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from Bailey. Even your dad's stopped sending e-mail updates. I can't stand being cut off. Please don't abandon me.
    Jesse

    MELINDA'S DIARY
    July 31
    I'm ashamed of myself. I've been thinking about myself and what was happening to me so much that I forgot to really look around and see everybody else stuck in this hospital. Mom rolled me out into the halls in a wheelchair (THAT sure felt weird, rolling instead of walking), and I saw so many others with cancer like me—some a whole lot younger and a whole lot worse off!
    The little kids are the saddest to see. Most of them are bald and they look so thin—I call it “the chemo look.” One boy who's maybe four or five was sitting in the children's rec room coloring. There he was, an IV hooked to his arm, another to his chest, his little bald head bent over a coloring book. The crayons were spread all over the table, his tiny hand was holding a brown crayon, and he was coloring as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I just sat there and watched him and felt tears sliding down my face. It made me so sad. He's like any other little kid, except he isn't. He has cancer. Like me.
    I went back to my room and cried for an hour.

    TO: Jesse
Subject: Apology

    I got your card and note and I'm sorry I've not been a very good friend. So much has been happening to me that I lost sight of some of the things in my life that really count. You're at the top of that list. I had Mom bring your framed picture from my dresser to the hospital and now I can see you every day and remind myself that what's happening to me is also happening, in a way, to my family and friends.
    Dad uses words like “brave” and “courageous” when he e-mails people about me, but that's not really true. I'm neither of those things. I'm scared and angry and very unhappy. I don't know why anyone wants to be around me, because I'm so mean to people—especially the people who matter the most to me, like you and Mom and Dad. Even Bailey has been “busy” lately. Oh, she calls and has come to visit a couple of times, but the truth is we don't have much to talk about these days. My world is so small now. Hers is normal.
    Dancing, the thing I once did that made my lifemine, lies in ruins, like a crumbled wreck. I'd better stop writing because I'm getting melodramatic. I won't stop writing you ever again. That's a promise.
    Melinda

    TO: Jesse
Subject: Friendship

    OK … to answer your latest e-mail accusation: I AM NOT ABANDONING MELINDA. (I'm shouting this answer to you.) For starters, I have to baby-sit my twin sisters (HALF sisters!) this summer while Mom and Bill work, so I don't have much time to go to the hospital and back. The hospital is miles from here and when traffic's bad (which is almost all the time in Atlanta), it takes almost an hour just to get there. That leaves me only weekends to visit her. Most of the time, Mom and Bill have other things to do on weekends, so they can't take me and it's a rare day they let me get into a car with teen drivers (like Pete, my boyfriend, whom they don't like me dating, but that's another story!).
    So you see, crabbing me out for not visitingMelinda more often isn't very fair. Yes, I know, now that I've explained everything, you're sorry.
    Apology accepted.
    Friends(?),
Bailey

    MELINDA'S DIARY
    August 1
    Mrs. Houston brought Tanya and Kathi for a visit today. They looked SO good! So healthy. I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide because I do not look good or healthy. They kept talking about how much everyone missed me and how poorly they do in class without me there to “push them to perfection.” I know they're just giving me a line to make me feel better, but it was good to hear anyway.
    Mrs. Houston says that just as soon as I'm able to resume classes, she'll work extra with me so that I can get back into shape more quickly. She said that she's saving a part in this year's
Nutcracker
and that dancers from the Denver Dance Company will be a part of