Sunday, November 10, 2024
💜Sunday's Sport Stats💜: XOXO by Christina Lee
Roosevelt College #1
Lark Levitt doesn’t belong at Roosevelt College, at least in theory. Most students who attend the private university come from wealthy families, and Lark is only a scholarship and a bus ride away from the trailer park where he lives. It’s also a dream come true because dance is his life, and their program is one of the most prestigious in the country. But there are bumps in the road, like running into someone from a difficult time in his childhood. Someone who now pretends he doesn’t exist.
Henry Albrecht survived childhood cancer and is now a Roosevelt quarterback and model student. His past is something his father insists Henry keep private, and though his dad has his reasons, it makes his remission feel like a dirty secret instead of a triumph. He has few precious memories from that time in his life, except for a kid from the hospital who made his recovery manageable. A kid who’s all grown up now and at Roosevelt, jeopardizing everything Henry’s carefully kept under wraps.
They decide the best course of action is to keep their distance. Easier said than done. Their renewed connection brings solace, clarity, and a raw intensity that awakens a spark between them. But hiding their history is exhausting, and soon enough their secret meetups are in danger of being exposed. Henry will need to face his fears—and his father—or lose the only person who’s ever understood the real him.
*TW: Discussions of cancer treatments and depictions of mental heath struggles
PROLOGUE
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Henry
I shuffled toward the common room of the children’s ward at Mercy Hospital, wearing a hoodie over my thin gown because of the chill in the air and fuzzy socks with grippers so I didn’t slip and fall. It was standard wear for all patients, so I no longer felt self-conscious about it, and some days I was too sick to care.
My heart leaped when I spotted Lark working a puzzle at a round table. It was one of his favorite activities, especially putting together the famous painting with the ballerinas. He’d sworn me to secrecy before sharing his dream of dancing on Broadway someday. He liked putting earbuds in and listening to soundtracks from his favorite musicals. I’d been to quite a few with my parents and only enjoyed a handful. But Billy Elliot was a memorable one. Not that I was as obsessed with the story as he was, but it helped us find common ground. Lark had taken dance lessons his entire life, but his cancer treatments had set him back.
“Guess what?”
“Chicken butt?” Lark replied, and we smiled at each other.
“I’m being discharged tomorrow,” I said, and though I was excited, I was also sad to leave my new friend. I had what the doctors called a successful bone-marrow transplant for leukemia. But only time would tell.
“Awesome,” Lark responded around a cough.
I sat down in an orange plastic chair. “You get better too so you can go home.”
“I’m trying my best.” He slid an apple Jolly Rancher across the table to me, then pulled down his mask and popped a watermelon one in his mouth. It was his favorite flavor, and his mom kept his hard-candy obsession well-stocked.
I slid a corner piece over to him, though he could probably do this puzzle with his eyes closed at this point. Lark’s cancer was a bit trickier than mine because they also found spots of it on his lungs. He had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and people often got our two types of cancers confused. But mine started in my bone marrow and his in his lymph nodes. And yeah, we both knew way too much about the disease.
We’d been in this hospital for the better part of two months, both receiving treatment and fighting for our lives. The hospital staff tried to treat us as the kids we were by offering activities during the day as long as we wore our masks and washed our hands before and after leaving the room.
One of my favorite days was when they brought the adorable therapy dogs. My least favorite was when one of us died.
Lark and I had grown close, maybe because we were a similar age—him being eleven and me twelve. But it seemed more than that, even if on the surface we had few shared interests. I loved sports and played them all my life. My cancer had also placed me on the sidelines, and my dad worried it might ruin my high school football chances. I was actually more worried about surviving.
“Should we exchange numbers?” I asked Lark as I sat down across from him.
He frowned. “I don’t even own a cell phone. But maybe our parents can?”
“Sounds good,” I replied, though we both knew it was unlikely. Our parents barely saw each other and hadn’t spoken more than a sentence or two. Talk about having little in common.
