The fear choked me the entire way to the hospital. I didn’t need to MapQuest it, didn’t even need to check my phone for the closest one.
I knew this hospital by heart.
Just like I knew the cancer wing by heart.
Because my mom had died of the very same thing.
I’d lived through it once.
I wasn’t sure I’d actually survive it twice.
Every move was mechanical. I tried to detach myself emotionally as I lifted Andi out of the car and walked into the ER.
But memories assaulted me.
The smell was the same.
”Let her go, she wants to go,” the nurse said. “Say goodbye.”
”No!” I yelled. “If I say goodbye, she’ll leave!”
”Son,” my father said in a gruff voice. “Don’t make a scene.”
My mom reached for me, her hand outstretched. I tasted blood in my mouth. Maybe I’d bitten my tongue. Maybe my heart had broken, and that was what happened when hearts broke inside the body. They bled from the inside out.
Our fingertips touched, just briefly before my father ripped me from the room and told me to stop crying.
Ax was in the corner, his face haunted.
And it was Nixon who finally held me before I collapsed onto the floor. “She’s gone, she’s gone, Nixon she’s—”
”She’s in heaven,” Nixon said simply.
”No,” my father said behind me. “People like us don’t go to heaven… we go to hell.”
I jerked away from Nixon and lunged for my father. I pulled the gun from his own holster and pointed it at his face.
He laughed. The bastard laughed. “What? Are you going to shoot me in the hospital? When you’re the guilty one?”
The gun shook in my hand. “Guilty one?”
”Remember this.” My dad sneered. “You killed her. You killed your mother — not the cancer. You did this. And you know why. Such a disappointment.”
”Don’t listen to him, Sergio,” Nixon said behind me. “He’s a bastard.”
”He may be a bastard, but he’s right.” I was fifteen but not stupid. I knew the truth.
It was my fault my mom had died. I had no one to blame but myself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Andi
MY MOUTH WAS DRY AS A DESERT. I’d always hated that expression — what was worse? Actually being able to use it and know that it seriously didn’t do my situation any justice.
Water.
I opened my mouth to ask for it.
And suddenly, like magic, a cup appeared, and the cool liquid trickled down my throat.
I opened my eyes.
Sergio was sitting on my bed.
Not next to it, but on it.
I blinked. “What are you doing?”
His expression wasn’t readable. Damn him. He truly kept his emotions on lockdown. “Giving you water.”
“No, I mean on my bed.”
He held the water to my lips.
I sipped deeply then pushed the cup back. “Th-thanks.”
“I went to med school.” The information was offered freely.
And since he didn’t tend to share anything about himself, I chose not to speak, hoping my silence would help the moment.
Sergio’s jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth together. “I never finished. My involvement with the feds and the family… well, it made things difficult. But that’s not the point. The point is this.” He reached for something in the chair. When he pulled back, I felt myself get sick to my stomach. He had my chart in his hands. I tried to reach for it, so I could jerk it away and throw it across the room, but he held it out of my reach.
“So…” I licked my lips and looked down at the scratchy hospital blanket. “…you really can read. Good for you.”
“I can read.” His voice was calm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I told you I was sick. I told you I had cancer. I told you I was dying in six months. What more was there to tell?”
“You’re a coward.”
I gasped.
“And no I won’t apologize for telling you the damn truth. You’re a coward, and you know it.”
“Get out!” I yelled.
“No.” He bared his teeth. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you could get a bone marrow transplant?”
I sighed and leaned back against the pillows. “Because I can’t.”
“You’ve tried everything but the transplant.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Just because you’re my husband doesn’t mean you have the right to demand answers out of me.”
“Like hell it doesn’t!” He slammed the chart onto the chair and faced me, his hands bracing the side of my bed. “Tell me why.”
I felt my body hunch, almost like I was trying to crawl into myself. I hated feeling small, and in that moment with that large Italian man hovering over me, his face menacing, I felt small, not afraid, but small. Like maybe I did deserve his anger.
“Because it won’t work,” I whispered.
“And you know that how?”
“Because nothing else has!” I yelled. “Alright? Nothing has helped. I’ve had leukemia for years, Sergio, years! Doctors appointments, chemotherapy, radiation, pills, pills, and more pills. Nothing has worked. Nothing. Besides, I’m too far gone, the odds of a bone marrow transplant, the odds of someone else’s blood working in my body? Slim to none.”