by Emily Smith
“Preaching to the choir, my friend. Preaching to the damn choir.”
* * *
Four bottles of Stella Artois in the hole, what appeared to be a modestly drunk Cassidy followed Pierce up the stairs to their room.
Pierce gawked. “This is bigger than my whole apartment.” The guest room was tastefully decorated with nautically themed wall hangings that looked more expensive than Pierce’s car, the bed covered in cream and blue striped pillows that swam on a cloudlike duvet. Pierce never felt bitter about the fact the Burgess side of the family had done so much better for themselves than the Parkers. But she was impressed and not above reaping some of the benefits of her newfound closeness with Galen.
“You know, as much as I love spending time with Galen and Ro, I still like nothing better in this world than being alone with you.” Pierce shut the door behind them and folded her arms around Cassidy’s waist, their bodies so close hardly a part of them wasn’t against the other. She couldn’t get close enough to her, at least not enough to mirror the osmosis their souls had seemed to manage.
“I was just thinking the exact same thing.” Cassidy gently grasped the back of Pierce’s head and kissed her softly, her lips moving in teasingly slow patterns rivaled only by the painfully calculated movement of her tongue against Pierce’s. Pierce’s chest warmed, the sensation moving through her torso in either direction. It had always taken only one kiss for Cassidy to send her blood hurtling through her body like a rip tide, her heart fighting to keep tempo with the electricity pulsating across her skin. Pierce had never been kissed the way Cassidy kissed her—with a passion, a promise, a steadiness she hadn’t known was possible.
“Pierce. I want to tell you something.” Cassidy had broken away abruptly, her face worried and free of the light, drunken humor of the evening. Pierce’s heart, still quivering, shifted almost audibly to panic mode.
“No good conversation ever started with those words.” Pierce laughed nervously as Cassidy fidgeted around her. She remained silent for a time. Whatever she wanted to say, she was clearly afraid to say it.
“I just wanted to say…I love you.”
Pierce’s heart slammed back to a near-normal pace, and she smiled. “Is that it?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“More. You just looked like you had something more ominous to say. You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Cassidy nodded and smiled politely, but Pierce wasn’t convinced. A part of Cassidy was still a black box, a piece of her locked up tightly with the key hidden somewhere deep.
Chapter Seventeen
Rowan had likely been right about Cassidy needing to tell Pierce about the cancer. The cancer. Cassidy made it sound like some heinous monster, lurking in the closet, waiting until she went to sleep at night to come out and torment her. And in a way, that’s what it was. Not an inanimate thing, but a living, breathing being, waiting to prey on everything good in her life. But, as it usually goes with monsters, the lights come up and daylight makes everything look a little less frightening. And the monster is forgotten about. At least, until the night comes again.
So Cassidy did not tell Pierce. Weeks went by. The summer blossomed. And she was happier than she’d ever been. Why ruin all that with something as detrimental as the past?
* * *
It was difficult for Pierce at times not to dwell on just how horrid the previous summer had been for her. Katie, who Pierce really hadn’t even given a second thought to since meeting Cassidy, had broken up with her, and Pierce was floundering through a pool of endless first dates that led nowhere. Now, in less than a year, she found herself in a new city, with a new family, and the most stunning, brilliant woman in the passenger seat of her BMW.
“What are you grinning about over there?” Cassidy laughed and squeezed Pierce’s bicep.
“Just thinking about you. Wondering how I got so lucky.”
The windows were down, hot August air blowing in a futile breeze. Cassidy had put Vance Joy on the radio—their song. Pierce glanced over at Cassidy, her arms sticking up through the sunroof, her long, loose hair flowing freely across her face. She laughed again, this time with a lightness, an ease that set Pierce’s own heart on fire.
It was difficult for Pierce not to dwell on the past. Not when she now had everything she’d ever wanted.
* * *
The day was so hot, there was nothing to do but fall asleep. And that’s exactly what Pierce and Cassidy did as soon as they returned to Cassidy’s apartment. They only awoke an hour later because a heavy rain had settled in over the city, a futile attempt to cool the scorching pavement below.
