Page 83 of Perfect Pursuit

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Ethan:

Sleep well.

Fallon:

Are you still up?

Since I replied back almost immediately after I received Ethan’s message, for a moment, I’m hopeful he’ll respond. But as the minutes pass while I sit in my car outside Devil’s Lair with no response, hope dies when there is not even an acknowledgment he’s read my text. “What the hell has happened in the last few days?” Frustration eats at me to the point I type that into the text window and am about to hit Send, but decide I don’t have the energy to hash it out with Ethan tonight.

Too many emotions are swirling toxically together in my heart and if I’m truthful, what I crave more than the potential healing that could be offered by a man I’m falling for is to forget my heart’s agony. Even if oblivion can only last for a brief while.

As I sit in the lot at Devil’s Lair, I know the sun’s licking at my heels. By the time I make it to my door, I’ll have just a few hours before I have to be back at the hospital with my mother if I want a chance to speak with her team of oncologists. With a heavy heart and a knot in my stomach that might rival the pain my mother complains about after her chemo, I toss my phone in the center console and put my car in gear to make my way from the warehouse at the fringes of Seven Virtues back to the center of the small town.

Exhausted as I am, it takes all my focus to drive the back roads. I have no desire to roll my car off the side of the Appalachian mountains. Nor do I feel like swerving into the side of them into a cliff face. Finally, I manage to navigate into the valley and breathe a sigh of relief when I pass by the perimeter of the university where I graduated from just a few short months ago. My lips curve when I recall the crazy joy I felt that night between finally completing my degree, the jaw dropping shock and awe my best friend once again caused in our small community, and most importantly, Ethan.

Ethan at my graduation.

Ethan at my side.

Ethan in my arms, my bed. Finally open to my heart.

Pulling into my reserved parking space behind Galileo’s, I park the car, grab my cell and purse. Unlocking the security door, I climb the stairs and enter my apartment.

Thank the lord, the bar below has quieted down for the night. With the way I’m putting in twenty-hour days between my time at the hospital, the museum, and my repayment plan to Florence, everything is catching up to me.

Within seconds, I enter my bedroom and fall face first on my bed.

Fast asleep.

Four hours later, I’m showered, dressed and back at Seven Virtues Hospital with a smile on my face for my mother when I squeeze her delicate hand between mine. “You look better this morning.”

My mother’s face isn’t quite so gray and flushed from the effects of yesterday’s chemotherapy. “Truly a stunning compliment, Fal.”

“I could have remarked on how sparkly your head looked beneath the lights.”

My mother grins before casting lashless eyes upward. “It really is rude, isn’t it? You would think they’d use a filter so my new cancer haircut wouldn’t be so shocking.”

We both laugh at her remark, continuing to cut up at everything from the color of the hospital walls to the way her gown pulls the color from her pallor to the too stringent nurses who won’t let me sneak in a breakfast of biscuits and gravy and are not amused when I get busted using the whiteboard to draw a ticktacktoe game as we pass the time waiting on the oncology team. “You know, we use that area for serious information,” I’m scolded.

My mother rolls her eyes before mouthing, “Top right,” which is where she wants me to place her next X so she can block me from claiming the game. I glare at her over the head tyrant’s shoulder before replying to the scowling face in front of me. “We haven’t erased anything.”

“See that you don’t,” is huffed out before the nurse scurries out of the room.

Mama and I laugh again and hope rises in my soul. Maybe this time, it worked. We continue our fierce battle of Xs and Os until the second her oncologist strides through the door after a sharp rap. Immediately, the tension in the room ratchets up, and our demeanor changes with the seriousness of his expression.

I know without him opening his mouth what he’s about to say and I wish with all my heart I could share this burden with Ethan.

Hours later, I’m assisting the head of the holiday decoration team by accessing the records of all cataloged Biltmore Christmas museum artifacts. On a normal day, I’d be ecstatic knowing we’re planning the formal dressing of the estate—giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “Christmas in July.” But I’m severely subdued by the news I learned this morning.

I want to upend every single plant in the majestic Winter Garden and let them rot. I want to tear apart each and every one of the 24,000 books I know are housed inside George Vanderbilt’s two-story library. I want to curl up on Edith Vanderbilt’s French Renaissance settee and cry my heart out before smashing every window and reflective surface along the way out the door.

My mother isn’t responding to the treatment. The treatment I fought for her to get.

Dry-eyed, I faced her oncologist to hear for myself the failure of modern medicine that was explained to us instead of bursting into hysterics. “So, you’re saying the treatment?—”

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