The Speed of Light: A Novel(75)

The door opens behind us, and when I turn, it’s not Emmett who returns with Claudia, but Mom. They’re talking in hushed, tense voices, but when they look up, they both smile. “Rest time,” Claudia says.

I lean in and hug Nikki gently and awkwardly around her IV and tubes. “See you tomorrow.”

As Mom and I walk back, I am still full of grief about the horror of the day, but I am also hopeful, grateful.

We survived. We’re still here.

Life is short. I don’t want to let another moment pass without taking my shot at the life I deserve. When I get back to my room, I’m calling Connor.

But when we walk through the door of my room, the tension is thick; something is off. Dad’s standing in the corner, head down; Emmett’s sitting, staring at the floor intensely, his hands balled into fists.

“What’s going on?” I glance at Mom, who’s giving my dad a look. She catches me looking and smiles sadly, almost guiltily. “Mom?”

Her eyes dart from me to Emmett, who finally throws his hands in the air. “Shit, just tell her, okay? She deserves to know.”

“Emmett.” Mom frowns at him. “Language.”

An alarm in my head, soft but rising. “Know what?”

When I look at Mom, she breaks. “Oh, Simone. Connor was here.”

I gasp. “He was?” I turn back to look through the door and out into the hallway, but there are only doctors, nurses, the normal hustle and bustle of an emergency room. “Why didn’t you come get me?”

“Well, because, he, uh . . . he left.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I told him to get the hell out of here,” Emmett blurts out.

I whip my face toward my brother, the sting of betrayal equal to my confusion. “Emmett, why would you do that?”

Silence again as they all look at each other, and a cold ache seeps through my body, as if it’s bracing for the blow.

Mom looks down as she whispers, “Honey, he wasn’t alone.”

I blink, unable to process these words, put my hand to my face. Dad is quick, rushing to me and steering me toward the bed. Sitting now, I stare at my hands as if they hold the secrets of how to deal with this news. “Who was with him?”

“Emmett saw her,” Mom says softly. “A redhead, right, Em?”

I sit, frozen, as my heart shatters.

I look up, and Mom’s watching my face, my pain reflected back at me in her eyes. And somehow, even though I know it might never go away, not fully, a word pushes forward.

Enough.

There has been enough pain today, enough sadness. I can’t endure any more, and neither can my family.

I draw a shaky breath. “Thank you for telling me.”

Three sets of wide, suspicious eyes stare at me. “Are you okay, honey?” Mom asks.

She sits down next to me, and I lean on her shoulder. “No.” I sigh. “But I will be.”

I’m still here. I survived. I have a lot of life left to live—a lot more goals to accomplish, and I’m no longer afraid my illness will stop me.

I may never get over him, but I plan to keep going, no matter what.





PART FOURTEEN

SERENDIPITY





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Christmas Eve, 2:32 p.m. After

My car jerks to a stop in front of my parents’ house, and I curse at the radio, turning it off with a feline flick of my wrist. I swear to God if I hear “Blue Christmas” one more goddamned time I’m going to scream.

I meet my own weary eyes in the mirror, take a deep breath. “I’m fine,” I say, but the woman staring back at me calls my bluff.

Of course I’m not fine. When I got out of the hospital, the next few days were a whirlwind of police station visits, questioning, reliving. With both shooters dead, it’s not like I’ll need to testify at a trial of any sort. But the ordeal is far from over.

For now, thankfully, I’m allowed to be free of it. That meant heading north to my parents’ house for the holidays. It might become permanent—maybe not actually living with my parents, but living in Aberdeen.

I can’t go back to that office. Nikki and I were granted an immediate leave of absence, but I intend to make it permanent as soon as Aunt Kit verifies that her job offer at the library still stands. It’ll be hard enough to go back to campus after the holidays for the memorial service. The fear, the pain, the memories—I place my forearms on the steering wheel and double over against it. But I have to go back. I owe it to Hayley. To Raj, who will be speaking at the service. I owe it to myself.

But after that, with Nikki and Claudia planning to depart to Minneapolis, I’ll put my apartment on the market and move back here. There’s nothing left for me in Sioux Falls.

I lost him.

Another wave of pain, the biggest of all, and I slump even farther against the cold steering wheel.

I squeeze my eyes shut, wait for the pain to pass, focus on the good news of this month: Dr. Reynolds—God bless her—came through with my MRI results.

No new lesions since my diagnosis. No disease progression.

I smile now as I sit up and glare fiercely at the woman in the rearview mirror. Maybe I’m not fine. But I’m here. I survived. And every day gets a little easier than the last. I don’t know what my future holds—someday, my MRI results might not be so positive. Someday, treatment might be an inevitability. Someday, I might need to once again adjust to a new normal as I navigate the ups and downs of this disease.