David(51)

I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It wasn’t possible that my tall, lithe friend—who wouldn’t let me order a pizza because of the chemicals in the tomatoes they used—could have had cancer.

“It’s not fair.”

“Life is often not fair.”

I nodded. He was right there. It made me want to go home and hug David.

“Listen,” Eric said, “I can see I just delivered quite a blow. Why don’t you take some time and when you’re ready to talk again, give me a call?”

“Thank you.”

I watched him go and felt the tears threatening to erupt. What had I done? Walking away from my friend and letting her go through something so devastating on her own? It wasn’t right.

I needed to hear David’s voice, but he wasn’t answering his phone.





Chapter 33




David

Ash was sitting beside me, his face a mask of concern.

“How’d it go?” I asked with a throat that didn’t want to work.

“They got all the fragments.”

“And?”

“Have to wait for the swelling to go down before they can know.”

I closed my eyes, an image of myself walking up to Ricki and touching her face as she stood filled my mind. And then I drifted back to sleep.

***

The next time I woke, I was cold. I shivered and someone immediately brought a blanket up to my chin.

“They say the antibiotics should bring the fever down soon,” a disembodied voice said above me.

“Is someone sick?” I tried to ask, but I didn’t think any sound came out of my throat.

I didn’t get an answer.

***

My eyes felt gritty, like I hadn’t slept in days. I felt a hand move in mine. I said Ricki’s name, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. I was so cold and my throat was burning…

***

Donovan was watching me through weary eyes. I studied him, but it was as if he didn’t realize I was awake. Kate came up behind him and squeezed his shoulder.

“She keeps calling. We should let her know what’s happening.”

“Ash wants to wait till his fever breaks.”

“It might not break for days.”

“Ash says he didn’t want her to know, that he didn’t want to worry her. We have to respect that.”

“I think she would want to know. I know I would.”

And then I was gone again.





Chapter 34




Ricki

David wasn’t answering his phone. It was beginning to frighten me a little. Twenty-four hours it’d been since the last time we talked. He promised he would keep in touch.

Had he decided he was done with me? Was this his way of ending our relationship? Or was it something else? Had something happened to him?

I was frightened, but I didn’t know what to do. So I kept calling and leaving messages, begging him to call me back. To hell with self-respect.

***

I met with Eric the next morning over breakfast. This time he was the first to arrive, sitting in a corner booth with a plate filled to the rim with eggs and hash browns.

“Morning,” he said, rising and giving me another of those tight hugs.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I think the question is better posed to you.”

I shrugged. “I was shocked. But it also makes so much sense to me.”

He nodded. “A lot of people have said that.”

“I’m sorry the two of you had to go through something like that, that you had to make that choice.”

He tilted his head, as though he was weighing my statement. “I think the decision was the easy part. It was getting the diagnosis that was the hard part.”

I had to agree with that.

I ordered, asking for a bowl of oatmeal, not sure my nervous stomach could take much more than that. When it came, I pushed it around with my spoon.

“I’m guessing you have more questions,” Eric said. “Feel free to ask anything.”

“Was she in pain?”

“Sometimes. But it never got unbearable for her.”

That was something of a relief.

Eric watched me a bit longer, waiting for more questions. When none came, he set a notebook on the table, one like students use to take notes in class. I recognized Arabelle’s handwriting on the cover and knew what it was immediately.

Arabelle liked to write. She wrote down everything. Sometimes she’d fill notebooks like that with code. Other times it would be poems and little snippets of prose. Other times it would be like a diary, filled with her thoughts and feelings.

He slid it across the table to me.

“I think maybe you’d get more out of this than I would. It’s mostly about the time the two of you spent together toward the end. Before her arrest.”

I was almost afraid to touch it at first. But then I picked it up and opened the front cover, my eyes moving over the familiarity of her handwriting.