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“Where are you going?” Tyson asked, alarmed.
My mom looked up, her eyes wide.
I hadn’t moved out of my bed for days.
But not just because I’d had surgery to remove parts of my lung. Because now the thought of her being hurt, in any way, was sending me into apoplectic fits.
“Zip was in an accident,” I wheezed.
“Oh my God,” I heard Aracelli say. “Where?”
“The app sent me a location,” I said as I was slipping my house slippers on. “I gotta go.”
I was out the door in seconds, not even stopping to put on a shirt.
I was in a pair of sweatpants, slippers, and nothing else.
I hadn’t brushed my teeth, shaved, or brushed my hair in days.
And with every step that I took, my lungs physically ached.
But the worse ache was the one inside my heart at the thought of her being hurt in some way.
My stomach was low-level about to puke as I got into my truck and started it up.
I didn’t even stop to adjust the seat as I followed the directions to the area where the app sent me.
But when I arrived, there wasn’t a single thing going on.
There wasn’t a car in sight.
Which sent even more shivers down my spine.
There were trees all over.
Was she in those trees?
Was she…
“She’s not hurt.”
I looked around, expecting to see someone, but found nothing.
“What?” I asked, continuing to scan for a second time.
“I’m on your phone.”
I looked at said phone, expecting to see a phone call or something, but saw nothing but a blank screen.
“Who…”
“It’s Folsom. I’m a friend of Zip’s.” She paused. “I hacked into your phone after I saw her crash detection go off. She’s fine. She’s at that diner right down the road.”
I looked up to see the diner in the distance.
“How…”
“Just go,” she said. “Drive your car.”
I did, thanking her as I drove.
“Just tell her not to be too mad at me,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of this happening to me, and well…”
She didn’t say anything else.
As I arrived at the diner, I could clearly see through the front windows of the diner two people sitting at a table.
Val and Zip.
Zip looked… exhausted.
She looked smaller, too, almost. As if she’d lost weight that she didn’t really need to lose.
Her eyes were dark and bruised, as if she hadn’t slept in just as long as I hadn’t.
Then there were her clothes.
She was in loose clothing. My sweatshirt, and what looked to be my t-shirt underneath that.
She was standing beside a booth, and she was crying.
I hastily made my way inside.
The second I was close enough to her, I pulled her into my arms and buried my face into her hair.
“Are you okay?”
“What?” she squirmed, then pulled away as much as my grip on her would allow. “How did you find me?”
I stared at her, straight into her sunken eyes, and said, “This girl on my phone told me. Did you wreck? Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” she asked, stiffening. “Am I okay that I literally just had to throw my fifteen-hundred-dollar phone out the fucking window because you wouldn’t freakin’ talk to me?”
I hesitated, which gave her enough leeway to pull away from me.
Her eyes narrowed on my chest, then the stitches that were on my chest.
“What’s that?”
“Um,” I said, unsure how to answer.
“Did you have surgery again?” she asked so quietly that I started to get nervous.
“Answer me, Nash,” she ordered.
I didn’t bother to hide it.
She’d find out eventually, I guess.
“I did,” I said. “The cancer spread to my lungs.”
She fisted her hands at her sides, and I could almost see the steam coming out of the top of her head.
“Your cancer has spread. To your lungs. And instead of telling me this, you went and had surgery all by yourself because…” She waited for me to answer, but I didn’t have a good enough reason.
Being scared seemed kind of silly right now.
She wouldn’t understand…
“You can answer whenever you’re ready, Nash Christopherson,” she seethed.
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
How did I even begin?
“You have about two seconds to start explaining, or I’m going to take your earlier words to heart, and never see you again. I’ll move somewhere so remote that you’ll never be able to find me,” she snapped.
The thought of her doing that sent shivers of dread down my spine.
“I…” I closed my eyes, and the feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me. “I don’t want you to watch me die.”
She swallowed hard, and none of the anger that was on her face dissipated even an iota.
“So, instead of giving me the option to make that choice, since, you know, it directly involves me, you chose to take that decision away from me. Then you made both of us miserable on what could possibly be the last however long of your life,” she said. “Do I have that straight?”
