“Grace!” John barked instantly. “Dammit. I’ve been trying to ring you all day.” I opened my mouth to tell him it wasn’t Grace but he kept on talking, his pissed tone putting me offside. My jaw ticked as I listened. “What the hell are you doing? You need to stop playing Russian roulette with your life and get home already.”
Russian roulette with her life? I paused. What the fuck was he talking about?
“Grace? Stop ignoring me. This is serious. You can’t put off coming home any longer. You shouldn’t have even gone in the first place.”
Waves of tension rolled through me. “It’s not Grace.”
“Oh. Shit,” John muttered.
“Tell me what’s going on, John.” My grip on the phone tightened. “Right now.”
“Is Grace there?”
I looked to where Grace stood with the guys, sipping the last quarter of her drink. “She’s nearby. We’re at a party.”
There was a long pause before he spoke again. “I’m not sure Grace will forgive me for speaking behind her back, but this is bigger than our friendship.”
John’s cryptic conversation was making me lose patience. “Talk,” I barked, needing to know what the hell was going on.
“Grace …” He let out a shaky breath. “Hell … Okay. Grace had a lump removed from her breast exactly nine days before she left for Sydney. Did she tell you?”
“I asked her about it,” I told him, remembering the sudden worry after seeing the fresh scar for the first time. “She said it was a benign lump. I didn’t have any reason to doubt her. She—”
“She lied.”
“What …” I swallowed, my heart suddenly thumping so hard I had to grab the back of the chair behind me to steady myself. “What did you just say?”
“She lied, Casey,” he told me, then paused. “Grace has cancer.”
Blood roared in my ears as the whole world faded away. “No,” I told him, shaking my head. Not Grace. Not my Grace. “You’re wrong. She would’ve told me.”
“Casey … Shit. I’m sorry.”
My eyes fell on her. Henry hugged her close while she laughed at something Cooper was saying.
My heart cracked wide open, memories flooded me instantly.
“What if I want to keep you?”
Grace closing her eyes, hiding them from me. “You can’t. After eight weeks we both walk away, no questions asked.”
Then at the cottage.
“People come and go, Casey. Some crash into your life and leave in the blink of eye, others stay with you for years, but it doesn’t matter how long you have them for, because the way they make you feel stays you with forever.”
I should’ve seen it.
Why didn’t I see it?
John spoke my name but the sound was more like a buzz in my ears because suddenly it was hard to breathe.
The phone fell to my side. “Grace.” My voice cracked on the word and I didn’t realise I’d said it loud enough for everyone to hear until silence fell around me.
Grace looked my way, her brows drawing together. “Casey?”
I fought for air as she started towards me, a million emotions punching through me in turn: hurt, betrayal, and the most crippling one of all—fear. All of it roiled inside me, leaving me sick. I tried to leash it and failed.
“You lied to me!” I held up her phone so she could see it. She flinched, seeing John’s name there on the screen. I turned and pitched it at the wall. Destroying phones was becoming a habit.
Travis started towards me, winding his way through the frozen bodies, all of them seemingly stunned at the violent outburst.
“That was John,” I managed to say, just so she was clear.
“Did he …”
She faltered and trailed off, so I finished the question for her. “Tell me?”
Her head jerked in a nod.
“Yes!” I shouted, feeling raw. “Yes, he fucking told me!”
My raging pulse wasn’t easing and I stepped back, feeling oddly anxious and dizzy. Bumping the table behind me, I spun around, shoving it angrily, and stumbled again. What was wrong with me?
“Casey?”
Christ. Fucking cancer. It was something I couldn’t see, something I couldn’t beat the shit out of, put away in prison, or shoot with a gun. It was something I couldn’t protect her from. I could only hold her hand and watch it happen.
Feeling everyone’s eyes on me, I shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Casey … I’m sorry,” Grace whispered from somewhere behind me.
A sob broke in my chest.
Why?
Why now when I’d just found her?
Why, goddammit!
I clenched my jaw hard enough for my teeth to crack, willing myself to pull it together.