Page 68 of If Tomorrow Never Comes

“That’s okay. He deserves all of it and more.” Jamie had adopted Hank shortly after moving back to Omaha, and he’d been a steady, comforting presence during his injury recovery. There’d been nothing better than coming home from a grueling day of physical therapy to his happy, loving dog, who looked at him every single time he walked through that door like he’d invented the chew toy.

Hank had also been there in the months following Elliott’s disappearance when Jamie’d gone out of his mind for a little while, unable to find her and wondering if he’d just missed out on the love of his life forever. If he’d only ever have one day with her.

Yet here he was, one year and a few months later, sitting in a hotel room and talking to her on the phone while she spooned with his dog on her couch.

A strange, sudden emotion swelled in his chest—something like gratitude, or maybe ill-advised ambition—and he swallowed. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“The night we first met, when I asked you for a secret, you said sometimes if feels like no one understands you. I remember because I’ve felt the same way for a long time, and I’ve always wondered what it meant for you. Would you tell me?”

She hummed, like a soft sound of contemplation, and he settled deeper into the cushions, propping his feet on the coffee table.

“I guess I just meant I’ve experienced a lot of things few people do. I got cancer as a teenager, and I’ve had a stem cell transplant. People say one of the best ways to get through hardship is to talk about it, but most of the time when I try that, it just makes people uncomfortable. They can’t relate and don’t know what to say.

“Yuka and my parents are the only ones I feel like I can be brutally honest with. They’ll let me rage and cry and vent anytime I need to, and always find something to do or say that makes me feel better. But even they don’t understand completely. No one can.”

He wished he was with her right now. Sitting across from or beside her, taking in the expressions on her face while she spoke. “You’ve dealt with more shit before the age of thirty than some people do in a lifetime.”

“Some have had it worse,” she said quietly. “I remember one girl I met at the infusion center whose family had a genetic condition that put them at higher risk for cancer. By the time the gene was detected, she’d already lost her dad, uncle, and two brothers to various cancers. She and her mom were the only ones left, and she’d just been diagnosed with colon cancer.”

“Oh my God, that’s terrible. I can’t even imagine.” His stomach dropped to his toes even thinking about it. “But you’ve been through a lot, too. And still, you’re so ...” He trailed off, again struggling to put words to what he saw in her.

“I’m so . . . what?”

Jamie rubbed a hand across his sternum. “You’re just ... incredible.” Incredible, beautiful, strong. “I hope that’s okay for me to say.”

It was silent for a few seconds, then she spoke. “It’s okay to say.” The smile in her voice brought a similar expression to his own face. “It’s nice to hear someone thinks that of me.” Before he could scoff and inform her everyone she met probably thought the same, she kept going. “Your turn. Why do you feel like no one understands you?”

“Nah, you don’t need to hear about my shitty family right now.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. But I’d like to know.”

Jamie ran a hand through his hair and vacantly gazed at the television he’d muted earlier. Being one of the millions of kids who struggled through a parents’ divorce seemed like nothing compared with having cancer, but after her honesty, he owed her the same. And while he’d rather hear more about her, he liked that she wanted to get to know him. “I guess I’ve just always felt a little split between my family. There are three of us kids—Greg’s the oldest, then Blythe, then me. We were pretty close when we were kids, but then my parents got divorced. My sister picked my mom, and my brother picked my dad. I was too young to understand much and didn’t really side with anybody. I spent more time with Greg and my dad at first, because I figured they were guys like me and that’s where I should be. But the older I got, the more I realized how little I related to them. Now I spend much more time with my mom and sister than with them.”

When he paused, she said, “I don’t know what it’s like to be a kid watching your parents get a divorce, but I watched Yuka go through it. It wasn’t easy.”

“No, it’s not. My brother has followed in my dad’s footsteps in every way, and I know they expected the same from me. But I just couldn’t. My dad runs a loan consolidation business. He started it from the ground up, turning a three-employee start-up into a multimillion-dollar company. He likes to go big and take risks, even thoughsome of them have led to layoffs and lost jobs for his employees. Oddly enough, he always emerges from those bad decisions unscathed.”

She made a sound of disapproval, and he liked her even more because of it.

“I know, believe me. And now my brother works for him and is quickly climbing the ranks in the company. Long story short, they think my career choice is a joke. It’s too soft, I guess, to work with plants. Apparently, they don’t care trees turn something harmful into the one thing we need to breathe.”

He probably sounded ridiculous, defending trees as if they were his protected employees. But in a way, they sort of were. “The only time I felt like they were proud of me was when I was drafted. What’s more impressive than being a baseball star?”

“I can think of several things,” Elliott said.

“So can I.” He smiled, absurdly pleased she didn’t seem all that impressed by the baseball thing. She wasn’t fawning over it being a major loss to have missed the opportunity to be a pro athlete. “I wasn’t much of a partyer in high school or college. Was kind of a geek, actually, because I’d rather be outside with a book than at a party. But after I got word from the scout that I was as good as drafted and likely to be an early-round pick, my brother suddenly started paying attention to me. He always wanted to take me out with his buddies, and my dad never missed an opportunity to tell me how proud he was of me. It’s funny how quickly that all stopped when I got injured and was released.”

“That’s bullshit,” she burst out, then paused. She took a breath, and her voice gentled. “I’m so sorry, Jamie.”

“Don’t be. My dad and brother were crushed, but I was relieved. I liked playing baseball, but I never wanted to make a career out of it. I wouldn’t have chosen to go out the way I did, but it worked out all the same.” He absently rubbed one socked heel across his shin. “They’ve never treated me the same, and I guess that’s what I meant that night. My mom and Blythe accept me for who I am, and I should be happy with that. But it still feels like I’m only part of half of my family.”

“Sounds to me like you’re with the best half.”

He grinned. “I think so, too.”

They kept talking for another two hours, but it didn’t even feel like they scratched the surface of everything they could have talked about. He told her about adopting Hank and how he’d named him after Hank Aaron, his favorite baseball player, and that he’d never been to a concert, which she insisted they remedy. He was all in with anything that involved her. Them, together.

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