Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor

friend have cancer?
    Cancer killed people.
    But Olivia wasn’t going to die. We were sixteen. People who are sixteen, people you’ve known your whole life, don’t die of cancer.
    Why not? asked an ugly, scary voice in my brain. Why don’t they die of cancer?
    “Because,” I said out loud, the sound of my voice startling in the quiet room. “They don’t.”
    I got to my feet. Moving silenced the voice in my head. I slid open the middle drawer of her wooden wardrobe, where she kept her shirts. But staring at the top one, I found myself stymied all over again. Did she still like the red T-shirt with the three-quarter sleeves? I hadn’t seen her wear it in a while, but she’d never specifically mentioned not liking it. Maybe it was just out of the rotation? I bit my lip, looking at her drawer of carefully folded T-shirts: long-sleeved ones on one side of the drawer, short-sleeved ones on the other. How had I never noticed how carefully Olivia folded her clothes? We’d always joked that she was neat and I was messy, but I’d never appreciated just how neat she was. Each shirt was stacked on top of the one below it as precisely as if they were on display at Banana Republic or the Gap, two stores that Olivia and I both hated.
    Standing in her room, surrounded by her stuff but unable to know what she would want to wear, the voice in my brain informed me, This is what it would be like if Olivia were dead .
    “Well, she’s not dead!” I said out loud.
    I reached for my phone. I needed to talk to her, even if she just told me to chill out or said she didn’t care what she wore.
    I dialed her number, but it wasn’t Olivia who answered. “Hi, Zoe.”
    “Hi, Mrs. Greco.”
    Her voice whisper quiet. “Olivia’s just having a little nap.”
    “Oh,” I said. My heart dropped. I couldn’t ask Mrs. Greco to wake her daughter just because I was freaking out. “I was just going to ask her about some clothes. I’m putting a suitcase together for her.”
    “Yes, she told me about that,” said Mrs. Greco. “She hates all the clothes I brought her. I guess I haven’t been paying attention to what she wears.”
    Apparently neither have I , I thought, glancing down at the red T-shirt.
    “Do you want her to call you when she wakes up? Assuming she’s feeling up to it?”
    “No, no,” I said quickly, “I can figure it out on my own. I just wasn’t sure about this one particular shirt.”
    “Okay,” said her mom. “I know she’s looking forward to your visit later. And not just because of the clothes.”
    That was nice. Mrs. Greco’s saying that made me feel better.
    “Thanks,” I said. “I am too.”

    I ended up just picking things I’d seen Olivia wear in the last few weeks of summer—a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, a pair of white capri pants, a skirt with a pattern of faces that we’d bought because we couldn’t decide if it was awesome or awful but that turned out to be clearly awesome—adding a couple of hoodies and some leggings and yoga pants because of the air-conditioning in the hospital. Then I zipped the suitcase, rolled it along the hallway, and bounced it down the stairs. When I opened the front door of the house, I expected to see Jake and Tommy still playing hoops, but instead I saw Calvin Taylor dribbling while Tommy watched from the sidelines. Calvin might have been the QB of the football team, but he was a damn good basketball player. His arm moved in a smooth arc as he seemingly effortlessly took the shot from far down the driveway. Just as I pulled the door closed behind me, the ball swooshed into the net. Tommy applauded. Neither of them saw me come out.
    “Now you,” said Calvin, bouncing Tommy the ball.
    “I’m not going to be as good as you,” Tommy told him.
    Calvin didn’t deny it. “Well, considering I’ve got about three feet and ten years on you, that seems fair, don’t you think?”
    “But I’m a prodigy,” Tommy explained, grinning. The twins’ smiles always