Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
I nod, pulling back to meet her eyes, taking in every inch of her in the glow of my headlights and committing this moment to memory. “I’ve got you, Zo,” I vow. “Whatever you need, I’ve got you.”
43
Noah
The drive back to East View is agonizing. I thought nothing could ever be as bad as the day Linc died. Losing my brother broke me in a way I’ll never fully recover from, but knowing there’s a chance I may lose the love of my life feels like the cruelest turn my life could take.
What Zoey is up against . . . fuck. It’ll be slow and torturous. Some days she won’t be able to get out of bed, some days she’ll want to find a gun and put a bullet between her eyes just to make all the suffering stop. But she promised me she’ll fight, and I’m trusting her to stand by her word because a world without Zoey isn’t a world I want to live in. How could I? She’s the other half of my soul. We’re two halves of the same whole.
Without her, my life will no longer hold value to me.
She holds my hand, clutching it like it’s her only lifeline as I drive, barely able to focus on the road ahead. “So, you’ve been dealing with this for two weeks?” I ask her, needing to keep my mind occupied before the devastation eats me alive.
“Yeah,” she says in a small voice. “It’s mainly just been an anxious waiting game, hoping I was wrong or that it was something minor.”
“Two fucking weeks,” I mutter, not knowing if I’m talking to myself or to Zoey. “You’ve been a fucking ghost for two weeks, dealing with this, probably terrified, while I thought you were pulling away from me.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t want to worry you before I knew for sure. It could have been nothing, and that waiting game would have killed you. Having you not know and be the one person in my life not looking at me like I was about to drop dead is exactly what I needed.”
“I get that,” I tell her. “I understand why you didn’t want to tell me sooner, but how many nights did you cry yourself to sleep? Having me be normal with you might have been what you wanted, but it’s not what you needed. I could have been there, Zo. Every fucking night, I could have helped you.”
She swallows hard and nods. “I wanted to protect you from hurting the way I was,” she says. “But the second I found out, I was going to tell you. I don’t think I am capable of doing this without you, even if that makes me selfish.”
“It doesn’t make you selfish for needing me, Zo.”
“But your games, your life at college. You have so much going on right now, and I’m terrified that I’m going to be a distraction. I know you, Noah. You’re going to be at home every chance you get, being here with me through all of my treatments, even if it means risking everything you’ve got going on at college. I don’t want you to lose that, but I also can’t stand the thought of having you anywhere else.”
“College and football doesn’t fucking matter to me, Zoey. You do. If you need me here, then I’ll be here, every fucking second of every fucking day. I’m not going anywhere. Nothing is more important than this,” I tell her. “There will always be football, another time, another team, but there’s only one of you, and if being here to hold your hand makes you stronger and gives you what you need to fight this, then that’s my priority.”
Zoey wipes her face on the back of her hand, tears streaming down her face as we sit in the heat, both of us drenched from the raging storm outside. “I’m scared,” she finally says.
“I know, Zozo,” I say, swallowing over the lump in my throat. “I am too. I’m fucking terrified, but I’m not about to let you give up.”
“Dr. Sanchez says the chemo is going to be intense, worse than when I was a kid,” she says. “It’s aggressive, like it’s been lying dormant in my system for the last ten years, and now it’s come back with a vengeance.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, needing to pull off to the side of the road and stop the car again. My head falls into my hands, and I let out a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” she tells me, reaching for my hand again. “I just wanted to be honest with you. I don’t want to sugarcoat this, not with you.”
“I know,” I tell her, finally able to lift my head back up. I take a moment, trying to remember what she told me over a year ago when I first realized her sickness had been leukemia. “Is it the same as before? Three rounds of chemo over eighteen months and then you should be in the clear?”