Summer’s great. There’s sun, and swimming, and parties, and all that crap. The summer of eleventh grade was one of the strangest summers of my life, but I also learned something really important. I don’t want to get too corny with this, but my English teacher said it would be unavoidable. He’s making me write this all down, like it’s gonna be some bestselling novel or something. So I’m just writing in my own voice, or my own style, or whatever. Anyway, this is the story of how I grew up, fell in love, lost my virginity, lost a girl, singlehandedly won a baseball game, learned how to forgive, how to forget, and how to cry… all in one summer. Skills, my friend. Epic skills.
I’ve always hated the doctor’s office. It smells weird, and it’s too clean. Compared with my room, anyway, which lately has looked like a tornado hit it since our cleaning lady had a baby and had to take some time off. It’s also too small. I feel super cramped sitting in one of those tiny little wooden chairs that are really meant for five year olds, like I’m trying to stuff a cat into a cardboard box. A midget lady sitting across from me gives me a look, like there’s some rule that kids above six feet can’t enter a pediatrician’s office. There probably is. I shift my gaze over to the frightened looking ten year old next to me, staring white faced at the wall. A finger prick victim if I ever saw one. I smile encouragingly at her, and she looks at her mom. She’s probably wondering if her parent’s don’t-talk-to-or-look-at-strangers rule applies to taller-than-Wilt-Chamberlain teenagers. Okay, I’m not actually taller than him. But I am amazing at basketball. Like, incredibly amazing. Like, super amazing. Like, star of the basketball team amazing.
I shrug and look away. People I don’t know always feel uncomfortable around me, for some reason. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to go all Godzilla on them and start crushing their children with my giant shoes. I’ve never heard of a, um, diminutive person being, uh, ostracized, I think, trying to use my SAT words. My English teacher keeps telling us that if we use them in everyday speech, they’ll get drilled into our brains. I’m not sure I want that, to be honest. Like, what if I’m talking with my girlfriend or something and I start spouting words like Pyknic and Cattaglottism. I’m so busy trying to forget complicated words most people couldn’t remember for their life my brain barely registers that they’ve called my name. I blink and get up. Gabriel Valentine, the nasal voice on the loudspeaker calls again. Your results are in. I wince.
I hate my name. I’m trying to come up with a suitable nickname, but nothing stuck. I’ve tried Gabe, El, Val (that one was not my idea), and ones that I’d rather not admit I considered calling myself. So for now people just call me That Tall Guy. It’s a b**** of a name to spell, though. I used to envy kids when I was little with short names like Amy, or Nick, or Dave. Imagine learning how to write and being told you have to spell Gabriel Valentine. I could barely spell cat, dog, and tree when I was that age. Sometimes I still can’t. I’m dyslexic, but I try not to let people know. I hate it when people realize that I write dribe instead of bribe and god instead of dog because I can’t tell the difference. It’s not a hindrance in math for me, which is good because both my parents are math teachers at the local public college. They hate that they’ve turned out a dyslexic son. They try not to let their disappointment show, but I can tell. Whenever I fail a vocab test, whenever I get a note sent home from school saying that I need to spend more time with my tutor, I can see their frustration with me. I mean, I love them, but it would be nice not to have to worry about using proper grammar twenty four/seven.
I get up and go over to the registration desk. It’s just a big square in the wall covered with glass, like they’re trying to protect the receptionists from sick people.

