The F- It List Part 7

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"Yes, we should, and we will." Becca worked herself out of the bed and wrapped her arms around me. That did it. My hard candy sh.e.l.l melted into a puddle of chocolate in her arms. "I always knew you were a softy."

"Careful what you say. I've got a shiv in my pocket." I sniff ed.

"I love you, Alex. You and your shiv."

"Love you, too, Becca. Even if I have to sleep on a beach to prove it."

"I hope you get sand in your undies," Becca whispered in my ear.

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CHAPTER.

8.

When I parked my dad's car in our empty garage, I knew I'd be home alone. But I didn't want to be. A note on the kitchen table read, "The boys have soccer. Be home by 8. Pizza in the freezer. Hope you had a good fi rst day. Love you, Mom." The thought crossed my mind to actually watch my brothers' soccer game, but that momentary lapse of sport dementia quickly pa.s.sed. I could've studied Becca's list, started my game plan, created a schedule. But maybe I didn't want to think about it, about anything. Instead, I opted for a pint of Cherry Garcia and a viewing of my comfort fi lm Dead Alive. Most people know Peter Jackson as the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, and rightly so because they're brilliant. I would argue even more brilliant is his fi rst, and fi nest, fi lm about a man in New Zealand whose mom gets bitten by a plague- infested monkey at the zoo. As a result, she turns into a festering, hungry horndog along with other not- so- upstanding members of town, and her son does his --1 best to take care of them. Possibly one of the goriest fi lms ever made, -0 -+1 105-54406_ch01_1P.indd 43 105-54406_ch01_1P.indd 43 4/17/13 8:57 PM.

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there is even a sweet love story, a hilarious running zombie baby, and a priest who yells, "I kick a.s.s for the lord!" Could there be anything better?

As much ice cream as I consumed from the too- tiny pint, and as mind- bogglingly sublime as Dead Alive was, I couldn't kick Becca out of my head. What was she doing at that moment? Was there any way to stop her from remembering that she had cancer? Was it com- pletely unfair that I was using food and fi lm to try to forget? How could I let myself forget when she had no choice?

I stirred the last of the ice cream into a nice soup, then tipped the cup back and chugged it. I had to get out of my quiet house. With the f.u.c.k- It List folded in my back pocket, I got into my car.

I found some extreme metal on my MP3 player, someone scream- ing punishingly into my ears. I felt I deserved it, that here I was in my dad's car, alive when he was dead, healthy when my best friend had cancer. Who was I to be alive? Who decided? I cranked the music even louder to drown my thoughts. Admittedly, my head hurt, but I enjoyed the annoyed looks from the people pulled up next to me at stoplights. What did they know? Their lives were probably so simple.

I glared at the back of a bald man's head in the car in front of me. You deserve to be bald, b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Becca does not.

My car led me to the parking lot of my old elementary school, Irving. The same school Becca and I attended together, where our friendship grew. Maybe if I sat there long enough, time would move backward and none of this cancer stuff would exist. Maybe even my dad would still be here. I closed my eyes and let the music consume me. My lips pursed tightly, willing my eyes not to cry.

-1- BAM!.

0- A loud pound on the gla.s.s shocked my eyes open, and I squinted

1-

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at a fi gure hovering around my car window. The glare of the sun made him diffi cult to see, but I knew that military jacket from one too many hallway stares at Leo Dietz. He tried speaking to me, his straight lips moving but the sound drowned by my music. I switched off the ignition, and he tried again.

"Rough day?" he asked, as he leaned slightly into my window.

"Why would you ask that? Do I look like s.h.i.t or something?" I don't know why I said that, except that I was worried I did look like s.h.i.t. Then I felt guilty for worrying about how I looked when Becca was awaiting her fate. I wondered if I'd ever have a guiltless thought again.

"Nah. You don't look like s.h.i.t. I only listen to Lamb of G.o.d when I hate someone. Or myself." That's when I noticed a basketball tucked under his arm.

"You play basketball?" I asked with a hint of disgust in my voice.

There was nothing less appealing to me than an a.s.s- smacking mem- ber of a high school sports team.

"If you mean I know how to manipulate a basketball, then yes.

But I'm not on a team or anything." His jacket smelled stale of cigarettes.

"Well, that's good. 'Cause I was about to ask you to leave if you said yes."

He smiled at me, a smile I'd never been that close to. His teeth weren't perfect. They weren't snaggletooth or stained, but his canine teeth stuck out a little farther than his front two. I chuckled to myself at the notion of him being a vampire, something Becca and I would have had a fi eld day with.

"You want to shoot with me?" For a quick second I thought he --1 meant guns, but he held the basketball up with the invite.

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"Really?" I didn't know if my apprehension was because I hated sports or I didn't want to look stupid in front of him.

"Yeah. It's fun to play here because the baskets are so low. It makes me feel like a giant."

"You are a giant," I noted.

"Get out of the car already," he commanded. I obeyed.

This close, our height diff erence was noticeable. I had to look up to talk to him. I was glad it wasn't the other way around because that would make me on constant booger alert.

We walked together to the nearby basketball court, and he was right: It was knid of fun to feel superior to the baskets.

"This almost makes me want to join a basketball team," I told him as we lay down on a gra.s.sy berm for a rest. "Like, one for six- year- olds."

Leo laughed a small, inward laugh and pulled out a pack of ciga- rettes from his jacket pocket. He held the pack out to me as an off er.

I hesitated. "When in Rome." I shrugged. "Or an elementary school parking lot."

He put both cigarettes in his mouth, lighting them at the same time. He pa.s.sed one over to me, and I held it between my fi ngers. I never imagined a cigarette would feel so light and insignifi cant. It seemed like such a constant crutch in so many lives, I thought it would have more substance to it. I gingerly held the cigarette up to my lips, as it had been to Leo's, and took a tentative inhale. Then I coughed like the inexperienced a.s.shole I was. "d.a.m.n. Why do you bother with this? My mouth tastes like I just sucked on a t.u.r.d."

He laughed his quiet laugh again and said, "It gets better once -1- you get used to it."

0- "That's stupid. That's like when someone tells you, 'He seems

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like a p.r.i.c.k at fi rst, but he's really nice once you get to know him.'

Why bother?"

"I guess because it also gets addictive once you get used to it."

"What about"- I wished I didn't say it-"cancer?"

"It's just death, man. Cancer or not, I'll die." He lay back into the gra.s.s and puff ed smoke into the sky.

I lay down next to him, my arm touching his jacket sleeve. I won- dered if he could feel it. "I don't want to talk about death right now,"

I told him.

"What do you want to talk about?"

I kept the cigarette in my hand and tried fl icking off the ashes as they burned in the wind. I didn't smoke any more of it.

"Did you go to school here?" I asked Leo.

"No. We moved away before and after grade school. My older brother, Jason, went here, though."

"He's in Af ghan i stan, right?" I asked, the not- so- subtle stalker.

"How'd you know?" he asked. When I paused to answer, he continued, "I don't want to talk about him right now."

"So what do you want to talk about?"

"You like horror movies, right?" Smoke wafted out of Leo's mouth as he spoke.

"Yeah. How'd you know?" Welcome to the mutual stalkers society.