Vapor

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  Neither of us said anything for the rest of support Group. At the en, we all had to hold hands, and Troy led us in prayer. "Lord Jesus Christ, we are gathered here in your heart, literally in your heart, as cancer survivors. You and you alone know us as we know ourselves. Guide us to life and the light through our times of trial. We pray for Calum's eyes, For Michael 's and Ashton 's blood, for Luke's bones, for Elena's lungs, for Billy's Throat. We pray that you might heal us and that we might feel your love, and your peace, which passes all understanding. And we remember in our hearts those whom we knew and loved who have gone home to you: Maria and Kay and John and Hailey and Abigail and Katherine and Taylor and Lucy...."

  It was a long. The world contains a lot of dead people. And while Troy droned on, reading the lost from a sheet of paper because it was too long to memorize, I kept my eyes closed ,trying to think prayerfully but mostly imagining the day when my name would find its way onto that list, all the way at the end when everyone had stopped listening.

  When Troy was finished, we said this stupid mantra together -- LIVING OUR BEST LIFE TODAY -- and it was over. Luke Hemmings pushed himself out of his chair and walked over to me. His gait was crooked like his smile. He towered over me, but kept his distance so I wouldn't have to crane my neck to look him in the eye. " what's your name?" He asked.

  "Elena."

  "No, your full name."

  "Um, Elena Limborgelli linder." (I MADE IT UP IK ITS NOT GOOD I TRIED 😭😭). He was just about to say something else when Calum walked up. "Hold on," Luke said, raising a finger, and turned to Calum. " That was actually worse than you made it out to be."

  " I told you it was bleak. "
 
  "Why do you bother with it?"

  "I dont know, it kind if helps?"

  Luke leaned in so he thought I couldn't hear. "She's a regular?" I couldn't hear Calum's comment, but Luke responded , "I'll say." He clasped Calum by both shoulders and then took a half steo away from him. "Tell Elena about clinic."

  Calum leaned a hand against the snack table and focused hus huge eye on me. "Okay, so I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that I'd rather be deaf than blind. And he said, "it doesn't work that way " and I was, like, " Yeah, I realized it doesn't work that way; I'm just saying I'd rather be deaf than blind if I had a choice, which I relize I don't have", and he said " well, the good news is that you won't be deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me."

  "He sounds like a winner," I said. "Im gonna try to get me some eye cancer just so I can make this guy's acquaintance."

  "Good luck with that. All right, I should go. Nia's waiting for me. I gotta look ay her a lot while I can."

  "Counterinsurgence tomorrow?" Luke asked.

  "Definitely." Calum returned and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Luke turned to me. "literally," he said.

  "Literally?" I asked.

  " we are literally in the heart of Jesus," he said. " I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus."

  "Somone should tell Jesus," I said. "I mean, its gotta be dangerous, storing children with cancer in your heart."

  "I would tell him myself," Luke said, " but unfortunately I am literally stuck inside of his heart , so he won't be able to hear me." I laughed. He shook his head, just looking at me.

  "What?" I asked.

  " nothing," he said.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  Luke half smiled. "Because you're beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence. " A brief awkward silence ensued. Luke plowed through: "I mean, particularly given that, as you so deliciously pointed out, all of this will end in oblivion and everything."

  I kind of scoffed or sighed or exhaled in a way that was vaguely coughy and then said, " im not beau--"

  "You're like a millenial Natalie Portman. Like V for Vendetta Natalie Portman."

  "Never seen it," I said.

  "Really? " he asked. " Fairy-haired gorgeous girl dislikes authority and can't help but fall for a boy she knows is trouble. Its your autobiography, so far as I can tell."

  His every syllable flirted. Honestly, he kind of turned me on. I didn't even know that guys could turn me on -- not, like, in real life.

  A younger girl walked past us. "How's it going, Sophia?" He asked. She smiled and mumbled, "Hi, Luke." "Memorial people," he explained. Memorial was the big research hospital. "Where do you go?"

  "Children's," I said, my voice smaller than I expected it to be. He nodded. The conversation seemed over. "Well," I said, nodding vaguely toward the steps that led us out of the literal Heart of Jesus. I tilted my cart onto its wheels and started walking. He limped beside me. "So, see you next time, maybe?" I asked.

  "You should see it, " he said. "V for Vendetta, I mean."

  "Okay," I said " I'll look it up."

  "No. With me. At my house," he said. "Now."

  I stopped walking. "I hardly know you , Luke Hemmings. You could be an ax murderer."

  He nodded. "True enough, Elena Limborgelli linder." He walked past me, his shoulders filling out his black hoodie, his back straight, his steps lifting just slightly to the right as he walked steady and confident.

  I followed him upstairs, losing ground as I made my way up slowly, stairs not being a filed of expertise for me lungs.

  And the we were out of Jesus's heart and in the parking lot, the spring air just on the cold side of perfect, the late-aftetnoon light heavenly in its hurtfulness.