“Hi, I’m, uh, Gabriel Valentine?” I say. The receptionist looks up at me. “I’m, uh, here to pick up the results of a test I took last week?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” She rummages around and hands me a slip of paper. I thank her. She looks really young, not that much older than me. She’s pretty – a pointed nose, blue eyes, and a pale, heart shaped face. She has purple glasses perched atop her wavy blond hair, which somehow puts me in mind of a bird with feathers on its head. She smiles – braces. I squint at her name tag – A… D... E… L, or maybe an I… Another A… Adela. Then I realize I’ve seen her before, because she goes to my school – she must work here. She’s in my grade, but she’s only in a few of my classes. Super smart kid, in the International Baccalaureate program for everything. Her name’s Adela Ramirez, her dad is the dean of the Science and Engineering department of the same school my parents teach at. I think her mom’s from Switzerland, but her dad’s Colombian. I remember, ‘cause she said they met at an English-teaching seminar at the YMCA. I don’t hang out with her a lot (well, at all), but I do know that she’s pretty popular. Not top of the food chain popular, but she’s got friends, and June, who is at the top of the food chain and coincidentally my girlfriend, at least acknowledges her. I flash a brighter smile in her direction, my Hey-how-ya-doin’-baby-we-should-get-together smile. Then I lean against the counter and say,
“Hey, do I know you?” like I haven’t realized that I do. She scrunches her eyebrows together and says, “Mmm… I don’t think so. You don’t look familiar.”
“Really?” I say, jerking back, shocked. At least half the female population in our high school is in love with me. I would have thought that she at least knew who I am. I slit my eyes and brush my hair back gently in the way I know the girls swoon at. Or in the way I assume girls swoon at.
She shrugs. “Gabriel Valentine… Oh, wait! You go to my school, don’t you!” She nods, impressed with herself that’s she’s remembered this fact. I shrug casually, like, Maybe. I’ve never really noticed you before.

“Anyway, I should get going,” I say nonchalantly. “Don’t want to miss my bus.” I turn and head out the door to leave her pondering my glorified sexiness.
As soon as I close the door, I sigh. I’ve got to stop playing girls like that, I tell myself. It’s just not fair to them. It’s not their fault, they can’t help themselves. I’ll bet that girl has a monster crush on me already. Which I’m honestly okay with. She’s cute. I would date her if I weren’t already going out with June. Who I’m pretty sure is cheating on me anyway. She’s kind of the type, I think. Gorgeous, sexy, smart, confident, girly, everything. Maybe a little too controlling. Okay, a lot too controlling. I think she has a problem. I’m beginning to wonder if she should get some counseling.
I’m halfway down the steps when I realize I’ve forgotten why I’m here. I take the crumpled sheet of paper out of my pocket and look at it, not really reading the writing. Then I look again. I blink. Look again, my brain tells me. It’s there, my eyes say. My mind simply refuses to comprehend the simple information written on this tiny slip of paper. This tiny slip of paper that could end my whole life. Because I’ve tested positive for Leukemia.
Last year my doctor wanted me tested because he said he saw some signs, and that if I had cancer they should catch it early. He was positive that I was cancer free, he just wanted to make sure. He wanted to make sure. I feel like I should cry, or scream, or get angry or something, but I can’t. All I can do is stare at this tiny sheet of paper, with its few words typed cleanly, flawlessly, in short little sentences and sequences of numbers. The letters swim around the page doing 180s and backflips, which is what happens sometimes when I get frustrated. I fold the paper gently in half and slip it daintily into my back pocket, smoothing out all of the creases. I brush a speck of dust off my fingernail. Adjust my shirt. Bend down and retie my shoe. Do all of the random little OCD things I do when I’m so upset I can’t think. I’m procrastinating, avoiding thinking about my life. But it doesn’t work this time. I walk numbly to the bus stop and sit down on the bench. It’s so cold. So cold. It chills my back and my butt so much that I stand up again and lean against a pole, staring at a poster advertisement for Armpit Orchid Deodorant, now on sale for half price. All of the tests that interrupted school, all of the times I had to awkwardly comfort my mom when she cried…
My iPhone buzzes in my pocket. I slip it out and unlock it, staring at the new little speech bubble, feeling a lead bar drop into the pit of my stomach as I read the text.
Hey where ru I thought we were gonna hang out today????????? Call me <3333333333333
Oh my god. June. What the hell am I going to tell her? What will I say? What will she say? What’s going to happen to our relationship? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I kick the bench angrily and mutter inaudibly to myself, freaking out a passing hobo. I glare at him until he hurries along to wherever hobos go in the middle of January in Sranton, Pennsylvania. I stare at my phone screen and slowly begin to type a message.
