Where the Road Takes Me

by Jay McLean

  She walked over and curled up on my lap, running her hand over my head. “Thank you.” She kissed my cheek. “I had a good birthday.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Hey, C-Lo,” Josh interrupted.

  Chloe turned to him.

  “He kinda looks like Gollum, no?”

  She laughed. “He does not. He looks hot.”

  Josh shook his head. “You always get the girl, bald head and all.”

  Chloe chuckled. “Free-Pussy Hunter,” she mocked.

  I shook my head at her. “Cute, babe. Throw me under the bus.”

  She laughed harder, moving closer and kissing my neck.

  “Fuck, that was a good night,” Josh said. “Hey C-Lo, when you get better we should go back there, for old time’s sake.”

  Her face lit up. “Fire truck yeah, we will!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  One Year Later

  Chloe

  Tommy sat on Blake’s shoulders as we watched Josh take the first-place podium. He’d started competing on the pro skateboarding circuit around a year ago and made a huge splash when he had. People had thought he had died when he’d just disappeared off the face of the earth right before Tommy was born. It’d taken one competition for him to be noticed and for sponsors to start knocking on his door. He’d declined sponsorship, wanting to make sure that his time with Tommy wouldn’t be determined or limited by their requests. He was still living in the garage apartment because he wanted to make sure that there was enough money to give him and Tommy a good start.

  “You guys didn’t have to come out today. We could’ve met you at the hospital,” Josh said, coming up to us after the ceremony had ended.

  I backhanded Blake in the stomach. He faked hurt. That made Tommy laugh. “This guy can’t sit still. I had to get him out of the house or he was going to lose his mind.”

  “I ate an entire bag of lollipops on the way here,” Blake bragged.

  Dr. James sighed and dropped a stack of folders on her desk. Her lips clamped shut as she forced a smile.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  Blake’s knees started bouncing higher, faster. I settled them with my hands. “Sorry, baby, I’m just scared.”

  Before I could respond, Dr. James spoke up. “You brought your army with you.” She motioned to her office door. Behind it, everyone was waiting. Everyone. Our parents, the kids, Josh, Tommy, and the entire Duke basketball team.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said quietly. “They all wanted to be here . . . either way.”

  She nodded and took a seat.

  “I’ve got your results.” Her tone was stern, and for a moment I panicked. Dr. James was an amazing doctor, but more than that, she’d become a friend to both of us. She knew all about our relationship, our lives, and us. And she knew how to swiftly switch from friend to doctor—and right now she was all doctor.

  “And?” Blake asked. His face had paled; the nerves and the anticipation had gotten the best of him.

  She handed us a thick letter-size envelope. “I think you should read them for yourselves.”

  Blake and I eyed each other for a long moment before he reached for it. He pulled out the document and laid it on the table between us. We leaned in, slow and simultaneous. My eyes scanned back and forth, reading each line, but they weren’t the results I’d expected.

  “This is just a list of her treatment history,” he said, his eyes never leaving the page.

  I looked up. Dr. James was sitting back in her chair, her fingers steepled against her chin. “Keep reading. Keep flipping the pages.”

  We scanned each page for something different, something that would pop out. My fingers itched to turn the papers faster, searching for the final results of my treatment—whether or not I was cured.

  Blake inhaled deeply before blowing out a shaky breath. His gaze moved to me. I tried to smile, but I was getting less and less positive about the outcome.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too.”

  We both turned back to the document.

  Continued to flip the pages.

  And then we stopped.

  We didn’t need to read the words to know what they meant.

  “Blake,” I sobbed. I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the page in front of me.

  White paper.

  Red ink.

  I cried into his chest.

  “You did it, baby.” He kissed my hair. My short-but-still-there hair. “You beat it.” I didn’t know how long we spent, sitting there, crying with each other. The weight of the world had finally lifted. “I’m so proud of you.” He held my head in his hands and searched my face.

  Dr. James sniffed.

  We both turned to her. “Happy red-letter day,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “You’re all clear, Chloe. Go plan your wedding.”

  I let out a cry so loud Mary must’ve heard it, because she screamed, “What? What is it?”

  We all laughed.

  Blake pulled out his phone and tapped a few times.

  A second later, cheers were so loud they vibrated the walls of the office. And then . . . a trumpet . . . the Duke Blue Devils fight song.

  My eyes went wide as I turned to Blake. “A marching band!”

  His hands went up in surrender. “I didn’t do that.” He laughed through his tears.

  Dr. James just shook her head. “You’ve got a lot of supporters.” After a pause, she said, “I got you guys an early wedding present.”

  She pointed to a shoebox on the corner of her desk. “Go ahead.” She smiled. “Open it.”

  Blake laughed. “You open it, babe, you deserve it.”

  A lifetime supply of red pens.

  I laughed.

  I cried.

  And then I did it all over again.

  Dr. James stood up and made her way to the door. The cheers outside were still going strong.

  “It looks like it’s time to celebrate. Go plan that wedding. Go have enough babies to make that basketball team.”

