Bruno Read Free Page B

shouldn’t be, or when you feel tired like you did before.”
    If Mr. Castino hadn’t been blocking my escape from the door, I would have run out right then. How could a doctor say that? How could months of feeling worse than death still mean Bruno wasn’t cured?
    Bruno’s mom looked like she was let down, too. Bruno’s father did all the talking about paying off the bills, and who to contact if the signs occurred again. Bruno just sat and starred. When he caught me looking at him, he titled his head and smiled. He didn’t have curls, then. The chemo had taken them all.
    “Amore Vinci Omnia” he mouthed to me.
    That’s my favorite saying from a book we had to read for advanced English. He remembered because it’s one of the things I wrote to him in my heartfelt email the day after he told me he had cancer.
    He’s never told me he loved me. Not then and not now. I’ve never said it either. But we love to love. Even if we’ve never been in love, we’re always on the lookout for it. I’m a sucker for anything romantic. I know he is, too, even if we don’t show it.
    Thinking of my English class leads me over to my bookshelf. I pull out several novels, searching for “The Canterbury Tales”. I can’t find it anywhere. I look under my bed and atop my dresser. I move clothes around in my closet, even though I have no idea why it would be there. It isn’t. I go back to my shelf and search for my other favorite book of poems. I can’t find that either. I’m about to call for my mom (because mom’s always know where everything is), when I hear the doorbell ring.
    I wait for my brothers to yell “I got it!” or “Bye!” if they’re expecting somebody, but I just hear silence. My mom is usually so inviting of any guest, but I don’t hear her soft voice of “hello, how are you’s” either. The doorbell rings again.
    “I’m coming!” I call, bounding down the stairs.
    Without even looking through the peephole, I yank the door open. Standing on my doorstep with the same superman backpack he uses for just about everything is Alex.
    “Hiya, Saige!” He says, smiling up at me.
    I look at the street, expecting to see his mom’s car, but the street’s bare.
    He walks past me and dumps his blanket and backpack on the floor. “Want to play trucks?” He asks, digging in his pockets and pulling out toy cars.
    “Those are cars, silly.”
    “Mommy wouldn’t let me bring my monster trucks.”
    I lay the car rug that used to belong to my brothers on the floor. I made my mom still keep it because it’s pretty cool. It had its own little city on a rug and you can go just about anywhere you want in the comfort of your own home. It’s good I made my mom keep it, Alex loves it.
    I bend down and start running a toy car around the streets of Rug City. I listen to Alex’s sound effects and think of how cool it has to be a little kid. He just comes into any home and starts to play, no worry in the world.
    “Where’s your mommy?” I ask, after playing for ten minutes.
    “She’s with B. She had to take him to get the Band-Aid.”
    When Bruno started going to the hospital a lot, Alex was too young to understand why. He just kept asking why Bruno never came back with any Band-Aids. When you’re five, I guess Band-Aids make everything better, and when you go to the hospital you’re expected to get the best Band-Aids. Mrs. Castino started keeping blue metallic Band-Aids in the car. Whenever Bruno would return from any type of treatment, he’d put a Band-Aid somewhere on his body. Sometimes it was his arm, sometimes his leg, or even at times his forehead. Then he’d point to it and say “all better!” just so Alex wouldn’t worry.
    I decide not to talk about Bruno or the hospital anymore. Instead, I ask Alex what he would like for dinner.
    “Chicken nuggets!” He screams.
    Every time he comes over, I cook him dinosaur-shaped nuggets. He’s come to really love them.
    “Yay! Chicken nuggets!” I chant.
    I ram