The Van Pact

32: Valerie

            I had this real great idea. What if I wrote my one of my safety school application essays so that the first word of each sentence spelled out the lyrics to a Justin Bieber song? The absolute lulz. The first prompt for Packer College was "How has diversity and adversity contributed to your character?" As a half-Puerto-Rican, female, high-risk-childhood-cancer-survivor, these kind of questions should be my jam, but they're not. I'd rather write about anything else. I spent about thirty minutes in my bed, on my laptop, typing this:

You wake up to the smell of your mom's extra cinnamon-y arroz con leche and it hits you, whether you want it to or not. Gotta get another infusion. Go to the hospital. And try to make it through the day. Get well cards are taped all over your walls, and stuffed animals, presents from your abuela, cover your bed. Angry, you solider on. At eight years old, there's not much else you can do but try your best for your parents' sake. All your birthday wishes for the past two years have been for one clear CT scan. Of course, you don't know how close you are to that wish being fulfilled, or how close you are to your own death.

My childhood cancer made me very comfortable with uncertainty, and forged in me some character traits I am proud of. Honesty, resilience, and a unwavering respect for life.

Full disclosure: my mom would make arroz con leche on days I was feeling particularly ill from my chemo. I haven't been able to eat arroz con leche in the almost nine years since. I'm still not big on cinnamon, tbh. Also, I have never once in my life called Grams abuela.

Just as I was thinking I should make this my Common App essay and how I'd have to turn down Harvard for Stanford (I kid, I kid, Penn State Main is fine enough for me), my dad rapped on my door.

"Knock, knock," he said, and stepped over the threshold of my room.

"Hey daddy-o," I didn't look up from laptop screen.

"Hey baby girl," he sat down on my bed and pulled his knees to his chest like a weirdo. "I thought I should tell you, Stevie stopped by a few days ago. I had a conversation with her."

I didn't want to talk about Stevie. I didn't need the blood pressure spike.

"Cool beans," I glanced up at my dad, "but I'm in the middle of writing a winning college application essay, so, if we could, uh, not."

My dad tilted his head. I could see the curiosity in his eyes. Oh Gawd, wrong approach to take. His English teacher spidey senses were tingling. Any minute now and he'd start spouting Nathaniel Hawthorne and F. Scott Fitzgerald facts.

"May I see?" he stuck out one of his hands.

"I've only got the first paragraph or so done-"

"The hook is the most important part," he took my laptop and flipped it around so he could see the screen. Pfff. English teachers. I watched him scan over my work. When he got to the last line I had, he smirked.

"That's a classic," he turned my laptop toward me. "I didn't know you were a Justin Bieber fan."

Balls. He got me, and only in one cursory read. How did he do that?

"I'm ambivalent on the Biebs," I hovered my fingers over my keyboard as if to continue typing.

"You can't submit that," my dad pressed shut my laptop lid as I darted my hands away. "It's a grand joke, but not worth compromising the essay's flow. I know you're capable of far more elegant prose."