“Maybe. I’m not sure. I have a big test I need to study for. Everything alright?”
“Oh, if that’s the case, next weekend is fine.”
“You sure? I can come if you need me to.”
“No, baby, it’s fine. I’ll see you next weekend then. I just miss you so much.”
“I miss you, too, Mom. I’ll see you next weekend then.”
“I’ll let you go. Love you, Oliver.”
“Love you, too, Mom.”
I hang up and take a deep breath. I have to get past my next doctor’s appointment, and then Ollie will be here and I can tell him. I can do this.
* * *
I see the tears fill his eyes before I watch them fall down his cheeks. “Ollie, it’s OK, baby.”
“No, it’s not OK. Not even close to OK.”
I swallow down my own tears, pulling him into a hug. “I’m going to fight this,” I say with him under one arm and Tatum crying under the other.
My kids, Ollie and Tatum, they’re who I’ll get my strength from.
“Damn straight you are.” I laugh at his words. “I’ll move back to help you.”
“No. No, you will not.”
“Mom. You can’t do this alone. You’re going to need help.”
“And when I get to that point, I’ll ask for it. From Candace, from your dad if I have to, but you, Oliver, will stay in school.”
“You cannot expect me to stay there when you’re sick.”
“I do, and you will.”
He shakes his head and storms out the door. I know he needs time to let it sink it. I know I did.
“Mom? Are you going to die?” Tatum’s sweet voice pulls at me.
“Honestly, I don’t know, sweet girl. But I’m going to try my hardest to beat this and live to be a hundred years old.” I pull her into me, my cheek resting on top of her head while she cries harder into my side.
A few minutes later, she sits up and looks up at me with her big blue eyes. “I’m going to be brave. I’m going to help you. I’m going to take care of you the way you take care of everyone else.”
“I only need you to hug me when I need a hug, Tates. That’s all I need from you.”
“I can do that.”
“I love you so much, Tatum.”
“I love you, too, Mommy.”
“Let’s eat ice cream for dinner and watch a movie tonight. How does that sound?”
She giggles into my side, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard all day. “Do I get to pick the movie?”
“Do you ever not pick the movie?”
“True.”
“I’ll get the ice cream.”
“Meet you on the couch in 5!”
“Ready? Go!”
Chapter Thirteen
Travis
I just got home and toed off my boots when I hear someone pounding on my apartment door. “Just a minute,” I yell, making my way to the door. I never have people come knocking, so I have no idea who it could be. I peek through the peephole and see it’s Ollie. I pull the door open for him. “Hey, man,” I say, opening the door wider for my friend.
Ollie and I have kept in touch since he left for school, albeit sporadically, but we’ve still talked here and there nonetheless. He’ll tell me about school, the girls, the parties and his mom and Tatum. Meanwhile, I don’t typically have much to tell other than what car hood I was under that day, but he’s a good friend and always listens regardless.
He looks visibly upset as he comes inside. “Dude, are you alright?”
He shakes his head and shoulders past me, taking a seat on my run-down couch. He’s sitting there with his elbows on his knees, hands in his hair, and I don’t know what to do or say next.
“Ollie, what’s going on, man? Are you in trouble? You gotta give me something. You’re freaking me the fuck out.”
“She sick,” he finally says with a sniff.
“Who?” I ask, feeling my heart rate speed up.
“My mom. She has cancer.” Cancer? No, my girl can’t have fucking cancer.
“Are you sure?” I stupidly ask.
“Yeah. She just told us.” He wipes snot off his nose with the back of his hand.
“Fuck,” I breathe out as I feel my body give out and fall onto the couch next to him. As much as I know I need to be there for him right now, I feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest into a million pieces. “How bad is it? She’s going to be OK, isn’t she?” I ask, my voice cracking like I’m thirteen again.
“Stage three breast cancer. It’s not good.”
“No,” I say shaking my head. “No. No, she’s fine. She’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that!” Ollie yells at me.
“She’s strong! She can fight this! She will! I know she will,” I yell, more for myself than for him. Even though I haven’t spoken to Josie in years, the thought of the world without her in it is impossible to imagine.
“I can’t lose my mom, Trav. I can’t,” he says, and I watch my friend fall apart. I put my hand on his back, trying to soothe him and hold myself together at the same time, while he sobs for his mom and my heart shatters for my girl.
After an hour or so, Ollie leaves and I sit on my couch thinking about Josie. I spend the next two hours in silence, thinking about her bright smile that causes the creases in the corners of her blue eyes. Eyes I could swim in for eternity. How she cares and loves so hard and fierce for those around her, and I wonder who will care for her.
Without thought or regard to what may happen, I grab my keys and head to my truck, driving to her house. When I arrive, I jump from my truck and knock on her door, hoping she’ll open it and let me in. Not just her house, but her heart again.
Not thinking about the fact that Ollie was at my place earlier and is here now, I’m surprised at first when he opens the door. “Travis?”
“I need to see—” I stop when I look up and see her walking down the stairs. My eyes trail up from her fuzzy socks to the leggings she’s wearing with pink hearts on them. I want to pause at her breasts, but the fact that they are the reason she might leave me again has me quickly looking up to meet her surprised face.
