My teeth scrape against each other. “That’s exactly what you asked for.”
“Just start over,” she says. “Start from scratch. It’s all wrong.”
I gape at her. She expects me to throw two weeks of work in the garbage and re-do it all five days before we go to print. “That’s not possible,” I say flatly. “We go to print on Tuesday. There’s just not time.”
She gives me a short, bitter smile. “Then it looks like you know how you’ll be spending the weekend, doesn’t it?”
There’s nothing wrong with the layout. She’s just punishing me. Maybe for the dress, maybe because of my infuriating insouciance all day. Jeff would ask me why I antagonized her in the first place, but Nick would ask me why I’m still here, and why the hell I ever let someone treat me so poorly. Questions I’m asking myself now.
I slide the layout back to her. “I’m not redoing this.”
Her eyebrows go to her forehead. “You seem to be forgetting who signs your paychecks.”
I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, but instead the end will be simple and absent any drama. “Then don’t sign them anymore,” I reply without emotion. “I quit.”
I’ve never seen Dee shocked into silence. I head toward my desk and she follows me. “You can’t do that,” she sputters. “We go to print next week.”
I grab my belongings, grateful that almost everyone is at lunch so I don’t have an audience. “Well, I’ve noticed that you’ve been playing around with the layout when I’m not in the office,” I reply, “so maybe you’ll be able to figure it out.”
With that, I head straight out the door. Late July in D.C. is miserable—air so thick it’s a struggle to breathe and heat that has your clothes stuck to you the moment you step outside— but right now, to me, it’s perfect. Right now I’m not Quinn, the twenty-eight-year-old who might die. I’m eighteen again. A girl with dreams, about to escape the farm and go to the city, with her whole future ahead of her. My father encouraged me back then. I’m not sure what changed when he got sick, what made him so desperate to keep me safe and small with Jeff. But I like this version of me better, and I think he would too.
I pull out my phone and make a call before I can change my mind. Nick answers on the first ring. “Quinn? Is everything okay?”
He sounds slightly panicked. I like, far too much, that he worries about me. “Yes, it’s fine, I just… Is this a bad time?”
“No, not at all,” he says. “Hang on.” I hear background noise, then a door shuts and there is silence. “Okay. I’m in my office. What’s up?”
My mouth curves into a smile. “Guess who just quit her job?”
“Are you serious?” he asks. I love him for sounding thrilled rather than concerned. “That’s fantastic. Was your boss pissed?”
“So pissed.”
He laughs. “God, I wish I’d been there.”
I lean against the wall, under the shade of an awning. “It was pretty sweet. I’d say it almost made it worth staying there as long as I did, but that would obviously be a lie.”
“I’m proud of you,” he says. “I just wish you’d done it years ago.”
“Yeah, me too.” Why didn’t I? Why the hell did I let Jeff decide what I’d do about school? My only answer is that I trusted my father’s opinion about things more than I trusted my own and allowed Jeff to assume that position once he was gone. “Anyway, I guess I’ll be seeing you in a while at the meeting with Dr. Patel.”
“Is Jeff actually attending this one?” he asks. There’s no mistaking the hostility in his tone.
“Yeah.” I sigh, brushing a hand through my hair. “But speaking of Jeff, I, um, haven’t told him I quit. So, if you could maybe not mention that, I’d appreciate it.”
There is a beat of silence. “You told me before you told your fiancé?” he asks. “Interesting.”
I groan. “No, it’s not. I just…” I really have no excuse. The truth is that, in just a few weeks, Nick’s become my person. It’s him, not Jeff, that I want to turn to with all my good and all my bad. I want to hand him my problems in a tidy package and have him help me carry the weight. I want him to hand me his. “I’ll see you later,” I say, ending the call abruptly.
