The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2)(50)

Any normal person would’ve missed it, the small tremble in his bottom lip, but not me. I saw it, the way his heart was currently inflamed with pain. “Lo, come on. It’s me. You can talk to me.”

“And who are you to me, exactly?” he hissed, a bitterness coming through his tone. “How long did you know? How long did you know he was sick?”

My lips parted, but he kept talking.

“So you did know? One thousand and ninety messages, Alyssa. You left me one thousand and ninety messages. You called my phone one thousand and ninety times, but you couldn’t take the time to call and leave just one message telling me my brother had cancer, the same cancer that killed our grandfather?” he hissed, lifting his hand and grabbing his doorknob. He slammed the door shut, and I wasn’t surprised. Everything he said was harsh, but it wasn’t untrue. I did know about Kellan’s cancer for a while, but it wasn’t my place to say anything. Kellan made me swear that I wouldn’t.

My fingers landed against the door, and I closed my eyes. “I live at the last house on the corner of Cherry Street and Wicker Avenue. It’s a yellow house with a piano shaped flower pot on the front porch. You can stop by if you need to, Logan. If you need to talk to someone. You can come whenever, anytime you need to.”

The door swung open, and I gasped lightly as he stepped forward, hovering over me. His face was hard, and where reddened eyes once existed moments ago, they were replaced by an angered stare. “What don’t you f*cking get?” he hissed. He stepped toward me as I stepped back. We kept this up until my back was against the hallway wall, and his body was inches away from mine. Our mouths were so close that if I leaned in, I could’ve felt the lips I used to always want against mine. His words fell from his tongue, stabbing me with each syllable. “I don’t need you, Alyssa. I. Don’t. Need. You. So if you could do me the favor and stop acting like we are friends, that would be great. Because we aren’t. We will never be friends again. I don’t need you. And I don’t need your f*cking supportive shoulder.”

He walked back to his room and shut the door. I took a few deep inhales, my nerves shaken. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding destructively against my chest as I walked to the living room to grab my jacket and toss on my tennis shoes.

Who was that?

That wasn’t the same boy I knew so many years ago. He wasn’t my best friend.

He felt like a complete stranger to me.

“Are you okay?” Erika asked, frowning my way.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Can you just be a bit easy on him, Erika?”

“Seriously?” she huffed annoyed. “He just snapped at you, literally snapped. And you are asking me to be easy on him? I am two seconds away from telling him to get the heck out of my house.”

“No,” I quickly said, shaking my head. “No. Don’t. He’s going through a lot. I mean, I couldn’t even imagine… If it were you…” My words faded. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle finding out that my sister had cancer. “Just give him a break.”

Her posture eased up. “Okay.” She gave me a hug and whispered. “It’s okay for you to keep your distance from him, Aly. You know that right? I know seeing him again has to be hurting you.”

“It’s fine.” I shifted my feet around and shrugged. “I’m fine with it.”

“Yeah, but it might just be better to keep a safe distance. For both of your hearts.” I agreed. Besides, I didn’t see him finding his way to me anytime soon.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Logan




My back stayed against the bedroom door until I heard Alyssa leave. Pushing her away was going to be tough with me staying around town, because such a big part of me always wanted to pull her closer to me.

I sat in my bedroom on my cell phone, with my web browser opened, searching for information about colon cancer. My eyes danced across page after page of information, filling me up with more panic than I’d thought I could handle. For a while I read story after story of survivors, but then somehow I traveled into the dark world of the internet where the stories of those who passed away quickly from colon cancer existed.

I found natural remedies. I found common lies. My eyes stayed open until the sun came up, sending the light through my window.

As my eyes grew as heavy as my heart, I shut off my phone.

The only thing I learned that night was that WebMD was the devil, and Kellan probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it with my lighter. I opened the window, sat the cigarette on the ledge, and allowed myself those few moments to hurt.





Chapter Twenty-Three


Logan




Doctor James Petterson’s office was cold. Colder than it needed to be. Sure, outside it was probably near the nineties—which was hot for Wisconsin weather—but there was no need for it to be an ice cube in his room. James—or Toothpick Jimmy (TJ) as everyone around town called him because of his tall, skinny body—was the only doctor I’d ever known and trusted. He didn’t seem like a normal doctor, though. Half the time I wondered if TJ was even a real doctor or if he got bored one Saturday night, bought a stethoscope, put on a white coat, and never took it off. He lived in the apartment right above his office, too.