third infusion

the art of caring

Distorted bass starts rattling my windows, and that’s how I know Vanessa is here. I throw on my baseball cap and grab the Jamba Juice knock-off smoothies I made for us. They’re in mason jars because, of course, I don’t own actual travel cups, but I have to bring something. I can’t just let people do favors for me without a gift of gratitude.

I slide into the passenger seat. It smells like she just finished a cigarette. I can tell she’s nervous because she keeps glancing at me instead of watching the road. Normally she’d be filling the silence with something sharp and irreverent, but today, she just drums her fingers against the wheel.

We met as work friends, the kind of closeness built on late-night shifts and shared misery. Nothing builds friendships like closing shifts,especially at My Fathers Place. We would be up until almost 4 am cleaning the bar on Friday nights. She would drive me home and we would tell each other stories about our lives and sing emo music from the top of our lungs driving down Sandy. She’d often miss the turn onto my street but I didn’t mind. 

She hasn’t seen me since the diagnosis, since my Marc Bolan hair became nothing but scalp. I know it’s a lot for people to take in.

But for Vanessa, it’s more than that.

She lost her mom to cancer.

I didn’t even think about that until I saw the way she kept looking at me, like she was bracing for something. A quick, guilty twist settled in my stomach. But she still showed up. That meant something. Vanessa is someone who truly cares about the people she loves, and I am grateful to be one of them. 

We pull into the hospital, and I make some joke about how luxurious the cancer hospital is because if I don’t, I’ll probably start crying uncontrollably or some shit. We reek of stale cigarettes. My nurse thinks I was smoking and might be judging, just a little.

The chemo infusion room has huge windows; it makes the lighting a little less harsh than the rest of the hospital. But the windows don’t brighten the gray, dismal, depressing vibe. The air is thick with that sterile, chemical-clean smell, and under it, the faint scent of warmed-up plastic trays of hospital food. The machines beep in a slow, steady rhythm.

The room is full, and some people look a lot sicker than me. Older men slumped in their chairs, women wrapped in blankets, someone curled up asleep with their mouth slightly open. It’s intense. Vanessa and I are laughing–probably too much. It’s one of those situations where we can feel how heavy everything is, so we just lean harder into the ridiculous. We’re gossiping about crushes, talking shit about stupid people we know, rehashing the same Workaholics jokes we’ve been making for years. We always talk about that show too much. The nurse side-eyes us at one point, like she’s wondering if we get where we are.

“Take a deep breath, and on three, you’re going to feel a poke.”

I grit my teeth as they connect my port. I look over,Vanessa looks like she’s seen a ghost.

The nurse runs saline through my port. I can taste it, like the world’s most expensive oyster. Then comes the chemo. It’s cold. I remember my first infusion, how I was terrified it was going to burn. I’d spent the whole time waiting for that unbearable sting. But it never came. Now, at my third infusion, I know what to expect. I’m practically a regular old champ.

It’s strange though, being seen like this. I have never been the kind of person who needed taking care of. I don’t really know what to do with it.

I take a sip of my smoothie, clink my glass with Vanessa’s, and together, we watch the birds. 

I don’t know how to say it out loud,but I hope she knows, this means everything to me.