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But nothing does.
It’s just me in an empty hallway.
Just me alone.
Like it’s been from the moment the doctor first told me I had cancer.
I’ve gotten used to it—or convinced myself I had anyway.
But right now, staring into the darkness, after losing Brit again, it’s too much.
I turn around, walk down the hall, and lay in bed.
For a long, long time.
But eventually that solitude gets to me, and I give up on my bed, on waiting, hoping, praying to the universe that Brit will come home.
I toss back the blankets, slip into Roxie’s room.
And it’s there that I’m finally able to fall asleep.
To the sound of my daughter’s slow and even breathing.
* * *
“Daddy’s sleeping,” I hear my daughter whisper.
Which means she’s all but yelling.
“Well then,” my mom says. “Let’s not wake him up.”
I groan and roll my head from side to side, trying to ease the ache that comes from being too fucking old and deciding it was a good idea to sleep on my daughter’s floor.
“Too late,” I hear my dad say dryly as I rub a hand over my face and manage to peel open my eyes. “Mom, Dad, what are you guys doing here?”
“We’re supposed to go out to brunch with you, Brit, Dan, and Roxie,” my mom says. “And Tiff is going to meet us at Molly’s before she has to go study for her midterm, remember?”
No, I don’t remember.
Because I was doing my personal best to be a fucking idiot.
“Did Brit get in terribly late?” she asks. “We can always bring her something back if she needs to sleep in…”
I try to bite back my wince but clearly don’t do a good enough job because I see my dad’s gaze sharpen, my mom’s eyes widen. “What happened?” she asks, but I cut my eyes toward Rox, who’s tugging on her fluffy rainbow-colored unicorn boots—complete with a mane and horn in the corner of the room.
She understands my look and doesn’t press.
“Why don’t you go find Uncle Dan?” I tell her when she runs back over to me and launches herself into my lap. “That way, we can get breakfast.”
“’Kay,” she murmurs, throwing her arms around me for a quick, tight hug, and then she’s running from the room, yelling, “Uncle Danny!”
“What is it?” my mom says the moment she leaves the room.
I want to lie.
But I’ve been doing entirely too much of that as of late.
“Brit found out about the cancer.”
