Always and Forever (26 page)

I choked out a laugh at that and batted his hands away. “I'm fine, Brad. It's just that I'm like a leaky faucet lately. Cry at every little thing,” I hurried to reassure him. “It's alright. Really. Look.” I scrubbed at my face with the back of my hand, sat up, and faced him. “The rain has stopped. No more tears.”

He gave me a doubtful look.

“Really, Brad. I said I was fine, and I meant it.”

He considered me for an endless minute. Finally, he lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Okay, you're fine, but explain one thing to me.”

“Sure, anything,” I replied quickly. My whole body sagged with relief at his acceptance of my flimsy reassurances.

“What exactly is that for?” He pointed at my nightstand.

I turned, grinned as I realized what he was looking at, puzzling over. “It's a baby monitor,” I told him.

“I know what it is, Mia.” He rolled his eyes. “I want to know why it's by your bed.”

“Oh. Well…” I trailed off, averting my eyes.

“Mia.”

“Well, Mom and Dad were concerned that I might need them in the middle of the night or something, so they pulled out Ben's old baby monitor. No big deal.” I aimed a brilliant smile at him.

“They're afraid you might get hurt again,” he surmised. Brad may be a jock, but he's definitely not stupid. “How bad is it, Mia? The truth.”

“Not as bad as you think. I promise,” I added when he looked like he didn't believe me. “It's just with this fall, they're even more worried, and well, you know how my parents are. I mean, even before we knew about the cancer, they rushed me to the doctor every time I even looked like I was going to sneeze. This just…well, it has them even more on edge.”

“I don't think I can blame them,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Hell, Mia, you even scared the shit out of me with that fall. You didn't see all the blood that there was.”

I rolled my eyes, lips twitching. “I can imagine.”

“I'm not joking,” he snapped. “It was like being dropped in the middle of a horror movie.”

“It was an accident,” I mumbled in a pathetically small voice.

“I know it was.” He reached out and covered both my hands with one of his. “But you have to look at it from our perspective. We all love you, Mia, and seeing you like that, realizing how quickly we could've lost you…well, it's hard. It's very hard. So, yeah, I can empathize with your parents wanting to keep a closer eye on you. Hell, if it were me, I'd be strapping you to the bed.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Look Brad, I don't know what kind of kinky stuff you and Dave are into, but I'm a little too vanilla for that.”

“Well, that's your loss,” he snorted before he glanced down at his watch and whistled softly. “I got to go. I told Dave I'd meet him.” His eyes lifted up to meet mine. “You sure you're okay? I could call him, tell him I'm not coming.”

“No, don't do that. I'm fine. Really.” I glanced past him toward the closet, the boxes I'd packed for Ricki staring accusingly at me. “But could you do me a favor?”

He followed my line of sight to the closet and shook his head. “You need to talk to Ricki yourself, Mia. I can't be the go-between.”

“I know. I'm going to. Really,” I rushed to assure him. “It's just that I've had those there for so long and I'd really hate to see some of the clothes get creased to the point of being unwearable. You know what I mean?”

He stared at me for a long moment, measuring the truth of my words. “You'll talk to her? Soon?”

I bobbed my head in a nod.

“I'm just delivering the boxes. No letters or messages or anything like that.”

“Just the boxes,” I agreed. No need to tell him about the letter I'd stuffed between the layers of sweaters. Really, it wasn't any of his concern anyway.

“Okay,” he finally agreed. “I'll take them to her, but just the boxes.”

“Thanks, Brad.” I looped my arms around his neck and planted a loud kiss on his cheek. “You're the best.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” he grumbled under his breath. He hefted the boxes up in his arms and took his leave, promising to swing by and see me either tomorrow or the next day.

Shortly after that, Mom came in bearing a tray. I pushed at the food, half-heartedly before I set the tray on the floor beside the bed and scrunched down beneath the covers to hide away from the world. Really, why even bother with eating? It wasn't like I was going to die of starvation. No, the cancer would most likely take me long before lack of food would.

I slept the whole night through. Even Mom coming in to collect the tray didn't rouse me. The amount of time I spent sleeping lately probably should have worried me, but I really didn't have the energy to care about that.