Pierce knew Cassidy was awake too. She’d seen her eyes flutter open sleepily. But she let the grogginess dissipate, gently kissing a line down the salty skin of Cassidy’s bare shoulder. Cassidy moaned contentedly but still didn’t speak. The rain pelted the windows, and the temperature had seemed to drop precipitously, even in the stuffy second-floor apartment. A pleasant gray consumed the sky, not dark, exactly, but enough to paint the busy Boston neighborhood with a sense of quiet. Pierce wrapped one arm around Cassidy’s middle, weaving their fingers together, and gently nipped just below her ear.
“Be careful…” Cassidy finally mumbled into her pillow.
“And why is that?”
“If you keep doing that, you’re going to have to follow through.” She rolled onto her back to face Pierce, her eyes glassy with need, her lips curled into a cunning smile.
Pierce put her hands on either side of Cassidy’s face and kissed her hard, her hands migrating further south until the tips of her fingers grazed the band of Cassidy’s panties.
“You know I always do.”
Sex was always enjoyable for Pierce. Necessary, even. But sex with Cassidy was something else entirely. Never had she experienced something so raw, so easy. It was like their bodies knew each other immediately, each touch exactly what the other needed. They had little need for talk, although Pierce quite enjoyed that as well. Cassidy set her skin on fire. Her hands knew the map better than Pierce herself did. And Pierce’s body always quit long before her mind and desire did. Still, as much as she loved the way Cassidy touched her, she loved nothing more than learning Cassidy’s body. The way her muscles clenched and released, the pleas for more, the feeling of her fingernails in Pierce’s back…It was everything.
* * *
Cassidy wasn’t sure whether it was the heat, the perpetual exhaustion from a life of shift work, or the security of being in Pierce’s arms, but she had somehow managed to fall asleep again. This time, upon waking, the sun was low in the sky, and the streets of the Fenway neighborhood had been resurrected by the welcome breeze that had followed the rainstorm. The poor insulation of her windows allowed the more-than-ambient sounds of eager college students left behind for the summer, seeking out their next bar hop, and excited tourists on their way to see the Red Sox game to seep through. Spending many years in various small towns, Cassidy always found it strangely comforting, knowing someone nearby was always awake, like falling asleep with the TV on as a child. Pierce must have fallen asleep again too, because when Cassidy glanced over at her, she was snoring softly, her lips just parted in the most adorable way Cassidy had ever seen. As if on cue, Pierce released a quiet groan and smiled, turning over to face Cassidy and nestling her head under Cassidy’s arm.
“I can’t believe we went to sleep again,” Pierce said, her voice thick and gravelly.
“I can. I think we’re both carrying about six months of cumulative sleep debt. And that heat. Seems like the rain cooled things off a bit.”
“We could even venture out to find some food in a little.”
Cassidy tightened her grip around Pierce, and Pierce buried her head closer. “I don’t know. You’re going to have to do a lot of coaxing to get me out of this bed.”
Pierce propped herself on one elbow and grinned. “I could get on board with that.”
She leaned down and kissed Cass
idy, her free hand roaming through her hair that splayed wildly across the pillow. As they so often seemed to, Pierce’s hands had plans of their own, and one shifted down lower until it was softly caressing Cassidy’s breast, her fingers pinching and flicking Cassidy’s nipple with a sharpness that contrasted to the teasing brushstrokes of the skin of Pierce’s palm. A jolt immediately rocked Cassidy, ending between her legs with a wet heat that rivaled that of the outdoors. She was so engrossed with Pierce’s touch, it took Cassidy a moment to notice Pierce had stopped, focusing instead on what appeared to be a small area in the lower part of Cassidy’s left underarm.
“Cass. What’s this?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a lump here. It feels like a big node to me.”
