We’re an hour out of Salt Lake City and Tansy and I have barely spoken more than fifteen words during the whole trip. That’s my fault, but Jesus, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to her. Don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.
She has cancer.
She has CANCER.
And Jesus Christ, I feel like a total asshole but I can’t do this. I just can’t do it. I can’t sit by and watch someone else that I love suffer. Can’t sit by and watch her die. If that happens, I’ll be shattered, broken into so many pieces that not even Z and Luc and Cam could put me together again.
And I can’t do that. I can’t break like that. Not when Logan needs me the way that he does. Not when I’m barely holding things together as it is.
Cancer. Tansy has CANCER.
The words are a litany in my head, a mantra in my soul and they’re growing louder and louder and louder, until they’re all I can hear. All I can think about. Until they’re all that I am.
How much worse must it be for her? How much more terrible must she feel, knowing that her body is betraying her? That there’s something inside of her that is slowly, inexorably destroying her?
It makes me crazy to think about it, so I don’t. Instead, I sit here, staring at her and trying to find the words to make better what happened in that hotel room. The words that will make this entire situation better.
But there are no words, because there is nothing that will ever make this better. Nothing except Tansy being cured and healthy and happy. And judging from her glazed, feverish eyes, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
The pilot comes on to tell us that we’re starting our descent, and asks everyone to buckle their seat belts. I make sure Logan—who is asleep—is buckled in, then start to do up my own seat belt. But I realize Tansy hasn’t moved from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the couch. I don’t think she even heard the announcement.
I get out of my chair, kneel in front of her and reach for her seat belt. My knuckles brush against her while I’m fastening it and she’s so hot. So goddamned hot. It scares me almost as much as her rapid breathing, almost as much as the glazed look in her eyes.
“We’re almost home,” I tell her softly, running my hand over her hair because I can’t not do it.
She jolts a little at the contact, her gaze clearing as she stares up at me out of wide, pained eyes. “Ash?” she whispers, and there are so many things in that one syllable, so many emotions and hopes and fears in the sound of my name on her lips, that I’m nearly crushed under the weight of them all.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, though I don’t believe it even as I say the words. Nothing is okay. Nothing is ever going to be okay. That’s not how my world works.
The momentary brightness in her gaze fades and she sinks back against the couch. Closes her eyes. And doesn’t move again until we land in Salt Lake City.
The flight attendant opens the door and we all clamber for the front of the plane. Logan still isn’t talking to me, so I ask Luc to get him—which he does, no problem—and I reach down and scoop Tansy into my arms.
“What are you doing?” she demands, struggling against me. “I can walk! I’m fine.”
“I know,” I murmur in her ear, trying to ignore how good she smells. How right she feels in my arms. “But indulge me. Let me get you to the limo safely.”
Except, when we get onto the tarmac, it’s not the limo she wants me to take her to. It’s the red SUV parked next to it.
“My parents are here,” she tells me as a woman who looks an awful lot like Tansy comes rushing forward, along with a tall man with wide shoulders and eyes the same color as my girl’s.
As Tansy’s, I correct myself viciously. She’s not my girl. She was never my girl. Never meant to be my girl. I need to remind myself of that.
“Tansy! Oh my God, is she all right?” The woman, who I assume is her mother, stops short as she gets to me.
“I’m fine, Mom!” Tansy struggles out of my arms. “Ash is just … being an ass.”
I’m not sure what that means, but Z comes up with her luggage a minute later and I don’t have time to ask. Not that I would anyway.
“Oh, Tansy, sweetheart, you really are burning up.” Her mother presses a kiss into her forehead. “Get into the SUV before you catch a chill.”
Tansy rolls her eyes at her mother. “It’s eighty-five degrees out, Mom. I think I’m good.”
“Humor me,” her mother answers as Z loads her suitcase and overnight bag into the cargo space.
“Thank you for taking care of Tansy,” her father says to Z and me as Tansy’s mother walks her to the car, fussing over her the whole way.
“No problem. Is she …” I don’t want to ask if she’s going to be all right, because that seems ridiculous considering how sick she might be. But at the same time, I’m not okay just leaving things like this. Just watching her drive away into the sunset.
I hadn’t really given this part of things much thought, but I guess if I had to say what I imagined happening, it wouldn’t be this. I thought I’d go to the hospital with Tansy, make sure she was all right. But her parents are here and they obviously know what they’re doing and it’s just as obvious that she doesn’t need me with her. Doesn’t want me with her. Otherwise, she’d say something to me, right? She’d at least look at me as her mother gets her into the front seat of the SUV.
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything to me, doesn’t smile at me, doesn’t so much as glance my way. Instead, she looks straight ahead as her mother tells her that a Dr. Gardner is already at the hospital waiting for her.
That doesn’t sound good—that a doctor is concerned enough to be waiting on her—and my stomach tightens painfully. I want to ask what that means, want to demand to know what this doctor is going to do to Tansy.
But that’s not my right, either. Not with the way I left her room this morning. Not with the ugly words hanging between us. And definitely not with the thoughts I was having on the plane, about not being able to do this with her. About not being able to handle this catastrophe on top of all the others I’ve already been through.