When I woke, early morning sunlight flowed into the room, splashing sunny, golden hues over my face. I squinted against the brightness and sat up, only to find that I wasn't alone.

“What are you doing here?” I tried not to let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, he was here to try and fix things. That we'd be able to at least be friends again. I just couldn't take it if that weren't true. Before he could respond, I rolled over and presented him with my back. That way if he tore my heart out again, I could at least hide my tears.

“It's my birthday,” he said quietly. “We've always spent it together.”

T
HIRTY

“THAT WAS BEFORE,” I SAID.
A fresh batch of hot tears flooded my already swamped eyes. “We're not even friends anymore, or have you forgotten?”

“No, I haven't,” he replied, carefully. He cleared his throat, and his fingertips slid along my shoulder for a fraction of a second before retreating. “Mia, I just…well, I wanted to apologize for the way I acted Friday. You surprised me is all. I mean, we haven't spoken for the better part of a month, and then, there you were, saying everything that I'd been waiting to hear for so long.”

“Could've fooled me,” I mumbled. Horcrux padded into the room, then creeped along the carpet until he sat just below me, his big green eyes wide and beseeching. I reached out, dangled my fingers over the edge of the mattress.

“But everything you said, it just sounded wrong, somehow. Like…I don't know. Shit.” He shifted in the chair. Then, the mattress dipped beneath me as he crawled up onto the bed. He didn't try to reach out and touch me, but he hovered over me, mere inches away.

It took everything I had not to roll toward him and bury myself in the safety of his arms. Fortunately for me, Horcrux chose that moment to leap up onto the bed and curl up against me, rubbing his face against mine. Smile tipping up the corners of my lips, I pressed my face into his soft coat and scratched him behind the ears.

“I'm messing this up,” he murmured behind me. “I just…as stupid as it sounds, I just want to go back to how it was before. Before your appointment with Dr. Lambert. Before the sky came crashing down.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he echoed, confused. “What do you mean,
why
?”

“Which letter didn't you understand, Kal?” I asked tiredly, finally turning around to face him. I had to be strong. If he was just here out of some misplaced sense of responsibility and not because he wanted to be, I had to show him that I was okay without him. That I didn't need him, even if I did. “There are only three in the word.”

“Mia, don't be like that,” he pleaded in a small, desperate tone.

“Be like what?” I pushed myself up off the bed, sending Horcrux skittering away with an aggravated
meow
. “I just want to know why, Kal. Why are you here? And why now? It's been nearly a week since our talk. What happened to make you suddenly change your mind? Feeling guilty? Because if that's the only reason, you can leave now. I don't want your pity. I can't take it.”

“I just want you,” he said, simply, quietly. “I'll do whatever you want, Mia. I'll say whatever you tell me to. Just let me back in. You're the best friend I've ever had. I can't…I can't be apart from you when you…” He let loose an anguished sob.

I leaned against the dresser, my eyes sliding closed for a second as I gathered my thoughts. “Look, Kal, I don't—” I whipped around, wanting nothing more than to leap at him, to throw my arms around him and never let go.

But once again, I moved just a little too fast, not stopping to consider the consequences of my actions. The room spun out around me. Everything blurred and liquefied before my eyes. My stomach surged up, fighting the weightless feeling and failing miserably.

“Mia? Shit, Mia, tell me what I can do.” His hands were on my shoulders, steadying me, but it was far too late for that.

I wrenched out of his grip, staggered across the room, and knocked my shin on the bedpost, but I couldn't stop to think about that pain right then. I just kept going, hand to my mouth, pinching my lips together to hold back the explosion that raged forth. I made it to the toilet just as the bile rushed up and out.

Vomiting
. How many more of the symptoms were there left now? There couldn't really be all that many. In that moment, I couldn't be bothered to remember the exact contents of a scrap of paper I hadn't looked at in nearly a month. My stomach was too busy conjuring more and more of the foul bile for me to retch up.

Halfway through the dance with my porcelain partner, Kal crouched down behind me. His hands slid through my hair and pulled it away from my face. Best friends always hold your hair back when you puke.

