“Sorry you’re sick, Pop. Do you need to go Dr. Nelson?”
“Nah, nothing to do but wait until it passes. I’m really sorry I missed your game though. I know it was a big one.”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it. Just get some rest. Do you need anything?”There’s silence on his end before he clears his throat. “Don’t be worrying about your old man.”
His tone still sounds off. I can’t put my finger on it. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Actually, we need to chat when you have more time—”
I cut him off. “I’ve got time.”
“Son, I’d rather talk about it in person.”
“Please, Pop,” I beg.
He remains silent before I hear a faint rustling sound as though he’s switching the phone to his other ear. “I had a biopsy done two weeks ago—”
Panic, stark and hot, shoots through my veins, making my heart race, and I press the phone harder against my ear.
“It tested positive for prostate cancer.”
No . . .
I thought I’d voiced that internally, but the concerned expression crossing Dahlia’s features tells me otherwise.
“How advanced is it?” I ask, almost wishing I hadn’t asked for fear of not liking the answer.
He sighs. “They don’t know yet. They scheduled a bone scan two weeks from now to see if cells are present anywhere else.”
Tiny black dots swarm through my vision. My head feels as if it’s about to float away from my body, and my breath leaves me in a rush. Two voices call my name: my father through the phone and Dahlia where she stands beside me.
I can’t go through this again. I can’t. My mother’s sunken eyes flash behind my tightly closed lids. Memories of her screams deafen Dad and Dahlia’s frantic voices.
I yank at my hair, and my gut threatens to turn itself inside out, the bitter taste of bile rising in my throat. My eyes drift to Dahlia’s, hers stricken with concern. She touches my shoulder, only to snatch her back when I flinch as if it burns me.
My voice is a hoarse whisper. “I need to go.”
I don’t even wait for her reply before I round the car, climb in, and peel out of the parking lot. Leaving Dahlia with my heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
THE SHARP SHRILL OF ZACK’S tires pierces my ears as I watch him speed down the street. My eyes stay fixated on the dimly illuminated road long after his Jeep leaves my sight.
My mouth falls open as I try to breathe, but my lungs struggle to take in enough oxygen. I run a hand through my hair, pulling it to the side to get it off my neck. Even though it’s freezing outside, I feel as though I’m about to break out into a sweat.
I don’t know how long I stand there, frozen in the same position. I think a part of me figured he’d realize that he’d left me and turn back. I’m startled by the clamoring of loud voices filling the air when his teammates pour through the doors of the arena, and Keith catches my eye.
When he notices I’m alone, he breaks into a jog to meet me in the middle of the lot. “Where’s Zack?”
My lower lip trembles, and I catch it between my teeth to stop it. When I finally open my mouth, only air comes out.
Keith steps closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Baby Dahl?”
“I don’t know,” I manage to tell him. “He was looking for his father, made a phone call, and something just . . . snapped.” My voice cracks on the last word.
“Hang on a sec. I’ll give him a call.” Seconds after he brings the phone to his ear, he frowns and pulls it away.
I swallow thickly. “Voicemail?”
He gives me a tight nod. “Do you know who he was talking to?”
I scour the ground shining in a muted yellow from the streetlamps as I try to remember the name. “His father.”
His eyebrows snap up, and he taps his thumb on his phone before bringing it back up to his ear. “Yo, Mr. Graves, it’s Keith. Zack just took off after the game and left his girl in the middle of the parking lot. Is everything okay?”
He goes silent as he listens, then his face goes slack. “Oh, fuck.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
He nods a few times. “I’m sorry to hear that. Later.”
As he hangs up, he turns back to me. My mouth goes dry as I wait for him to explain.
“Zack’s dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. They don’t know the stage yet.”
Oh my God!
Cancer. The same disease that took his poor mother. No wonder he completely freaked out. Hell, I never even met my father and I basically mothered myself, but Zack grew up with two loving and devoted parents. One was taken, and now the other is threatened? I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.