And yet, it doesn’t seem right. Still I expect it to end differently than it does. Because once he thanks us, Tansy’s dad gets into the driver’s side of the SUV and then they’re gone, pulling away from the limo and driving across the tarmac to the airport exit, just like that.
It seems anticlimactic and yet awful, all at the same time. I don’t know what to say, what to think, how to feel, as I watch her speed away. There’s a part of me that thinks this is the worst mistake I’ve ever made … and another part that is whispering, Thank God.
Thank God, I found out before I fell for her any harder.
Thank God, we got her home where she can get help.
Thank God, I don’t have to watch her die.
My hands are shaking, badly, so I shove them into my pockets to keep anyone else from noticing. I don’t think it works, at least not judging from the look of disapproval on Z’s face as he stands next to me, watching Tansy drive straight out of my life.
“Why didn’t you go with her?” he demands.
“What would be the point? She has her parents.”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re not her parents, man. She’ll want you there because you’re her—”
“But I’m not. This thing between us, it was never meant to be serious. It was just supposed to be fun.”
Z snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. We talked about it when we first slept together and we decided—”
“That you were an idiot,” he tells me. “That’s what you decided.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Oh yeah, that’s my problem. I’m the one standing here who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He nods in the direction the SUV just turned. “You’re so serious about that girl that it’s practically leaking o
ut of your ears. We can all see it—”
“All?” I squawk, suddenly alarmed at the idea that I’m wearing my already broken heart on my sleeve for the whole fucking world to see.
“Not all,” he soothes. “But me and Luc and Cam. And probably Logan, too. It’s not like you’re exactly difficult to read.”
I think he’s going to say more, but before he can, Timmy’s mom and dad come up to thank us.
We accept their thanks as graciously as we can, but the fact of the matter is, we didn’t do anything. Not in the grand scheme of things. The kid is great, funny and sweet and adorable and I like him a lot. I liked spending time with him these last few days. Liked getting to know him. But the truth is, he’s dying and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Nothing anyone can do about it. A few days boarding in the Andes isn’t going to change any of that.
It’s not something I like to think about, but it’s the truth all the same.
The sooner I accept that, the better off I’ll be.
There’s a part of me that knows this is about more than Timmy. That it’s about Logan and Tansy and my parents, too, but I’m not going there. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Then it’s time to say good-bye to Timmy and I tell myself it’s no big deal. That I’m okay with it—and with the knowledge that I’ll never see this kid again. That the next time I hear his name it will be somebody telling me that he’s dead.
Except I’m not okay with it. Not okay at all. The knowledge crashes through me as he flings his arms around my waist and hugs me tight.
“Thanks, Ash! Thanks so much! I’ll never forget this week, ever.”
Fuck. His words are arrows that tear straight through me and for a second I’m tempted to lift a hand to the ache in my chest, to hold it there to staunch the blood I know must be flowing. But there are no arrows and there is no blood. There’s just this feeling inside me. This desperate, empty, aching feeling that has as much to do with Tansy speeding off to the hospital in that red SUV as it does this kid who’s clinging to me for dear life. This kid I’m clinging to just as tightly.
My throat aches and it occurs to me that my damn eyes are leaking again. I bring a surreptitious hand up, wipe at them behind Timmy’s back. Mrs. Varek sees, though, and she smiles sadly at me. I try to smile back, but even as I try I know the result is more grimace than grin. With everything that’s happened between yesterday and today—with Timmy, right here, so thin and insubstantial as he hugs me with everything he’s got—it’s taking every ounce of concentration I have not to scream.
And then Timmy’s pulling away, hugging Z and Luc, Cam and Logan. Then it’s time for him to go, for all of us to go, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to let him out of my sight. If he stays right here, in front of me, then nothing bad will happen to him.
It’s a crazy thought, a ridiculous one, and I shove it back down as Timmy, Ericka and his parents call one last good-bye. And then they’re leaving, climbing into the limo Z has waiting for them and speeding away to the hotel where they’ll spend the night before flying home to Boulder.
I watch them drive away, just as I watched Tansy leave a few minutes before. Then I turn away, head toward the car that will take Logan and me home. And tell myself the agony ripping through my chest is nothing. Just a pulled muscle. A result of holding my breath too long. An asthma attack. Because it isn’t … it can’t be … I won’t let it be … the beating of what’s left of my shredded, shattered heart.
Chapter 26
Tansy
“So, how’d it work out?” Anna asks, perching herself on the side of my hospital bed. Dr. Gardner’s taken the precaution of admitting me, even though he’s cautiously optimistic about the fever not being a return of the cancer. It’s indicative of something, though, he told my parents and me earlier, and he would prefer to know exactly what that is. Just in case.
Which is why I’m sitting here, staring at the ugly cream walls of yet another hospital room. It’s why my mother has been hovering over me since Ash carried me off that damn plane, why my father is pacing the hallway outside my door, why my brother is inhaling every chocolate bar in a three floor radius and why my sister is even now sitting on my bed, trying to distract me. It’s what she does.
