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My throat aches and it occurs to me that my damn eyes are leaking again. I bring a surreptitious hand up, wipe at them behind Timmy’s back. Mrs. Varek sees, though, and she smiles sadly at me. I try to smile back, but even as I try I know the result is more grimace than grin. With everything that’s happened between yesterday and today—with Timmy, right here, so thin and insubstantial as he hugs me with everything he’s got—it’s taking every ounce of concentration I have not to scream.
And then Timmy’s pulling away, hugging Z and Luc, Cam and Logan. Then it’s time for him to go, for all of us to go, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to let him out of my sight. If he stays right here, in front of me, then nothing bad will happen to him.
It’s a crazy thought, a ridiculous one, and I shove it back down as Timmy, Ericka and his parents call one last good-bye. And then they’re leaving, climbing into the limo Z has waiting for them and speeding away to the hotel where they’ll spend the night before flying home to Boulder.
I watch them drive away, just as I watched Tansy leave a few minutes before. Then I turn away, head toward the car that will take Logan and me home. And tell myself the agony ripping through my chest is nothing. Just a pulled muscle. A result of holding my breath too long. An asthma attack. Because it isn’t … it can’t be … I won’t let it be … the beating of what’s left of my shredded, shattered heart.
Chapter 26
Tansy
“So, how’d it work out?” Anna asks, perching herself on the side of my hospital bed. Dr. Gardner’s taken the precaution of admitting me, even though he’s cautiously optimistic about the fever not being a return of the cancer. It’s indicative of something, though, he told my parents and me earlier, and he would prefer to know exactly what that is. Just in case.
Which is why I’m sitting here, staring at the ugly cream walls of yet another hospital room. It’s why my mother has been hovering over me since Ash carried me off that damn plane, why my father is pacing the hallway outside my door, why my brother is inhaling every chocolate bar in a three floor radius and why my sister is even now sitting on my bed, trying to distract me. It’s what she does.
What they all do.
And sitting here, letting them, is what I do even when it makes me crazy. Even when all I really want is to be alone.
I can’t say that, though. Ten years is a lot of routine, a lot of habit, to try to break.
“I’m back in the hospital for the three thousandth time,” I tell Anna with a roll of my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that means it didn’t go well.”
“I don’t mean the remission,” she tells me. “I mean Operation Get Tansy Laid.”
“What?” My mom whirls around from where she’s been standing by the window, looking out at the world beyond my hospital room. It’s a good view, but I haven’t bothered looking. It’s the same view I’ve had off and on for a decade now. I’ve pretty much got it memorized, which is a really depressing thought. As is the thought that nothing has changed. That nothing will change. I’m right back here, where I always end up.
“Nothing, Mom,” I tell her before she can get herself worked up. “Anna’s just talking crazy.”
“No, I’m not. Tansy met a guy in Chile.”
“Oh, yeah?” My mom comes closer to the bed, looks more interested than she does scandalized. Which, considering the way my sister originally phrased things, is totally weird. And not something I even want to think about right now. “What’s his name?”
“Seriously? We’re doing this?” I glare at Anna.
She just shrugs, smiles. “Seems like a better way to pass the time than watching reruns on the Food Network.”
“I like the Food Network!”
“Yeah, well, we’ve seen this episode of Barefoot Contessa about a gazillion times, so … tell us about Ash.”
“Ash? Ash Lewis?” my mom asks. “The guy who carried you off the plane yesterday?”
My brows shoot up. “I didn’t know you knew anything about snowboarding.”
“When my daughter takes off halfway around the world with a man, I learn what I need to,” she answers. “So, what exactly happened? Are you guys dating now?” She sounds almost thrilled.
“No!” I can feel myself turning red and this time I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fever.
“Why not?” Anna demands. “He sounded like he was totally into you. Did you not visit those sites I sent you?”
“Oh, I visited them,” I tell her with a glare. “And we’ll talk about that later.”
“What sites?” my mom asks.
“Nothing!” Anna and I both answer at the exact same time.
“Really, Anna Michelle Hampton?” my mother exclaims with a glare. “You sent your sister to porn sites?”
