Present Perfect(84)

I heard my mom let out a slight gasp.

“I’m going to be staying with my sister, Emily,” I told him. “She lives on the ground floor in an apartment building closer to the hospital. My parent’s house has steps going into it. We figured Emily’s would be a good place to stay.”

As I talked, I noticed the expression on the doctor’s face. I looked over at my mom and then my dad. Their expressions matched the doctor’s.

“He’s not talking about living arrangements, sweetheart,” Dad said.

Then it suddenly dawned on me. He was telling me to start planning my funeral. What’s weird is that it never crossed my mind that I might die. I thought that was always the first thing that popped into a person’s head when they were told they had cancer.

We filed out of the office with a stack of information to read on the type of cancer I had, what to expect from the surgery and after, and names of local leg people. Calling them prosthetists sounded too much like prostitute for my liking.

I wasn’t in the mood to go home right then. My parents hugged and kissed me goodbye, got in their car and drove home. I had never seen them so visibly shaken before. I think we all needed our alone time to deal with this, without trying to keep up the brave pretense.

Noah and I sat in his truck decompressing from the appointment. Out the corner of my eye I could see he was fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It looked like he was about to say something.

“Noah, don’t. I need a little time to process what was said in there.”

“I know. What do you want to do?”

I continued staring straight ahead and said, “Runaway.”

He didn’t respond. He simply started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot.

We drove further into downtown, pulling up to a very nice condo that I didn’t recognize. Noah cut the car off, turned to me, and said, “I’m staying here for a few weeks.”

“It’s nice. Why are you staying here?”

“It’s Carter Perry’s place. I hang out here all the time. He asked me to stay while he was out of town for Christmas. He won’t be back until after New Year’s. It’s great having some privacy,” he said.

“Emily’s place is only a couple of blocks away. You’ll be so close by.”

“I know, funny how it worked out that way.” He smiled at me before getting out of the car. I had a feeling that his staying at this condo wasn’t just a coincidence.

I watched as he walked around to my side of the car and opened the passenger door for me. I placed my hand in his and we walked inside.

It was a very nice two bedroom open floor plan condo. It was a typical guy’s place, sparsely furnished with a huge sofa and flat screen TV. We shrugged out of our coats, tossing them on the sofa.

“Do you want anything to drink or eat?” Noah asked.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Ok.”

I walked over to the large floor to ceiling window and looked out. There was a nice view of the pool, clubhouse, and grilling area. My mind drifted to planning my funeral. What music would I like? What kind of coffin would I want to be in? I wonder if they make yellow coffins. Do they even make different color coffins? I was so engrossed in my thoughts I didn’t hear Noah at first when he came back into the room.

“Tweet, are you sure you don’t want anything?”

I continued to staring out the window. “I don’t want to die.” My voice was so soft and low, like I said it more to myself than to Noah.

There was a slight pause before Noah said, “You’re not going to die.”

He was standing by the kitchen counter, drinking a bottle of water when I turned to face him.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he said, just before taking another drink of water.

“But, I do. I need to talk about it with my best friend. I know it’s not easy. We haven’t talked about it at all. Things are going to get bad, and I need you to understand that.”

Lowering his head, he took in a deep breath. I saw his shoulders start to tremble. The next thing I knew a plastic bottle of water was flying through the air, smashing into the wall. He looked up and I saw pain and helplessness in his beautiful blue eyes as they filled with tears. “You don’t think I understand how bad things are? I’m going to be a f*cking orthopedic surgeon one day. You don’t think I know, that if the cancer doesn’t eat you up that, the meds they’re going to pump into your body might do it? You don’t think I’ve read that you have a sixty-five percent chance of surviving five years? For most people, that would be pretty good odds, but not for you. You deserve a one hundred percent guaranteed survival.” Tears were gushing from both of us.

He was standing in front of me in three quick strides. I was pinned to the window as he placed his hands on either side of my face palming my cheeks. Our eyes locked. Our lips were barely touching when he whispered, “I can’t lose you. You’re my everything. Not having you in my life wrecked me before, but not having you in my world would completely destroy me. My purpose is to take care of you and protect you, but there’s nothing I can do to take this away from you. I don’t know how to help you.