Can’t hang out today, srry. Something happened at home Ill see you on Monday.
Her message pops back almost immediately.
What happened you were gonna take me to the new movie
What movie? I type back, confused. She never said anything about a movie.
The oath, duh, she answers. I sigh. I like June, I really do, but honestly she’s kind of a b****. Kind of demanding and catty most of the time. She’s always gossiping about her girlfriends. That or herself. Me, me, me. My cheer leading coach gave me the solo in the half time show. This guy totally just hit on me. Is this dress totally me, or what? She’s literally the stereotype mean girl of any high school, but she’s not blond, her parents adopted her and her older brother from Indonesia when she was two. I guess she gets a lot of sympathy for that, because their parents were killed in a cop shooting. See, I don’t think she really cares. I think, deep down, she wants to be really American. Now American like lived there her whole life, but born and raised American. That’s why she calls herself June now, instead of Indah Juni, her original name. She didn’t tell me that. June never tells me anything about her old life, or what she can remember. Her brother told me. He’s more, you know, down to earth. He was older when their parents died, about four or five, so I guess he remembers them better. He also speaks fluent Indonesian. His name’s Malu, a name he stuck with even though June begged him to change it. I guess Malu just doesn’t really care all that much. Besides, the ladies love a foreign dude. But when June talks about her brother, his name’s Noah, and he’s in college. Liar, I want to say every time she tells people that. Malu’s a great guy, just a little close-minded. He said that June had turned her back on every single possible Indonesian tradition, custom, or activity, and that he understood, but that they would never be close because of that.
We met a few years ago, when I was just a freshman nobody and June and Malu had just switched to my school. I was playing basketball with a couple of friends in the gym after lunch, and he came in and asked if he could play. He was sort of impressed with me, I think, ‘cause he asked me to go one-on-one with him. We tied. He said I was the first person who ever came close to beating him in a basketball egame, and I was a little shocked. Even then I was pretty tall, but you’ve gotta understand, this dude is enormous. He was a pretty intimidating guy, a senior, and a fairly popular one at that. We got pretty close after that, he was like my own older brother. He finished college in only three years, and when he got back I offered to let him stay with us, because June was driving him up the walls. He declined and got his own apartment, which is good I guess, because basically the way June and I bonded in the first place was trashing her older brother. Knowing that he lived with me might have put a damper on the relationship. I guess it doesn’t really matter now.
My iPhone buzzes again, this time with a call. I press decline. I feel like right now, if I talk, especially to June, I’ll either make a low croaking noise instead of comprehendible words, or just throw up. That’s how sick I feel. Like a cancer is already making its way through my body, poisoning my veins, infecting my head…
Of course, that’s not actually how cancer works. My mom made me read all about every single type of cancer it is remotely possible for me to get, including one with a name even my dad couldn’t pronounce. Something that sounds like a baboon on steroids was how I put it to my friend Reese. All of the kids in my town have the strangest names. Reese is short for Americium – who the hell thinks that’s a good name for a child? This chick in my Geometry class, her name is Dawn Glory. No, seriously. That’s her name, I swear. I’m not making any of this up. Her frikkin’ name is Dawn Glory. Or to be more precise, Dawn Glory Levey – Pascazi. Her parents are into the two last names thing. Anyway, different types of cancer. I have a tendency to branch out into long, meaningless strings of words that have no point what so ever. Like the time when my friend came over, and he would not stop talking about his new cleats, and then… right. Storyline. Relevancy. Et cetera, et cetera.
A text pops up on the screen from June.
I called you y didn’t you answer?????????? wats wrong babe ru sick or something?
I laugh darkly. That’s a pretty good way to put it, I think. Sick in the head. Sick in the body. Something’s wrong with me. I know this feeling. It’s the same feeling I had when they told me I’m dyslexic. Kind of a sinking in the pit of my stomach, and a pressure on my neck, like someone cut off my air supply. Only this time, it doesn’t go away.