Keith steps toward me, hitching his thumb toward the far end of the parking lot. “I can give you a ride to our place. That’s probably where he went.”
Much as I’m dying to see Zack, I refuse on the assumption that Zack probably needs some time alone to process everything. Last thing he needs is me hovering over him when he can probably barely breathe as it is.
After I assure Keith that I’ll be okay and that I drove Christos’s car here, he walks away and joins the rest of his teammates, who have meandered to a small grouping of cars on the far side of the lot.
When I duck into the freezing leather seats of Christos’s white Nissan sedan, I let my head fall back on the headrest and close my eyes, cursing the universe for being so cruel. It’s just not fair.
But then, life isn’t fair, is it?
THE REMAINDER OF THE NIGHT goes by in a slow, torturous crawl. I can’t sleep, just flip and flail around, punching at my pillow for not being comfortable enough. Or maybe I just need to take out some aggression and chose the pillow as the poor victim.
It’s not the pillow or the bed’s fault I can’t sleep. It’s the aching chasm in my chest that grows wider and wider the longer my phone remains silent.
Zack needs his space, I get that. I’m not asking for an hour-long conversation during which he pours his heartache out to me. Just a simple text that tells me he’s okay would be enough.
Maybe I should have gotten Keith’s phone number. At least then I would have a way of finding out how Zack is.
Paranoia brews as the minutes tick by with nothing. And I can only try to tell myself that maybe Keith just hasn’t gotten back to the house yet. Maybe Zack fell asleep.
And I lie on my side, staring at my phone as though I could will it to light up. Please, just give me something. Anything. Let me help you the way you helped me.
No matter how many times I repeat that mantra in my head, my phone remains quiet.
After hours, my cell vibrates on my bedside table, illuminating the area around it like a faint beacon of hope. I lurch up in bed to grab it, feeling a small semblance of relief when I see Zack’s name.
Zack: I’m sorry
Though texting doesn’t convey tone, I can feel his anguish burning through the small blocky letters. So I tap out a quick response I hope will reach him the way I intend.
Dahlia: I’m here
After setting my phone back down, I tuck my knees into my chest and lay on my side, finally able to breathe a little easier.
What I realize as I drift off is that because I stopped running, the shadows have caught up with me.
I’m relieved when Monday rolls around. Zack hasn’t texted or called since Friday, but at least now I can see him in class.
The entire weekend was grueling. I tried my damndest to keep busy, burying myself in assignments and taking on a couple extra training classes. I even scrubbed the house top to freaking bottom on Sunday just to keep myself from burning a hole through my bedroom carpet from pacing. My heart ached and my arms itched with the urge to wrap themselves around Zack.
Walking into class, I try not to panic when I find the desk next to mine vacant. Since punctuality has never been his strong suit, he’ll probably traipse in as the professor opens
his mouth to speak.
But this time, when Professor Simmons begins the lecture, there is no gorgeous, confident man with sapphire eyes strolling into the classroom as if he owns the place. There’s no smell of spicy cologne and clean shower gel wafting through the stale classroom air and setting my senses on fire.
There’s only emptiness. In both his seat and within my chest. Where my heart beats in a sullen rhythm, as though it’s longing for the one person who sets it aflutter. The person who freed it. God, I miss him.
The remainder of the day plays out the same, my head constantly turning to search for Zack even though I know he isn’t there.
By dinnertime, my resolve to give him space breaks. My thumb hovers over his contact in my phone before finally tapping it. I bring the phone to my ear as it rings. I can’t let him go through this alone.
DAHLIA’S FEATURES FILL MY PHONE screen, her eyes bright. A wide smile plays across her face and her auburn hair fans out like a sunburst as she lies on my bed in post-orgasmic bliss. Of course, she didn’t want to smile, my ever serious girl, while I straddled her to take the picture, so my fingers drifted to the soft spot behind her knees to tickle her.
The corners of my upturned lips fall as I press the red ignore button, and her beautiful face disappears in a flash. What can I say to her? “I’m sorry for abandoning you in the arena parking lot?” “I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you all weekend?”
