Adam awoke the next morning dreading the day ahead. He slowly rolled out of bed and glanced over at the clock- 7:43am. He looked over at Guy's bed and found it empty. He got dressed in jeans and a long sleeve shirt and walked down to the mess hall. When he got there he saw Connie and Guy sitting at the ususal table. Connie had her head resting on Guy's shoulder and still looked very tired. He walked over and sat down.

"Morning," Guy said sleepily.

"Hey," he replied. "Where's Julie?" he asked Connie.

"She's still asleep but I set her alarm for 8:00. She should be here soon." The three of them sat and talked for about ten minutes before Julie traipsed into the mess hall.

"Hey," she said sitting down next to Adam and taking his hand.

"Hey," he said smiling. "When's your first class?"

"Um, nine?" she asked looking at Connie.

"Nine-thirty," Connie corrected her.

"Will you come back to my room for a sec?" Adam asked Julie.

"Yeah, sure." They stood up and walked out of the mess hall and to Adam's room.

"So, what's going on?" she asked flopping down on his bed. He sat down at the foot of the bed.

"Um, this is really hard for me to say..."

"Adam, it's me! You can tell me anything," she said.

"Um, remember how I told you that my bruises were no big deal? Well, it turns out that they were. I um... I have... Leukemia," he said looking down at the floor. Julie was completely silent for a moment.

"When did you find this out? Have you had any treatments or anything?"

"Uh, I found out a few weeks ago and my treatments start today." He turned to face her and saw that she had tears streaming down her face. He pulled her close and she sobbed into his shirt.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" she asked sounding somewhat hurt.

"I didn't know how to tell you and I really didn't want you to have to worry about me," he said, starting to cry himself. He sat there holding Julie as she cried for about ten or fifteen minutes and when she calmed down he asked if she wanted to go back to breakfast.

"No, let's just stay here until class," she said wiping the last remnants of tears out of her eyes.

He pushed the hair out of her eyes. They slowly sat there rocking and cooing. Around 9:15 Julie stood up and grabbed Adam's hands. They grabbed their bags and headed out of the dorms for class.

"Did you tell coach yet?" Julie said as she grabbed Adam's hand.

"I was gonna tell him in between math and english when we have those ten minutes of free time."

"Oh," she said. He walked Julie to English and then he went to science.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam knocked twice on Orion's office door before he entered. "Just the person I was looking for," Coach said to Banksie as he sat down. "The doc. said you won't be able to play hockey for the rest of your Junior year." Adam nodded.

"So, what happened?" Orion asked.

"I have Leukemia," Adam said. He thought that the more he said it the easier it would be, but he was wrong. It was just more real.

"Oh, well, I'm very sorry to hear that. Make sure you keep me posted on how your doing."

"Sure," Adam said. "Well, I gotta get to class. See ya around, Coach."