Steve’s Secret

It was a Tuesday in April. I had been with Myra for the better part of 8 months now. She smiled all the time around me and I smiled around her just as much. Ruben, my dad, had taken a job with his company that let him be home more and everything seemed to finally be coming together.

I was 14, but much older than my years.

I hadn’t seen Steve in a few weeks. He went to the high school and I was still at the middle school so it wasn’t all that strange to go a few days without seeing each other, but usually I would we’d run into each other around town or at the Coyote’s baseball games or something. I figured he was just busy with getting ready to graduate high school and heading off to Texas A&M where he had a swimming scholarship waiting for him. One afternoon, something in me decided to go by his house and see if he was there and maybe catch up on things.

I remember leaving school that day and telling Myra I would see her later. I walked down Gibson Avenue to Texas and down Texas to Washington. I walked past Mac’s house and waved at his windows just in case Granny was watching. I took a left on Stadium and a right onto Lincoln. Steve’s house was the third one down on the right.

There sure were an awful lot of cars on Steve’s street that day.

I knocked on his door three times before his mom answered. She looked down at me with her puffy eyes.

I knew something was wrong.

“Hey Shane… Now might not be the best time to see Steve…”

“Whats wrong? Is he in trouble?”

“No Shane…… Steve is sick…”

Sick? Steve never got sick. He was a picture of perfect health the entire time I knew him. And why the hell would she be crying about Steve being sick? Something else must be wrong.

She hesitated and looked over her shoulder. She looked down at me as if weighing some big decision and finally said “Oh you know what, why don’t you go see him… It might do him good…”

I was seriously confused by the whole bit, but whatever. I walked back to his room and there in Steve’s bed was some skinny pale kid. I squinted for a second before I realized it was him. I couldn’t move. What had happened? What kind of sick was he?!

He called me in and I sat down.

“Hey Shane”

“Hey Steve”

“So… I guess I can’t hide that I’m sick anymore, huh?”

“Um… How long have you hid it for?”

“So far just a year… I gotta say I should get an Oscar or something for this acting job… haha”

Steve always found a way to make me laugh.

“So you gonna tell me what the hell you have?”

I sat there for almost an hour as Steve told me about something called “Leukemia” and talked about red blood cells and white blood cells and a whole other mess of things.

At first I just thought it was something you catch like a cold and you get better in a couple days. But the whole time he spoke, I sat there remembering when he was big and strong. When his skin was tan from the summer sun. When we would sneak into the pool at night and smoke cigarettes while he drank beer. What had happened to him? I was truly scared.

“But you’re gonna be alright, right? You’ll be fine once they give you some medicine, right?”

Steve looked down at his bed for second, then half smiled and looked back up at me… “I’ll be fine soon, Shane. So how’s Myra?”

I went off on a tangent about Myra and Mac and Granny and Ruben and we both almost forgot why he was in that bed.

I left his house when it was dark outside and walked the long trek back to our trailer park. I told Ruben about Steve and his Leukemia. He sat there pretending to listen and wanting to care, but as usual, he just came across as someone who didn’t quite get it.

I went to bed that night and dreamed about the summer before.

Steve didn’t dream that night. Steve died 47 minutes after I walked out his front door on April 23rd.

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