Infusion Room C

The Infusion Room C had a strong smell of antiseptic mixed with something else that I couldn’t quite name, but I knew it would stick with me forever, whether I liked it or not.

There were six recliners in the room. Each one had a rolling IV stand next to it, a small table, and a mounted screen that nobody seemed to be paying attention to. The chairs were a dull teal, a color that was clearly chosen to be neutral but ended up being just a bit off, like it was trying too hard to blend in. When we walked in, three of the chairs were taken. There was a man in his sixties with his eyes shut, a woman around my mom’s age, if I had one, who was reading on a tablet, and a girl two chairs away from the one the nurse directed me to.

The girl had a lilac bob haircut, her feet tucked under her, and a book without a cover resting in her lap. She didn’t look up when Maekynzie and I entered, which somehow made her stand out even more.

“Alright,” Maekynzie said, speaking loudly as if we were in a much bigger space. “This is fine. Everything is completely fine. I’ve been to hospitals before. I’m a very calm person.”

“You’re the least calm person I know,” I replied.

“That’s what makes this impressive,” Maekynzie said as she placed her tote bag on the small table next to my recliner and started taking things out like someone who was ready for an emergency. She had snacks, a portable phone charger, a novel, another novel, and a small blanket that she laid over my lap without me asking. “I brought the good snacks. Not the sad ones. The good ones.”

“You didn’t need to bring two books.”

“One’s for you in case you get bored. The other one’s mine. I wasn’t sure how long this would take.”

“Four to six hours.”

Maekynzie stopped for a moment. “I brought two books.”

The nurse, whose name tag read Hanna, was both patient and detailed, like someone who had gone through this orientation many times and believed that being specific was more compassionate than just being efficient. She laid out the sequence of medications: first the anti-nausea meds, followed by vincristine, then doxorubicin, and finally cyclophosphamide. She listed the side effects for each one, keeping an eye on my expression as she spoke, similar to how people observe others to see how much information they can handle at once.

I took it all in. I didn’t jot anything down because I had already gone over it three times in the folder from Dr. Giacherio’s office, and I figured reading it a fourth time wouldn’t be helpful right now.

“Any questions before we begin?” Hanna asked.

“I’m good,” I replied.

“I have questions,” Maekynzie chimed in.

Hanna looked at her with the look of someone who had anticipated this. “Go ahead.”

Maekynzie had a list. Not a written one, which would have been easier to manage, but a mental list that unfolded in real time, reflecting the unique way someone channels anxiety into actionable items. She inquired about the anti-nausea protocol, the hydration schedule, what to do if I felt nauseous during the ride home, whether the chair could recline more, and if there was a good coffee place nearby. Hanna addressed each question with the same calm patience, and by the end, she was almost smiling.

“She’s great,” Hanna said to me.

“I know,” I replied.

Maekynzie added, “I’m right here.”

The IV was successfully inserted on the second attempt. The first attempt went well, but the vein rolled, and Hanna apologized. I reassured her it was fine, which it mostly was. I focused on Maekynzie’s face while the second needle was inserted instead of looking at my arm. Maekynzie’s expression, as she tried to appear calm, was one of the most genuinely honest things I had ever witnessed, and it helped me stay steady to concentrate on her. Hanna secured the IV with tape, and the first bag was hung up.

I received anti-nausea medication, which took effect in about twenty minutes. I could tell because the sharp edge of fear in my stomach eased into something more bearable, like someone had adjusted a dial from eleven to seven. The room remained unchanged. The teal chairs still felt out of place. The man with his eyes closed hadn’t moved an inch. The woman on the tablet had switched to a different tab.

Maekynzie had opened her book but wasn’t actually reading it. She was observing me with the careful side-eye of someone pretending not to watch.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I know.”

“You can read your book.”

“I am reading my book.”

“You’re still on page one. You’ve been on page one for twenty minutes.”

Maekynzie glanced down at the book and then back up. “It’s a slow start.”

I smiled. The anti-nausea medication was making me a bit drowsy, creating that soft, cottony feeling where everything felt present but slightly distant. I closed my eyes for a moment and let the room exist around me.

Maekynzie managed to hold out for about four more minutes before she began talking to the nurse about something. I didn’t catch the beginning of the conversation, just the rising tension in Maekynzie’s voice as she found someone willing to engage, and then the nurse said something that caused Maekynzie to react with genuine outrage, and then:

“Excuse me.”

The voice came from two chairs away. It was quiet and relaxed, with the kind of tone that suggested the speaker was using just the right volume, not a decibel more.

I opened my eyes.

The girl with the lilac bob had set her book aside. She was gazing at Maekynzie with violet eyes that were, honestly, the most captivating thing in the room, and her face held an expression that was nearly amused but hadn’t fully embraced it.

“Your friend,” she said to me, “is quite a character.”

Maekynzie turned around. “Are you talking about me?”

