Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(22)

He scowled. “You didn’t have to drive all the way here.”

“Good to see you too. It’s kind of freezing outside, by the way.”

Theo sighed and pulled the door open wider so I could come in. Even though I kept a neutral half smile on my face, my insides were quaking. I was sure there was terrible news clawing inside Theo’s head, and I wondered if he was going to tell me. Much to my shame, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it or not.

Actually, that wasn’t true. I knew I didn’t want to hear it.

“Are your folks at work?” I asked.

As I pulled off my gloves and coat, I glanced from the entryway into the living room. Blankets were piled on the couch, and a video game was paused on the television screen. The house was dark and stuffy, and a stale smell hung heavy in the air.

“They just left.”

He turned and walked back into the living room, not bothering to see if I was following him. After settling onto the couch, he grabbed the ends of the blanket and wrapped it around himself.

As I sat beside him, questions ran through my head, one after the other, and I wondered which one to ask first. Should I make small talk or just ask him outright?

Theo wouldn’t meet my eyes. Instead he fumbled with the game remote.

“Just tell me,” I finally whispered, gripping my hands in my lap.

He only sat there, looking down at the remote that he was now juggling from one hand to the other. “My grandfather was my favorite person in the world. Did I ever tell you that?” He glanced up, and his eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them.

I shook my head.

“He used to take me fishing on Saturday mornings, but we’d always throw the fish back. Not just the small ones. All of them. In theory, fresh fish sounded great. In practice, he couldn’t actually kill one himself. I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately.”

I knew his grandfather died of cancer. Right on cue, tears sprang to my eyes. “The new treatment isn’t working?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. The doctors are out of ideas, so they switched me back to the first treatment since it was the only one that really helped.”

“But I thought it stopped working after a while.”

He scratched at his cheek. “It did. They’re not exactly optimistic.”

“Theo . . .”

“I don’t think I can do it again. I had the second treatment last week, and I’m just coming out of it now. The feeding tube is back because I can’t keep any food down, and the sores in my mouth are all back too. I keep wondering why I’m putting myself through this when the odds of it working are so low. I don’t think I can.”

I knew what he was saying, but I didn’t want to.

His gaze met mine. “I’m done, Candy.”

I played dumb. “What do you mean, you’re done?”

His eyes clouded over. “I’m taking control, that’s all.”

I knew something more than the usual was wrong when he went MIA for so long. I knew it and I didn’t reach out. Theo had isolated himself, and this was what he’d been going through? I’d been a terrible friend, and I had to change his mind.

“What do your parents think?”

He glanced at me. “They understand. They accept my decision.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. It’s only a matter of time. Everyone knows that; even the doctors know it, but they won’t stop filling my body with poison because not one of them wants to say it’s over, that they failed. But I’m saying it’s over. I want to feel good again, even if it’s just for a little while. I want to stop worrying about dying and start living again.”

“You are living.”

“Now I’m calling bullshit because you know I haven’t really been living for a long time.”

I had nothing to say to that because he was probably right. “And your folks are okay with this?”

He scoffed. “Of course they’re not okay. None of this is okay, but that’s beside the point. I know you understand, Candy. You may not want to, but you do.”

Swallowing thickly, I worked hard not to cry. As angry as I was at him for making me go through this again, for making me watch him die the same way I had my mother, I couldn’t pretend not to understand. The determination in his eyes convinced me he was serious.

“So you’re stopping treatment?”

Theo licked his dry lips. “My next treatment would be next week, and I’m not going. With no chemo, I’ll feel better in a couple of weeks, I think.”

“Until you stop feeling better,” I said, because without treatment, the tumors would eventually win.

Theo smiled sadly. “Right, until then.” His eyes turned glassy. “They tell me I’ll have about three to six months.”

Three to six months? That was nothing. It would pass in the blink of an eye, and now I was crying. I couldn’t help myself.

“It’s not fair,” I whispered.

“There’s a lot of stuff in the world that’s not fair. In the big picture,” he gestured toward the video game paused on the TV, “I’m barely a pixel on the screen.”

“Are you kidding me?” My mouth hung open. “What big picture are you talking about? No one cares about the big picture. We all see our own small piece, and when you put those pieces together, they’re what make up the big picture. There’s no big picture without all those pixels. When you’re gone, my picture will never look the same. It will always be incomplete. It will always be missing you.”