Timmy nods and runs to get one, but not before I see the concern in his eyes. He knows what I’m thinking, what I’m worried about. Hell, he’s probably been in just this place more than once himself.
He comes back a few seconds later, hands me the mask. I wait for him to ask questions, but he doesn’t.
“What are you even doing up?” I ask him as I look him up and down. “I thought we were all supposed to be sleeping in this morning.”
He looks at me pointedly. “I’ve got less than a month to live. I already spend too much of my time sleeping. Besides, medicine.” He nods to the table where both Ericka and his mother are sitting, looking at me with concern. Spread out across it are pills in every color of the rainbow.
I remember those days. Hell, if I look closely enough, I’m pretty sure I’ll remember some of those pills. Timmy has a different type of cancer than I did, but the result—and the medications used to fight that result—are depressingly similar.
“Actually, I was hoping to talk to Ericka. That okay with you, man?”
“Definitely!” He gives me a hug, before all but running to the other side of the room. “The longer you talk to her, the longer I have before she starts to poke at me. It’s a win-win.” With that, he curls up on the sofa to watch with intense concentration an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants dubbed in Spanish—which sounds weird but is strangely mesmerizing. I know, because I’ve been trying not to get sucked in pretty much from the second I walked into the suite.
“What’s going on, babe? You okay?” Ericka asks, waving me into the seat next to her. “Don’t think for a second, Timmy, that I’m going to let you escape without taking every single one of these pills.”
Timmy nods vaguely, without taking his eyes off the television set. Ericka looks like she’s going to push it, but Timmy’s mom murmurs, “Give him a little while. Fifteen minutes either way isn’t going to hurt anything.” The “at this point” hangs in the air for all that it is unsaid.
“I’m running a fever.” I blurt out the words without meaning to. I’d planned to lead up to them, to explain why I’m concerned before I got to the crux of the matter.
But I can tell from the look on Ericka’s face that my explanation isn’t necessary. So I was right. She does know I had cancer.
“How high?” she asks, her hand automatically going to my forehead.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll get the thermometer,” Mrs. Varek says and as she walks by me, she rubs a comforting hand down my back.
That freaks me out more than anything else, convinces me that this isn’t some weird waking nightmare. That it’s actually happening.
“You do feel warm,” Ericka tells me. “But let’s not panic yet. When did the fever start?”
“I don’t know. I woke up with it a couple hours ago.”
She nods. “Do you feel sick?”
“No.”
“No nausea? No headache? No—”
“Nothing. I feel completely fine.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” She puts a cheery smile on her face. “How long have you been in remission?”
“Seven weeks now.”
“And what kind of cancer did you have?”
“Rhabdomyosarcoma.”
She winces a little at that, and so does Timmy, who suddenly seems much less interested in SpongeBob. I meet his eyes over Ericka’s shoulder, and though he smiles at me, I see a sadness in his face that’s usually not there. I hate it, hate that he can be sad for me when he’s never sad for himself.
Ericka asks a bunch of other questions, then takes my blood pressure and my temperature. The blood pressure is a little high—big shock considering I’m one very small step away from freaking out completely—and the fever is very high. One hundred and three, even with the Tylenol.
She listens to my heart and lungs, but those sound normal—which she says is good, but I don’t know. At this point, nothing seems particularly good.
“So, what should we do?” Timmy’s mom says. She’s got a comforting arm around my shoulder and part of me wants to beg her to let go. I’m one comforting hug away from shattering into a million pieces and her warmth, her compassion, is only making it worse. “Do we need to get her to a doctor?”
“A doctor down here isn’t going to do much,” Ericka says. “That’s nothing against them, but all her charts, all her treatment information, is in the States. She needs to get back there, to the doctors that are familiar with her case.”
“We’re going home in three days,” I tell her. “I’ll call my mom before we leave, tell her to make me an appointment.”
Ericka looks at me disapprovingly. “You know that’s not how this works. You need to get to a hospital, let them run tests to figure out what’s going on.”
She’s right, I know she is. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. “Three days isn’t going to make a difference. I’ll go from the airport to the hospital once we land.”
“Three days can make a big difference,” Mrs. Varek tells me. “You know that, Tansy. We should pack, get ready to go in case Z can get the charter plane to fly us home today.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m fine.”
“You have an unexplained fever and a history of a cancer that devastates the immune system very quickly,” Ericka tells me quietly. “The sooner we can get you home, the better.”
Shit. “I don’t want to cut Timmy’s Make-A-Wish short—”
“Don’t be stupid!” Timmy snaps at me from the couch, the first time he’s spoken since this whole conversation began. “You think I care?”
“I think you deserve the full eight days.”
“And I think you deserve to live. So quit being an idiot and go pack,” he tells me, obviously annoyed.
I make a few more arguments, but nobody’s listening. Which is how I find myself standing outside my hotel room a couple minutes later, with Ericka by my side. “I’m fine,” I tell her for the millionth time. “See? I got here under my own power.”
“Good. Now, I’m going to call Z—”
“I told you I’d take care of that!”
