Page 200 of Halo

My heart melts.

“Buddy, are those for me?”

He nods, pushing them into my hands. “Because you like peaches.”

“I love them. Thank you.”

“And look.”

He digs into the bag again and pulls out a little sewing kit, followed by a folded piece of fabric covered in brightly colored dinosaurs.

I turn it over in my hands. “What’s all this?”

“Aunt Bonnie’s gonna teach me how to sew.”

I glance at her.

She shrugs. “He saw my sewing room and asked approximately forty-seven questions.”

“I did not ask forty-seven.”

“Forty-six, then.”

He considers that acceptable.

“Well,” I tell him, handing the dinosaur fabric back, “you better show me whatever you make.”

“I will.”

He carefully puts everything back into his bag, peach rings excluded.

Those, apparently, are mine.

I sleep again after lunch and don’t wake until I hear voices outside, deep and familiar beneath the open window. Somebody laughs, followed by Grady shouting something about a horse, and then Nick’s voice carries above all of them.

A few minutes later, he comes upstairs smelling like sun, leather, and dust.

“There’s my girl.” He leans over the bed and kisses me. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better.”

“We’re gonna eat in about an hour. You coming down?”

I think about it before shaking my head. “I think I’m going to stay up here tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll bring you something.”

No disappointment. No argument. He kisses me again before heading downstairs.

Eventually, I make myself get up.

The bathroom is only across the hall, but I keep one hand against the wall the entire way. Under the bright light, I catch my reflection and stop.

I look sick.

There’s no gentler way to put it. My skin is pale, my eyes look too big without my hair, and when I lift my shirt to change my colostomy bag, scars cross my abdomen around a piece of intestine that now lives outside my body.

I should hate this woman.