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There is a beat of silence. Jade nibbles at her lower lip, thinking. I let her have this moment to decide. So many things have been out of her power lately, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be one of them. Besides, she’s here. I’ll take any small win I can.
Just then, her phone lights up, and an unfamiliar number shows on her screen. She just looks at it for what feels like forever before her throat bobs. “It’s… it’s the hospital. They’ve been trying to call me.”
My body freezes at the mention of the hospital. Although we haven’t been talking, I’ve been following the days and weeks. She was done with her chemo by now. Which could only mean one thing, they had her final scans.
Schooling myself, I ask slowly: “Have they?”
“Yeah. They probably have the results back by now.”
“And you haven’t been answering?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
The tremble in her voice, the fear shining in her eyes, they’re my undoing. I reach across the table, placing my hand over hers. “Jade…” That familiar jolt courses through me at the touch, and I relish in the familiarity of it. In how good it feels to have her in my arms, even if it’s just my hand covering hers.
Mine.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
“As long as I don’t pick up that call, I can live in denial, you know?” she chuckles nervously, her eyes glued to our joined hands. But she doesn’t pull away. Maybe it’s the shock of the touch. Maybe she misses me as much as I miss her. Either way, I’ll take it. “As long as I don’t pick up that call, I’m in between. I can pretend that I’ll be okay. That this nightmare will soon be over and everything will be fine, but if I answer…”
“If you answer, you could be healed,” I tell her gently, my thumb stroking over her slender knuckles. She’s lost so much weight in the last few months. Just a shadow of the woman she used to be. But that fire, it’s still burning inside her.
“Or I could still have cancer,” she fires right back, her gaze meeting mine. “And then I’m back at square one.” She presses her lips together. “I’m tired, Prescott.” The admission is so soft I have to lean closer to hear it. “I’m so damn tired, and the idea… The idea that this might not be over, that I’ll have to go through it all over again. It scares me shitless.”
Her words are my undoing.
I can feel it.
I can feel how drained she is from the last few months. Any sane person would be. What she’s been through… nobody should ever be forced to go through it.
“I know, baby,” I say, the words coming out rough. “But you can’t live in this limbo forever. Eventually, you’ll have to pick up that phone.”
“Just like you’ll eventually have to open that damn letter.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Touché,” I smirk, my hand still holding onto hers. “How about I make you a deal?”
There is a beat of silence before… “What kind of deal?” she asks tentatively.
I start to sweat just at the thought of it. I’ve had the letter with me for the last week, and I’ve pushed off opening it. What if I failed again? What if I failed, not just Gabriel but myself too? Because while a part of me was doing this to honor him, being a doctor was what I wanted to do. I wanted to help kids, both the sick ones and the ones who were standing by that bed, watching their loved ones die. But I couldn’t ask her to face her fears while at the same time refusing to face my own.
“I’ll open the letter if you answer that call. We’ll do it together.”
Whatever it is, I know I can deal with it if we’re together.
But you’re not together, are you?
But what if there could be an us again?
Now, with a clear mind, I understood why Jade did what she did. I understood what she meant when she said we were broken. She was right. Of course, she was. We’ve both come with so much of our baggage, and we started to drown as we were trying to help each other heal instead of helping ourselves heal first.
But maybe, just maybe…
“You’ll open it?”
I nod. “If you pick up that call.”
“What if they say the cancer is still here?”