“Travis.” Not a question, but a statement that is whispered from her lips. And her whispering my name is my undoing. Falling to my knees at her front door, a sob rips through me. I fist my hair and fall back on my haunches, rocking back and forth as tears overtake my being.
I’m lost in my head, feeling the loss of Josie all over again. I feel the emptiness I’ve tried to bury for so long. My heart hurts so bad not having her in my life and then burns from the thought of losing her completely.
I feel someone touching me, but I don’t realize it’s her at first. Then, I hear her say my name again. “Travis, baby, look at me.” I feel like I’m floating as my body begins to settle down. The warmth of her touch, the smell of her skin and the sound of her voice pull me out of my head. I bring my eyes up and meet her blue ones.
She wraps her arms around me, holding me while I calm my breathing, my heart, my cries.
I finally move and look at her. “Hi, pretty girl,” I whisper.
“Hi, baby.” She smiles.
“I missed you so fucking much.”
“I missed you, too.”
That’s all it took for my heart to take over my body. My hands reach up, and I lace my fingers in hers that are on my face, cupping my cheeks. I lean in and take her mouth in mine, kissing her with abandon, because I’m not leaving my girl ever again.
Our mouths separate, but we’re still leaning into each other. I open my eyes and look into her hers, diving back into her deep blues. “I love you,” I whisper into her lips.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I hear Ollie yell from next to us, causing me to close my eyes again before I have to open them and face my fate.
I steal my jaw before I hear her whisper, “I love you” back to me. I break my gaze away from her and look up at my best friend.
&nbs
p; “Mom?” Ollie questions, his chest rising and falling. “What in the actual fuck is going on? Please tell me I’m hallucinating and I did not just see you kissing my best friend.” He pulls on his hair and spins around, not wanting to look at us. I don’t really blame him.
“I love her,” I say. It’s as simple as that.
Ollie spins then. “You love her? I should punch you in your fucking face right now!” he yells before he hits the wall next to him.
“Ollie, I—” Josie starts.
“No! I want to hear it from him.” Ollie cuts her off with a nod toward me. “How long?”
I stand and pull Josie to my side then, still holding her hand as I answer, “I’ve loved her since I was sixteen.”
“You’ve been together that long?!” Ollie yells.
“No!” we both yell at the same time.
“I don’t even know what to think right now,” he says, shaking his head in frustration.
“Ollie, I’m sorry,” she says, but I’m not even really sure what exactly she’s sorry for.
He puts his hand up to stop her from saying anything more and walks out the door, leaving us unsure of what to do next. We watch as he paces back and forth, pulling at his hair trying to process everything.
I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her and taking in all that is Josie. Damn, I missed her. “I missed you so fucking much,” I murmur into her hair, letting lavender and honey envelope me, calm me, soothe the pain that’s been there while she was gone.
“I missed you, too,” she says, looking up at me. “I didn’t know I could miss someone as much as I missed you.”
I smooth her hair out of her face and kiss her lips that taste so sweet. “I’m here now.”
“Trav—” She’s cut off by Ollie storming back inside, startling us both.
“Did you… Did you… I can’t even ask that.” Ollie pauses, throwing his head back exasperated and slamming the door shut.
“What?” she asks, confused at first before realization sinks in.
“No! No, she didn’t fucking touch me as a kid. You get that fucked-up thought out of your head right fucking now,” I boom.
“Travis, it’s OK. It’s what’s going to be asked and thought,” she says. But it isn’t OK. I’m not OK with people thinking that at all.
“Josie, it’s not OK. I pursued you. Not the other way around.”
“We know that, but other people don’t. It’s why I was scared before.”
“Josie.”
“Maybe we should move somewhere else so we don’t wake up Tatum,” Josie suggests.
Ollie and I stand there watching each other, unmoving. I have Josie still pulled close to me, wanting to protect her. From what exactly, I don’t know, because I know that neither of us would ever hurt her. We stare each other down for a few moments longer.
“Please?” Josie’s plea breaks him. His body sags a little.
“Fucking hell,” Ollie says, pulling on his hair again. Something he does when he’s frustrated. He moves toward the living room then. Josie and I follow, sitting across from him on the couch. He looks up at me again, his eyes boring into mine. “You better start talking, and it damn well better be good.”
“At the end of senior year, I told her how I felt and kissed her,” I start, looking him straight in the eye like a man. “She turned my ass down. Hard. Then, the day I looked at apartments, that weekend she was sick, we kind of got together then. But it only lasted for a few weeks. She didn’t want us to tell you or anyone else, and that wasn’t enough for me, so, I broke things off. We haven’t spoken since then.”
Nodding, Ollie says, “That’s when you moved out.” I nod in confirmation, looking at Josie, who’s nervously biting her nails beside me. “That’s why you’d been sad, isn’t it?” Ollie asks, softening as he looks at her for the first time since we kissed.
“Yes.” She blushes. I pull her into me closer and kiss her head.