My parents ran a prestigious real-estate business in Hunterdon County—at least that’s how they always described it. They were usually busy and sometimes seemed more worried about how my illness might affect them more than me. Don’t get me wrong, they were scared and sad when I was first diagnosed; it was written all over their faces. But soon enough they put on a brave front and offered plenty of reassurances—maybe too many. As if my cancer was only a blip on the radar that was my life. Of course, one could only hope. But in the thick of it, I needed all the support and comfort I could get. They offered it, but I always felt like they never really sank into it with me.
And I got it. They wanted to remain optimistic. But as soon as they heard I was being discharged, they were already talking future plans and what private high schools I should apply to with prestigious football programs. There was that word again. Prestigious.
I didn’t tell Lark any of that, but I wanted to. I felt like I would be betraying my parents if I did. They were always worried about appearances, and though I knew I had grown up not wanting for anything, sometimes I wished they would be more like other parents. Like Lark’s mom and stepdad. He wasn’t around a lot, but she was, and she was so warm, caring, and awesome.
But there was another layer to all this, and it had to do with my father. He’d had epilepsy as a kid but eventually got better. Mom told me that Dad had too much pride to admit how his memories of being discounted and excluded as the sick kid at school had affected him his whole life. He focused on how he and others with chronic illnesses had managed to go on and have happy, productive lives. He thought I should follow his lead when it came to my own illness—like my cancer was a dirty family secret—despite times and attitudes having changed.
Lark crunched his candy, which was followed by another hacking episode.
“Your cough sounds a little better,” I said. That was a lie. This bout seemed to be lingering. And he knew it too because he gave me a look without calling me on it.
“I’m gonna miss this place,” I said as my gaze caught on the large painted rainbow that lined the far wall. Animals and kids were featured on the others.
Lark scoffed. “You will not.”
I laughed. “Well, then maybe I’ll just miss you.”
Our eyes met, and he looked away first as he swallowed. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing—about the night I’d sneaked into his room when he was really sick after a chemo treatment. I’d taken the wet rag from the basin and wiped his head, then climbed beside him in bed to offer some body warmth because he was shivering so badly.
When he’d finally fallen asleep with his head against my shoulder, I breathed out in relief. We might not have had a lot in common, but nobody could say they had experienced any of this. The IVs and bags of fluids, around-the-clock nurses, doctors, and the morose faces of our visitors. It made our connection even stronger.
I’d eventually fallen asleep beside him, only to be found by the night-shift nurse and shooed off to my own bed. But she’d winked at me as she helped me get settled in my room, so I knew I wasn’t in too much trouble.
The next day was a flurry of activity as my parents showed up to whisk me away from what they called “that god-awful place.” But it wasn’t that bad, not with Lark there. Mom and Dad were always dressed for work, even at home, and the comparison couldn’t have been starker than when Lark’s mom and stepdad showed up in jeans. Lark’s mom always wore these flowy shirts with beading or embroidery, and my parents referred to her as a bohemian. Like it was a bad word. I just thought she was cool and free-spirited. But it was obvious they looked down on her, which was one of the reasons I’d never shared more about Lark. The one time I’d tried to tell them about my new friend, they’d given me disapproving eyes.
“Don’t get too attached to someone you won’t ever see again,” Mom had said, and I could read the underlying pity in her eyes, either for him or me. What she didn’t say was that his family would never measure up to their society friends.
The truth was we were the same when it came to our health. Just blood and bones and a pumping heart. Ironic, huh?
“Let’s get a move on it, son,” Dad said. “We have a busy day ahead of us.”
“It’s important for Henry to rest when he gets home,” the nurse warned.
“Yes, of course,” Mom replied with a tight smile, as if they knew better than her how to care for me. I felt my face get hot as I turned away to gather my things and place them in the designer tote bags with the logo I recognized all too well. They would never dream of letting me use the plastic bags the nurse had provided.
I hesitated as I followed them into the hallway. The discharge papers had come earlier than expected, and I wondered if my parents had anything to do with that. They had made calls to doctors and demanded stuff before.
“Wait. I’ll meet you at the nurses’ station. I want to say goodbye to someone.”
“Henry,” Dad said sternly.
