a . j .

betts

• • •

I leave the toilet unflushed and tiptoe back to bed.

I switch on the iPad and scroll through blogs of patients
from around the world. It always amazes me how people con-
fess their fears to a global, unseen audience. How they upload
hairless photos of themselves or painful poems in rhyming
couplets. Or make promises to gods of one religion or another.
Are they brave or just bored? I even read their prayers. It makes
me feel less alone, at three a.m., to know I’m not the only one
shut in.
I track the progress of the hopeful and hopeless, the win-
ners and losers. And each time I read about someone’s death
to leukemia, there’s a grim sense of relief. I could never admit
this to anyone​ — ​and I feel like an absolute bastard​ — ​but their
loss helps me believe, in some cosmic way, that my chances of
survival are boosted. Someone else has chalked a hit on the
scoreboard. It means I’m safer, doesn’t it?

66 —
 zac & mia

I don’t know these people and I don’t want them to die, but
they make my odds look better. I have to believe in the math.
Mum is snoring beside me for the thirty-second night in a row,
and even though she can irritate the hell out of me, I can’t let
her down. She needs me to beat this.
I read the blogs of parents with children too young to type
for themselves. I read panicked letters on forums from people
who found out too late and don’t even get the chance of chemo
or a transplant. Again I feel lucky. Then I feel guilty.
Then I see her at the bottom of my screen. She’s nothing but
a small green dot peering up at me: a glow-in-the-dark planet.
As if she’s been watching.
I’m not the only one not sleeping.
The green dot means go. Should I go? She’s been so quiet
these past two days.
But she writes first.

Mia: Helga?
Zac: it’s zac
Mia: U awake?
Zac: What do you reckon?
Mia: True.
I cant sleep.
Zac: Its the 3 am curse.
Mia: curse? What drugs u on?
Zac: just isolation. Enough to make you crazy
Mia: Helga I feel like shit.
Zac: Ur supposed to. Chemo does that.
It’s Zac . . . by the way
It gets better

— 67
a . j . betts

I add. And then:

Zac: You’ll get better.

I hope it doesn’t look like an empty promise.

Mia: sure
Zac: for sure
Mia: Will u?

Like a dart, her question finds me. She has good aim.

Zac: I’m nearly better. Brand new Helga marrow.

Mia: u looked really sick

My head sinks heavier into my pillow. She’s right. At least

she’s honest enough to say so.

Zac: Chemo. steroids. Lack of sun.

Mia: So u wont die?

The “d” word jumps off the screen. Everyone else here
avoids it.

Zac: No
Mia: Good.

What do I type in response? Thanks?

Zac: New marrow’s grafted now.

We’re all getting better.

68 —
 zac & mia

Mia: What happens to someones facebook when they

die?
Zac: I don’t know . . .
Mia: Where do the profiles of dead people go?
Zac: U’ll have to ask Zuckerberg.
Mia: Who?
Zac: The god of facebook.
Mia: Where do their other things go?
Like mobile phones and all the music on ipods?
I imagine mountains of phones. Songs forgotten in
clouds.
Zac: Why?
Mia: FUCKING BORED. How can u STAND this place?
Zac: don’t have a choice. Sleep helps. Seinfeld.
Modern Family.
Mia: They put a tube down my nose and it killed.
Zac: ur not eating?
Mia: everything tastes smoky.
chocolate tastes like wax :(
Zac: Try grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup. A
chemo classic.
Let the cheese cool first though
Mia: aren’t u bored?
Zac: out of my brain. 30 days in the same room.
Mia: ?!!!
Zac: Been stuck in this room since November 18.
Nearly done though. U too. 2 cycles down.
Mia: 3 to go :-(
Zac: only 5?? Ur lucky.
Mia: Lucky????

— 69
a . j . betts

Zac: So lucky. Dont u know?

She must know, mustn’t she? That females her age with
osteosarcoma have an eighty percent survival rate, but hers
is above ninety because of the location. If all the cancer gets
zapped and the tumor’s cut out, it’ll be over ninety-five. Doesn’t
she realize how good ninety-five percent is?
Instead, I type:

Zac: Ur the luckiest on the ward

Mia: Lucky = winning the lotto
Zac: U should buy a lotto ticket then
Mia: Ur a funny guy
Zac: so everyone keeps saying
Mia: Not funny ha ha, but funny hmmm . . . :-*
Ok sleepy. Thanks.
Zac: Anytime.
Mia: See ya Helga.
Zac: Zac!

There’s a soft tap at the wall that could be accidental.

I switch off the iPad and the room fades to black, but there’s
no chance of sleep. Our conversation loops in my head like a
song on repeat. It’s not a perfect song, but it’s an improvement
on the Lady Gaga kind.
Mia’s funny, in a ha ha kind of way.
I lie in bed thinking of all I typed, and the things I’ll type
tomorrow at three a.m., the hour when rules are suspended.

70 —
 Copyright © 2014 by A. J. Betts

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections

from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

Text set in Aldus LT Std

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Betts, A. J., 1975–
Zac and Mia / A. J. Betts.
p. cm.
Originally published in Australia by Text Publishing in 2013.
Summary: “The last person Zac expects in the room next door is a girl like
Mia, angry and feisty with questionable taste in music. In the real world, he
wouldn’t—couldn’t—be friends with her. In the hospital different rules apply,
and what begins as a knock on the wall leads to a note—then a friendship
neither of them sees coming.” —Provided by publisher
ISBN 978-0-544-33164-8
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Cancer—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B46638Zac 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013050126

Manufactured in the United States of America

DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
45XXXXXXXX

A. J. Betts grew
in the cane fields of Far
up
North Queensland, Aus-
tralia, reading Roald Dahl,
Enid Blyton, L. M. Mont-
gomery, and Douglas Adams. As an adult,
she took to traveling the world with a bike,
a backpack, and a camera. When she is not
writing or teaching, she cycles, bakes, and
occasionally communes with the sea lions
that live near her home. She lives in Perth,
Western Australia.
author photo © 2012 by marilyn betts
houghton mifflin harcourt
www.hmhco.com
BETTS
$17.99/Higher in Canada
A. J. Betts The last person Zac expects to meet
in the hospital room next door is a
Facebook tells me I have two new friend requests. With 679 girl like Mia—beautiful, angry, and
friends, I really don’t need any more. feisty, with questionable taste in mu-
I reject Mum’s friend request again, then open the sic. In the real world he could never
second one. be friends with a girl like her. But
I’d expected it to be from Cam. when a knock on the wall leads to a
 z   ac
note, it turns into a friendship that
Friend request: Mia Phillips
surprises them both. Does Mia need
0 mutual friends
zac
Zac? Does Zac need Mia? Or do they
It’s a name I don’t recognize, with a face I think I’ve both need each other, always?
mia
seen. I stare into the photo to be sure. She has a low-cut Told in alternating perspectives,
cami and a necklace with half a silver heart. Her arms are
draped around the shoulders of other girls. Is it her?
& & Zac and Mia is the tough and tender
story of two ordinary teenagers en-
I look up at my round window. She’s not there, of course.
But it’s the newbie’s face on the screen; it has to be. The girl
with the tap to my knock.
mia Th
during extraordinary circumstances.
e
She’s asking me to be her friend and it’s caught me mid- bu y do
t th n
breath, mid-moan, mid-everything. ey ’t ha
ha v
ve e th
My finger hovers over “Confirm,” but I’m confused. ea e o
ch d
How does she know who I am? oth ds, cover petals © 2013 by w. h. chong
er.
ISBN: 978-0-544-33164-8
1583629