Page 76 of If Tomorrow Never Comes

Jamie:??Ha, What about you???

Elliott:??Pay off my parents’ mortgage and donate the rest to cure cancer??

Jamie:??I can’t think of anything better.??

Jamie:??(but could you maybe plant just one tree)??

Elliott:??Okay but I’m not climbing it??

Jamie:??deal??

Thursday, September 5

Jamie:??Up for a run tonight with me and Hank???

Elliott:??Sure??

Jamie:??Come by at 7???

Elliott:??See you then??

Friday, September 6

Elliott:??Thank you for the flowers. What are these???

Jamie:??Black-eyed Susans. This is the best time of year for them??

Jamie:??If you want me to stop giving them to you, I will??

Elliott:??I don’t want you to stop.??

Chapter Twenty-Three

Elliott

Mondays were Elliott’s favorite day of the week.

She always thought Mondays got a bad rap, but then again, days of the week had never meant to her what they did for other people. Cancer didn’t care what day of the week it was. Chemo didn’t care about weekend parties or social calendars. From the age of seventeen, she’d been in and out of hospitals, doctor’s offices, and infusion centers. She’d taken most of her college classes online and didn’t follow a standard Monday-through-Friday course schedule. Even now, she worked for herself and at a coffee shop that opened hellishly early, so no day of the week was off-limits.

Still, she’d always looked forward to Mondays. Maybe it was because in the early days of her parents’ bookstore, it was the only day they closed. Owning a small business was hard, and they worked all the time. But when Monday rolled around, she had them all to herself.

When she’d hit middle school, they started hosting Monday-night poker, and the house would fill with laughter and a smorgasbord of finger foods Elliott pilfered when no one was looking. As she got older,she joined the game when she felt well enough and had become a pretty decent card player.

She hadn’t been back home for a Monday, or a poker night, since the move nearly four months ago, but apparently Mondays still stuck with her because she woke up that morning in a great mood. Miraculously, she’d slept pretty well and felt fresh and energized.

The good vibes didn’t last long.

She had a meeting with Blythe that evening—the printed menus with custom hand lettering (noMelt My Farttypos to be seen) had finally arrived, and she couldn’t wait to show her. Everything was in her bag and ready to go, but with several hours to kill, Elliott had just sat down at her computer to check her email when her phone rang.

Her eyebrows shot up when she saw who was calling. Tristan Underwood was a friend from Elliott’s days as a leukemia patient basically living in the oncology ward of the hospital. Tristan had been a year younger than Elliott and diagnosed with leukemia around the same time. They’d gone through virtually identical treatments, and at the time, she’d been one of Elliott’s closest friends. Yuka was there, too, at the beginning, but with a different type of cancer and drastically different treatments. Tristan had known exactly what Elliott was going through.

Tristan lived in a tiny town several hours away, so once the inpatient portion of her treatment ended, Elliott hardly ever saw her. They’d kept in touch, even if communication had become less frequent over the years. Tristan had been one of the first people Elliott called when her cancer relapsed, and again after they were pretty sure the stem cell transplant had been successful. They hadn’t spoken since then, though ... so it had been close to a year.

When was the last time Elliott had spoken to Tristan’s mom, whose name flashed across her screen? It had to have been at least three times that long.

“Hi, Mrs. Underwood,” Elliott greeted her. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Good morning, Elliott. How are you?”

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