“Just five minutes.”
I jogged to Lark’s room before they could say anything else.
He was in a chair near the window, reading a book and twirling a strand of his wavy blond hair. One of his nervous habits. That or biting his lip until it became swollen. But I never called him on it. He had every reason to be worried. We all did.
After watching him for a beat more and thinking he looked like a delicate bird right then, I cleared my throat. “I came to say goodbye.”
“Oh, they’re letting you leave early.” His smile was sad as he stood up. “I’m glad you let me know. I was hoping we’d get in one more game of Monopoly.”
My stomach lurched. Lark always thought it was cool that the street names were the same as the ones in Atlantic City, but we always folded early because the game ran too long.
“Yeah, my parents are a bit anxious to get me home.”
“Makes sense.” We stood there awkwardly until he blurted, “I hope you make it.”
“I hope you do too.”
The idea that one of us might not sat heavy in my gut.
“Okay, well…bye.” I lurched forward to draw him into a loose hug. His arms gripped my waist tightly, making my skin tingle. His scent was a mix of watermelon and hospital antiseptic, but I didn’t hold it against him. I probably smelled the same, minus the candy. But it would always remind me of him.
“I’ll miss you,” he said as he drew back. “Wish we lived closer.”
But we were on opposite sides of town.
“I won’t forget you. How could I with a crazy name like Lark Levitt?”
He’d told me his mom was fond of nature and especially birds, which made a ton of sense. She even wore a birdcage necklace. Still, a funny name to give your kid. But also cool too. My parents would’ve only considered giving me some family or important-sounding name.
“You neither, Henry Albrecht. The third.”
I rolled my eyes. “Henners, remember?” It was my nickname at school and on the football field.
Lark smiled. “I remember.”
“Okay, well…” I awkwardly inched toward the door.
“Oh, one more thing.” Lark strode to the drawer, opened one of his notebooks, and retrieved an envelope. “You can read it later.”
Just as he passed it to me, I felt his warm lips against my cheek, and my whole body buzzed to life. I gasped as if I had been shocked—and maybe I had. He stepped back warily and glanced out the window. Not wanting him to think he’d done something wrong, I leaned forward to swipe my mouth against his cheek too. Except he turned his head right then and I kissed the corner of his lips instead.
“Sor…sorry about that.”
His face flushed. “I didn’t mind it.”
It felt like pins and needles were pricking me. And not the kind from the chemo.
It was hard to leave that room, but I forced my feet to move, forced myself not to look back.
There was a lump in my throat the whole way home, like I was leaving him to die there. Okay, that was being dramatic. But I felt so closely tied to him through our shared experience that it was hard to imagine parting ways. I had never felt that connected to another human being before, not even my parents.
I carefully opened the envelope in the back seat, hoping my parents didn’t hear the rustle of paper. A watermelon Jolly Rancher fell to my lap, and I smiled.
I pulled out the folded note and read it.
Henners,
You mean a lot to me.
I’ll never forget you.
It’s been really hard, but you made everything better.
I’ll be rooting for you. Good luck.
XOXO,
Lark
I sucked in a sharp breath at the XOXO written there. That meant like, hugs and kisses, right? I could still feel my lips tingling from that accidental kiss.
Was it accidental?
My heart clenched, aching the entire way home.
“You mean a lot to me.”
I resumed my life almost immediately—my parents made sure of that—and soon enough the hospital stay became a blur. Like looking out of a back window as you drove away from a lengthy trip abroad. Not that a hospital room was a vacation, but Lark had helped alleviate some of the stress.
We never saw each other again. But I would never forget him either.
Christina's sarcastic view of the world doesn't always match up with her life as a romance author but at least you know her characters will be flawed and real. She writes steamy slow burns with plenty of swoon, because who doesn't melt for those small, tender moments or grand, sweeping gestures?
She has books published in different sub-genres of romance, but mostly with LGBTQ characters because representation matters and everyone deserves a happily-ever-after.
You can find more info on her website. From there you can link to her Facebook reader group called The Swoon Room as well as her IG account and newsletter.
XOXO #1
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