“You’re the one who just told that nurse that oncology needs a snack cart.”

“They really should,” Maekynzie replied. “Hospital food is awful, and people in infusion rooms are already having a tough time. I stand by that.”

The girl studied her for a moment. Then she glanced at me. “I mean that as a compliment,” she said. “Keep her around.”

“I know. And I plan to.”

Something in the girl’s expression changed slightly, just enough. She picked her book back up. Maekynzie, unfazed, continued her chat with Hanna about the theoretical logistics of a snack cart.

The vincristine was administered. Then the doxorubicin, which had a color I wasn’t going to dwell on too much. Then the cyclophosphamide. Hanna checked in every forty minutes, being efficient yet unobtrusive. By the second hour, Maekynzie had finally started to read, and the room had settled into the familiar rhythm of a place accustomed to waiting, where time felt different than it did outside, slower and more deliberate.

I considered the schedule for our friend group. Maekynzie had taken the first slot, no debate about it. Noelle had Wednesdays. Today was Wednesday. Noelle was currently in school, which meant she was probably waiting for a text from me, so I figured I should text her. I grabbed my phone but then set it back down. Later. I would message her later when I had something more to say than just still here, still have a needle in my arm, the drugs are all these strange colors.

I thought about Chandler. He was also in school, which meant he was in the same building as Evan, and that was not something I needed to be thinking about right now, but here I was, thinking about it anyway. I pushed that thought aside too.

The girl sitting two chairs away was reading without looking up for most of the time. At one point, she asked Hanna a question about her dosage schedule, and the way she asked it felt like she already knew the answer, just double-checking instead of actually learning. Hanna responded with the same kind of familiarity, like they were two people who had shared this room many times before.

I observed without really observing. It was a skill I had picked up from playing volleyball, the ability to keep track of everything around me without focusing on just one thing. The girl’s wig looked good. Not in the way that it perfectly mimicked natural hair, but more like she wore it confidently, the lilac color resting against her skin as if it were a choice rather than a disguise. She had a small sunflower tattoo on her inner wrist that became visible when she turned a page. She didn’t fidget. She didn’t check her phone. She just read, with a calmness that showed she was really good at being present in the moment.

I found myself wondering how many cycles she had been through. I wondered if she had also had that first-timer look and what it had been like for her.

I decided to stop wondering about that.

At one point, Maekynzie dozed off in her chair, which was honestly quite remarkable considering the noise and lighting around us. I was left with just the silence, the IV drip, and my own thoughts, which I had been trying to manage all morning with mixed results.

The tiredness crept in slowly and then hit me all at once, just like I had read it would in the folder. It wasn’t the volleyball kind of tired, the good kind that comes from pushing my body to its limits. This was something deeper and weirder, a fatigue that felt like it was coming from my very cells, as if something inside me was demanding more energy than I had available. I didn’t resist it. I let my head lean back against the recliner, watching the IV bag through my mostly-closed eyes, and thought about nothing in particular.

I was nearly asleep when I heard the sound of the girl’s book closing.

The treatment wrapped up at two forty-five. Hanna took out the line and placed a small bandage over the spot, then went over the post-infusion instructions, which I had already read but listened to anyway because Hanna presented them with the same careful detail as the pre-infusion ones, and it felt important to acknowledge that effort.

Maekynzie stirred when the chair next to me started to move and immediately tried to act like she hadn’t been sleeping. “I was just resting my eyes.”

“For an hour.”

“It was a long morning.” She got up and started to repack her tote with the same energy she had when she unpacked it, like she was preparing for a disaster. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.”

“But okay?”

“But okay.”

They were almost at the door when a voice called out from behind them.

“Hey. Sloane.”

I turned around.

The girl with the lilac bob was still lounging in her recliner, her feet tucked beneath her, a closed book resting in her lap. She gazed at me with her violet eyes and said, “See you in two weeks.”

“How do you know I’ll be on your schedule?”

“Same oncologist.” She tilted her head a bit. “I know his rotation. Plus.” A brief pause. “You have that first-timer look.”

“What does that look like?”

“Like you’re waiting for the moment when it all makes sense.”

I didn’t have a response to that.

“It goes away,” she said. Not in a mean way, but not in a nice way either. Just like you’d state a fact about the weather to someone caught outside without an umbrella. It was already raining. Nothing could be done about it now.

I stood there for a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Lylah.”

Maekynzie, standing in the doorway, whispered, “I love her.”

I turned back toward the hallway. The fluorescent light was just as it always was. The elevator had the same elevator smell. Outside, the parking structure was the same dull concrete place it always was, and Maekynzie chatted the entire drive home about the snack cart, about Hanna, about whether infusion chairs came in better colors, and I let it all wash over me while I looked at the mountains and thought about a girl who wasn’t waiting for anything to make sense.

Who had already made up her mind about how to spend the time she had.

Who was simply reading her book.