You’re not right for Mia. You know that.
I do know that.
I know I don’t fit in with these people. Mia is unaware of that and why, but thanks to Frank’s bullying, she’s going to find out.
And a guy who won’t be around much longer, whose foreseeable future has no room for a serious girlfriend? He’s also not right for Mia.
Not to mention that I’m most likely not the man she really wants, anyway.
So I’m sitting here among this happy and boisterous group of people, and for the first time I’m edging aside the curtain hiding the thoughts that I’ve been aware of for a while but haven’t wanted to acknowledge: that maybe I should just cut my losses.
That maybe I need to end this while I still can.
A weight settles on my shoulders. It’s a crushing and desolate prospect.
Cameron returns to the table, stopping behind his chair and bracing his hands on the back of it as he looks around at everyone. “What time are you all leaving tomorrow?”
Across from him, Paige answers, “Our flight’s at noon.”
Turning to look past me, Cameron raises his eyebrows. “Mia?”
“We’re hitting the road first thing,” she says, widening her eyes at me. “Right?”
“Sure.” A knot of tension forms between my shoulders at the reminder that I’ve got another whole day’s drive home tomorrow. Just me and Mia, alone in her little car. So many miles. So many hours. So much potential for trouble.
Cameron straightens away from the chair. “Then I probably won’t see you before you leave.”
“Where are you going?” Lily asks sharply from the end of the table. “You’re not staying for our poker game?”
“It’s Saturday night, Grandma.” Her grandson throws his arms out, apparently thinking he needs say no more.
Pressing her lips together, the old lady rolls her eyes. “Well, hang on a minute. There’s something I wanted to say. While I have you all here.” She casts a glance sideways at the patio door. “I was going to wait for Logan to come back, though…”
“He’ll probably be a while,” Paige supplies. “Abi can take a long time to settle down when she’s in a strange bed, and he usually falls asleep while he’s waiting.”
With a nod and a sigh, Lily says, “Okay, then.”
Beside me, I can feel Mia shifting restlessly.
“Everything okay, Mom?” comes Frank’s voice from the other end of the table, low and rumbling with concern.
“Actually, no.” Hesitating, Lily Waters runs her gaze around the table. Her eyes go liquid and filled to the brim with emotion, filled with the love she has for these people. Unease curls in my stomach, and I’m sensing a similar sensation spreading through everyone else.
“I probably should have told you this sooner,” she goes on, “but I wanted to see you all together first. Celebrating my birthday and...being happy.”
A heavy silence falls.
Frank is the first to break it. “Mom. What’s going on?”
“Well.” Lily’s breath blows out with a puff. “There’s no easy way to say this. When I was in the hospital, they ran blood tests that came back abnormal, so then they put me through all these machines for more tests, and it turns out I have cancer.”
Oh, shit. My stomach drops, and my heart jumps into my throat.
“What?” Frank barks, and there are several gasps and someone lets out a choked, “Oh, my God.”
“So they did a biopsy,” Lily continues, raising her stoic voice above the shocked murmurs around the table, “and it turns out I have pancreatic cancer. It’s spread to my liver. It’s not operable. I could go through chemo and radiation, but the odds of it making a difference are so low it’s a joke. So I’m not going to. Treat it, that is.”
Shit, shit, shit. Closing my eyes briefly, I clench the handle on my chair. And then I turn to Mia, swiveling my head slowly toward her, dreading this, not at all prepared for what I’m going to find.
Her face, which I can only see in profile as she stares at her grandmother, is ashen, her lips bloodless and slightly parted. There’s a deer-in-headlights look in her eyes. I reach out and take her hand under the table, squeezing it.
She stays unmoving and silent, her attention still frozen and fixed on Lily, and the only sign of life is the heaving of her chest and her hand tightening on mine, clutching it like she’ll fall to her death if she lets go.
This time it’s Gwen who finds her voice first, quietly asking her mother-in-law, “How long did they give you?”
