Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Her voice trembles, and I find myself reaching out, my hand dropping to her foot that’s hidden beneath the blanket, and she flinches, pulling her foot away. “Don’t,” she warns me, her tone filled with pain. I meet her stare, my brows furrowed. I thought she wanted this from me, wanted to feel me coming back to her. Seeing the confusion in my stare, she explains herself. “Not like this. The old Noah, the one I loved and needed, he’s already gotten me through this. He’s already given me what I needed. This new you, this stranger sitting at the end of my bed, I don’t need or want his pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Zoey,” I say, pulling my hand away and accepting her reasoning without question. “Never.”
“Okay,” she whispers with a slight nod before pressing her lips into a hard line. Something softens in her eyes as if deep in thought, and for a fleeting second, I see that six-year-old girl who so desperately needed me by her side. A moment later, she throws her blanket back and crawls across her bed, climbing straight onto my lap and straddling me.
She sits far enough back, her ass resting against my thighs with plenty of space between us, not at all like the way my body was pressed against hers in her closet earlier tonight. I keep my hands down, not daring to touch her despite the overwhelming need to do just that.
Then with her gaze locked on mine, she raises her hand to the neckline of her pajama top and pulls it aside, pointing out a small scar just below her collarbone, one I’ve always known was there but never thought to ask why. “This is where they put the port for my chemo,” she tells me. “The first round was brutal. I remember it making me sick all the time, and I would cry non-stop. I’m pretty sure that first round I was only in there for a few weeks and then I got to go home.”
“I remember,” I tell her just as someone appears in Zoey’s doorway. My gaze flicks across the room to find Zoey’s mom, clearly having heard voices in here, and I wait for her to tell me to leave, but instead, she just hovers, listening to Zoey’s recap of her chemotherapy.
“The second round was intense,” she murmurs, clearly not realizing her mom is listening as she focuses her whole attention on me, her gaze far away as she recalls those painful memories. “But I think I was better prepared because I knew what to expect. Only, that round was a lot longer. I can’t be sure exactly how long that hospital stay was. Maybe a few months? I don’t know. The details are fuzzy now.”
“And the third?” I ask.
“The third wasn’t quite as bad,” she tells me. “By that stage, the first and second rounds had already killed all the cancerous cells. I was pretty much in the clear, but I still had to complete the full treatment. They call it the maintenance round. It’s like when you kill a bug, and then you step on it again just to make sure it’s really dead. You know, just in case.”
I nod. “Just in case.”
Seeing Erica’s slight movement out of the corner of my eyes, I glance back to watch as she wipes a stray tear from the side of her cheek, and seeing my gaze, she gives me a sad smile before slipping away.
“Exactly,” Zoey says, her gaze dropping as her hand comes up and gently presses against my chest, gripping the soft material of my shirt and rolling it between her fingers. “I hated those long stays in the hospital, but I knew that when I got home, you were going to be there, and it didn’t matter to you how sick I was. You just sat by me the whole time, not caring when I fell asleep in the middle of a game. You just pulled my blanket up and made sure I was comfortable.”
The corner of my lip pulls into a broken smile, and I can’t resist reaching up and gently brushing my fingers down the side of her face, watching as she tilts her head into my touch. “I remember the day my mom told me you weren’t sick anymore,” I tell her, the memory forcing my smile to widen. “She had guests over, but I made her kick them out just so we could race over here.”
Zoey’s eyes sparkle with a fondness that warms my cold, dead heart. “I remember,” she whispers. “You came storming through the door and nearly knocked Hazel on her ass. But then you kissed me right there in the living room, right in front of my parents.”
A cocky smirk stretches wide across my face. “Damn fucking straight, I did.”