  So that was what we did. Minus the basketball team of babies.

  We were married two months later. In the spot where it all had started. On a running track, in the park where Blake had first saved me. My wedding gift from him—a plaque in front of the bush where I had randomly appeared. To My Wife: My Unexpectedly Phenomenal.

  We had the reception at the abandoned half-court, which was no longer abandoned. Josh and Dean had teamed up and created a league of skateballers.

  Of course, no wedding could be planned to take place in two months, unless it was planned by Celia Hunter. That woman could make anything happen. Blake had invited his dad, but he hadn’t shown, which was probably a good thing, because Celia’s boyfriend was a six-foot-eight ex-pro-baller. They’d met at one of Blake’s awards nights. I had been too sick to attend, so I’d asked her to go in my place. I guess it had been fate. His name was Jimmy. Blake always laughed about it—it was the name of his favorite character in Hoosiers. The one that made the shot right before he’d said “Marry me?”. Jimmy had asked Celia on a number of occasions to marry him. She’d said she had a man. His name was Blake, and she didn’t have room for much else.

  Dean and Mary had adopted Amy and Sammy and now had all three kids permanently. They’d stopped fostering once they’d been approved for Sammy. Three kids are enough, Mary had said. Dean—he wanted enough to make his own skateball team.

  As for me—I hadn’t told anyone, but I’d enrolled in some community-college classes for next semester. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet. And since The Road had been my life plan, I’d never thought about it. So I was going to take a little bit of everything until I worked it out. But like they say, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years. And I sure as hell wa
s going to make my life count.

  Oh yeah, my wedding dress—it was red.

  EPILOGUE

  Blake

  Nine years later

  Flowers and gifts surrounded her headstone. It didn’t surprise me; she made an impact on a lot of people in her lifetime. I stood tall in front of the shrine. It had been three years since she had passed, and each year got easier without her. My eyes trailed over the letters, her name printed in bright-red ink: C. A. Hunter, just above the large pink ribbon.

  Small hands gripped my fingers. “Dad?”

  I smiled down at our son. His little five-year-old face was scrunched as he tried to block the sun from his eyes. I jerked my head toward the headstone. “Say hello, Clayton.”

  His gazed moved to the shrine, his head dropping as the words left his mouth. “Hi, Grandma.”

  Then Chloe was next to me. Her hand on the crook of my elbow, the other arm carrying our youngest son, Jordan. “Wow,” she said, her brown hair whipping all over her face. “Look at all the stuff people have left.”

  I took Jordan from her and set him down on his wobbly feet. “This is your Grandma, buddy. It’s a shame you didn’t get to meet her. She was kind of amazing.”

  We stayed for a few minutes as a family before Chloe took our boys for a walk. She thought I needed some alone time, and she was right.

  Mom had passed quickly and unexpectedly. Unlike Chloe, she’d had absolutely no idea that death was coming. Seven months. Seven months was all it had taken. She’d fought, every day, until her last. And when it had been time, she’d left in peace.

  The last book she’d written became her most successful. Chloe had helped her write it. It was about a boy who went for a run in the middle of the night and the girl who was there to save him . . .

  To my beautiful girl, Chloe,

  I hope there never comes a time when you have to read this, but if you are, then that must mean you’re scared. And I’m here to tell you that that’s okay. Not that it’s okay in the sense that things will be okay, but it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be afraid of the things ahead you. I am. I’m scared. But I have the support of the people around me, who will help me get through this, who will help me when I need them the most, because they love me, even when I don’t deserve it.

  You’re too young to remember, but I used to tell you this story. A story about red-letter days. A girl in my sorority, Celia, used to tell it to us. She used to come up with these fascinating stories of love and life. We all told her she should be a writer, but she said it was a pipe dream.

  She told us about black- and red-letter days. Black were for those days that were doomed, or when bad news would be handed to you. Like the day I found out I had cancer—that was a black-letter day. You—you’re my red-letter day. When I gave birth and held you for the first time, that was the start of many, many red-letter days. Celia—she explained it in words that left such an impact that, to this day, I still remember them. Red-letter days are a positive experience or when something unexpectedly phenomenal happens—you, my beautiful Chloe, are my unexpectedly phenomenal.

  So, if you get to this, and you have some time left, I want you to do something for me. I want you to fight. I want you to hold on to the people around you, and I want you to fight it. And if things don’t go your way, and you find yourself losing the battle, then I want you to look back on your life and think about all the living you did. Do not let cancer be the story of your life. And don’t ever write ‘The End.’ Not until all your days are red-letter days.

  I love you.

  Mom

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jay McLean is an avid reader, writer, and, most of all, procrastinator. She writes what she loves to read—books that can make her laugh, make her smile, make her hurt, and make her feel. She currently lives in Australia with her fiancé, two sons, and two dogs. Follow Jay on Instagram and Twitter @jaymcleanauthor. For more information, visit her blog at www.jaymcleanauthor.com.