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I peered through the harsh light but couldn’t see beyond the white halogen sun pointed at me. Did I know the man? That voice sounded somewhat familiar.
The flashlight clicked off. A second or two passed before the afterimage faded. I had to blink through it to get an idea of who I was staring at. I saw the body first, hard muscle encased in a black uniform. Not terribly tall, probably five-foot-nine. I couldn’t read the name tag yet. My eyes moved up to his face. I blinked again, waiting for the semblance of his features to coalesce into my dazzled vision.
A square jaw. Full lips with an over-pronounced cupid’s bow. A perfect nose that could be featured in a rhinoplasty handbook. Eyes as blue as an arctic glacier. Blond hair left long and styled on top, bald-faded sides.
I couldn’t breathe. Something burgled the air from my lungs, sucked it out like a capsule opening up in space. My mouth fell open.
“Benny?” I uttered.
“I haven’t been called that in years,” Officer Bennett Dubois said. His voice was light, an angelic tenor that I could listen to for hours like a favorite song on repeat.
“What… what are you doing here?” I asked.
The hell kind of question is that?my conscience seemed to ask me.
“Well, you were speeding, Connor, and it’s my job to stop people from doing that.”
I laughed. My lips formed into a stupid smile that I couldn’t help. I didn’t respond at first, just continued to stare until the flashlight blindness left and I finally gained beautiful clarity. He hadn’t aged a day. His face was so youthful. Smooth skin. The barest hint of stubble forming on his upper lip and chin. Thirty-two years old like me, but he didn’t look a day past twenty-one.
“Then you are pretty good at your job,” I said and lightened my tone. I couldn’t stop smiling. Bennett was standing right at my window! “Concord PD. Probably not much happening at two in the morning around here, though. I bet you were excited when I came whizzing by.” I was rambling, and I knew it.
I used to do this with him. Prattle on and on until I said the right thing to get him to smile. I’d take a hundred shots in the dark if it meant one of them landed and I got to see that smile, something he always kept so closely guarded.
I leaned a fraction out of the window and grinned. “I bet you saw me when I passed, too. Admit it.”
Bennett hooked his thumbs into his utility belt. I’d need to try a different approach since this one wasn’t working. But he blinked rapidly. Too fast, too much. That meant he was nervous. I had a sudden memory play of our summer together. That first night, by the river, when I asked if what I wanted to do would be okay, if he was comfortable opening himself to me like that. We lay so close over a bed of red clover under an indigo blanket of stars. He blinked half a dozen times a second. I was nervous too, but I let my hands explore his body. He stopped blinking when I kissed him.
I wondered if that would work now.
“What are you doing back home?” Bennett finally asked me.
I leaned back into my car. “My mother,” I said. Rubbed my chin, sucked on my teeth. My eyes fell to my lap. “I guess she’s sick.”
“You guess?”
My eyes found his again, and I shrugged. “Yep. Just found out…” I looked at the clock on my dashboard. “Twelve hours ago, I’d say? Took the first flight out here. She’s been withholding information, apparently.” Good ol’ Cordelia. I had ample time on the flight to rapid-fire texts at Rachel to get as much information as I could. She texted me everything she knew before she went to bed and told me she’d be by the house in the morning.
“Geo-bast…” I ran my tongue inside my lip and tried the word again. “Geoblast…”
“Glioblastoma?” Bennett said.
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it. Brain cancer.” I hadn’t said that out loud yet. The moment it left my mouth, a weight pressed into me.Brain cancer. Speaking the term aloud felt like I had summoned a demon. Say it three times and that demon could possess you. Hell, it already did. Thinking the C-word had been enough.
My skull pressed into my headrest. Bennett’s presence vanished for a moment as the severity hit my chest. I took in a breath, finding what scarce air remained in the vacuum between Bennett and me. No, not now. I wouldn’t crumble in front of him. Icouldn’t.
Turn it off, Connor, I thought.Be an actor. Choose what you want to emote.
“How long has she had it?” Bennett asked. His tone had lightened. That cherubic tenor of his softening even more.
I recalled Rachel’s texts. “About a year. She started getting seizures last spring. One MRI later and they had answers to a lot of questions.” I shook my head. “And I had no idea until yesterday.”
Bennett would recall the removed relationship between Cordelia Clarke and her son. He had been over at the house a dozen times during our perfect summer. My mother was only there on occasion and she ignored Bennett as much as she did me. The house was certainly big enough to keep distant. I had the entire second floor to myself.
“I’m at the playhouse, darling,” she would tell me. One would think she was an on-call surgeon, not a playwright.
“All right, well.” Bennett’s tone carried a finality to it. The initial excitement of the moment had apparently passed. “You need to slow down, okay?”
I nodded. “Yes. Of course. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Just trying to get home.” A thought popped into my head and left my mouth before I could think better of it. “Are you free at all in the next few days?”
