The Department of Lost & Found by Allison Winn Scotch Read Free Book Online

people as possible. Conse-quentially, supporting said friend when she’s diagnosed with life-threatening illness isn’t exactly a paint-by-numbers situation, either. I’d told Sally that she was allowed to spread the news to a few choice people, but that they wouldn’t be hearing the ghastly info directly from me. Besides, other than an intimate group of friends, of which Lila was a part, true enough, I hadn’t exactly been stellar about keeping in touch over the years. So it was no surprise that, since I faded out of my old friends’ lives, they weren’t exactly bounding to get back into mine.
    “Oh God,” she whined. “Now I feel even more horrible. I just, I don’t know. There’s no excuse. But I was just worried I’d say the wrong thing or make it worse or somehow look like an asshole.”
    I grabbed her hand. “Lila, really. We’re okay. Come on, walk with me. I was thinking of going around the loop one more time.”
    Lila and I had nearly finished my second lap when the wave of vertigo overtook me. I felt the pavement tilt below me, and suddenly the trees stood on a diagonal. I clenched her arm to keep from falling, but it didn’t help much. Instead, I dragged her down with me, both of us just barely landing on the dying grass just off the sidewalk.
    “Oh my God, should I call someone?” Lila panicked and reached into her leather buckled Prada bag for her cell phone.
    “Nat, look at me, look at me! What’s wrong?” Dr. Chin had warned The Department of Lost & Found
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    me about dizzy spells and about pushing myself too hard. As Lila rubbed my back, I stuck my head between my knees, something I remembered from high school first aid, and muttered at her, “No, no, this is just a side effect. I’m fine.”
    I’m not sure how long we sat there, my friend and I, in the autumn glow of a perfect New York afternoon, but when my breathing evened out and my eyes seemed to steady, I slowly rose and told her I wanted to keep going. I wanted to finish what I’d started, even though it was just a silly walk with my old friend five weeks after I’d been diagnosed with cancer.
    “Nat, you’re too exhausted. Your face is, like, the color of my walls. Let’s just hail a cab.” She put her arm up to nab a taxi as it cruised through the park.
    “No,” I said firmly. “I’m walking home.”
    “Natalie, don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to pass out on Central Park West. We’re stopping. This can’t be good for you!”
    “Don’t tell me what isn’t good for me! And don’t tell me to stop,” I screamed, as Lila took a step back. “How the hell can anyone know what’s good for me! I mean, I work out, I eat relatively well, I’m not a bad person, and it appears that none of it, none of it, is good for me! So how the fuck does something like this happen to someone like me?” Without warning, I squeezed out fat teardrops that fell as if from the storm earlier that week. Lila pulled me close and held me up until I stopped shaking.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my eyes. “You’re just trying to do right by me, and I act like a crazy person.”
    “Oh please, this is nothing compared to how you reacted when you found out that Brandon was cheating on you sophomore year.
    Remember that? If I can handle that, I think I can cope with this.”
    She laughed and handed me a tissue from her purse. “Okay,” she 48
    a l l i s o n w i n n s c o t c h
    conceded, “we won’t stop.” She squeezed my hand and started walking.
    “Did you hear that, ‘cancer’?” I replied, mustering up a grin.
    “I’m not stopping until you prove me unstoppable.”
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    Dear Diary:
    The good news is that I barely think of Ned at all anymore.
    And when I do, it actually doesn’t occur to me to head down to Model ’s and buy an aluminum bat with which to bash his brains in. So that’s good news, right? I mean, I sort of get it. Why he left. No. Let me amend that. I will never GET why he did what he did