“Best-case scenario, I make it until Labor Day but not much longer.” Lily sounds business-like and almost brusque in her response. “Worst case, I don’t get to experience another Fourth of July.”
More shocked mumbling ripples around the table, and Paige’s voice is high-pitched with disbelief as she bursts out with, “The Fourth is less than two months away! Do you even feel sick? You don’t seem like it.”
Lily’s unflappable facade cracks a little at that, her weathered face twisting and twitching as if she’s fighting back tears. “Not really. I might be getting tired a little more quickly, but I’m not sure that’s not all in my head.”
“You need to get a second opinion,” Mia’s dad states, his resolute tone shooting like a bullet across the table at his mother. “I know a great oncologist—”
“Stop it,” Lily snaps. “Just stop it, Frank.”
Her son clamps his mouth shut and scowls at her.
Impatiently, the older woman continues. “I already did get a second—and a third—opinion, because I knew if I didn’t, you wouldn’t accept it. They all told me the same thing.”
Well. There’s not much to say after that, is there? Lily Waters seems to have accomplished something she probably never has before: rendered her talkative and opinionated children and grandchildren utterly speechless.
Beside me, Mia keeps her death grip on my hand, and I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and hold her. I can feel her shock and pain like it’s my own, know her well enough and how much her grandmother means to her to know that it’s taking all her strength to keep it together right now.
And I’m wishing she didn’t feel like she needs to put on a brave face at all. Wishing I could tell her to let go, that I’d catch her.
“Well.” Cameron’s voice sounds broken as he pulls out his chair and plunks himself back down in it, his urgency to head out apparently gone. “That is unbelievably fucked up.”
“Cameron,” his mother chides, tossing a dark frown at him.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Gwendolyn,” Lily says with a click of her tongue. “Don’t scold the boy for telling the truth.”
Mia’s mom throws a helpless and exasperated look at her mother-in-law.
And the older woman points a finger at her daughter-in-law and briskly goes on with, “Yeah, you go ahead and give me that look. Pretty soon I won’t be a thorn in your side anymore.”
Oh, Jesus. Just when I thought this whole conversation couldn’t get any worse…
“That was unnecessary, Mom.” Frank says this calmly, in contrast with his countenance, which is drained of color. He puts a hand on his wife’s shoulder. Gwen stares down at the table and fiddles with her paper napkin, looking stricken.
“What?” Lily scrunches up her nose as she glances around the table. “Did you think I’d stop speaking my mind just because I’m dying?”
There’s a short pause, and then Mia lets out a short burst of laughter. There’s very little genuine amusement in that sound, but I’m guessing her well of emotions flooded, and this is what spilled over.
A few others—Cameron, Paige, and Lily herself—join in with a few chuckles, and that seems to lift the lid of tension around the table. Paige gets up and walks over to her grandmother, throwing her arms around Lily from behind and burying her face in the older woman’s hair. At the opposite end, Gwen puts her hand on Frank’s cheek, and their foreheads touch. To my right, Cameron places his
elbows on the table and rests his head in his hands.
Only Mia doesn’t move. She sits there staring at nothing. Still holding my hand. I want to swoop her up and carry her away. I also want to tell her to go give her grandmother a hug, but something tells me she doesn’t need any advice or direction right now. So I keep my mouth shut and just hold her hand.
The patio door opens, and Logan steps out. He’s thumb-typing on his phone, his attention absorbed by that as he walks back to the table. Then he takes his seat again, sets down the phone, and blithely announces, “Well, that was easier than expected. Pretty sure the girls were still exhausted from staying up so late last night.”
He picks up his beer bottle and brings it to his lips, but instead of taking a drink, he frowns and glances around the table. Lowering the bottle, he gives his wife a bewildered look and asks, “What’s wrong?”
