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“Lil, I promise you it’s just a follow up. Every six months.” He explained.” He sat back, as if he were trying to figure out what to say, and my shocked expression probably wasn’t helping much.
“The reason I was away from college last year, was I had cancer. They found a tumor on my kidney at the beginning of last year. They removed the kidney and my lymph nodes, and I had to do the whole radiation and chemotherapy thing.” My mouth was hanging open in shock. That’s why he missed last year? What about the murder rumor? I think I much preferred that to this. “Lil, I’ve been in remission for more than eight months. They got it all, and they are confident it won’t return.”
“How confident?” I asked, remembering a time when they were confident Abby’s treatment would work.
“About eighty percent.” He finally answered. Eighty percent. That was great, if you were talking about a grade, but this was cancer, and cancer always seemed to worm its way into people’s lives and ruin them. For every eighty people that the cancer wouldn’t return for, there was another twenty that it would.
“Lily, please, say something?” Dane begged me. Say something? Like he said something to me? Something along the lines of ‘Hey, I’m recovering from cancer’ would have been good before I’d fallen in love with him. Would that have changed things? If I’d known he was in remission for cancer, would I still have let myself fall in love with him?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice was even, and controlled, which was far from how I was feeling inside.
“You lost your twin to cancer. I didn’t know how to tell you.” He said helplessly. “At first, I wasn’t sure where we were even going, and then by the time I knew, it was too late. Every moment seemed the worst possible time. Then Steffy happened. I’m sorry, Lil. I’m so sorry.” He was crying now. I reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. The last thing I wanted was to punish him, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it was okay when I wasn’t sure it was.
“I don’t feel very good.” I said, standing up. His hand shot out to steady me, and I pushed it away. “I’m okay, I just need to lie down.” I said faintly. The truth was, I needed space, but I couldn’t send him away.
“Do you want me to take you home?” He asked. I shook my head. “Do you want to go?” He asked, confused. I shook my head again. I needed to lie down.
Standing up, I walked down the hall to his room. Closing the door behind me, I climbed into his bed, half hoping if I went back to sleep I could wake up and al
l this would’ve just been a bad dream. Dane would be next to me, tickling my arm. I breathed in deeply, all I could smell was Dane. His scent was everywhere.
For hours I just lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. If I closed my eyes, would Abby come? Would she know how much I needed her? And would she tell me what to do, or would I figure that out on my own?
Somewhere between crying over Abby, and crying over Dane, I realized something. How selfish I was. All through Abby’s treatments, I’d tried to stay strong for her, but inside I was a wreck wondering how I was going to cope after she had gone. Everything that happened I broke it down by how it was going to affect me. And I was doing it again, now. So Dane had cancer.
So what? It was a year ago, and he was healthy now. Who knew what was going to happen, or what was going to take us in the end. He could be killed in an accident next week for all I knew, or die from old age when he’s ninety-five, with e by his side.
I was so focused on that twenty percent chance of the cancer returning, because it had taken so much from me already. It had taken my best friend. My sister. A part of me. Dane saw cancer as something he had beaten, he had faced it and won. If he could see that in a positive light, I owed it to him to do the same. I owed it to myself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dane was curled up on the sofa, asleep when I walked in. For a moment, I watched him, the way his hand twitched, and his chest moved to the rhythm of his breathing. Sitting down in front of him, I placed my hand inside of his. He instinctively squeezed it as he opened his eyes. I watched as a range of emotions moved through his eyes. Surprise, shock, relief.
Reaching out my hand, I brushed his hair from his eyes, stunning blue eyes that never left my own.
“I love you.” I whispered, my lips encasing his. He kissed me deeply, shivers ran throughout my body. “If I get you for a year, or ten, of fifty, I don’t care. I love you.” I repeated, this time louder, and with conviction. Dane sat up, pulling me onto his lap.
“I love you too, Lil. I love you so god dammed much.” He cradled me in his arms, kissing me over and over again. It felt right. Around him, I felt complete again. How could I fight something that made me feel whole again?
“How did it start? What happened?” I asked softly, joining him on the sofa. He put his arm around my shoulders.
“I was a state level boxer, and I woke up with some pretty serious back pain. At first I thought it was from a hit, but when it hadn’t gone a couple of weeks later, I went to the doctor. Blood tests came back with abnormal kidney function, so he wanted to do an ultrasound.” Dane played with my fingers as he spoke. “When they told me it was cancer, I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was for mom and dad. After what happened with Steffy, how could I tell them they might lose me too?”
“What did the doctors say? Did they give you a prognosis?” I asked.
“They told me that the rates for a full recovery were high if they removed the kidney and my lymph nodes. It would mean no competitive sport ever again, but in return it might save my life. There was no question for me. I booked in the surgery that week.” Dane shrugged. Going through Abby’s diagnosis with her, I couldn’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for Dane going through that alone.
“When did you tell your parents?” I asked softly.
“After I was discharged from the hospital, with the surgeon confident they got all the cancer.” He put his head back, his hand resting on his forehead as his eyes met mine. “It was hard, being alone through all those ‘what ifs’, but I just couldn’t tell my parents until I knew what I was dealing with.”
“And your friends? College?” I asked, still not sure why he had kept it such a secret.
“I just found I didn’t have much in common with my friends after I couldn’t box anymore. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want everyone thinking they had to feel sorry for me.” He tried to mask the hurt he still felt about his apparent friends abandoning him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know you earlier.” I mumbled, curling up in his lap. “I would have looked after you.”
“You do, sexy.” He said softly, stroking my hair. “You’re the best thing ever to happen to me.” I turned onto my back, smiling up at the face staring down at me from above. I wanted to lie like this forever, in his arms. In all this uncertainty, we had managed to find each other, and neither of us was about to let go.
