Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“Okay …”
“I mean it,” I growl. “Let me lay out all the evidence. Let me present the case. Then make your judgment.”
“Okay, Landon. Shit. This must be serious.”
To Ethan’s credit, he doesn’t interrupt me as I start to explain. He lets me tell him about the doctor, then running into Lily, then the not-really-a-date, and the near kiss.
When I’m done, he says, “You need to see that oncologist. The rest of this matters. I’m not saying it doesn’t, but that is the number one priority.”
“I know,” I grunt.
“Do you, Landon?” he says in an angry tone. “Then stop dodging your doctor’s calls. That needed to be arranged the second you got your first diagnosis.”
“I know,” I repeat, quieter this time.
“I can come with you,” he replies. “I know you don’t like doctors.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“You’ve never needed to,” he says. “Remember when you had that throat infection? You couldn’t speak, looked half dead, and you still wouldn’t go in. Hell, I’m surprised you even went in for this. The symptoms must’ve been a bitch.”
“It was for my parents,” I admit. “Ever since Charley, I’ve been getting health checks twice a year. They’ve all been A-OK until now.”
“That makes more sense,” he murmurs. “So you’ll call your doctor?”
“Yes.”
“I mean it, brother. Tomorrow, first thing. I’m going to be bugging you about this. You need a plan of attack.”
“He said months,” I tell Ethan. “Months, not years … All that’s left is working out how uncomfortable these last few months will be.”
“Then face it,” Ethan growls. “If the truth is ugly, look at it. You owe it to yourself, your parents, and hell, to me—to everybody in your life.”
“I’ll call them tomorrow,” I say, “but I wanted advice about the other thing, too.”
“About your crush?”
I laugh with a heavy sense of irony. “Yeah, if you want to call it that. Makes me sound like a kid, but still …”
“She didn’t seem interested?”
“She backed off pretty fast when I tried to kiss her.”
“Crap, I don’t know.” Ethan sounds genuinely lost, something rare for him. “You know who you’re asking, right?”
I have to laugh again. Ethan isn’t exactly the serious relationship type. “Yeah, but the fact is, E, you’re the best friend I’ve got.”
“You know me. I’m all about the apps. I have been ever since they came out. By the time I try to kiss a woman, I normally know whether she’s interested. That’s why I’m always telling your old-fashioned ass to get on them, too.”
“I hate those goddamn things. They take all the humanity out of it.”
“No offense, but it’s not like you’ve been going the in-person route instead.”
He’s right, but I don’t care. Usually, I can ignore stuff like that, but it’s different with Lily. Or is it the illness? No, that feels false, unfair to her somehow. “I’m busy. Working.”
“Amen to that,” he says.
“Listen, I gotta go.”
I hang up. Ever since this crap with the doctor, everything feels more important. As I drive, my memories skip back to those early days when Dad was building his business. Charley and I were watching and listening more than they ever knew. There was always that voice in my head saying our lives could fall apart. Bills were going to drag us down.
So, I had to use logic. Make money. Maybe, somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was.
CHAPTER TEN
LILY
“Should we get a dog?” Mom muses, looking out the front window of our first-floor apartment. There’s a park across the street, not precisely the most upscale or well-maintained, but it’s much better than the scenes we used to experience. Mom likes to look at it. It reminds her of how far we’ve come.
I look up, jolted from my thoughts. The date from last night—meeting or the near kiss—keeps replaying in my head. I should be thinking about searching for this Damon character somehow, trying to figure out how to make this situation okay.
“Oh, that’s funny,” Mom murmurs.
“I don’t think our apartment allows dogs, Mom.”
“Oh, no, look, that man.”
I join her at the window. I always feel a warm swell of happiness when I see how full-bodied she’s become since getting clean. She was always so sinewy before, her shape sculpted by her need, but not anymore.
Looking across the street, I see a tall man leaning against the swing in the park. He’s wearing a muddy, off-green long coat that looks almost like a costume. His hair is dark red, but it’s not easy to be sure from here.
“I think he’s staring at us,” Mom says.
“He’s probably just waiting for someone.”
An icy shiver runs over me all the same. It is like he’s looking. It’s in his posture and how everything is directed toward us. I get the distinct feeling of something ugly slithering through me. It’s a childhood memory punch right to the gut. In our lives before, there would always be creeps hanging around.