I close my eyes, wishing I could just push a pause button on my life for a week. Long enough to get things straight in my head. Nick’s taken, I’m taken. Even though we’re arguing, I love Jeff. I picture how devastated he’d be if I were to suggest cancelling the wedding and feel this unbearable lurch in my stomach. He’s loved me and trusted me for most of our adult lives, and I can’t just throw it all in his face now, weeks before the ceremony. I just can’t be that person.
I wander through the city and arrive at the hospital an hour later. Jeff is in the waiting room when I walk in. He rises and wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “I shouldn’t have taken off like that.”
My eyes close and the air slides from my chest. “I’m sorry too.” I’ve always hated any kind of friction between us, so I’m not sure why I merely feel resigned rather than relieved.
A nurse takes us back to Dr. Patel’s office, and as we are introduced, a joke I heard somewhere long ago comes to mind: Why do they have to nail coffins shut? To keep out the oncologists. In other words, if you’re faced with an oncologist who doesn’t seem optimistic, who doesn’t have a long list of options for someone who is obviously beyond hope, you are really screwed.
And Dr. Patel does not seem optimistic.
His smile is muted, rather than encouraging. There’s a lack of urgency to his movements, as if he already knows he won’t really be doing anything today. “We’re a little early,” he says. “So we should give Dr. Reilly a moment to get here.”
“I think we can start without him,” Jeff says, a flicker of irritation in his voice.
“Let’s wait,” I say. Fortunately, Nick appears at the door just then, with the look of someone who ran to get here—loosened tie and tousled hair. His eyes go immediately to me, his gaze drifting over each inch of my skin so intensely it feels palpable. There is a connection between us, something physical I can’t put my finger on. It’s as if my nerve endings wake from a long rest whenever he’s near.
The two doctors shake hands. Jeff and Nick merely nod to each other, the movement so small and so hostile on both sides that even Dr. Patel seems to notice. Nick pulls up a chair alongside mine.
“So, I’ve looked at your scans,” Dr. Patel begins, facing me, “and the reports from Dr. Reilly. I think he explained that this tumor is an area we can’t reach?”
I nod, holding my breath. I want him to lay out options and tell me there’s a good chance. A seventy percent chance, but I’d settle for thirty. I’d settle for twenty.
“Unfortunately,” he continues, “a tumor like this is unlikely to respond well to available treatments.”
My breath releases and my spine bows. I was held upright by hope, and he just took it away from me. Nick’s hand clenches into a fist. He knew, just like I did, that the situation wasn’t optimistic. We were both hoping for a miracle, when neither of us believes in them.
“Unlikely doesn’t mean it won’t,” says Jeff.
Dr. Patel nods. “Right, it doesn’t mean it won’t. But I think our best-case scenario is that chemo might give Quinn a little more time.”
My hands shake, but inside I feel absolutely empty, depleted. Zero percent is what he’s saying. I have a zero percent chance of surviving this. I look out the window. There are students in the distance, backpacks slung over shoulders, talking and texting and thinking about evening plans. This is the moment I officially separate myself from them, from all the people in the world who’ve forgotten the value of time. And Patel is offering me more of it, but I’ve seen firsthand how that goes. We begged my father to fight. We convinced him to try experimental treatments when the regular ones failed. He got an extra three months out of it, but it was three months during which he was bedridden and nauseous. He turned
into a dry, wizened old man before our eyes. “More time during which I am very, very sick,” I finally say, still looking out the window.
The doctor frowns. “Under normal circumstances, a tumor of this size would be having significant side effects, and I’m not quite sure how yours isn’t. But given how well you’re doing, I can see where you might not want to commit to a course of treatment, knowing it will make you feel worse.”
I think about that. I think about the fact that I’m finally going back to school. I have a chance of making it long enough to get my degree. And more time with Nick, I think before I can stop myself. If I start on chemo, will I enjoy any of it? Will I even be well enough to go to school? No. I’ll be sick and frail and miserable.
“I’m not interested in that,” I reply.