She twists her mouth at me, completely unimpressed by my frustration—and my lying ability, or lack thereof.
“Go pack,” she tells me again. “I’ll be down to check on you again in an hour.”
“Fine,” I tell her grumpily, letting myself into my room as quietly as possible.
A quick look at the bed tells me Ash is still out cold. He’s spread out in the center of the mattress like a starfish, the sheets tangled around his waist, and there’s a part of me that wants to go to him. To kiss him and lick him all over.
So I do. To hell with packing. This is more important.
I crawl into bed next to him, press hot kisses over his pecs.
He smiles a little in his sleep, murmurs my name even as he wraps an arm around me and pulls me against his side.
Tears burn behind my eyes at the feel of him against me, and I blink them back for the second time this morning. I’m not going to cry, not now. Not when I don’t even know if there’s something to cry about.
Either way, pressed up against him like I am, it feels like there’s a reason. It feels like everything fragile and tenuous and beautiful between us is on the brink of ending. I know it’s stupid to feel like that—this was never supposed to be real, never supposed to last—but that doesn’t stop my heart from breaking wide open as I look at him. As I touch him, my hand running over the perfect muscles of his chest and stomach of its own volition.
Ash stirs, pulls me even closer. Presses kisses against my forehead, my cheeks, my mouth. I close my eyes and let him do it, relishing each soft brush of his lips. Knowing it might very well be the last. I need to wake him up, need to tell him what’s going on. And I will. Just not yet. Not yet.
I don’t know how long I lay there against him, basking in his warmth and comfort. Ignoring the fear and rage battling for supremacy inside me. Hating e
verything about myself, about my world, except for him. I do know that it’s long enough for the sun to creep across the horizon, for day to break—clear and beautiful—across the sky.
Ash’s phone vibrates from its spot on the nightstand, and he gropes for it blindly. Figuring it must be Logan, I snuggle deeper, close my eyes. And pretend the time I have left with this man—the man I love—can’t be counted in mere minutes.
But that’s not possible, especially not when Ash sits up in bed and rubs a hand over his face as if to wake himself up. Then he’s staring at me, those beautiful, blue eyes of his narrowed in concentration and disbelief, as he responds to the caller with one and two syllable answers. Words like what and how and when and fever pouring from his mouth. That’s when I know for sure it isn’t Logan he’s talking to. It’s Z.
I feel my body tense in terrible anticipation of what’s to come.
Eventually, he hangs up and I brace myself for the worst. I know I need to say something, know I owe him some kind of explanation, but I’ve got nothing. And neither, it seems, does he, as the silence between us stretches taut as a rubber band at its breaking point.
When I can’t stand the silence anymore—when it weighs on me even more heavily than my cancer, than my secret—I whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“It’s not that hard, is it? By the way, Ash, I have cancer. Seven little words. Not that hard to say.”
“Actually, they’re very hard to say. And I don’t have cancer anymore. I’m in full remission.”
His eyes—his beautiful, beautiful eyes—dart to mine. For a moment, just a moment, they’re filled with hope so brutal it makes my breath stick in my chest. “What about the fever? Z said you’re sick again. He said—”
“I don’t know if I’m sick again. I shouldn’t be. I was given a clean bill of health only seven weeks ago. It doesn’t make sense that it’s back. Except—”
“Except what?” He reaches for me now, his hands clutching at mine so tightly that I wince. Still, he doesn’t let go. Which is fine. I don’t want him to.
“Except I have a fever.”
“Right. A fever.” He reaches out and touches my face then, winces a little at how hot my cheeks and forehead are. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” His fingers trail over my jaw. “You don’t feel sick?”
“I’m fine!” The words are sharper than I intend, but I can’t stand this. Can’t stand that I’m suddenly cancer girl again, when for the last few days, I’ve just been Tansy.
I hate it, hate everything about it. Hate my body for betraying me this way, for getting my hopes up and then shattering them so completely. Hate myself for being so naïve, so stupid, as to think that I actually had a chance. And I hate Ash for the way he’s looking at me now. Like he doesn’t know me, like he didn’t spend half the night making love to me. Like I’m just another sick girl, just another burden.
I can handle anything else, even handle the cancer coming back. But I can’t handle that. Not now when I’m already feeling so damn breakable.
Ash doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he just continues staring at me like he doesn’t know me. Like I’m a stranger who just happens to be sitting next to him in bed.
It hurts worse than him yelling at me, worse than him accusing me of lying to him. Because the accusations are still there, hanging in the air between us. Only they’re silent, and infinitely more dangerous that way.
“What did Z say?” I ask when I can’t take the tension for one second longer.
“He says he managed to charter a plane. It’ll be at the airport in four and a half hours, so we need to leave here in two.” He does move then, throwing the covers back. “I need to get back to my room, help Logan pack.”
He grabs his jeans off the floor, pulls them on without bothering with underwear. Then reaches for his shirt, yanks it over his head.
It’s when he’s picking up his shoes that my composure cracks and I lose what’s left of my dignity. “Say something,” I tell him. “Please, say something. Don’t just leave me sitting here, trying to figure out what you’re thinking.”