Cassidy’s heart skittered through her chest, and a tiny fist reached in and began to squeeze. It was subtle at first. But then the intensity built until her lungs were being crushed and a tunnel of gray built around her vision. This couldn’t be happening. No. This was just another nightmare. She’d wake up in a minute, next to Pierce. Safe.
“I don’t know.” Cassidy closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, willing herself to wake up. But she didn’t.
“How long has it been there?”
She had to keep it together. For all Pierce was aware, this was just a harmless lymph node. A virus, maybe. “Honestly, I didn’t notice it.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really, no.” It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. Which was exactly how the cancer had started the first time—a large, painless lump in her groin area Cassidy had found while taking a shower one morning.
All at once, the world ended for Cassidy. The picture in her head she’d just barely let herself conceive, one of her and Pierce, and maybe an overall-clad toddler, running the beach in late summer, dissolved into a cruel dust. And any hope of continuing to run from the monster was replaced by faded snapshots of hospital stays, chemo, and a ragged Pierce giving up her entire life for something she couldn’t stop either.
Cassidy feigned the most nonchalant smile she could muster from her terrified depths. “I’ll make an appointment to get it checked, okay? I’m sure it’s no big deal.”
* * *
The anticipation nearly consumed Cassidy, but she managed to wait until the next morning when Pierce left for work to call Dr. Lucas Hedges at Boston Children’s Hospital. She felt silly calling a pediatric oncologist, now that she was in her mid-twenties. But she didn’t know what else to do. The minute Pierce was out the door, Cassidy grabbed her phone and began searching for the number. Once she found it, though, it took nearly fifteen minutes to get up the courage to dial. If she made an appointment, if she acknowledged she had a lymph node, this became real. If she ignored it, maybe it would just…disappear. But her logical, medically trained brain told her if she ignored it, and it was the monster raising its hateful head, it wouldn’t disappear. She would just get sicker. And then maybe it really would be too late.
It was Pierce who pushed her to eventually let the call go through. Not Pierce herself, exactly, but the thought of her. If she was sick again, she wanted to get better so she could build a life with Pierce. So they could die together, as two cranky, exhausted ninety-five-year-olds in their nursing home, bickering about which pitcher the Red Sox should start.
She also felt safe. When she had first learned she had cancer, she’d counted on her parents to protect her. Like most kids, she’d figured she didn’t have any problems Mom and Dad couldn’t fix. They’d never let anything bad happen to her. Now that she was an adult, she knew better. Her parents were just fragile, flawed humans like everyone else. They couldn’t cure her non-Hodgkins, and they certainly couldn’t keep it from coming back. And neither could Pierce. Yet, somehow, the thought of going through it all again with Pierce by her side brought back that same sense of security. Pierce wouldn’t let anything hurt her.
“Yes, hi. Can I make an appointment with Dr. Hedges?” Cassidy was momentarily jarred by the voice on the other end of the line announcing that she’d reached the Pediatric Oncology Practice of Greater Boston.
“Certainly. And what’s the appointment regarding?”
“I’m a…I used to be a patient of Dr. Hedges. I found a lump…”
“Okay.” The receptionist’s voice didn’t hold the amount of concern for her Cassidy thought was warranted. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Cassidy Sullivan.”
“Let me just pull you up here. One minute.” After an excruciating silence came some audible tapping. Would her records even be accessible since she had been a patient so long ago? They were probably archived in some dusty cardboard box somewhere in the bowels of the medical-records department.
“Here we are. September 2, 1989?”
“Yes. That’s me.” Cassidy had almost forgotten her birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks. Every birthday she’d celebrated in recent memory had been a declaration of one more year without the cancer. Maybe her twenty-seventh wouldn’t be quite so fortunate.
“Great. I have an opening on September 14th. Ten a.m.?”
“That’s three weeks away. I can’t wait that long,” Cassidy snapped.
“Let me just see if there’s anything else, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“It looks like he had a cancellation tomorrow. Eight a.m. Can you make it in?” The woman’s voice remained soft and kind.
