I laughed and raised my hand—I wanted to rub his upper arm, tell him I was worried about him, but then the coach yelled over. “Hit the showers, Conners!”

“Yes, sir!” Jordan said.

“See you later?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ve got to help my mom clean up the garden this afternoon, but maybe we can go get ice cream tonight?”

“I’d like that,” I said.

I thought of giving him a hug but opted instead to stand there awkwardly.

“Well, bye,” he said, and as he turned to walk toward the locker room, I noticed something I’d missed yesterday: the scar on the back of his head, about three inches of pink snaking through his hair like a river in a dense forest, with a few spindly streams heading off to the sides.

How much surgery had he had? What did they do? And whatever was done, could he now withstand such blows to the head? Could anyone? I might have to break it to him over ice cream that I wasn’t so sure about this him-playing-football thing.

But he wasn’t the only one who was damaged goods.

I had convinced myself that I had cancer.

No one had diagnosed me, but there was a lump in my breast that wasn’t there before we’d all been irradiated. That’s a bad sign, right?

I didn’t tell my mom because I wasn’t sure about it and didn’t want to freak her out. We were far from rich, and if I let my mom know about the lump, she’d max out her credit cards trying to get every available test.

Besides, sixteen was too young for breast cancer, wasn’t it? I didn’t know how my breasts were supposed to feel anyway. I hadn’t had them that long, relatively speaking, and I’d heard that one might be a bit different from the other. It’s not like while I was in camp I could read all about it on the internet. Now that I was back in town, I still couldn’t.

Then again, anyone who researches any symptom online will conclude that she or he has cancer, so maybe I wasn’t missing much.

Still, we lived in the latest place with a name that had become a synonym for nuclear disaster. Just because I wasn’t in the sick camp didn’t mean that I—or anyone else—wasn’t sick.

Well, this was a cheerful train of thought that I was riding. I’d have been better off worrying some more about Jordan and his surgically repaired, battered head, poor guy. And thinking about his smile.

And then his frown when he learned that I have cancer and might die.

Maybe we could watch The Fault in Our Stars together.

Get ahold of yourself, Maggie. You’ve got a plan to diagnose yourself without bankrupting your mom. No point in doing anything or telling anyone till you’re sure.

I’d never wanted to be less sure of anything in my life.

CHAPTER 7

Jordan

THE WATER FELT good on my muscles and not only because they’d just been on fire. Seriously, what was up with that? I’d been hammered before but never with the side effect of a freaky flaming face setting me ablaze. That didn’t feel like a vision. It felt like … a freaky flaming face setting me ablaze.