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“So are you going to put that luggage to use?”
At the sound of his voice, she closed her eyes. And before she could think of anything to say, oreven turn around, his harsh breathing registered. Pivoting, she looked at him in alarm. His knit hat was off-kilter, his face bright red, his mouth open, the wheezing so pronounced that she snapped into nurse mode, even though she wasn’t one.
“Sit down,” she said as she lunged for him. “Come here—”
He batted at her hands and took a step away. Lost his balance and dropped his cane. Stumbled and fell into one of the empty compartments where suits should have hung on matched hangers. His body nailed the back panel loud enough to echo, and for a moment, he just went still. Like he was a brittle object, broken.
“I’m okay,” he said in a weak voice.
When she tried to help him out of the nook, he shoved her hand to the side again. And then they just stayed separate, him conforming into the base of the sectional, her sitting back on her ass on the thick, luxurious carpet. The fact that they were surrounded by empty segments where things should have been seemed apt.
God, his breathing sounded so bad.
Lydia pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her cheek on them, her head turned away so she was staring at her suitcase. Why had she bought one that was such a bright color, she wondered numbly. That was not her style.
“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “About the smoking.”
She took a deep breath. “What you put in your body is your choice.”
“If it makes a difference, I can only handle two draws on the damn things. Then, you know, the coughing takes over.”
Every time Lydia blinked, she saw the image of the tumors in his lungs, glowing on that laptop.
“So what were the results,” he asked.
“Not good,” she said. “Gus can give you the details.”
“He doesn’t have to. The fact that you aren’t yelling at me says it all.”
There was a rustling, and then a series of coughs—and it seemed the height of cruelty that the choking sound, that combination of gasp and wheeze, was what made her want to scream at him. What did that say about her?
“You can leave,” he told her. “Or I can. This whole thing has been… bullshit, really, and you can get out—”
“I can?” She looked over at him sharply. “Explain to me how that works—and no, it’s not about filling a suitcase and driving off. You think you’re not going to be on my mind anywhere I go? There’s no escaping you.”
When he winced, she cursed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You just told the truth. That’s all—and I don’t blame you. If I could run from me, I would, too.”
As she tried to think of what to say, her focus lasered on him, in a way that suggested she kept most of his physical details dimmed these days because it was just too painful to catalogue the changes. Now, though, she couldn’t avoid anything about the way that his torso curved into an awkwardS, the cabinetry behind him dictating his position, his body too frail to do anything but conform to its environment. And then there was his face, so pale now as to have a gray cast, the dark bags under his eyes a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition.
For a split second, an image of him from the first time she saw him barged into her mind. He’d come for an interview at the Wolf Study Project, and as he’d appeared in the open doorway of her office, she’d stumbled over her words. He had been so tall, so broad, his face glowing with health, his dark hair so silky and thick, his eyes a fiery hazel. Now, he was like an older, hard-lived relation of that other man, a stranger who shared many of the features and all of the coloring, but none of the youth and vibrancy.
With every fiber of her being, she wanted to go back to the previous him. She wanted to feel his strong arms around her, and smell his clean, fresh scent, and know that, come nightfall, she could lookforward to the two of them getting into bed and messing things up in a good way.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said roughly.
“You should.” He shook his head grimly. “You really need to.”
Incompatibility was a divergence in Robert Frost’s forest full of roads, wasn’t it.
Daniel was not a poetry guy, but everyone had read that little ditty about the yellow wood, the two roads, the pairing off. Back when he’d been in his old life, on the very rare occasion he’d thought about affinity between two people in a relationship, he’d always assumed that it applied to matters of personality, habits, and values. Like, introversion and extroversion. Geographic location, jobs, marriage priorities. Kids. Religion. Cap-on, cap-off shit when it came to Crest.
For example, when he’d met Lydia, his Plenty of Fish profile, if he’d had one, would have been a real party: Introvert with extensive weapons training; no-roots drifter working for a shadow arm of the U.S. government; never, ever interested in taking a wife. No future plans, other than an expectation that he’d be executed in his sleep at some point.
Lydia had been a surprise in most ways, and a shocker in a specific one, but there had never been any issues with them getting along. They had beenof like mind, and very like body, at the beginning. Now, though, they had diverged, and he was taking the road less traveled—and yes, it was making all of the difference. Unfortunately, his one-laner was a kick in the ass that came with an early grave—and the reason there was no more traffic currently on it was because the chances of someone his age getting catastrophic cancer was a lottery win in the worst possible sense.
The urge to apologize to her again for getting sick was like his cough, a returning spasm in his throat that he knew wasn’t going to be eased for long. Still, he swallowed the syllables as best he could because he knew actions, not words, were what mattered when you were making amends, and his immune system was just not up to the task of curing him. And neither were all the drugs he’d been taking.