“Yes! Thank you. I really, really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
“Just one thing…Is it, you know, weird?”
The woman laughed politely. “That you’re an adult? Not at all. We have many patients that the doctors follow well into adulthood.”
For the most fleeting of moments, the kind secretary on the other end of the phone, and Dr. Lucas Hedges, lifted the weight of Cassidy’s worry from her shoulders. Until Cassidy remembered she still had a lymph node. And the monster was still nearby.
* * *
The Pediatric Oncology Center of Greater Boston was almost exactly as Cassidy remembered it. The walls were still the same overly cheerful yellow, and countless photos of kids who’d won their battles with cancer smothered a mammoth bulletin board, boasting just how good Dr. Hedges and his team were at beating the odds. As a child, Cassidy used to stare at the board endlessly, dreaming of her picture being up there someday. Two other people were waiting to check in at the reception desk, and Cassidy couldn’t help but search for her photo. Sure enough, so many years later, it was there—a dirty-blond, braces-clad, acne-ridden teenage Cassidy, smiling like she’d just been told she was going to Disney World. She remembered that day, her last visit to this office. The day the great Lucas Hedges had told her she was “cancer free.” Now look at me, Lucas, you motherfucker.
“Can I help you?” Cassidy immediately recognized the voice coming from the woman behind the reception desk from their pleasant exchange the previous morning.
“Yes. I’m here for my appointment with Dr. Hedges. Cassidy Sullivan.”
“Very good. I’ll just need you to fill these out. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.” The woman’s heartening smile was exactly what Cassidy had imagined through the phone.
“Sure.” Cassidy took the clipboard that was handed to her.
“Welcome back, dear.”
It was a rather odd thing to say, “welcome back.” As if anyone would ever want to step foot in a place like this ever again, cheerful yellow walls and all.
It took only ninety seconds for Cassidy to update her latest contact info, her medical problems (none, as far as she hoped), allergies, and medications. She sat on a polka-dot beanbag chair at the edge of the room. A flat-screen TV in the corner, which she acknowledged was new since her time as a patient there, played a cartoon featuring a family of pigs who wore dress clothes and ate at the dinner table. On a beanbag adjacent to her sat a fidgety adolescent boy, his scalp bald and his skin void of the usual fl
ush of a child’s cheeks. He pounded furiously on an iPad, his mother periodically reminding him it was the only iPad he had, and he needed to be careful with it. Outdated issues of Highlights Magazine sat neatly on the table in the center of the room, just like they had years ago. Cassidy thought they’d stopped making Highlights years ago, which only added to the strange déjà vu of the scene that sent a cold chill shooting down her neck. She should have called her parents. At least her mother. Or she should have told Pierce. Anything would have been better than being alone in that waiting room in that moment.
“Cassidy?” A nurse in lavender scrubs with cartoon puppies on them entered and looked directly at Cassidy. She wasn’t hard to miss, being the only patient in the room born before the Obama administration.
“Right here.” She stood quickly, the rush of blood to her feet leaving her woozy and unsteady.
“Come this way. We’ll just get your height and weight.”
“Everyone’s favorite.” Cassidy forced a laugh, wondering when humor had become a defense mechanism for her. Probably when she started working in emergency medicine, and it had to be.
The nurse in the lavender scrubs seemed to have a difficult time finding a paper gown large enough to fit a fully grown human, and Cassidy suddenly doubted just how many “adult patients” Dr. Hedges really had. And then, she was alone again. The door to the exam room was shut. Her bare legs dangled off the edge of the still absurdly high exam table. The gown crinkled and crackled with every movement, scratching her skin as it went. Isopropyl alcohol permeated the air—a scent Cassidy encountered on a near-daily basis, but one that smelled entirely different that day. She’d gotten so good at being a patient, when she was younger. Always smiling, optimistic. Never a tear shed or a scrap of fear shown. At least, that was how it looked to everyone else. Cassidy was the best pediatric patient she knew. And now, all she could manage to be was afraid.