Page 53 of Part of Forever
He raises an eyebrow at me. “I thought you already told her. I mean, she and I haven’t talked about it, but I thought she knew.”
I look down, ashamed. “I didn’t know how to tell her, so I didn’t, and then she found out when my mom said something and now she’s mad.”
“She’ll get over it,” he says, grabbing my hand. “You’re her best friend, and you’re fine now; she can’t stay mad forever.”
I nod, trying to believe him, but ready to think about our night instead. “So, where are we going tonight?”
“Nope.” He smiles at me and shakes his head. “Still not telling you.”
“Do you know?” I ask Erin, who just smiles and shakes her head.
“Beats me. You two have fun though,” she says and waves us off.
I follow Tucker out to his truck, where he moves his jacket from the front seat to the bed—-where he also puts the bag he asked Nathan to pack for me. I am curious as to why I’ll be needing a bag for the evening, but Nathan wouldn’t let me peek.
“You ready?” he asks, with a smile that makes my heart do a flip.
“As I’ll ever be without knowing where we’re actually going,” I say lightly, but really I’m dying to know.
“You’ll know soon enough,” he says as we pull out of the driveway. We fall into a comfortable silence, and after a while, it becomes obvious that it’s going to take some time to get wherever it is we’re going.. My thoughts wander back to two days ago, when everything was still fine and I didn’t feel like a bomb was about to go off. I want to believe him, trust that Grace won’t hate me forever, but I don’t see her forgiving me anytime soon.
“And then, then he just took off running,” Grace said, laughing. I roll back so I’m lying next to her on the floor. I’ve got tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.
“He did not just leave you? I know he’s your boyfriend, but he’s my brother, so I can kill him if you need me to.”
“You don’t need to kill him. But he just left me there! I was standing, soaking wet, and he left me,” she says, still laughing. “Then, when he came back five minutes later, he was like, “Why areyou still standing here?” And I was like, “You left and I’m freezing,” and he said, “Well, I wanted you to come with me.”
“Oh my gosh, he’s so dumb,” I say, rolling over onto my stomach and propping myself up.
“Yes, but I really like him.” She closes her eyes and hugs one of my pillows to her chest. “I’ll just remember that next time he dares me to jump into the ocean with him, I’m supposed to follow him when he runs away, even though his pants were so waterlogged, I thought they were going to be around his ankles.”
“That is a good part to remember.”
“It was hilarious!”
There’s a knock on my door, “Hey, Rosie. Doctor Barker called, she said that everything still looks good and that Lucy from your therapy group asked if she could have your number,” Mom says all of that before she sees me, with Grace sitting beside me in my room. “Oh, hi, Grace.”
My heart is beating wildly in my chest. “She can give Lucy my number.”
“I’ll let her know that’s okay.” She looks between me and Grace nervously. “Well, I’ll let you girls get back to it.” And then she leaves. I play with the carpet in front of me, wishing it wasn’t so short, wishing I couldn’t feel Grace’s eyes on me.
“What was that about?” she asks in a quiet voice.
“Um, just following up… from my tests, back in January.”
“That was three months ago.” Grace sits up. “What’s going on, Rosie?”
“Nothing, I’m fine,” I assure her, because I am fine.
“Group therapy?” she asks, and I finally look at her, my chest bursting from holding it all in.
“Cancer group therapy.” It all comes out in a rush, my heart nearly bursting out of my chest. “I had a tumor, but it’s gone now. That’s what I really had surgery for. But the tumor is gone, and I’m fine. There isn’t cancer anywhere else, but I’ve been going to cancer group therapy because Doctor Barker thought it would help since I’dbeen in remission so long and then I got a tumor. And I met a girl named Lucy who is sort of my new friend.”
She is quiet for a long minute and I look back at the carpet again. “You… wait… a tumor?”
“Yes.” It comes out small.
“You knew about this in January?” I can’t tell if she’s mad or not.
