Wander and Roam (Wander #1) (25 page)

Sage hikes down the path a few minutes later. “I’m going to miss that bell.” He pauses while he takes in the twinkling overhead lights, the flickering lanterns, and the buffet of food.

“Welcome to your Thai feast.” I wrap my arm around his waist. Our minutes are dwindling away.

“Pumpkin curry, pad Thai, and a mango-cashew stir fry. All vegetarian, of course,” Susan says.

“You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. I would have been happy with PB&J.” Sage embraces Susan in a big hug. “Thank you, though.”

“You’ll appreciate it more after a few days of hospital food. I don’t know how it is in the States, but the food’s barely edible in our hospitals.”

For a moment, nobody speaks. The uncomfortable reminder of what Sage faces lingers in the air.

“Thanks for being able to talk about it.” Sage takes his plate and piles it high with food. “Too many people are afraid to even mention I’m sick.”

“They don’t teach social niceties for disease and death.” Susan scoops curry onto her plate. “Since I’m being blunt, what did the doctors find?”

Sage sets his plate on the table and slowly lowers himself to his seat. “The tumor actually grew a little bigger over the last few months. It wasn’t supposed to do that.”

Things freeze.
The tumor was growing?
I’m no oncologist, but even I know that’s not a good thing.

“See, another one of those things you think you can control,” Susan says. “Nobody can stop a tumor from growing. That’s its whole life purpose.”

“What do you mean,
another
thing I can control?” Sage hasn’t eaten anything.

“Abby told me about all of your negotiations.”

He stares at me. I glare at Susan.

Susan just shrugs. “It needs to be talked about. I’m not afraid to play the bad guy when I’m really being a good friend to you both by being honest.”

“I’m not going to let Abby get hurt.” Sage studies his plate.

“You really think you can prevent her from getting hurt?” Susan places her hand on Sage’s. “If the worst happens… I hope it doesn’t, but if the worst happens, Abby is going to be devastated. If she wasn’t devastated, she wouldn’t be worth keeping around.”

Sage glances at me, but now I’m busy examining my plate. Susan’s right. If something happens to Sage, I will be devastated. I won’t tell him that, though. If I thought his stipulations were annoying now, I can’t even imagine how restrictive they will become.

“If you die,” Susan says. “I will grieve for you. I will cry, and I will curse the skies, and I may even throw things.”

I wonder how she keeps her voice so calm when talking about all of this.

“No, I don’t want anyone crying for me.” Sage pushes away his uneaten plate of food then gets up from the table.

“But we will.” Susan reaches for his hand. “Because we care for you. You cannot control the grieving process of others any more than you can control that tumor growing inside of you.”

“I can’t handle hurting anyone!” he yells.

“You’re not hurting anyone. That unnatural thing inside of you deserves all the blame.” Susan rises, still grasping his hand. “You’ve become a dear friend. Without your help, I wouldn’t have been able to keep this old farm running.”

“Susan—”

“Let me cry for you.” Susan begins to cry before pulling him into a final hug. “Goodbye, Sage.”

Sage shakes off her embrace and breaks into a run, his untouched plate still on the table.

Susan grabs my arm before I’m able to follow him. “Give him a few minutes. He’s down at the docks, and he probably needs some alone time.”

“Why would you do that? Why would you ruin his last night?”

She stares quietly at the dark path to the docks. “I’ve experienced enough loss to know that nothing good comes from deceiving yourself.”

S
AGE SITS
on the wooden dock, staring out at the water. In the distance, the lights from the nearby town reflect off the water’s surface, providing the only luminosity in tonight’s moonless sky.

He holds one of the paper lanterns in his hands. It’s still lit, and the candle’s soft glow illuminates his face. I sit down next to him, and we both gaze into the candle’s flame.

Several minutes pass in complete silence. “How are you?” I finally ask.

“Saying goodbye is so much harder than I thought.” He sighs. “And I’m going to have to repeat the whole darn thing with my friends back home.”

“Did you think it would be easy?” I take his hand.
What was he expecting?

“I didn’t think.” He shakes my hand away. “I just shut out all thoughts about the tumor and the surgery and all the terrible outcomes.”

I remember being in the same place. Not wanting anyone to mention Robbie or prepare me for his almost certain death. I wouldn’t talk to my parents, my friends, or even the social worker in the hospital. The conversations would have been that much harder if they were about me instead of my boyfriend.

“I thought if I became skilled enough at this Buddhism stuff, I could just handle… anything.” He laughs but not his normal, happy sound. “I really believed when I left here and
had
to deal with it, I would be able to just accept my path.”

“Sage, you have the right to be angry and sad and afraid.” I wrap my arms around him and lower my head to his back. “That doesn’t mean you failed anything. It means you’re human.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He continues to face the water but leans back into my embrace. “I don’t want to cause you more pain, I don’t want to leave my mom all alone, and I don’t want to make anyone sad.”

“But don’t you get it? You wouldn’t be hurting and abandoning people, the cancer would.” I kiss his temple.

“Do you want to know what’s worst of all?” he whispers.

“Tell me.” My lips still rest against his temple.