“Alright, so, over here in the land of trying not to puke at the thought of my best friend and my mom screwing, can we keep the sweet and soft to a minimum?” Ollie says with his arm over his eyes.
“Sorry, dude,” I laugh.
“Oliver? Are we alright, baby?” Josie asks.
“Yes. But it’s going to take some getting used to. And don’t, for the love of God, call me baby ever again. Not after I heard you call him that before you kissed him.” Ollie shudders, still not opening his eyes.
The three of us sit in silence for a while before Ollie speaks again, sitting up now and looking at me once more. “You fuck this up and break her heart, I will end you.”
“I’m pretty sure if any heart is going to break, it’s going to be mine,” I say, looking at Josie. “But I’ll give you a free hit if you want. You deserve that much, Ollie.”
“I don’t want to punch you – I don’t think – anymore. But I do need some time to wrap my head around this. I have questions, but I also don’t know if I want the answers. This is all really fucking strange.”
“Ask anything. I promise we won’t lie or sneak around,” Josie says. “I’m done with that.” She says it to Ollie, but I feel like she’s saying it more to me.
The three of us sit and talk for a while longer before Ollie gets up to go to bed. He’s not sold yet, but he’s less resistant than I thought he’d be.
“I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed. Night, Mom,” he says, giving Josie a peck on the cheek. “I love you. I just want you to be happy, you know that, right?”
“I do,” she says, patting his cheek, “I love you, too.”
Ollie stops at the doorway and pauses, turning back to look at us. “Oh shit. When you’d sneak out of my room, you were going to her room, weren’t you?”
Josie buries her flaming red face into my chest as I nod with a smile.
“Gross. Please keep the PDA to a minimum,” Ollie mutters as he walks upstairs.
Josie and I look at each other and start laughing. “Well, I didn’t expect this tonight, but damn, I’m happy it happened,” I say, kissing her head and pulling her into my body.
“Come on, I’m so tired. Let’s go to bed,” Josie says. I quirk an eyebrow at her in question. “To sleep. Not that. Yet. We need to catch up on the years we missed first.”
I laugh, kissing her on the head again, making our way upstairs to her room, together.
It’s like no time has passed, not two years, when we climb into her bed and she curls into my side.
“Tell me,” I say.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I need to know what we’re up against.”
“We?” she questions.
“Yes, we. I’m not going anywhere, Joes.”
“I think I like that.”
“Good.”
After a minute of silence, she begins to tell me about her prognosis. “I have stage three breast cancer.”
“Tell me what that means.”
“I have a large lump on my left breast. It’s 6cm, which is rather large.”
“Chemo?”
“Yes. Chemo, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy. I’ll get the works.”
“And that will cure it, right?”
“That’s the hope.”
“It will. I know it will.”
“I’m scared, Travis.”
“I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“You don’t have to be, you know.”
“Shut up,” I snort before I pull her face up to meet mine for a kiss. “I’m not leaving. You can’t scare me away. I walked away before, and it sucked. I’m not doing that again. I’m here if you’ll have me.”
“I don’t want to hold you back from your life. You have so much left to live.”
“And so do you. We are going to have a long life, together. You hear me?”
She nods as she cuddles into my side more. And we fall asleep together, holding each other, the way we were meant to.
JOSIE
I blink my eyes awak
e, and the sight I see is a lazy, sleepy smile on Travis’s face looking back at me.
“Hi, pretty girl.”
“Hi, baby,” I smile back as we repeat the same words we said last night.
“Do you have to work today?”
“No, not since Ollie is home. I made sure to clear my schedule. Do you?”
“I already called Roger and told him I wouldn’t be in.”
“Trav, you don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t.” He closes his eyes and takes a breath, as if to calm himself. “Josie, please. Please don’t do that. Don’t push me away. Don’t keep us apart. Let me be here. Let me be with you. I want to. I need to. I need you.” He leans his head on my shoulder, leaving a soft kiss there. “I need you,” he says again.
“Travis.”
“You have no idea how lost I’ve been without you these last years. I need you like oxygen, Joes.”
“Me too, Trav. Me too.”
“I can’t lose you again.”
“I can’t guarantee that, Travis.”
He shifts, leaning on his elbow to look at me. “I know.”
“It’s going to get ugly and hard. Are you sure you’re alright with all this?”
“I am.”
“You have to promise me, Travis, that if it ever gets to be too much, you tell me. I don’t ever want you to feel obligated or forced or anything else.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Stop being a stubborn ass and just promise me. It’s easy for you to say that now, but it could change in a year when I’m hairless and boobless.”
He takes a deep breath then. “I promise I’ll tell you how beautiful you are. I promise I’ll tell you how much I love you. I promise to hold your hand when you’re sick. I promise to kiss you every day. I promise to spoon you when you’re tired. That is what I can promise you, Josie.”
I feel the tear fall from my eye before I can stop it.
“Now, when is your next doctor’s appointment? Can I go with you?”
“Of course. It’s on Wednesday at ten.”
“Can I move in with you and Tatum?”
I suck in a breath, surprised and caught off guard. “I don’t know, Travis. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea just yet. She’s had a lot to take in.”
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