Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(85)
“Should have known better than to dare you to do something,” he grumbled. “Once you were gone, I tried the same excuse. Female problems didn’t work, for some reason.”
As I looked at him, I couldn’t hide my smile, not even when Brandon, my ex, walked by with his flavor-of-the-month girl hanging all over him. He glared at me, and I just smiled sweetly because he couldn’t get to me anymore. That terrible pressure that used to grip me when I thought of him was long gone. Now Brandon was nothing more than an ant I didn’t feel like stepping on.
On the other hand, Theo was a ray of sunshine. He’d been getting the new treatment for six weeks, and his last CT scan finally provided some good news. His tumors were shrinking.
He didn’t know that I was paying for his treatment. He only knew that Heather tracked down a promising drug therapy in China, and somehow she convinced him to try it. In reality, she found the doctor named in my mother’s files, and her parents flew to meet him. She told her parents she’d found the doctor on the Internet and begged them to help save the life of her boyfriend. They cared enough to try, just like they cared enough to try to help my father and me. They were amazing people and I had yet to meet them, although I hoped to someday.
It cost a small fortune for Theo to travel to China for checkups and pay for the drugs and doctors. When Heather told me how much the treatment would cost, I sold our house in Glenn Valley to pay for it. Theo and his parents thought their insurance was footing part of the bill, and that some fictitious grant was taking care of the rest. Theo would never accept the money if he knew the truth.
When I told my father that I was selling our house and why, he didn’t try to stop me. Instead he helped, because he thought it was a fitting way to say good-bye to a place that held so many wonderful and bittersweet memories. I thought so too.
As for Theo’s change of heart, it was his feelings for Heather and her endless badgering that convinced him to keep fighting. I hoped he’d be cured, but even if the treatment only gave him more time, like it had my mother, I’d take what I could get. I knew Theo’s family felt the same way, as did Heather. We all had hope for him again. For Theo, hope was making all the difference.
“Are you going down to visit Heather this weekend?” I asked Theo. He was always driving down to Claymore to visit her or she was coming here.
“Leaving Friday after school. Heather got invited to some party in Glenn Valley.”
I rolled my eyes. “Parker’s party? I can’t believe she’s inviting Heather to her parties.” Lea had texted me about it, asking if I wanted to come with her. I’d thought about it for all of one second before texting back no thanks.
At my reply, Lea complained the way she always did about my moving away. She felt as if I’d deserted her. She had no one to talk to about Ethan anymore. They continued to hook up at parties, but he hadn’t changed his mind about dating her. Despite that, she broke up with Gregory because he really was boring.
Theo shrugged. “She’s probably hoping Heather will tell her something about Jonah. At least, that’s what Heather thinks.”
At my stricken look, his eyes went wide.
“Sorry, Candy. Shit, I’m an idiot.”
I shook off the hollow feeling inside. “It’s okay. I just haven’t heard his name in a while.” Almost three months. He’d been gone that long.
In the beginning, Lea asked me where Jonah was when he never came back to school again, and I told her I’d heard his dad got transferred so they had to move. She related my story to Ethan when he asked, and as far as I knew, everyone accepted that Jonah had left unexpectedly and told no one. High school was a strange place where people came and went, and most of the time no one cared all that much. Lea was the only one I told when we moved. I was sure no one else batted an eye at my absence.
At home, I didn’t hear Jonah’s name because Lorraine spoke in hushed tones to my father about her worry for “Cooper,” and Heather and I purposely didn’t talk about Jonah because she knew how upset I became. But she hadn’t heard from him either. No one had. I never stopped thinking about him, though. I missed him so much; it was a constant ache inside me.
Despite the fact that Jonah hadn’t contacted anyone directly, we suspected he’d taken care of some unfinished business before leaving Glenn Valley.
A week after Jonah walked out of the hospital, my father told me Drew Hoyt’s arm had been broken and his face was battered. He wouldn’t say how he knew this since he hadn’t seen the Hoyts as far as I knew, but he thought Jonah had done it and so did I, in retaliation for what Drew had done to me. It made the ache inside me that much sharper.
The warning bell rang in the hallway, forcing me to push aside my thoughts as I hoisted my messenger bag strap over my shoulder.
“Enemy at two o’clock,” Theo whispered.
I looked up to see my cousin Kristen.
“Bitch,” she said, scowling at me as she passed, and all her friends laughed.
I made a face at her but said nothing back, determined not to engage her or let her get to me. When I moved back to Ryberg, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my cousins again, or my aunt and uncle. But other than at school, I didn’t see them. Now that I was an adult and Aunt Marion couldn’t use me as a way to punish my father, I hardly heard from her at all.
“Are you planning something?” Theo asked, surprised at my lack of reaction to Kristen.