Finally—hopefully—my stomach's reign of terror ended, and I leaned back. Wordlessly, Kal reached out and flushed the toilet. Then, he pushed up to his feet, but he didn't go far. A few moments of rummaging through the linen closet, the medicine cabinet, then the faucet turning on, and he was back beside me. He pressed the warm, wet cloth to my face and gently wiped away the cold sweat and hot tears.

“Here.” He held out a glass of water in one hand and two white pills in the other. At my dubious look, he rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mia. They're your stomach pills. My dad's a doctor, remember? I know what Phenergan is for.” He pushed his hands toward me and waited for me to take the pills.

Sparing only a glance at the pills, I tossed them back, followed by a huge gulp of lukewarm tap water. Both hit the bottom of my empty stomach with a resounding splash that sent a shiver a panic through me that I was going to start puking all over again.

Kal, seeing my sudden distress, hurriedly dropped to his knees beside me and curled his arms around me, cradling my head against his chest. He pressed the damp cloth to my lips as he sat down fully, his legs splayed out so that I was nestled between them. “You're alright,” he murmured in my ear. “Just don't think about it.”

“Easy for you to say,” I groaned into his chest, stomach still in full-scale riot mode.

His only response was a low, desperate sounding sigh.

The silence opened up and stretched out between us; the void filled in with all the things that we should've said to each other in the past but never once felt the need to. That's the way of it with best friends. All the little things are just assumed, taken for granted. So, when the time came—which it inevitably did—to give voice to all those little things, the feelings, the remembrances, you're left hanging, unsure as to how to move forward or even if you can.

“You should go.” I finally broke the quiet between us. “Don't want to be late for school.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” came his easy reply.

I pushed up off his chest to level a questioning look at him, but instant dizziness assailed me, and I fell back on top him with a moan.

He shifted me in his arms, carefully so as not to jostle me too much. Then, we were moving. He vaulted to his feet and carried me into the bedroom in a swift, easy maneuver. Next thing I knew, he tucked me back into my bed, bringing the comforter right up to my chin like I was a little kid. Then, he climbed in beside me and sat up against the headboard.

“What are you doing, Kal?” I rolled over onto my side with a groan, my back, once again, to him.

“I told you,” he said, evenly as he reached over the side of the bed and pulled a book out of his bag. “I'm not going to school. We always spend our birthdays together, and since you're here, I'm here, too.”

“There's not much going on here,” I told him. “I'm going back to sleep.”

“Try not to snore too loud.”

I slammed my elbow into his ribs. A reluctant smile popped up to my lips. “I don't snore.”

“Mia, you're forgetting I've known you for ten years.” One of his brows winged up while he rubbed at his bruised side. “You could put a grizzly to shame.”

Ignoring that comment, I snuggled down beneath the covers. Between the warmth of the blankets and the soothing effects of the pills kicking in, I drifted off to dreamland relatively fast. When I woke next, it was just past noon. Groggily, I lifted my head and looked for Kal. I half-expected to find him gone, but he was still right there beside me.

Curled up on his side, his head on my pillow, he slept mere inches away from me. I rolled over, careful not to bounce too much and wake him. His face was smooth, placid in sleep, and I couldn't help but wonder what he was dreaming of. Did he think of me, or was this just some kind of guilt trip thing? Did I even want to know?

“I love you,” I whispered to him as tears snuck up to choke me yet again. I reached out and pushed a stray lock off his face. “But you'll never know because it's too late for that, Kallie. I'm dying, and I think it's going to happen so much sooner than the doctors said.”

I swallowed, closed my eyes against the terror and the pain raging through me. A deep breath and then I forced my eyes back open, everything—including Kal's beautiful face—blurred from the tears, or the cancer, or maybe both.

“I just wanted to say it once before I died,” I told him. More tears burst through, and I rolled back over, hid under the covers, closed my eyes, and waited for sleep to come find me again.

T
HIRTY
-O
NE

THE REST OF THE WEEK AND WEEKEND
flew by in a blink. Kal was with me nearly every waking moment. He kept up a steady stream of conversation, chattering away about school, his family, our friends, and just about everything else under the sun. I thought it'd be difficult, being surrounded by him again, but surprisingly, it felt right and natural. Just like old times.