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Stepping off the curb at Third Avenue, a taxi’s horn screamed and Ben leapt back to the safety of the sidewalk, the red ‘Don’t Walk’ hand scolding him to play it safe.

Twenty-Five

A bellyaching laugh rose from Maggie’s couch. “Oh, Sue, you’re killing me!”

Setting a bag of frozen blueberries on the counter, Riley broke out into a smile. It’s good she’s enjoying something. Maggie hadn’t had a lot to laugh about recently, but this call from a former work colleague was brightening her Tuesday afternoon considerably. As much as mother and daughter liked to swear by ‘third time lucky’, this cancer fight was taking its toll on Maggie’s body as well as her spirit, so any little distraction—a new release on Netflix, a bag of donut holes, or a phone call from an old friend now living in Kentucky—was celebrated and very welcome.

Maggie’s favorite distraction sat beside the blender on the kitchen counter, her birthday gift from Riley—a ‘book of the month’ subscription box, which she worked double shifts to pay for. Just two months into the program, bookworm Maggie was already addicted to the mid-month deliveries, giddy for the next book to be devoured. She couldn’t have asked for a more thoughtful gift from her daughter, but for Riley, the present was something more. The yearlong purchase was an act of faith that said, You’re going to be here a year from now, Mom.

Riley pored over the recipe on her phone one more time. Blueberries, lime juice, balsamic vinegar… Since Maggie’s chemo regime had changed, her taste and smell were off, making eating unpleasant, sometimes impossible, and yet, she’d developed weird cravings for limes and raw snap peas. She couldn’t afford to lose any more weight, so Riley was following the advice of the cancer clinic’s nutritionist, making healthy but easy-to-tolerate smoothies and snacks, like blueberry yogurt parfaits. The ingredients had cost more than her mom had given her, but Riley covered the shortfall without saying a word. Skipping lunch was a small price to pay if her mom felt a little better.

A text invaded her screen. Josh again, fifth text within twenty minutes—another video. Slick with sweat and grunting, he was doing CrossFit handstand pushups against the wall of his college’s gym. His soaked tank top had slipped down exposing his rock-hard six-pack. Someone was whooping and clapping in the background.

Riley couldn’t deny it: Josh, in his flimsy exercise shorts that flaunted every bulge and outline, looked mouthwateringly hot. If she had received these messages last year, she would be texting back, craving a FaceTime rendezvous as soon as she was somewhere private. But, today, his horny onslaught wasn’t turning her on; it was testing her patience. She had already texted back three times, telling him she couldn’t hook up over FaceTime, not with Maggie in the next room and a mandatory four o’clock lecture just hours away. If he kept this up, she’d have to mute her phone.

She set it down and reached into a cupboard, grabbing the sugar. A sharp twinge rippled through her upper back, her wince morphing into a thankful giggle. The outing with Ben, complete with awkward goodbye, had left her with a souvenir: pulled muscles from their flirty dancing during Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”. She felt immediately nostalgic for the night before. The cheesy eighties disco had proven to be a lift she so desperately needed, even if the fairy tale faded as soon as the gaudy awning outside her apartment came into view. Ben was a fun and willing sidekick, and best of all, the words ‘cancer’, ‘debt’, and ‘poor you’ never once fell from his lips. Maybe that was the life hack? Don’t share your greatest fears or worries with your friends, and you too can forget they exist—for a few hours at least. What better way to play make-believe than with an actor, and a hot one at that.

The bottle of lime juice lit up, illuminated by her nearby phone. Another text. Her shoulders fell. Josh?

Ben.

Ben! A jolt of electricity shot through Riley’s veins. She read his message.

Riles!!! Mission accmplished!!!!

That was it. Ben’s excessive use of exclamation marks and dyslexic spelling were a far cry from Josh’s bulging muscles. Hmm. With an eye on her phone, she poured the berries into a saucepan. Would Ben elaborate?

DING. An attachment arrived—a Spotify playlist simply titled ‘4 Riles!!!’

She opened it, finding “The Sun Always Shines on TV” by a-ha and nothing else. Great title. I like! Parfait-making could wait. She bent down and pulled her tangled earbud cords from her tote.

The song began slowly with tentative synthesizer chords and the singer’s falsetto vocals soaring over top. Riley scratched her eyebrow. Where is this going? But then the song shrugged off its intro and built up and up and up into a crash of electronic drums and racing guitars, a circus of urgency. Rallying her attention, its keyboards pulsated with reckless abandon, but it was the song’s evocative lyrics that took her breath away. They sounded like thoughts she had jotted down in her journal—now abandoned—six months earlier…

November 10, 2017

It’s not just feeling sad about Mom. There’s more to it than that.

I look deep within, desperate to find something to lift my mood, but my search is for nothing. All I see inside is emptiness, fear…darkness. I feel so down, sometimes I don’t recognize who I am anymore.

The worst part…I can’t articulate what’s gone wrong. It’s like my brain has the reason locked away somewhere and I don’t have the key. So instead I get dragged down when all I want is to find out why I feel like this—so I can climb back up, be myself again. Then maybe I can feel happy, even for a little while.

I wish life was like it is on TV—love conquers all, problems fade away, everything’s perfect and everyone gets their happily ever after.

A lump grew in Riley’s throat. My journal matches this song. It’s so true, so…me. The rawness, the familiarity—someone else had written the song’s words, but they spoke to her heart about her fears, her hopes. Depression was always lurking over her shoulder, but maybe one day she’d have the power to look it in the eye and defeat it for good—or at least be better at taming it.

Don’t let Mom see me like this. She wiped away a tear, thankful Maggie was on the other side of the wall, merrily chatting away on her phone.

Ben’s adorable English accent played in her head. “I bet I can find an eighties song that speaks to you.”

Mission accmplished, Brit boy. Mission accmplished.

• • •

“What class do you have this afternoon?” A small amount of blueberry yogurt parfait remained in Maggie’s tall glass.

“The senior colloquium.”

“That’s lectures, isn’t it?”