And that’s when Mia tears her hand out of my grasp, her chair scraping on the concrete deck as she shoves away from the table. Muttering a hurried “Excuse me,” she leaves us and rushes to the patio door, fleeing into the house.
I don’t even stop to think before I get up and follow her.
She’s gone when I get inside, but figuring she would’ve gone up to her room, I start heading upstairs. There’s a painful knot in my throat that swells as I take the steps two at a time.
The door to her room is closed. I’m not sure why—some sort of reflexive politeness?—but I stop outside, knock, and wait. There’s no answer, no sound at all coming from beyond the door. Maybe I guessed wrong, and she didn’t even come up here?
Twisting the knob, I push the door open. It’s pretty dark in there, but I see her silhouette over by the window, a gray shadow in a room turned a whole palette of gray by the last few minutes of twilight remaining outside. She stands with her back to me, and I can just make out by the shape of her that she’s got her arms wrapped around herself.
Letting the door click shut behind me, I cross over to her. For a few moments, I’m wavering, at a loss for what to do or say. This is nothing like offering sympathy to grieving relatives of my patients. Even that is never easy, but people die in my line of work, and it’s part of the job. I have no problem with it. I’m actually pretty good at it.
But this…this is Mia. It’s Mia, and she’s hurting, and she needs so much more from me than strangers in the ER need from a physician.
“Hey,” I say softly. And when she doesn’t move, respond, or in any way acknowledge my presence, I put my hands on her shoulders.
She jerks and stiffens under my touch. Bracing herself, like she’s about to shut me out, push me away. No way am I letting her do that, so I tighten my grip on her shoulders and pull her back into my chest.
Bending down so my mouth is close to her ear and I can feel wayward tendrils of her hair against my cheek, I tell her, “I’m sorry, Mia.”
She goes more rigid at that, keeping herself so still that I can tell she’s holding her breath.
I slide one hand across her front until it finds the bare skin of her upper arm, locking her in my embrace, hugging her tightly as I repeat near her ear, “I’m so sorry.”
Her breath hitches, and then it escapes with a whoosh and a gasp. A whimper erupts from deep in her throat, and her shoulders sag and her knees buckle. It’s like she collapses, caving in on herself, and the only thing stopping her from sinking to the floor is me holding her up.
Gently and slowly, I let her sit down on the floor, and then I join her there. Her body half turned toward me, I wrap her up in my arms again, keeping her as close and tight as I can. She cries mostly in silence, holding her breath as shudders are racking through her in waves, and only when she’s forced to take a breath does she make any sound.
And it’s a heartbreaking noise that wrenches itself out of her then, a kind of hiccupping moan that cuts me and rips me open. I’d give anything right now to take all this misery away from her, to carry it for her so she doesn’t have to.
“Please tell me this isn’t real,” she gulps out between sobs, her voice thick with disbelief and despair. “It’s not actually happening, right?”
I can’t answer, not in a way she wants or is helpful. So I just squeeze her harder, and as I rest my forehead against her head, my face buried in her hair, my own eyes and nose start to water as well.
At my sniffle, she twists toward me and throws her arms around my waist. Eventually her breathing slows, and she relaxes against me, going soft and boneless in my arms. We sit there for a long while, saying nothing. And the whole time it’s thrumming at the back of my mind, the knowledge that being able to comfort her like this is a privilege and I’m a lucky son of a bitch, while I’m wishing this wasn’t necessary at all.
I’m also trying to keep her from accidentally touching me anywhere near my crotch, because I’m holding her and she feels so soft in my arms and smells so good, and my dick apparently doesn’t give a shit that this is a seriously inappropriate time for a semi.
I know suddenly that I’m not getting laid tonight—which, no, is not in any way disappointing or upsetting, because I’m not an insensitive douche.
I won’t be telling her any of the stuff Frank and Gwen’s investigator discovered about me, either. Not tonight.
I also know that I won’t be sleeping on the floor. Because there’s no way I can let Mia lie in that bed by herself all night, alone with her shock and grief and misery.
