Page 102 of Perfect Distraction
She stayed right where she was, stretched out alongside him on the bed, looking at him with sad eyes. She did as he asked and didn’t say anything more. It was almost worse that she didn’t argue and tell him the “but” was something silly like, but you look ridiculous in this hospital gown. The fact that she stopped told him it wasn’t something he wanted to hear.
“Just…stay with me.”
She probably thought he meant stay with him now, in this room, on this bed. And he’d take that.
But what he really meant was that he wanted her to stay with him for all time. Forever.
No matter how long his forever was.
Suddenly, it hit him.
Was that fair to her? To ask her to stay with him when his life was so precarious? If the cancer didn’t kill him, it became painfully obvious today the chemo could. Or some other complication from his treatment. Was he hurting her, by asking her to walk this road with him?
Most days he’d envisioned them continuing a life together outside of this…outside of his illness and all that came with it. He pictured them beyond this, when it was over and they could live a normal life together.
But that wasn’t a guarantee, was it? Plan A hadn’t worked to cure him. What if Plan B didn’t work, either? What if the rest of his life—with the length of that life in question—was consumed by doctor visits, medication, and weakness? He couldn’t give her everything she wanted, everything she deserved, from a sickbed. Hell, he couldn’t even make love to her properly.
Her arms tightened around his torso, and the lump in his throat nearly choked him. He willed his eyes to stay dry, his emotions to stay composed. He just felt so much…everything…for her. He felt for her. In every sense of the word. And he couldn’t imagine doing this without her.
But for her sake, maybe he needed to try.
Turned out, it was the bleomycin. His chest X-ray had shown what they called “infiltrates,” but his white count was normal and, without a fever, they were pretty confident it wasn’t pneumonia.
They administered several doses of steroids, and his breathing eventually improved. He wouldn’t receive the bleomycin again, and his remaining chemo treatments would have three drugs instead of four.
Lauren and Jeni stayed with him overnight and try as he might to get Lauren to sleep in the bed with him, she refused.
“I shouldn’t stay at all,” she’d said. “If any of the nurses I know see me, they’ll wonder why I’m here.”
“If you think you should go, I understand,” he’d said.
Her expression had been torn but her voice was sure. “I’m not leaving.”
Both women attempted to find comfortable positions using the couch and armchair in the room, and as he watched from the bed, Andrew had never felt more like a douche in his life.
He also felt incredibly lucky.
Lauren left shortly before he was discharged Saturday afternoon. Andrew didn’t speak to her again that day, and by Sunday he’d come to a few realizations.
One, he loved her more than he knew it was possible to love someone.
Two, he wanted to be with her forever. Marry her. Have children with her.
Three, he didn’t know if number two would ever happen for him.
Four, until he knew he could offer her a full life, he didn’t deserve to have her now.
Three times now, she’d cried because of him. Because of his illness and the difficulties of her job circumstances. He’d been selfish to push her into this relationship, when she’d made it clear it wasn’t something she was comfortable doing in her position. He’d cared only about how much he wanted her. He knew there were times he made her happy, and that she wanted to be with him, too. But being with him wasn’t the only thing that brought her happiness.
There was her job, and her friends. Her favorite ice cream sundae from Betty Rae’s. The barista at The Grind House who knew her name and her regular drink. The bookstore on Second Street that she liked to browse for hours, sometimes accidentally buying the same book twice because it looked so good but she never had time to read. So many things about her life in Kansas City made her happy, and she’d told him her job at Coleman was what could keep her here. Let her continue this life and put down roots here.
She’d told him that starting a relationship with him could risk that and, like an asshole, he’d done it anyway.
All those things together brought him to her doorstep that Sunday afternoon. It was sunny but still cold, typical for March. Teasing everyone with impending spring but still sending down a freezing wind from the north. During the drive to her house he thought about the fact that he’d been diagnosed in October. He’d spent the last six months of his life facing something horrible and gaining the most beautiful thing he’d ever known.
Taking as deep a breath as he could while recovering from the injury to his lungs, he knocked on the door. He waited a full minute before knocking again, but still she didn’t answer. He glanced around her porch and sat on the single step down to the sidewalk. He bent his knees and propped his elbow on one, laying his forehead in his palm.
There was only one thing to do.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called her.