It’s like my words open up a hole in the dam inside of him, one that lets everything inside of him come pouring out like a waterfall. His shoes hit the wall behind my head with a loud thump before bouncing off and falling to the bed beside me.
“What do you want me to say, Tansy? I don’t even know what I’m thinking let alone what I’m supposed to say here. All I know is that you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.”
He stalks over to me then, looking for all the world like some powerful jungle cat about to strike. A snow leopard, I think a little hysterically. All sharp teeth and tracking eyes and long, deadly claws. “Really? You didn’t lie to me?” He yanks my pajama shirt down, places a hand over the scar on my chest. “What about this scar? Is it really from surgery when you were little?”
I don’t answer him, but then I don’t have to. We both know exactly what that scar is from.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He picks his shoes up off the bed. “I need to go.”
“Just like that?” The words slip out and I want to call them back as soon as I say them. They color everything, make it sound like I think this thing between us is more than it is. “I mean—”
“I need to help Logan pack. He can’t do it all on his own.”
“Right. Of course.” I look down at my hands, pick at my dry cuticles. Try to ignore the fear tearing me in two. Not fear of the cancer—I’ve been here too many times for that.
But fear of what going home means.
Fear of leaving here with things like this between us.
Fear that this is it, this quiet, civilized, angry exchange of words is all that Ash and I are going to have.
Ash heads for the door, then stops and looks at me, his hand on the knob. “Are you going to be okay? Packing yourself up?”
“I’m not an invalid, Ash. I’m the same person I was yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I haven’t changed just because—” My voice breaks, but I force myself to say the words. Force myself to make them real. “Just because the rhabdomyosarcoma might be back.”
“Rhabdomyosarcoma.” He says it like it’s a bad word, like it’s worse than the most vile curses I’ve heard him utter time and time again. “That’s what you’ve got?”
“It’s what I had.” I put emphasis on the last word because, goddamnit, it’s just a fever. It could be nothing. It could be everything, but it could be nothing just as easily. And even if no one else wants to believe that, I’m going to. Because it’s the only way I’m going to get through the next twenty hours without breaking down completely.
“Right.” He opens the door, steps into the hall. “Call me if you need anything. Otherwise, I’ll be back to help you carry your bags in about an hour.”
“I don’t need you to carry my bags. I got them up here on my own, I can get them back down, too.”
“Damn it, Tansy!” He whirls around then, and for a second I think his shoes are going to hit the wall again. Or maybe it’ll be his phone this time—he’s got that clutched tight in his right hand. “Let me help you.”
I close my eyes at the pain in his face, the agony in his voice. “I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because that’s not what I want from you.” It’s never what I wanted. To be another burden to him? To be something else he has to check off his to-do list? To be one more thing he has to take care of, one more thing that will slowly, inexorably break him? No, that’s not what I want to be to Ash. Not now. Not ever.
“Then what do you want from me?” he demands, wild-eyed and frustrated. “What the fuck do you want from me? Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”
“I want you to look at me like you did last night. Like you think I’m beautiful. L
ike you want to make love to me. I want you to look at me like I’m whole and healthy and normal.”
Again, he doesn’t say anything, and again, he doesn’t have to. Because I can see it in his eyes, in his face, in the way he’s being so careful not to look me in my eyes.
Suddenly, I’m exhausted. Just completely worn out and the last thing I want to do is stand here and listen to Ash tell me all the reasons he can’t give me what I want. What I need.
“Go help Logan,” I tell him with a sigh. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Your bags—”
“I can handle them. I’ll text you if I can’t. I promise.”
He looks like he’s going to protest, but in the end, he just nods. Slips outside. Closes the door behind him. I wait until I hear him walking away, until I hear a door down the hall open and close, before I sink to my knees. And sob.
Chapter 25
Ash
I don’t know what to say here, don’t know what to do. Every move I make is the wrong one, every word I utter is just another wedge between Tansy and me. She’s sitting across from me on the plane and she’s never looked more fragile. More breakable.
Her eyes are fever bright, her skin flushed and stretched taut over bones that are far too close to the surface. For the first time, I understand why she’s so skinny. Why she’s so broken. Every scar on her body stands out in stark relief in my head, every sharp edge that I’ve ignored or downplayed is suddenly a nightmare inside me.
Cancer. Tansy has cancer. Rhabdomyosarcoma, to be exact.
Though I know it was the worst thing I could do, I looked it up on my phone while we were driving to the airport. What I found nearly made me sick, nearly stopped my heart in my chest. Because there’s almost no survival rate for people like Tansy, who have the disease when they’re teenagers. Little kids over the age of one survive it all the time. Adults do an okay job of it, too. But people who suffer from it between the ages of 10 and 19 … for whatever reason, the outcome isn’t very good for them.
I try to ignore the fact that Tansy is nineteen. That she’s been suffering from this disease for what sounds like years, if the information Z gave me is correct. He didn’t know much, only what Ericka told him, but it was enough to chill my blood. Enough to make my head feel like it’s going to explode even now, hours later.