Page 103 of Remember Us This Way

Mom and Dad pull me into their arms as Dr. Sanchez continues, saying words that don’t register to my ears as her earlier words play on repeat in my head.

Your suspicions were correct.

Overwhelming amount of leukemic white cells in your system.

Fairly aggressive.

Run more tests to determine just how advanced your case is.

If these cancerous cells have spread and how far.

It hits me like a fucking train.

I have cancer.

Again.

And this time, it’s aggressive.

Mom and Dad wrap up the conversation with Dr. Sanchez from where we sit on the kitchen floor, and neither of them can form proper sentences. Then with a promise to show up tomorrow, Mom’s phone drops to the ground beside us, shattering the screen.

“Oh, Zoey,” she sobs, burying her face into the curve of my neck, her tears dropping to my collarbone as I just sit and cry, feeling broken and empty, my whole world crumbling around me. This isn’t how my senior year was supposed to go. I was supposed to make memories, go to parties, and wait with bated breath for Noah to come home to me.

But now . . .

The devastation squeezes me like a vise until I can no longer breathe, and as my parents fall apart, preparing for a war that I don’t know if I’m strong enough to win, I find myself racing out the door with keys in my hand.

I’m a mess as I peel out of the driveway, sitting in absolute silence as I push the Range Rover to its limits. The sun quickly falls from the sky, dipping low beyond the horizon as my phone goes crazy with calls and messages from Mom and Dad. But there’s only one place I want to be right now, one place I need to be to ease the overwhelming panic and fear coursing through my cancer-riddled body.

I need my home. My heart. I need him to hold me and tell me that it’s going to be okay, that I’m going to survive this, that no matter what kind of mountain we have to face, we’ll climb it together and find ourselves back over the other side with our whole lives ahead of us.

It’s after 7:30 p.m. when I pull into one of the many campus parking lots at UA, just outside the football stadium and closest to Noah’s dorm. There are people everywhere, and I quickly try to pull myself together, but it’s no use. No amount of wiping my eyes is going to mask the devastation pouring through me.

Glancing out through the windshield, I find a bunch of guys, and when I recognize one of them as Noah’s teammate, I search through the crowd a little closer, finally finding Noah among them.

They look like they’re on their way out, maybe to have dinner or a study session. All that matters is crumbling into Noah’s arms and hoping like fuck he can somehow dull the ache inside of me. To tell me that everything is going to be okay, that he’ll be right here holding my hand, and that I don’t need to be scared.

Desperation courses through my veins, and I grip the handle, pushing the door wide. As I tumble out onto the asphalt, my gaze snaps up again, seeking him out. Fresh tears stream down my face as I find him in the middle of the group of football players. They’re crossing the road, heading toward some kind of hall, and as he talks to the guy beside him, a brilliant smile stretches across his face, and I find myself pausing.

He talks animatedly, and as I watch his movements, I smile. He only ever talks this animatedly when he’s talking about me or Linc, and I realize just how much he’s opened himself up to his life here. It’s not easy for him to open up or talk about the things that matter most, and the fact that he’s able to do that with these new people speaks volumes about how far he’s come from the distraught boy he was a year ago.

His world is only just getting back on track, and that darkness that clouded him for so long has just finished clearing, but now? How can I do this to him? How can I tell him about my diagnosis and set alight the progress he’s made?

I’m going to have to tell him. It’s not something I can keep hidden from him because I want to be selfish. I have to have him by my side through all of this because I simply won’t survive it without him. But I don’t have to tell him tonight. I don’t have to blurt it out in the middle of the street around all of his new friends. There won’t be much I can control over the next few years of my life, but this . . . I can.

I’ll wait until I’ve wrapped my head around it and worked out the best way to break the news to him, but I can’t wait long. Dr. Sanchez is going to put a rush on these tests, and I’ll be back in that same old treatment center, hooked up to who knows what, receiving the most intense form of chemotherapy, and I’m going to need him right at my side. But more so, if I go through any portion of this without him, spouting the same old bullshit about trying to protect him from this, he’ll never forgive me. It will hurt him so deeply that he won’t know how to come back from it.

The thought has a whimper pulling from deep in my chest, and I find myself inching back to my car, settling into my seat, and closing the door behind me, unable to take my eyes off him.

Sooner or later, I’m going to have to break his heart, and he’s going to crumble like he’s never crumbled before. Hearing my diagnosis is going to destroy him, and despite not knowing many details about the severity of my cancer yet, I know he’s going to think the worst.

Pressing the push start button, I prepare to back out of my spot before my hands fall into my lap, and I find myself just watching him. He’s almost at the entrance of the hall, and I can’t help but wonder if this is what my life with him would have looked like next year. Only . . . I suppose I’ll be trading class rooms for clinical rooms. I still remember all the poking and prodding with needles, the intense chemotherapy that made me violently ill, but it’s so much worse now that I understand what’s truly at stake.

Noah’s group disappears into the hall, only he hangs back, pulling his phone out of his pocket, and a moment later, his name is in block letters across the dashboard of my car, the soft sound of his call ringing through Bluetooth.

He stands under the lights of the building, and I see him so perfectly, just taking him in that I almost miss the call, but I can’t bring myself to let it ring out. “Hey,” I say, forcing a smile across my face as the tears continue tracking down my cheeks.

“You good?” he asks, his whole body stiffening, reminding me of what he said in his car last week, how he’s able to tell I’m crying by nothing more than the sounds of my uneven breathing.

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