Page 54 of Time To Live Again

“Corey heard me singing in the shower a couple of times without me knowing it. Things snowballed, and my parents urged me to try out for the school musical,Footloose, in tenth grade. Corey tried out too. He could dance, but he didn’t like to sing as much. We both got parts in the play. I was Ren, and he was Willard.” Her eyes widen and a relaxed smile curves her lips. “You knowFootloose, right?”

“Yes. Of course. Great soundtrack. I would’ve loved to have seen it.”

“Maybe you will. I have video clips of it somewhere.” I wiggle out of bed. “Be right back.” I wander into the other room to grab some water bottles from the fridge.

“Don’t you dare put clothes on. I want you naked and back in this bed,” she yells. I snicker.

“See…showing me how it is,” I say, holding up the bottles when I return. I hand her one, then climb back under the covers. “Damn, girl! You wore me out. I need to hydrate—my throat’s killing me from screaming your name.” We drink some water, then place our bottles on the nightstand.

She nods and her mouth ticks up on the side. “I should pat myself on the back. Making a guy scream like that is new for me.”

“I don’t want to hear about other guys. I’m your only guy from now on. Got it?”

She smiles brightly and nods in agreement.

“Now let me see, where’d I leave off? Oh, okay. Fast-forward through high school, we became a hit with our performances. Puberty made an appearance, my voice improved, yada yada.”

“Am I the only one who says you sound like Freddie Mercury?”

I chuckle. “No. It’s all I’ve heard.”

“Did you become famous? Maybe try out forAmerican Idolor some other talent show?”

“Nah. Not really. Word did get around though. People encouraged me to pursue acting and all that. I loved singing and dancing, but I didn’t need to be famous to do it. Corey and I started to street perform during tourist season. We made a shitload of money,” I admit, feeling nostalgic.

“Did you go to the same college?”

“Yep. Seattle University, but we didn’t go for performing arts. I went for hotel management, for obvious reasons, and he went for marketing.” I stop and am quiet for a minute. Then I take a big breath and continue. “Unfortunately, my dad died right before we left for college. Corey got me through that tough time. Hmmm, that was so long ago.”

She runs a hand down my arm, compassion oozing out of her. I close my eyes.

“He was my best friend, Olive. My ride or die, my partner in crime, whatever you want to call him. We did everything together. Anyway, during college, we kept up the dancing lessons and street performances. We did competitions and all that, but not to become famous. We made good enough money at it that we traveled between semesters and during the summer.

“We came up with the idea to blog and then moved on to vlogging our adventures too. It was wild, how it took off. We had thousands of followers and it kept growing. Social media was fucking crazy.” I shake my head and grin. “We had so much fun.”

Memories surge forward in my head, things I’ve refused to think about for way too long. Smiling and laughing comes naturally when I think of the best times of my life. Olive props her head on her hand and watches me as if she can see them too.

She traces my lips. “There’s that smile I love. It’s my new favorite thing?—”

“What?” I protest. “In the shower, you said your favorite thing was my love stick.”

“You’re ridiculous.Love stick? I’d never call your cherry-flavored lollipop that.”

I crack up. “It doesn’t taste like cherries.”

Before I can say anything else, she covers my mouth with her hand and says, “We can discuss names and flavors later. Keep talking.”

“Right. Before long, we decided we should be professional travelers on a budget. Our parents said they’d back us as long as we finished college.” I grab my bottle from the nightstand and twist the cap, then down the rest of the water. “I’m babbling, I know.” I toss the empty bottle to the floor.

She kisses me. “It’s okay. Babble, laugh, scream, cry…I want to know everything.”

“Okay. Fast-forward to after we became successful professional travelers. It sounds fancy, but we were just two guys in our twenties, having the time of our lives and traveling the world for work. And then…Corey got sick. Literally—one day he was fine, and the next he wasn’t. We had no idea what was going on. After tons of tests, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. It’s the deadliest kind.”

She releases a breath. “Shit, Leo. I’ve seen how people suffer from that during my training. I’m really sorry.”

I memorize the freckles on Olive’s shoulder, remembering that horrible day and everything that followed. She takes my hand and laces our fingers together, then holds them against her chest. Her heartbeat taps my skin.

“I remember when the doctor told us the diagnosis. I refused to believe it was true, especially when they said the survival rate to live past five years was maybe twenty-five percent. The entire time Corey was sick, he was the tough, positive one.” My voice cracks and my eyes well up. “And all for what? He didn’t live past a year.”

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