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way So, Kate," Taylor says He has that rangy puppy look of a sixteen-year-old, one with knobby knees and thick fingers and cheekbones he hasn't yet grown into When he crosses his ar this on purpose, and I duck my head to hide a smile "What do you do when you're not at Providence Hospital?"

She thinks, and then a slow s that makes me come back"

This ether," he says, and he passes her a wrapper froauze pad "Can I have your phone number?"

Kate scribbles it down as Taylor's IV begins to beep The nurse comes in and unhooks his line "You're outta here, Taylor," she says "Where's your ride?"

"Waiting downstairs I'ets out of the padded chair slowly, almost weakly, the first reminder that this is not some casual conversation He slips the piece of paper with our phone number into his pocket "Well, I'll call you, Kate"

When he leaves Kate lets all her breath out in a draasps "He is gorgeous"

The nurse, checking her flow, grins "Tell er"

Kate turns to"You think he'll call?"

"Maybe," I say

"Where do you think we'll go out?"

I think of Brian, who has always said that Kate can datewhen she's forty "Let's take one step at a ti

The arsenic, which ulti her down Taylor Aic by building her up It becos at seven PM, Kate flies from the dinner table and hides in a closet with the portable receiver The rest of us clear the dinner plates and spend ti little es fro like a hubird at the pulse in her throat Every ti It is not that Kate is so beautiful, although she is; it's that I never really let rown up

I follow her into the bathrooht, after one of her marathon phone sessions Kate stares at herself in theher brows in a come-hither pose Her hand corew back in waves, just thick straight tufts that she usually cultivates with mousse to look like bedhead She holds her pal

"What do you think he sees when he looks at me?" Kate asks

I come to stand behind her She is not the child that mirrors me--that would be Jesse--and yet when you put us side by side, there are definite similarities It's not in the shape of the mouth but the set of it, the sheer determination that silvers our eyes

"I think he sees a girl who knohat he's been through," I tell her honestly

"I got on the internet and read up on AML," she says "His leukeh cure rate" She turns to me "When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourselfis that what love's like?"

It is hard, all of a sudden, to pull an answer through the tunnel of my throat "Exactly"

Kate runs the tap and washes her face with a foam of soap I hand her a towel, and as she rises fro to happen"

On alert, I search her out for clues "What's the matter?"

"Nothing But that's the way it works If there's so to pay for it"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," I say out of habit, yet there is a truth to this Anyone who believes that people have ultimate control of what life hands to them needs only to spend a day in the shoes of a child with leuke a break," I say

Three days later, during a routine CBC, the he promyelocytes, the first slide down a steep slope of relapse

I have never eavesdropped, at least not intentionally, until the night that Kate comes back from her first date with Taylor, to see a movie She tiptoes into her room and sits down on Anna's bed "You awake?" she asks

Anna rolls over, groans "I a to the floor "Hoas it?"

"Wow," Kate says, and she laughs "Wow"

"Ho? Like, tonsil hockey ?"

"You are so disgusting," Kate whispers, although there's a sles this like a fisherman

"Get out!" Anna's voice shines "So as it like?"

"Flying," Kate answers "I bet it feels just the same way"

"I don't get what that has in co all over you"

"God, Anna, it's not like he spits on you"

"What does Taylor taste like?"

"Popcorn" She laughs "And guy"

"How did you knohat to do?"

"I didn't It just kind of happened Like the way you play hockey"

This, finally, ood when I' that"

"You have no idea," Kate sighs There is so off her clothes I wonder if Taylor is i the same, somewhere

Pillow is punched, cover yanked back, sheets rustle as Kate gets into bed and rolls onto her side "Anna?"

"Hmm?"

"He has scars on his palraft-versus-host," Katehands"

"Was it gross?"

"No," she says "It was like we matched"

At first, I can't get Kate to agree to undergo the peripheral blood stem cell transplant She refuses because she doesn't want to be hospitalized for chemo, doesn't want to have to sit in reverse isolation for the next six weeks when she could be going out with Taylor Ambrose "It's your life," I point out to her, and she looks at me as if I'm crazy

"Exactly," she says

In the end, we coin her chemo as an outpatient, in preparation for a transplant frorees to wear a , she'll be hospitalized They aren't happy; they worry it will affect the procedure, but like e where she can bargain with her will

As it turns out, this separation anxiety is all for naught, since Taylor shows up for Kate's first outpatient che here?"

"I can't seeerald" He sits down beside Kate in the eood to be in one of these without an IV hookup"

"Rub it in," Kate mutters

Taylor puts his hand on her arm "How far into it are you?"

"Just started"

He gets up and sits on the wide arm of Kate's chair, picks the emesis basin up from Kate's lap "A hundred bucks says you can'tyour cookies"

Kate glances at the clock It is 2:50 "You're on"

"What did you have for lunch?" He grins, wicked "Or should I guess based on the colors?"

"You're disgusting," Kate says, but her smile is as wide as the sea Taylor puts his hand on her shoulder She leans into the contact

The first time Brian touched me, he saved my life There had been cataclysmic downpours in Providence, a nor'easter that swelled the tides and put the parking lot at the courthouse entirely underwater I was clerking then, ere evacuated Brian's departe; I walked onto the stone steps of the building to see cars floating by, and abandoned purses, and even a terrified paddling dog While I had been filing briefs, the world I knew had been subed "Need a hand?" Brian asked, dressed in his full turnout gear, and he held out his arround, rain struck e--I could feel like I was being burned alive

"What's the longest you've ever gone before throwing up?" Kate asks Taylor

"Two days"

"Get out"

The nurse glances up from her paperwork "True," she confirms "I saith my own eyes"

Taylor grins at her "I told you, I'm a master at this" He looks at the clock: 2:57

"Don't you have anywhere else you'd rather be?" Kate says

"Trying to weasel out of the bet?"

"Trying to spare you Although--" Before she can finish, she goes green Both the nurse and I rise from ours seats, but Taylor reaches Kate first He holds the vo, he rubs his hand in slow circles on her upper back