Her fingers wander on to my collarbones. ‘And that?’
‘What are you doing, Nyla?’
‘Does that hurt?’ Her tone is shrill now. ‘Come on, Jaden, does that hurt?’
I’ve never seen her like this before.
Worried, yes. Afraid, yes. But like this… I take her hands in mine, hold them tight. ‘No, that doesn’t hurt.’
She gasps, fresh tears welling in her eyes. ‘My God…’
What’s wrong with her? ‘You’re scaring me.’
‘I always thought I could…, that I… twenty-five percent…,’ she stammers as the tears keep streaming relentlessly down her cheeks. ‘You’re not one percent… Lilly…, why didn’t I…?’
Something about the way she looks goes right through me. Goose bumps spread over my whole body. ‘What are you talking about, what’s going on?’
She sways. I hold her steady. ‘Your lymph nodes.’ Her voice breaks. ‘They’re enlarged.’
Instinctively, I take a step back.
‘They’re enlarged and you’re not in pain.’
No. No pain, and that’s hardly surprising. ‘I’ve been given painkillers, you know that.’
‘They’re enlarged and you’re not in pain and your bloodwork points to a…’ She draws in a sharp breath. ‘…points to a tumor.’
Tumor.
The word echoes inside me.
Tumor.
No. That can’t be. ‘I don’t think…’
She shakes her head, pain flooding her expression. ‘Lilly,’ she says again.
What about her?
‘A family risk for Hodgkin lymphoma is rare, but it’s…’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ Whatever is going on in her head right now isn’t real. ‘I would have noticed if something was wrong with me,’ I try to calm her down, but the more I talk to her, the more violently she shakes her head. ‘And the fact that my bloodwork is off is normal after the cut.’
‘Stop it, Jaden!’ she suddenly yells, and I don’t recognize her. ‘You’re tired all the time and you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?’
Where is she getting that from?
‘Your shirts, they fit so loose,’ she answers the question I didn’t ask.
‘A completely normal fluctuation because I’ve been training less lately.’ I try to stay calm so she’ll calm down too.
‘And why have you trained so little?’ she asks.
‘There was a lot going on, I hardly had any time, that’s all,’ I reply, although that’s not all. Yes, I’ve often been exhausted lately, but that’s not because of an illness, it’s because I’ve been partying too much.
‘You’re sick, don’t you see, you’re sick!’ She looks like a madwoman now, my God, she can’t think clearly at all anymore.
I put my healthy arm around her to calm her. She’s trembling all over, so I rock her gently back and forth. ‘I’m fit, honestly, everything is fine.’