And the reason I can’t let her do that is because I love her.
I fucking love her, and not just as a friend.
I’m in love with Mia Waters. And somehow, that’s both the best and the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
The idea that I need to end things now? It starts to feel like a joke. Because it might already be too late.
I have no idea what time it is when I wake up, but I’m pretty sure it’s much earlier than I want it to be. The light that filters in through the blinds is dim, so either it’s barely dawn or the sky outside is dark with clouds.
That’s the first thing I notice.
The second is that my mouth feels dry, my throat scratchy, and my head is pounding. Guess after a horrible evening and restless night, it was too much to hope that I wouldn’t wake up feeling like crap.
The third thing I become aware of is Jay, lying next to me.
Sprawled on his stomach, he’s facing away from me, arms buried under his bunched-up pillow. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, his hair is rumpled, and he’s breathing the steady, shallow breaths of deep sleep.
It’s both weird and wonderful to wake up next to him like this. When I got into bed last night after brushing my teeth and while waiting for him to do the same, I wasn’t sure he would. But not only did he, as soon as he crawled under the blankets, he wrapped his arms around me again. And that’s how I fell asleep. With Jay holding me.
I don’t even want to think about how I would’ve gotten through the past twelve hours without him. The way he was there for me and how much closer it brought us proves how wrong he was that sex would ruin our relationship. If anything, I’m stronger now—stronger and happier. He probably is, too. I can’t be alone in feeling that way, right?
Grandma.
It still feels so surreal. Memories of last night are fuzzy and hazy, like a dream. It’s as if the part of my brain that knows it’s true and real and unalterable is hidden behind a door, and I know it’s there, but if I open the door, it’s all going to come rushing out at me, submerge me and drown me. So I’m keeping the door shut. Until I’m ready to open it.
Scooting down to the foot of the bed, I manage to slip out of it and get up without waking Jay. With rocks in my stomach and my limbs leaden and sluggish, I shrug into the first clothes I can find in my luggage: black leggings and a thin, thigh-length, wine-red top. Then I unzip the top pocket of the suitcase and grab the pink and sparkly gift-wrapped package I put in there while packing in a rush before going to Angie’s party Thursday night. Was that really less than thre
e days ago? It feels like an eternity.
Glancing back, I see that Jay doesn’t even stir at the squeak of the bedroom door opening.
The house is silent, which makes the slight creaking of the stairs sound all the louder as I descend. I go straight to the kitchen, where I fill myself a glass of water before digging into the cabinet where Mom keeps her stash of over-the-counter meds. Finding an oversize bottle of generic painkiller, I toss down a double dosage, and then I turn on the single-cup coffee and espresso maker. With a long and tiring day ahead, I need to attack this headache on two fronts.
The water tank is empty, and I’m at the sink in the middle of filling my cup with water when movement catches my eye through the kitchen window. Someone’s in the gazebo, and when I bend over the sink and crane my neck for a better look, I recognize the black robe with its printed pattern of pink-and-purple roses immediately. It’s Grandma.
I pour the water into the coffeemaker and hit the button for it to start brewing. When I pulled my shit back together last night after crying in Jay’s arms on the bedroom floor, we went back downstairs. First thing I did was find my grandmother and give her a hug. I didn’t say anything—I couldn’t; what had happened was so big and incomprehensible, and all the words that came to mind were too small—and neither did she.
I helped with the rest of cleanup after dinner, and then Jay and I went to bed. After which I lay there for a long time, wondering if I should’ve just forced myself to talk to her after all. And imagining a dozen different ways that conversation might’ve played out. So right now I’m pretty grateful to have found Grandma alone and to have a second chance at not leaving this house with that regret hanging over me.
When my coffee is done, I pour a dash of milk into it, and then I head to the patio door with the steaming mug in my hand and the gift tucked under my arm.
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