“I feel so selfish, because a part of me wants to focus entirely on what I’m going to be losing.” His shoulders begin to tremble. “I want to travel more—visit all seven continents. I want to finish school. I want so much more.” His tears fall onto my arms. I hold him even closer. “I don’t want to die,” he cries. “I’m not ready. I’ve tried to prepare myself, but I’m just not ready.”

“What twenty-one year old would be ready?” I kiss away a tear that slides down his cheek. “Wanting to live is normal.”

He flips around so I’m still holding him, but we’re face to face. Sage gently lifts me into his lap, holds me close, and continues to cry softly against my shoulder.

For the longest time, I comfort him in the only ways I can. A gentle embrace, open ears, and caring words. “Do you know what really helped when I was lost in my grief for Robbie?” I finally say. “Talking about him. When I kept my past all shut off, it started to overtake me.”

Sage doesn’t respond, but his crying softens.

“You’ve never talked about your future. Maybe it would help if you shared your dreams.”

“I don’t know. What if putting it on the table makes everything worse?”

“Can it get much worse from how you’re feeling?”

Sage readjusts me until I’m sitting between his legs, staring at the water. “There’s this graduate school I really want to attend.” He wraps his arms around my waist, holding me close to his solid chest. “It combines western psychology with eastern practices.”

“You want to become a meditating psychologist?” I can’t help but giggle.

“I just think combining the two could help more people. The school’s in the mountains. I’m done with Michigan. I want to spend some time in every habitat.”

“So the mountains for graduate school and…”

His soft breath tickles my hair. “Maybe an area with beautiful old-growth forests when I begin my practice.”

“That sounds nice.” I try to picture myself in his dream. I wouldn’t mind escaping from boring old Ohio.

“Travel. I forgot to mention how much I would travel. Each vacation, I would go somewhere new.” He kisses me on one cheek. “Hopefully, with a pretty girl by my side.”

Maybe he has inserted me into some of his dreams. I know he has become a part of mine.

“Sometimes the trips will be for fun, but I’d like to do some volunteer trips, too. Maybe digging wells in a village without clean water, or helping to build houses after a natural disaster.” He sighs. “I want to help people. Make the world a better place.”

This is why I love Sage. Even when faced with a potentially fatal disease, he never stops thinking of others.

Love. For the first time, I realize how deeply my feelings have grown for him. With Robbie, my feelings developed slowly, over the course of several years. I never would have thought it possible to have such intense feelings for a boy I met just a few weeks ago.

Only we didn’t meet under normal circumstances. Instead of an occasional date or a single class together, we spent nearly every waking minute together. Rather than casual flirting and fun, a whirlwind of feelings threw us together.

When you face death, and when you have experienced death’s aftermath, time moves differently. Each moment becomes more valuable, more precious, and more meaningful. Sage and I may have spent only three weeks together on Susan’s farm, but it probably was the equivalent of three years of dating, given what we’ve been through.

I love Sage. I test out the idea in my mind. I’m surprised to find that my heart soars, and I don’t feel the tiniest bit of guilt. I really love Sage.

It’s different from my feelings for Robbie. When Robbie and I were young teens, the excitement of first love and the awkwardness found only in teen love filled our relationship. These feelings toward Sage may be a more grown-up version of love. I want to protect him, and he’s shown that he’ll be self-sacrificing to protect me. I might lose him, but the idea of never having met Sage is worse than the thought of losing him.

What’s that old saying? It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

That old poet was right. I’m a better person for having cared for Robbie so deeply, and Sage continues to help me grow each and every day.

“And when I’ve traveled all around the world—” Sage holds me even snugger. “I want to marry the love of my life and start a family.”

Has he been thinking about love, too?

“Thanks, Abby.” He slides me forward until my head rests in his lap. Then he leans forward and kisses me, completely upside down. “It really helped to think about my dreams again.”

“You can’t look at the percentages and let that determine your outcome.” I sit up and face him. “You need to go into this surgery thinking, ‘I will survive’.”

“Are you saying I should let go of my pacifist ways and become a fighter?” He smiles.

“Exactly. You need to need to fight with every bit of energy you can summon up.” I look into his eyes, so dark out here in this moonless sky.

He puffs up his body and shows his muscles. “I will throw down that bloody cancer on its skinny little arse.”

“Three weeks later and your Australian accent hasn’t gotten any better.” I laugh. “It sounds like you’re repeating bad British comedies rather than words from the outback.”

A light shines in the distance, heading our way. “My water taxi will be here any minute.”

“I thought they didn’t come this late at night.” While he said he was leaving, I had hoped we might be able to have one more night together.

“Not normally, but Susan made special arrangements… given the circumstances.” He makes a face. “I never wanted to be one of those people who got special treatment due to their problems.”

“I’m not ready to say goodbye.” A few tears slide down my cheek. I blink back the others and force myself to calm down.

“My flight leaves at dawn. I need to go.”

“I know.”

Do I tell him? Do I share those three words with him before he goes?
I’m not sure if they would help him—give him something more to fight for—or stress him out. I don’t want him to spend the next few weeks worrying about me.

Knowing how Sage always puts others first, it would probably be the second. He would fret and worry over those words meant to give him comfort. So I hug him, kiss him, and whisper other sweet words to him.