The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2)(49)
“I know.”
We turned around to face the house. Erika screamed at her mother as she yelled back at her. Alyssa tried her best to neutralize the situation, but had no luck whatsoever.
“You can’t marry a person who has cancer, Erika. It makes no sense! You’re thinking with your heart instead of your head.”
What a f*cking awful thing to say to a person.
“God. Their mom is insane. I forgot how insane she is. She actually makes Erika seem…normal?”
“She’s a tough one, that’s for sure.” Kellan dropped his head a little and stared at his shoes. “She’s not completely wrong, though.”
“What?”
“Erika’s in this panic mode. She’s rushing to marry me, just in case something happens. Just in case, things go wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be her husband but…” His words faded off and he looked back up into his home, which seemed like it was seconds away from exploding.
I wanted to dive deeper into his thoughts on marrying Erika, but I could tell by his body language that he wasn’t in the mood.
The conversation going on inside the house must’ve hit its boiling point, because Lauren went storming off. Erika quickly started clearing the dining room table, breaking plates in the sink, and rearranging chairs while Alyssa stood back watching.
“Uh, should we go help her?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s part of her process. Just let it happen.”
I snapped my band once more. Or twice. Maybe fifteen times.
“You know what’s crazy? I smoke and you get cancer.”
“What’s yours is mine…”
“And what’s mine is yours,” I replied.
“If it makes you feel better, you can’t get colon cancer from smoking. But you should stop smoking.”
I huffed at his parenting voice.
But he wasn’t wrong.
“Grandpa had colon cancer,” I said, my voice cracking. It was what ended his life.
“Yeah.” Kellan nodded. “I know.”
The only person in my life who loved me like my brother did was my grandfather. Watching his life be sucked away from him was the hardest thing I’d ever had to witness. What was even worse was how fast it happened. One day he was there, and a few months later, he wasn’t. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye, because he lived so far away.
“Listen. Maybe I should move back here for a while. I really had nothing going on back in Iowa.”
“Yeah?” he asked, sniffling his nose, placing his hands on the back of his head.
“Yeah. No big deal. I might even go see Ma soon. See how she’s been doing.”
“It’s not good,” he said. “I was going to go grab her food stamps card and take her some groceries later this week.”
“I can pick it up tomorrow.”
He cringed. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Logan. You know…with you being clean and all. Plus, with what you just found out. I don’t want you falling back into that world.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
I laughed and shoved him. “Dude. You’re the one with cancer, and you’re sitting here worrying about me. Stop. You’ve taken care of Ma and me our whole lives. It’s my turn, okay?” When the word cancer fell from my lips I felt like dying.
“Okay,” he sighed, crossing his arms. “I have a few things to do tomorrow after we go see TJ, but Erika can drive you.”
“She’ll do that?”
“If I ask, yeah. But don’t be surprised if you have to make a few stops beforehand.”
I shrugged my left shoulder.
He shrugged his right.
We watched Erika destroy the house, before she put it together again, and I wondered the whole time if I was really strong enough to face my past again. I didn’t know how it would feel, coming face to face with Ma.
I didn’t know how strong I was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alyssa
“Logan?” I whispered, knocking on his bedroom door. He’d been in his room for the past thirty minutes, and I could only imagine where his mind was traveling to after finding out about Kellan’s cancer. I listened to him moving around the room before the door opened. He sniffled a little and ran his hand over his face before narrowing his eyes at me.
“Yeah?”
His eyes were red and slightly puffy. I wanted to reach out to him and wrap my arms around him, pulling him in closer to me, apologizing for his hurts and suffering.
You were crying.
“I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing,” I softly spoke.
“I’m fine.”
I stepped into the doorway a little, growing closer to him, knowing he was far from fine. Kellan was Logan’s world. When he left for Iowa, he only kept in contact with his brother. When he ignored all of my calls, he answered every single one of Kellan’s.
“You’re not okay.”
“I am,” he nodded, a cold stare in his eyes. “I’m fine. I’m not gonna fall apart and shit, Alyssa. People get cancer every day. And people beat cancer every day. He’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”