“Quinn,” hisses Jeff. “You can’t just dismiss what he’s saying. You haven’t even considered it.” He turns to Dr. Patel. “What are the options? Because the tumor might not be making her sick, but it’s definitely affecting her personality.”
Nick’s head jerks toward Jeff’s. He looks like a volcano on the cusp of exploding. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.
Jeff narrows one eye at him and offers his reply to me rather than Nick. “You’re making decisions that aren’t…that might not be rational. I’m worried it’s a sign there’s worse to come.”
My jaw clenches. Is he really trying to imply that the decision to get this degree is irrational? A product of my tumor rather than the thing I’ve wanted, without cease, for a decade? I have many, many things to say about that, but not with an audience. “We can discuss this at home,” I say tightly. “But I’m not interested in treatment.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” he says softly, “but brain tumors do cause personality changes—and irritability and impaired judgment are two of those changes. I read about it earlier. You need to at least hear what the options are.” He turns back to Dr. Patel. “So there’s chemo and radiation, right? Which of those might help?”
Nick’s voice emerges, a low growl. “You seem to be struggling to hear what Quinn’s saying,” he seethes, “so allow me to repeat it: she doesn’t want treatment.”
Jeff snaps his gaze toward Nick, the thin veneer of civility discarded. “And you seem to be forgetting you’re not a part of this decision.”
Nick’s eyes have this gleam to them that doesn’t bode well. “I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s just unclear to me why you think it’s okay to ignore what she wants and talk over her.”
Jeff stands, pushing back his chair, and in seconds, Nick is on his feet too. Their hatred for each other is a force, the fifth member of our little gathering, and someone is about to get hit.
Fear propels me from my seat. “Jeff, you stay here and finish the conversation,” I say breathlessly. “Find out the options. I have some questions to ask Dr. Reilly outside.”
Without waiting to hear Jeff’s protests, I place my hand against Nick’s chest and push. He doesn’t move a muscle, even with all my force behind it, but I glance up at him, a silent plea, and he gives in, slowly leaving the room with me in his wake.
Nick is rigid as we walk to his office. I suspect it’s taking every ounce of self-restraint not to turn on his heel and pull Jeff back out of his seat.
He opens his door and ushers me in. The last time I was here I refused to look at his photos because I was so terrified I’d see a wife and kids. I’m still terrified by what I’ll see, but this time I look anyway. There’s one of him with his parents, one with him and a bunch of guys in suits…and one of a very pretty woman in scrubs who must be his girlfriend. I wish I hadn’t looked.
He shuts the door, but instead of taking his seat at the desk, he turns to me, standing closer than is safe for either of us. “Are you okay?”
I nod, my shoulders dropping. What Dr. Patel just told us was a shock only briefly. The truth is, I’d never hoped for much in the first place. “I got the feeling from you a long time ago it wasn’t likely to work out. I knew what to expect.”
His eyes close and he leans his shoulder against the wall. “I’m not giving up. I still think there are people who can help us.”
“Maybe,” I sigh. It’s a long shot, but I’ll cling to whatever hope I can find at the moment. “I should probably get back in there.”
Nick moves, closing me in. “So, did you actually have something to discuss with me, or were you just trying to keep me from kicking his ass?”
He’s so damn cocky, and it only makes him more attractive to me. I just learned I’m definitely going to die, but here I stand with lust my primary emotion. “You say that like you know you’d have won.”
He steps toward me—far, far too close. My breath comes in tiny sips. His hand rises, the tips of his fingers grazing my cheekbone as he pushes my hair back, but instead of pulling away, his hand hovers there—cupped, ready to descend at any moment to cradle my jaw. “I’d have won.”
God, I want to lean into the warmth of his palm. “I—”
“Tell me what to do,” he says hoarsely. “I refuse to give up on this. There’s got to be a way to find Rose or someone else and go back to fix things. I will do any fucking thing you name if it will help us figure this out.”
