Page 109 of The False Flat

How could I stop this from happening? It was so damned hot in this place. The water looked cool. If we weren’t going for gelato, maybe I could go for a swim, a quick one. Then I could get out and tell Grant—

He took my other hand, but I couldn’t feel his hands on mine. I looked down, saw the line where his skin met mine, but it could’ve been a drawing. I tried to wiggle my fi . . .

“I have cancer.”

Cancer.

Cancer.

Cancer.

The word echoed in my head, rolled down the indoor sidewalk, slammed the balcony doors of all the rooms with an interior atrium view.

“Penelope, did you hear me?” he asked.

“Cancer,” someone said, maybe me.

“Yes. Pancreatic cancer. That CT scan suggested it; a biopsy confirmed it. My doc’s sending me to a surgical oncologist. I see him tomorrow.”

I think he paused, but all my senses were so dull I couldn’t be sure.

“I suspected, but I was trying to be optimistic. Penelope, pancreatic cancer is . . .”

Routine. What the hell happened to routine?

His words faded in and out.

Poor.

Prognosis.

Surgery.

Stent.

Chemo.

Radiation.

The words didn’t make sense, at least not in the sporadic way I was hearing them.

“I’m sorry.” Then I heard my mother’s voice say the same thing to a little girl who also didn’t want to hear an apology. “Given everything you’ve been through, I can’t imagine telling you anything worse than telling you I have cancer.”

Please, God.

Cancer.

The word became a tangible thing that stepped outside of Grant’s body and punched me in the stomach. The word grew in size, towering over the trees, the greenery, covering all the lights on its way up to the glass ceiling, where jagged shards rained down as the word burst through the panes and reached all the way up to the moon, turning everything pitch black, darker than pitch. This was nothing, the blackness of nothing, and my whole body vanished into it, completely lost.

CHAPTER 43

ZERO JIMMY CHOOS

There was a three-inch circle of drool on my pillow when I woke to pounding. My room was dim. Out the window, the early-morning sun stretched in the sky, or was that the afternoon sun? I didn’t know what time it was, what day it was. How long had I been asleep? I didn’t even remember getting in bed.

I thought back. Grant had come to my house. I drove us both to—I looked down at my crumpled black dress, the pearls on my wrist, and reality slammed into my chest, knocking me back on the bed.

Grant.