AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, I do. Don’t be a baby, Wentworth. It doesn’t look cute on you.”
“Where’s your brother when one needs him?” Prescott grumbles, but he lets me go.
Chuckling, I go toward the front door just as the bell rings again. “Coming!”
Damn, I really hope it’s not one of those annoying sales— “Grace?” I frown at my best friend standing on the other side of the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprise!” she throws her arms around me, making me stumble a step back.
Instinctively, I wrap my arms around her to steady myself, my gaze darting over her shoulder.
“I don’t understand.” Her SUV is parked, and more people are coming out. Mason, Penny, Henry, and there, in the distance, is another car driving up the driveway. “Weren’t you on your way to New York?”
“Well, about that…” She pulls back, giving me a sheepish smile. “We thought it would be best to celebrate here. With you guys.”
I whip my head toward her. “What?”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
JADE
“You didn’t have to change your plans because of me, you know,” I say to Grace as I place another ornament on the Christmas tree.
“Nonsense,” she waves me off. “We didn’t change plans because of you.”
Taking a step back, I give the tree a critical look before I turn and silently raise my brow at her, she shrugs as her only response.
“We didn’t,” she insists. “It made more sense. We decided we’ll stay here for Thanksgiving and visit our families between Christmas and New Year.”
I know she’s lying. Ever since I told them about the cancer, they’ve been around more. Not that my friends haven’t been around to begin with, but I knew they could see it too. That subconscious, what if. What if I don’t make it in the end? What if cutting myself open and injecting deathly medicine won’t be enough to fight my cancer? What if we’re living on borrowed time?
People always think they’ll have time. They’ll see the people they love. They’ll visit that one place they always dreamed about. They’ll spend the next Christmas with their loved ones. But the sad truth is, we can’t know that because there are simply no guarantees. This moment you have right now? It might be your last, so you must embrace it with both hands and cling to it as if it were.
I know that because I’ve been that person. After Mom told me that the cancer was back, even before we knew it was terminal. We’ve clung to the moments, hours, minutes, seconds, living them as if those were our last, but it still wasn’t enough.
Clearing my throat, I look down at Penny, who’s waiting with another ornament ready to be put on the tree. “What about you, Pens? I figured you’d want to visit Kate and Emmett.”
“I’ve seen them recently,” Penny smiles, her platinum curls bouncing as she tilts her head, her hand gently touching the box until her fingers wrap around the next ornament in line. “Besides, I think they’re excited to celebrate their first Thanksgiving alone.”
“They would be happy to have you there.”
“Oh, I know that.” Her face lights up as she looks down. “Oh, this is pretty,” she whispers, her fingers slowly tracing the ornament in her palm.
I blink, the crystal ball coming into focus. It’s completely see-through, with different-sized, glittery snowflakes etched into the glass.
“Daddy, you’re home!” I run into my father’s arms the moment he steps through the door. Wrapping my arms around his legs I bury my face into his thigh. “We missed you.”
He had a meeting across the world and couldn’t make it back home in time for the holidays because of the snowstorm.
“I missed you too, Princess.” Dad rubs my back, pulling me back so he can get to my level. “Were you a good girl?”
I roll my eyes at him with all the sass I can muster. “I’malwaysa good girl.”
Dad chuckles, “Of course you are. And that’s why Santa left you a present with me too.”
I purse my lips. “I wish Santa brought you home on time.”
“Me too, baby. Me too.” He lifts a brow. “So I should throw the present away?”