Or worse. “You were right that we have every reason to fear the future, because nothing ever works out the way we hope it will”?
I don’t even know what to say to my father right now, let alone my girlfriend. Which is why I’ve been sitting in a hole-in-the-wall bar in fucking Delford of all places, shooting cheap whiskey until both my throat and my emotions are numb.
Cancer. Just thinking about the word feels like a bad omen. It’s not enough that I had to watch as it paralyzed and destroyed my mother; now I get the pleasure of watching it do the same to my father. I’d rather gouge out my eyeballs with a blunt spoon than go through that again.
The bartender stops in front of me, holding a half-full plastic jug of amber liquid. He grins my way, showcasing a mouth full of rotten teeth and gaping holes. “Another?”
I nod, and he tips the jug, spilling some onto the sticky battered wood as he slightly sways with the effort. Throwing it back, I grit my teeth as the caustic burn travels to my stomach. Fuck, when was the last time I ate something?
Next to me, an older woman with hair so harshly bleached it looks more like straw takes a seat. When she sets down her tumbler, I take in the ugly track marks that ravage the inside of her arm. Some old and some seemingly fresh.
“Hey there, cutie,” she croaks while her saucer-like eyes rake over me in a slow, lurid perusal, making me feel a pressing need to jump into a bathtub filled with Purell.
My vision swims and I blink rapidly as I try to focus on the mesh of tangled necklaces hanging over her stretch-mark-lined cleavage.
“You in the mood for a little party?” She leans closer so I can smell her cheap floral perfume.
My nose wrinkles in disgust and I shake my head. I’m not so plastered that I can’t figure out what kind of ‘party’ she’s referring to. She lets out a phlegmy chuckle, sticking two fingers into her low-cut shirt. How the fuck do women manage to tuck things in there? What is it, some kind of boob bank?
Her lips, painted sloppily in a bright crimson, spread in a sordid smile as she hooks her other finger in the pocket of my jeans, bringing her mouth next to my ear. All I can think of is how rancid her breath smells and how fucking low I’ve stooped to end up being accosted by a hooker in one of the shittiest towns in the entire state.
“On the house, baby.” She gives my pocket a pat. “You change your mind and you just let me know.”
With a wink, she slides off the barstool and slinks over to another next to a leather-clad man wearing a skull bandana on his head. My stomach convulses, and the acidic taste of bile mixed with whiskey creeps up the back of my throat.
I need to get the fuck out of this dump.
MY KNUCKLES FURIOUSLY RAP AGAINST the door of Zack’s condo. When my last three text messages went unanswered and my most recent call was sent directly to voicemail, I finally snapped. Unable to take another night of tossing and turning, I got up, threw on my coat, and let Christos know I was taking the car as I all but flung myself out the front door.
I don’t care if Zack doesn’t speak a word while I’m here. He can cry, scream, yell, anything just as long as I can see him and know that he’s alive. He shouldn’t have to go through this alone.
“Come on.” I groan, pounding the side of my fist against the wood until it finally opens.
Keith stands there in plaid pajama bottoms and a white ribbed wifebeater, rubbing his eye with his palm as he stares at me. “No need to bust down the door, Chun Li.”
I shake my head, ignoring whatever absurd nickname he’s now decided to give me. “I’m sorry, Keith. Is Zack in his room?” God, please say yes.
He cocks his head toward the stairs. “Actually, I haven’t seen him in the last day or so.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I assumed he was with you or at his dad’s place.”
My palm slaps my forehead. His father’s house. That must be where he is. “Where does his father live?”
“’Bout an hour and a half from here. Up in Peamont,” Keith says through a yawn.
Ugh. An hour and a half at—I peek over Keith’s shoulder to look at the oven clock—ten thirty at night. By the time I get there, they’ll be asleep, if they aren’t already. And with the past few restless nights, I shouldn’t be behind the wheel at that hour.
