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“It was your uncle.”
Both his eyes opened, and his face turned serious.
“What?”
He leaned up on his elbows. “It’s only six in the morning in California. If he’s calling me this early, there’s a reason.”
“I didn’t think of that. Well, hurry, call him back.”
Hunter swung his legs and sat up on the edge of the bed. But he didn’t immediately reach for his phone. At first I thought he was taking a minute to wake up, but then I caught sight of his face. “What’s the matter?”
“Uncle Joe ran the test. He said he’d call as soon as the results were in.”
“But it’s only Thursday. You said results weren’t due until Friday.”
“He said probably Friday. I don’t know. He could be calling about something else. But…”
His cell phone started to ring again. We looked at each other for a few rings before he answered. “Hey, Uncle Joe. Give me one minute, okay?”
He covered the phone. “You sure this is what you want? You don’t want to know. It’s a big decision, Natalia.”
I wasn’t sure of much, but I was certain of one thing. “You’ll leave me if it’s positive. Your life won’t be the same. I’ll leave it up to you. But I don’t want to take those risks. I don’t need or want to know.”
He stared into my eyes for a long time before nodding. Then he lifted the phone back to his ear. “Hey, Uncle Joe. Before you say anything, I want to let you know that I’ve decided to not find out the results. So if that’s the reason you’re calling, I don’t want to know.”
I heard a man’s voice through the cell, but couldn’t make out the words he was saying. Hunter stared off, listening intently.
“Uh-huh. Right.”
Hunter’s eyes raised to mine and held. “Natalia and I decided we don’t want to know.”
He looked away again while he went back to listening. I couldn’t sit still. I wrapped the sheet around me and stood to pace the floor.
Hunter kept nodding and said yes a few times. At one point, he rubbed his temples with his free hand. It made me nervous that maybe his uncle had called about something else, that something bad had happened.
After a few minutes that felt more like hours, Hunter cleared his throat. “Okay. Thanks, Uncle Joe. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” He pressed end call and shut his eyes, looking down.
“What happened? Is your aunt okay?”
My heart jumped into my throat when he looked up. Tears streamed down his face.
“Hunter, what happened?”
Without warning, I was suddenly lifted into the air and tossed on the bed. “My test came back negative.”
I shook my head, afraid to believe what I’d just heard. “What test?”
“My DNA analysis came back negative. There’s a zero-percent chance that I have Huntington’s disease.”
Tears streamed down my face to match his. “Oh my God. Are you serious? But you told him you didn’t want to know.”
Hunter smiled. “He told me tough shit, he wasn’t sitting on a negative result until I finally pulled my head out of my ass.”
“You really don’t have it? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better because of our fight yesterday?”
“
No, I’m not just trying to make you feel better, babe.” He pressed his lips to mine. “But I’m about to make you feel better.”