What they all do.
And sitting here, letting them, is what I do even when it makes me crazy. Even when all I really want is to be alone.
I can’t say that, though. Ten years is a lot of routine, a lot of habit, to try to break.
“I’m back in the hospital for the three thousandth time,” I tell Anna with a roll of my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that means it didn’t go well.”
“I don’t mean the remission,” she tells me. “I mean Operation Get Tansy Laid.”
“What?” My mom whirls around from where she’s been standing by the window, looking out at the world beyond my hospital room. It’s a good view, but I haven’t bothered looking. It’s the same view I’ve had off and on for a decade now. I’ve pretty much got it memorized, which is a really depressing thought. As is the thought that nothing has changed. That nothing will change. I’m right back here, where I always end up.
“Nothing, Mom,” I tell her before she can get herself worked up. “Anna’s just talking crazy.”
“No, I’m not. Tansy met a guy in Chile.”
“Oh, yeah?” My mom comes closer to the bed, looks more interested than she does scandalized. Which, considering the way my sister originally phrased things, is totally weird. And not something I even want to think about right now. “What’s his name?”
“Seriously? We’re doing this?” I glare at Anna.
She just shrugs, smiles. “Seems like a better way to pass the time than watching reruns on the Food Network.”
“I like the Food Network!”
“Yeah, well, we’ve seen this episode of Barefoot Contessa about a gazillion times, so … tell us about Ash.”
“Ash? Ash Lewis?” my mom asks. “The guy who carried you off the plane yesterday?”
My brows shoot up. “I didn’t know you knew anything about snowboarding.”
“When my daughter takes off halfway around the world with a man, I learn what I need to,” she answers. “So, what exactly happened? Are you guys dating now?” She sounds almost thrilled.
“No!” I can feel myself turning red and this time I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fever.
“Why not?” Anna demands. “He sounded like he was totally into you. Did you not visit those sites I sent you?”
“Oh, I visited them,” I tell her with a glare. “And we’ll talk about that later.”
“What sites?” my mom asks.
“Nothing!” Anna and I both answer at the exact same time.
“Really, Anna Michelle Hampton?” my mother exclaims with a glare. “You sent your sister to porn sites?”
I’m not sure which of us is more shocked, Anna or me. Either way, we sit there gaping at my mother, mouths flapping like fish out of water, until she rolls her eyes. “I’m not ninety, you know. Nor am I an imbecile. But, geez, surely there’s someplace better to learn about sex than that?”
“Oh, God.” I think my head just exploded.
“Don’t look like that, Tansy. I told you girls a long time ago that you could talk to me about anything—”
“Oh, God!” Anna screeches. “Is this the sex talk? Please tell me this isn’t the sex talk. She’s nineteen. I’m seventeen. We don’t need the sex talk!”
My dad sticks his head in from where he’s pacing in the hallway. “Everything okay in here?”
“Everything’s fine, honey!” my mom tells him. “Go away. We’re having a girl talk.”
He nods, gives me a wink and then disappears back into the hallway.
I sink down lower in my bed, pull the sheet over my head. This is my family and I love them, I really do. But Oh. My. God. If there is one thing I have no intention of talking about—ever—it’s my sexcapades with Ash Lewis in Arpa, Chile.
Beyond the total eew factor of the situation—which is significant—there’s also the whole broken heart situation. Which is ridiculous. It’s not like I didn’t know the rules, not like I didn’t help set them down myself. Because I did. I totally did.
And it’s not like I didn’t know things were going to end when we got back to America. How could they not when I am—literally—the worst person in the world for Ash right now? He’s already got so much to deal with, has already had so much pain in his life. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend who might die at any moment.
I’ve known that all along, and yet here I sit, with a heart that currently feels like it’s been run over by one of those damn snowcats we rode around in Arpa.
Completely flattened, in other words.
“So tell us about Ash,” my sister says into the sudden quiet. “I’ve been dying for the details since you texted me!”
“Yes!” my mom agrees, settling on the bed next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “All the details, please!”
Somebody shoot me now.
But in the end, I end up spilling about Ash, telling them all about the trip to Chile and the fun I had with him—minus certain, strategic bedroom and patio scenes, of course. My mom might be all into the girl talk, but there are some things that no parent needs to know.
“So, that’s why he carried you off the plane!” my mom squeals, when I get to the end of the story. “The boy is in love with you.”
My blood runs cold at the very idea. “No. He’s not. Weren’t you listening? We were just having fun!”
Anna snorts. “I’ve had fun with a lot of guys—” She breaks off when my mom shoots her the evil eye. “Not that kind of fun, geez, Mom!” She turns back to me. “I’ve hung out with a bunch of guys, Tansy, and they don’t do those things you just described if they aren’t totally gone over a girl.”
“She’s right,” my mom says. “I saw his face when he walked off that plane with you. I was too concerned about your health to spend much time thinking about it at the time, but that boy loves you very much. He’d probably be here right now if your father and I had given him the choice.”