Page 3 of Brighter than the Boss
The meeting ended and I jumped up before anyone else, grabbing my bag and racing to the locker room without a backwards glance. I didn't get mad often, but when I did, it was usually legendary.
There was that time in middle school when Shawna, the class mean girl, tripped me when I walked by in the cafeteria. Food flew everywhere and I was majorly embarrassed. Fortunately for me, I was also super athletic. The next day in P.E. class we were playing flag football. She caught a pass and I decided detention was totally worth it. I tackled her to the muddy ground and “accidentally” pushed her face in the mud as I went to stand back up. For whatever reason, she gave me a wide berth after that, instead of retaliating. My friends and family never let me forget it either, no matter how many times I explained that she had started it.
Well, Cain had definitely started this one too and I wasn't afraid to retaliate. I had gotten a little older and wiser though. The anger bubbling up in my chest was still alive and well, but I planned to handle it better this time. I'd play the game, on the surface looking like the happy, pleasant, team player I was. But inside?
Oh, lordy, on the inside I'd be planning my attack.
* * *
I flopped down on my tiny couch, exhausted after a morning of washing trucks like my life depended on it and then being out in the afternoon sun on tower 19. I was used to being out in the elements, but it wasn't normally after three hours of hosing down vehicles and scrubbing with towels. I'd had to get out a step ladder to even reach the top of the trucks, something that brought much amusement to several of my coworkers. I kept smiling the whole time though, not willing to let Cain's unfair treatment of me spoil this job.
Chili lay down on his pillow right by my feet, having exerted all the energy he could muster barking his head off when I'd come through the front door. I'd fed him first, without a thank you in return I might add, then grabbed an apple out of the fridge before lying down where I was presently comatose.
My cell phone rang, but I let it go, seeing that it was back on the kitchen counter and therefore out of reach. When it rang again a second later, I heaved out a breath and struggled to standing. I picked up the phone on the last ring, rushing to get to it before it went to voicemail when I saw it was my mom calling.
"Hi, Mom!" I put some enthusiasm back in my voice. If I didn't she'd be asking me twenty questions to get to the bottom of why I sounded so blue.
"Hi, love, how'd your day go?" Mom's voice was subdued, but pleasant, her good manners trumping any pesky emotions.
I sat back down on the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table. "Good. No one drowned, so I'd say that's a good day." I chuckled. She didn't join in like she usually did which sent a tingle of fear up my neck. "You okay, Mom?"
There was a slight pause. Long enough for the fear to ratchet up a notch.
"Well, that's why I'm calling, honey. Remember I went to the doctor last week?" I nodded my head, not realizing she couldn't see me. She went on anyway. "He got the results back in and he told your father and me that I have a lump on my breast they want to remove right away. The biopsy came back positive for cancer."
The room fell away, the sounds of the house around me muted, leaving me in a vacuum where all I heard was that awful word on repeat. Each repetition was a bit louder, bouncing off the walls of my brain and making me dizzy. I forgot to breathe, frozen there on the couch.
"Honey?" My mom's voice came to me, echoing down a long hallway. "Sweetie, are you still there? I know this is a lot to process, but we caught it early. I'm going to be just fine." Her voice was louder now. The feeling seemed to have come back to my extremities.
A thousand urgent questions rushed through my head and I sat up straight to launch them at her. "So do you have the surgery scheduled? Do you have to do chemo too? What stage are you in? What exactly did the doctors say?"
She chuckled. Actually chuckled at me while delivering the bomb that she had cancer. "Calm yourself, child. The doctors have all assured me that the surgery, followed by chemotherapy, should give me an excellent prognosis. I go in for surgery tomorrow morning and should be home by dinnertime."
I stood up and rushed over to my laptop in the bedroom. "Let me see if I can get a red-eye."
"Sunny, no. I don't want you coming out here for that. I won't even get to see you before you'll need to fly back for work. I'd rather you give your new employers a good first impression of you. That way you can take time off later when I'm home and need some company during the chemo treatments."
I rubbed my eyes, not even wanting to think about the kind of impression I'd made on my new employers. If my mom knew, she wouldn't have to worry about cancer getting her. She'd die of a heart attack first.
I sighed, feeling helpless. How did we get here, where our conversation was about surgeries and chemo treatments? "Mom."
She paused and when she spoke again, the wobble in her voice told me she understood. "I'm going to be fine, Sunny. I have grandkids I intend to see before I leave this earth."
"I love you," I whispered.
"I love you, too," she whispered back.
"I love you more."
"I love you most."
2
Cain
The door swung shut and I lurched forward when it hit me on the ass. A gentle breeze could have knocked me over. What the fuck had just happened?
Ivan had been teasing me that morning about surprising me for my birthday, hinting that he'd outdone himself this year. His sly grin both intrigued me and worried me. C'mon, let's be real. He was too nice of a guy to come up with a gift I'd actually like. I didn't think he could fathom the type of sexual gift I'd prefer. He was happily engaged to the sweetest girl in all of HB, planning weddings, kids, and which minivan model they wanted. How could he possibly understand the no-strings, meaningless sex I preferred?
