me, her hands gripping the sides of her narrow waist, watching me with what looked like sincerity. She didn't seem at all concerned with the awful smell in the place, or with the clutter on the floor around us.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not really much like the stereotypical beer guzzling, partying, skirt chasing college guy. I mean I have nothing against them; they seem to have a lot more fun than I do. It's just that I'm different. I like to keep my place neat, and parties for me usually revolved around homework, trivia games, or mad libs. I didn't exactly stir the imagination, if you get my drift. Kirsten, on the other hand, had a steady stream of guys asking her out, even though she'd had a boyfriend up until just a few weeks ago.
"Another rough round of chemo, huh?" Everything about her showed that she empathized. Her slightly downturned mouth, scrunched eyebrows, cocked head angle, even her voice; again, it made me feel good.
"They're doing some sort of alternative approach with the one in my brain," I explained. "Special drugs along with the chemo ones, but at least no radiation treatment for it, yet." I cut myself off, hoping I'd said enough to show that I really appreciated her concern, but not so much that I bored her or, worse, sounded like a sob.
"How are you, Kirsten?"
"Not that it means I understand what you're going through," she began, hesitantly. "But when I was making you - making some tomato soup, earlier, I spilled it and it burned me pretty good." Kirsten grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it up to the base of her ribcage.
"See?"
I looked, and I saw. At the time, it didn't even seem odd to me that she had told me about the burn, or that she had been so quick to show me.
Her skin had just enough natural pigment to it that it always looked tanned, even on her bare stomach, which I was pretty sure I now could see for the first time. I had always found olive skin like hers attractive, and if it hadn't been for the chemo and that brain-pounding other drug they'd started given me, this sudden showing of toned teen flesh would probably have gotten me pretty worked up. As it was, I could barely force myself to acknowledge what she was saying enough to look at the angry red splotch that covered most of her stomach. It began just at her waistline and went up at least as high as she was holding her shirt.
"Sorry," I said, and glanced up the six more inches to the two pronounced bulges she sported under that thin yellow t-shirt. Bulges that she wasn't showing, and that I would likely never see. Still, after staring, I found myself wondering if she'd burned herself any higher up than she'd just exposed, and if she was just showing the amount of skin she was willing to let me see, or if that really had been the extent of what had been burned. It looked to me like the burn went higher, and I couldn't stop imagining what she might look like a few more inches up.
She had been studying medicine, and she knew that the drugs had absolutely killed my libido. Plus, she knew me pretty well, and knew I had always been pretty tame compared to the typical guys who kept hitting on her. In fact, I was sure that she pretty much thought of me as sterile long before my chemotherapy started. She had told me once how lucky I was that I had no interest in romance. I think she may have even used the word 'immune.' Right now, though, I felt quite a bit different from immune now, and it surprised me a little bit.
I also knew Kirsten well; my roommate had tried to date her, and she and I had even gone on a few church group dates together. I knew she had high moral standards, but I also knew that she was unashamed, and I wondered . . . Then I realized that I was wondering, and I was surprised at the change in myself. Not that I was getting a bulge in my pants or anything, but just wondering was something special after all that chemo.
"That looks like it hurts," I managed, and placed a hand carefully on her bare stomach next to the burn splotch. She flinched; ever so slightly, but she flinched, when I touched her. Pain, or nerves?
"You are lucky it wasn't any worse." I removed my hand, even though I really didn't want to. I wanted to move it upward.
She shrugged and pulled her shirt back down. "Oh, it got me a little bit higher than that, but, well, it's still not like what you are having to go through."
