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“How are you here?” I press the words to the thick cotton of his Henley.
He’s rumpled and wrinkled and smells like an airport, but underneath that is Erik and I snuggle in deeper. All my best laid plans, my reasons for drifting away, and I can’t even think of one when he’s right here. In Quarry Creek. Letting me sob into his shirt.
“We didn’t want you to be alone, Quinn.” His hand is tracing circles between my shoulder blades, unerringly finding the knotted ache of tension, and I pull back a fraction of a fraction of an inch. He has to be here for work, and I’d have known that if we were still talking. Jen wouldn’t want me here alone and I refused to let her take the day off to be with me, so she sent Erik in her place. This might be the first time I regret not telling my roommate that I’ve been ghosting this man.
“Right,” I say, and sit up in my chair and wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand. I still have my phone out and I push it deep into my pocket and stare at the off-white walls, willing someone else to come in. Anyone. “I’m sure you’re busy. I’ll be okay. It’s supposed to be a quick procedure.”
“I don’t have anywhere else I need to be,” Erik says. He’s frowning, but he doesn’t pull me back against him. “I got on the first flight that I could. We stopped twice, or I’d have been here sooner, but there weren’t any direct flights until this morning.”
He… what?
“I’m not here for work. I’m not here because your roommate asked me to be. I’m here because you need someone. I’d have been on that flight even if you were surrounded by people, because I’m here for you.”
I’m not weepy. I promised myself I wouldn’t be, but even as I press my lips together to hold it all back, the tears leak out again. I didn’t have anyone with me the last time I sat in this room. I didn’t have anyone to rub my back or hold my hand or wait with me. I’d sat alone in these chairs naively believing that everything was going to be simple, routine, according to plan. And when it wasn’t, I sat alone in these chairs and forced down the tears and the heartbreak so that when I went to my dad’s room in the ICU, he wouldn’t have to deal with my tear-red eyes and puffy face. He wouldn’t have to console me after hearing he had cancer.
“It’s…” I swallow around the word like it’s a hockey puck stuck in my throat. “It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be… fine.”
It’s a routine surgery.
We’re still within the normal time frame.
Don’t worry.
Don’t. Worry
Don’t.
Fucking.
Worry.
This time Erik doesn’t pull me into his chest. He lifts me like I’m not a six foot, two-hundred pound woman and pulls me into his lap. His thighs are thick and strong under me as he shifts them, spacing them out to better distribute my weight and wraps his arms around my middle. I can’t remember the last time I showered. I’m wearing leggings I’ve had since college and there’s a hole in the armpit of my sweatshirt, but Erik tucks me right into him and rests his cheeks against my temple.
“Nothing ever feels routine or normal once cancer pulls the rug out from under us, and your dad’s method of diagnosis was traumatic.” His hand finds mine, our fingers twisting into each other.
“The chair’s going to break,” I say, because I can’t handle the swooping feeling in my gut. I’m terrified that the doctor is going to walk in any minute, and I’m terrified they won’t and I’m terrified that I’ll never be able to let go of this man.
“If it does, then I’ll cushion your fall. I’m a big guy. It won’t be the first time I’ve broken a chair.” “Erik,” I’m going to stand up. Any minute now. Any minute. Except I’m burrowing in closer to his chest.
“If we go down, then we go down together.”
I roll my eyes even as they burn, “Those are song lyrics.”
“They are, but I felt you relax, anyway.” He presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s okay Quinn. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I’ve got you.” And it’s there, against his chest, that I realize space was never going to help. Not when I’m head over heels in love with this man.
“Let it out,” he says.
Except I can’t. He’s been here before, on the other side. I can’t ask him to carry me through this now. I can’t ask him to pitch head-first back into his own history and trauma. He probably wants to run as fast and as far away from me as he can, so he doesn’t have to deal with this another minute. Cancer was his reality as a kid. It’s even his job now. I can’t ask him to make it part of his personal life too.
“I’ll start crying again,” I say, and this time it’s Erik who wipes the salt water from my face.
“Crying is cathartic. Let it out Quinn.”
“I can’t, Erik. He’ll know I was crying, he’ll know, and I can’t do that to him. I won’t. I promised.”
He freezes under me, his big body statue-still, before he drops our clasped hands and cups my chin. Erik turns my face to his and his hazel eyes slide back and forth between mine. No one has ever looked this deep into me, like he can see right into the center of my soul.
“Baby girl,” his words are whisper soft. “Who did you promise?”
