Already she could feel the herbs burning deep in her throat. Ilonka put down her glass and turned around. Anya did that frequently, moving this way and that, but there was no way she could move out of her body, and that was the problem. Ilonka watched in the mirror as Anya shifted in her bed, trying to make herself more comfortable. Six months earlier her right leg had been chopped off at the knee to stop the spread-all in vain. She had the right to them because she was in constant excruciating pain. “But a needle brings immediate results.” Anya liked drugs, hard narcotics. “They go down a lot easier than a needle in the arm.” Ilonka finished swallowing and burped softly. “I don’t know how you can take those all at once,” she said.

Anya spoke as Ilonka swallowed the half-dozen capsules. Behind her, Anya Zimmerman, her roommate, and a sick girl if there ever was one, groaned. She picked up a glass of water and a handful of herbal tablets and tossed all the pills into her mouth. She had to concentrate only on what did help. But she wouldn’t allow herself to think about that because it didn’t help. She was still very sick-that was true, and it was possible that today might be a large portion of the rest of her life. Months of chemotherapy had killed off the last strands of her own hair.

Yet there were certain facts she could not wish away. The old cliché sprang to her mind- today is the first day of the rest of my life. But even her feelings could be changed, Ilonka decided, and today she was determined to be happy. Just a reflex really, especially when she was alone and feeling down. That was the one thing she always did when she looked in the mirror-smiled, no matter how lousy she felt. Her face was thin, true, as was the rest of her, but her blue eyes were bright, her long brown hair shiny, and her smile white and fresh. Ilonka Pawluk checked herself out in the mirror and decided she didn’t look like she was going to die.

The midnight club christopher pike