There’s a desperation on his face that I remember. I saw it when he kissed me for the first time in high school. When I was in the hospital and my blood pressure dropped. When I walked out of the diner’s bathroom on Tuesday and told him Rose was gone. His eyes flicker to my mouth, and the pull toward him is so strong it takes all my willpower not to close the distance between us. “I…I can’t think of anything.”
He swallows. “I’m going to the lake tomorrow. You could come with me. See the house, the dock. Maybe it would jar something.”
For a single moment I allow myself to imagine it: the two of us, the way I remember. Him swimming out to me, lifting himself into the boat without effort. The breeze in my hair, the sun beating down on us. His slick hands on my skin.
I want it so badly. And it terrifies me at the same time. “I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything wrong. You’d have your own room. You don’t even have to stay. Just come out for a few hours.”
I shake my head even as some distant part of my brain tries to rationalize agreement. I want to tell myself it’s an investigation, altruistic in some way. It’s not. “Imagine if the situation were reversed,” I say softly. “Imagine that I’m engaged to you, and while you’re out of town, I go stay at the lake with another guy. Would you think that was okay?”
He is silent, the answer written in the throb of his jawline. “I wouldn’t be leaving you this weekend in the first place.”
I go on my toes to press my mouth to his cheek. “I know,” I reply.
My chest aches as I walk out the door.
30
QUINN
Jeff emerges from Dr. Patel’s office to find me sitting in the waiting room. We walk out to the car in silence and the crowd shifts away from us, fearful our unhappiness might prove contagious.
We get to the car. He puts the key in the ignition, but doesn’t turn it, shifting in his seat to face me instead. He seems less angry than he does incredulous. “Why are you being like this? Why are you just giving up?”
“There’s nothing to give up,” I say softly. “You heard the doctor yourself. There is no chance of survival. None.”
“But he can give you time!” Jeff cries. “And you have no idea how much time he could give you because you wouldn’t even let him speak. You just accepted the first thing he said like we were discussing a car repair. You didn’t even seem surprised.”
“I wasn’t. I’d already spoken to Nick and I—”
“Nick,” he sneers. “Since when are you and Nick best fucking friends?”
My stomach drops. Were we so obvious in that meeting today? I tried to make things seem professional, but I doubt I succeeded. Admitting to any of this will get me nowhere howe
ver, so I go on the offense. “And since when do you nearly start a fistfight with the doctor who’s been trying to save my life? If you really want to help, maybe you shouldn’t be going out of your way to make him the enemy.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
My heart thumps in my chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He walked into the damn room today and only looked at you, like me and Dr. Patel weren’t even there. Like he was your husband and I was just some lowlife harassing you.”
I glance away from him, knowing he’s right and that I’ll never be able to admit it. “I think you’re reading too much into it. And let’s not move away from the point, which is that you were ignoring my wishes, just like he said. And implying that me pursuing a degree I’ve wanted my entire life is some kind of symptom of this tumor, when really it’s just me refusing to put everything I want in life on the backburner in lieu of what you want.”
His mouth falls open. “I’m trying to move our lives forward. It isn’t about what I want or what you want. It’s about logic.”
Wrong choice of words, Jeff. Resentment, held back for so long, floods me. “It’s funny, then, how your logic always leads to me giving things up,” I snap. “Do you realize I’d be done with grad school by now if you hadn’t convinced me to wait? But you did. And then you convinced me we should buy a place, just before you quit your job. Yes, I can see how it’s plenty logical for you—you get to flit from one job to the next, knowing I’ll pick up the slack, but how was any of that logical for me?”
He stares at me for a long moment, shaking his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “My God, Quinn. Have you felt like this all along? I thought you agreed. I thought you wanted the house.”
“I didn’t not want it,” I admit. “I just didn’t know that it was going to mean giving up everything I wanted more.”
“You should have told me,” he says. His shoulders are rounded. Every last bit of confidence he’s regained these past few months seems stripped away from him. “I had no idea.”
Parallel (The Parallel Duet Book 1) Page 19