Bruno Read Free Page A

talk to me. The only time he ever told me about him getting tested was when we had plans to hang out and he couldn’t come. He told me his white blood cells were down and he needed to see why.
    I thought about joking about it being cancer. The only reason I would ever even think of joking about something so serious was because I never in a million years would think Bruno (or anyone I know) would be diagnosed with it. I had read countless books about children getting cancer. I knew all the signs. But I ignored them when they happened to Bruno. I was such a bad friend.
    The day we were supposed to Skype, he never logged on. I waited around all night. I didn’t fall asleep until 5:30am. I wrote him an email that I know he’d receive on his phone. I was so angry that he’d ditch me. So hurt that he’d skip out on the one day he promised to be there.
    I woke up with the next day with a text on my phone. “Saige, I’m sorry,” it read, “but I was diagnosed with cancer and I’m in the hospital starting chemo.”
    I didn’t reply all day. I didn’t say anything at all until the next evening. I was in a trance. My parents didn’t even find out that Bruno was sick until two days later when my brother told them. When I finally responded, I wrote him a long, heartfelt email and even wrote him some snail-mail letters that he could receive in the hospital. I would have sent flowers, but they weren’t allowed on his floor. I guess the smell of life was too much for the people who could only smell death.
    Last spring seems far away. But sometimes, it seems like it just happened. Almost loosing Bruno weighs heavy on my mind every day, as I know it does for his mom. It even affected my parent’s to know that it could happen to their children, too.
    I can’t go through that again. But more than that, I don’t want Bruno to go through what he did again. Cancer isn’t fun. It makes your body do things you never thought it could. And no, I don’t mean jump over a high beam or backflip off a high dive. It makes you feel disgusting and tired all the time. Some people even say it makes you feel dead when you’re not even dead. How could medicine that was supposed to keep you from dying make you feel like you’re not even living?
    Bruno is the most religious person I know. He’s also very optimistic. Which is why it broke my heart when I heard him say: “I wonder if the chemo is doing my body more bad than good. Is taking chemo even worth it?”
    I lived for the day when he would be off the medicine. When the doctor’s would tell him that he’s all better and he doesn’t need to feel bad anymore. I just wanted everything to be the way it used to be. I waited my whole life for someone like Bruno, it seemed unfair that as soon as I would get him death could take him away. I was so naïve that I didn’t know things would be changed forever.
    Once chemo was done and Bruno was feeling more like the old, pre-cancer Bruno, I asked to go to the doctor’s meeting with his family. At first they objected. Not because I wasn’t close enough the Castino’s to go, but because they wanted to protect me from getting dissapointed. But I pleaded to go, and finally they gave in.
    Doctor’s really tick me off. That day I was madder than I’ve ever been. More mad than the day my brother broke my limited edition N’Sync Holiday tape back in ’99. I was expecting the doctor to make it all better. After he had poked, prodded, and hurt Bruno for so long, I think it’s only fair for him to tell Bruno that he’s perfectly fine again and to go back to being the Bruno everyone loved.
    But he didn’t.
    “Even though your cancer is gone for the time being,” he said, “you aren’t truly cured until you have no cancer cells for five years. The cancer could come back before then, which is why we need you and the people close to you to keep a look out for the signs. Don’t hesitate to come in for a checkup when bruise’s show up where they