Side Effects May Vary

In every quiet moment, all I heard was the throbbing silence of Friday morning. Every inch of it—the flowers, the pictures, the candles—haunted me, and I knew that no matter how hard I tried to forget, I would die with those images. Maybe I should have let it be a good thing, and maybe I should have left all the horrible parts of me there in that hallway to be forgotten in that graveyard of memories, but I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to separate out the wrong parts of me, while keeping everything else. It felt like the cancer—forever inside of me. I didn’t think it worked like that, though. I didn’t think I could cut out the pieces of me that no one liked. There would always be remains and that version of me would always exist. On top of all of that was this huge weight of devastation. The more time I had for all of this to sink in, the worse it felt, like an untreated wound.

It rained all day Sunday, which was fine because everyone was exhausted. My mom failed to mention that the beach house, on loan from her boss, had only three bedrooms. When Natalie offered to share the bunk bed room with Harvey, I almost agreed with her, but my mom froze me with one of her signature glares and told Natalie she was being ridiculous. I shrugged, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort.

I walked into our room on Sunday night and found Harvey in the process of putting his sheets on the top bunk. I threw my duffle bag on the floor and said, “I call top,” and walked out of the room.

When I came back after brushing my teeth, Harvey lay on the bottom bunk flipping through an old MAD magazine he’d probably found in the closet. I closed the door behind me and twisted the thumb lock.

“We’re supposed to leave the door open,” he said, not looking up.

“I have to change.”

It was dark out, but the white nighttime clouds brightened the blackness. I turned off the light and, with it, the buzzing ceiling fan. The slat blinds cast long lines across the dim room. Under the blanket of darkness, the room didn’t look so bad. Everything always looked better in the dark, including me.

I strode over to my duffle bag on the floor, turned my back to Harvey, and yanked at the button of my denim shorts. The sound of my zipper sliding down cracked the silence while the ceiling fan whirred to a stop.

Harvey’s eyes slid down my back. I could feel them in the same way you could feel the sun on your face while you’re sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. But now it was him and Debora. On Friday morning, Harvey had been there for me, like always. And I thought I was ready to be there for him until Debora showed up, reminding me that Harvey wasn’t mine to be there for anymore. Right now, though, Debora wasn’t here.

I wiggled out of my denim shorts and yanked off my T-shirt.

Harvey gasped, which he tried to disguise with a cough. I pulled my tank top on over my head and reached my hand up my back, beneath my tank, unhooking my bra with two fingers. Teach my mom to let me sleep in the same room with a teenage boy, even if it was only Harvey. I slid the straps off my shoulders, pulled my bra out from underneath my shirt, dropped it on the floor, and then pulled on my boxer shorts. I unlocked the door and climbed up to the top bunk. Slowly, my body was filling in again, and I could get used to this, this healthy body. But I knew it could be temporary, and that this time in remission might only be a short reprieve. I listened as Harvey turned over in his bed in a huff, the springs creaking against his weight.

And just like that, the Harvey/Alice balance had been restored to the universe.

Monday morning, I woke to the sound of rain splattering against the window. Harvey stood on the edge of the bottom bunk, his elbows looped through the wood slats, peering down at me.

“I’m kicking your ass at Sorry in five minutes,” he said, pointing to the closet on the other side of the room, which was completely cleared out except for a tall stack of old board games.

“Huh?” My brain wasn’t awake yet.

“The board game—Sorry.”

I propped myself up on my elbows and said, “Oh, I think you’re the one who’s going to be sorry.”

“Your ass is grass, Al.”

It was like he woke up and decided that we were okay. We didn’t have to talk about it or our feelings or whatever bullshit. We were okay. And I wanted to live in that state of blind happiness for as long as I could.