"You"ve already branded him with your b.o.o.bs. There"s nothing I could do anyway."

We both laughed, and Becca"s laugh turned into a cough again.

Helen"s big b.u.t.t resurfaced. When the camera was free, Becca"s newly -1- scratchy voice said, "I have to go. Keep me posted on number twenty- 0- three. I"m counting on you."

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"And Caleb"s counting on you. Sweet dreams."

"If only." She hung up.

From downstairs, I heard the garage door close and my brothers"

clumsy footsteps fi ll the house with life. I didn"t want to be alone, a rarity, so I headed downstairs and spent two hours splayed across the couch watching AJ and CJ destroy zombies. It wasn"t quite as good as a movie, but their aggressive banter helped me temporarily erase the vision of Becca puking that was on repeat in my head. I must have been pretty f.u.c.ked up to watch horror movie after horror movie, not to mention my brothers ripping intestines out of realistic dead humans, and only be disturbed by a little puke. Forgetting about that day, and so many others, felt like a constant goal. I hoped there would come a day I would want to remember.

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CHAPTER.

20.

Tuesday and Wednesday were regular school days in the sense that I went to cla.s.s, n.o.body threw up near me, and Leo and I didn"t spend any time in the book closet. His creative writing teacher was annoyingly holding him accountable for what ever it was he was working on, so I ate with my lunch friends listening to them talk about stage crew and trying to win me back.

"We miss you, Alex. The catwalk isn"t nearly as creepy without you," Brandon told me.

"Yeah, and you already own enough black to blend in," Eliza said.

"You"re really selling it, but I have an actual job and actual, you know, stuff I have to do with my eve nings."

"Watching Dead Hags 7 isn"t "actual stuff ," " Brandon air- quoted.

"If only that were a real movie," I mused.

-1- I spent both nights working at Cellar and cramming in home- 0- work when I wasn"t fi lling bread with a.s.sorted meats and cheeses. I

1-

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liked the busyness, the mechanical yet artful nature of building a sandwich and delivering it to a hungry person. Sometimes I felt like the patron saint of subs. There probably already was one, from what I"ve read about saints, which wasn"t much. Except that there"s one for practically everything. I could totally fi ll out a pair of black wings.

Do saints have wings?

Near the end of my Wednesday shift, Doug called back to me in the kitchen. "Alex, you have a visitor! Clean the bathroom fi rst."

"I"ll get right on that, Sir Subs- a-lot." n.o.body tells the Patron Saint of Subs what to do.

I wiped my hands on my grungy jeans and stepped out to fi nd Leo waiting for me behind the counter.

"Hey," he smiled.

"Hey," I repeated, not matching him in enthusiasm. I didn"t want to get razzed by the college crew.

I stayed behind the ledge where we placed the subs ready for consumption. Leo leaned on the counter with his elbows, bringing his face closer to mine. The low lighting somehow emphasized the freck- les that seemed inappropriate with the rest of his tougher exterior.

"Did you want something to eat?" I asked.

"Nah. Already ate. Thanks, though. Just stopped by to say hi."

"Picking up your comics?"

"Yeah. New Buff y and Walking Dead are out."

"Buff y comics any good?" I asked. "I liked the show."

"They"re really good. Most of the time. They had this totally weird plot where Angel and Buff y had s.e.x in s.p.a.ce. I didn"t quite get it."

I nodded as though agreeing with something. I wasn"t sure how --1 to respond to Buff y s.p.a.ce s.e.x.

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"I guess I"ll let you get back to work," Leo said as he drummed a little tune on the counter.

"Thanks, I guess," I said. "See you tomorrow, maybe?" The question felt awkward, like what I was really saying was "Will you be sticking your hand down my pants tomorrow?" But curious minds wanted to know.

"I have to meet with my teacher every day this week for my in de pen dent study, so I won"t be able to, you know, hang out." He had some unb.u.t.toning on his mind, too.

"Okay." I shrugged. No big deal.

"What about Friday night?" he asked.

"What about it?" I couldn"t remember if we had talked about something, and I forgot again.

"Do you want to hang out? Maybe watch a movie? You know I"ve never seen Basket Case 2 or 3."

"That"s right!" The thought of schooling a horror fan on the blinding brilliance of Basket Case had me jazzed. "So much diff erent from Basket Case the First."

"Basket Case the First? Is that really what it"s called?"

"No. But it makes it sound fancy. As fancy as someone with a mutant twin brother that used to be attached to his side can sound."

He laughed and shook his head. "Want to come to my house? My parents are going to a play. We can watch on the ma.s.sive screen my dad installed in the family room."

Ma.s.sive screen didn"t resonate nearly as much as his parents going to a play. Potential book closet times ten.

"Yeah, okay. Sounds fun." We both smiled this time. "Speaking -1- of fun, I have to go pretend to clean the bathroom, so ..."

0- "Maybe I"ll see you in the halls. Defi nitely on Friday."

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"Bye." I waved. The antic.i.p.ation of Basket Case and a parent- free house made heat rise to my cheeks. Maybe we"d just watch the movies, like we did with Army of Darkness. But that was in a movie theater.

I punished my overactive imagination by actually cleaning the bathroom. I don"t know how clean it got because I didn"t touch tech- nically anything, just sprayed all surfaces with a disinfectant cleaner.

The next person to use the toilet would get a wet awakening on her a.s.s. Serves any freak right for not squatting above the pot in this place. I threw a new urinal cake in the men"s room and grossed myself out at the name. What sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d would call something you p.i.s.s on a "cake"? Then my brain went into horror mode, at some psycho- path"s birthday party where the birthday cake was a urinal cake with a candle sticking out of it. As I left the men"s room, I laughed at myself.

"Someone"s got a boyfriend," Ila sang.

"I was thinking about urinal birthday cakes, if you must know,"

I scolded.

I didn"t have a boyfriend. I had someone to watch horror movies with while my best friend was too sick with cancer. Who somehow got me hot and bothered enough to clean a bathroom. Not a boy- friend at all.

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CHAPTER.

2 1.

Becca and I texted on Thursday whenever I could get to my phone without it being confi scated.

Becca: R u sick?

Me: No Becca: Can u come over after school?

Me: f.u.c.k yeah I had only Skyped with Becca since she started her treatment, and the only time I saw her in person was for her vomitous half hour at school. She said as long as I didn"t bring any germs into her house I could come over and watch Battlestar Galactica with her. This would be my fourth time watching the series, Becca"s fourteenth. She was obsessed with the actor who played Lee "Apollo" Adama, the son of the Galactica"s admiral and number 21 on her f.u.c.k- It List: Touch Jamie Bamber"s b.u.t.t. That was one of my par tic u lar favorite numbers -1- because of the sheer impossibility of it. I thought that"s what a bucket 0- list was supposed to be fi lled with: things one could only dream of