I let out an exhausted sigh, leaning a hand on the table beside the door, and run my other hand over my head. “Okay, well, sorry to wake you.” I sullenly pull my coat back on and turn to walk back into the frigid air.
“Wait a sec.”
I turn my head to look back at him.
“You can crash here if you want. We’ve got practice in the morning, so he should be back.”
Sinking my teeth into my lower lip, I shake my head. “I have Christos’s car. He’ll need it tomorrow.”
“So I’ll drive you with you to drop it off and I’ll drive you back here,” he says with a shrug. “It’s not like Zack to skip out on practice.”
Well, it’s not like him to completely ignore me either . . .
“Thanks. I’d really appreciate that.”
”What is it with guys and massive cars?” I ask as Keith and I ride back in his F150.
He lifts a shoulder and flashes me a cocky smile. “Big manly car equals big beefy dick.”
I burst into laughter, and it feels so good to finally smile after the last few days of being worried sick over Zack. “I thought a big car meant the guy was compensating?”
We pull into their driveway.
“Nah.” He unbuckles his seat belt. “Just what ugly chicks say when the guy doesn’t give them a call back.” He smirks.
I roll my eyes dramatically. “Charming.”
He holds out his hands in defense as we climb out of the car. “Listen, I’m more of a rent-by-the-hour not by-the-year kinda deal, ya know?”
Wow. He seriously sounds like some sort of hooker guy. I’m not even going to dignify that nonsensical explanation with a response. I shake my head and follow him to the door. While Keith unlocks the door, I look for any sign of Zack’s jeep. My stomach ties itself up in knots all over again as we make the short walk to the front stoop. I stand by with my hands tucked in my pockets as he unlocks the door.
And we walk in the condo to find Zack staring blankly at the TV screen, looking almost dead inside.
HE’S JUST SITTING THERE. UNMOVING. Like a scene straight out of some horror flick Lexi would convince me to watch.
Keith and I exchange hesitant looks before approaching him. The sounds of our footsteps do nothing to break his gaze. Only when we stand directly in his line of s
ight do his eyes, glassy and seemingly struggling to focus, flick over to us. He’s haggard, his hair flattened on one side of his head and the golden hue of his skin washed out. He looks as though he hasn’t slept in days.
But it’s the hollow look in his eyes that frightens me the most. I know that expression. I saw it countless times within my own reflection during my early years with Christos. When I would spend my days wondering why my mother left me and what I could have possibly done to give her reason to leave.
My voice is a whisper when I finally speak. “Zack?”
His expression remains unchanging, just the barest twitch in his eye indicating he heard me. When I kneel in front of him on the couch, the pungent stench of stale alcohol invades my nose, making my eyes water and my breath catch. That explains the lack of focus and the glazed-over look in his eyes.
My fingers graze his knee, squeezing gently as I try to retain his focus. “Baby, say something. Please.”
“Hey, man,” Keith intervenes, lowering himself onto the couch. He feigns a casual chuckle. “You smell like a dumpster fire.” He juts his shoulder into Zack’s. “When’s the last time you washed your ass?”
He’s throwing out a lure in hopes that Zack will bite so he can pull him out of his darkness, but it does nothing. Zack’s eyes remain focused on me crouched beside his legs, peering up at him with wide eyes threatening to well up with tears, all but begging him to speak. One word. A groan, a sigh, anything.
Keith’s eyes shift to me, a look of uncertainty passing over his features. I curl my lips inward, coming up empty with what we can do. Minutes have passed since we walked through the door, and not a single sound has escaped Zack’s lips.
They don’t need to for me to know what he’s feeling. Desolation. Utter and complete.
“C’mon, man.” Keith sighs, hitching one of Zack’s arms over his shoulders. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
Wrapping his arm around Zack’s torso, Keith hauls them both to their feet, nearly toppling over as Zack struggles to stand up straight. He’s more drunk than I thought.
Sweet Insanity (Sweet Series Book 1) Page 16