True Love

by Lurlene McDaniel

  They listened to the roar of the machines while Julie racked her brain for another topic. “I start my job at the library Monday.”

  “I hope you like it.”

  If this had been a normal summer, he’d be taking her to the library and making plans to pick her up afterward. If they’d been spending their spare time together, she wouldn’t feel so awkward around him. They’d be talking all the time and would know what was going on in each other’s lives. “Once the radiation’s over, what will you do?”

  “I’ll have to go into Chicago for a day or so of testing.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked anxiously, hoping he’d say yes.

  “No. It’s not a big deal. Just all those boring tests and scans again.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Forget it. Mom and I’ll trudge through it.”

  Again, the roar of a bulldozer broke into their conversation. Julie felt grateful for the interruption. His rejection stung, and she didn’t trust her voice. “And then?” she asked when the noise died down and she’d regained her composure. “Do you think you’ll take a summer job?” He had always worked summers to help out his mother.

  “Who’s going to hire someone like me? I could get sick again.”

  He sounded bitter, and she felt sorry for him. “So you won’t do anything?”

  “Remember me telling you about Los Angeles?” She nodded. “Uncle Steve called and said he’ll send me a plane ticket the minute I agree to come.”

  “So you’re going?”

  “I’m going.”

  “How long will you stay?”

  “About a month. I’ll be home in time for August practice.”

  “Of course.” Her stomach knotted. She remembered telling him to take the vacation, and after all he’d been through he deserved to go somewhere and have fun. But she knew she’d miss him terribly, and that it wouldn’t be easy seeing him leave when she wanted to be with him so much. “I hope you have a good time in L.A. Do you still want me to write you?”

  “If you’d like … but I won’t be leaving until July.”

  Julie decided to try one more time to lure him out of his shell. “How about us doing something with each other tonight? Solena’s having a party to celebrate the end of the school year. Why don’t you take me?”

  “Urn—I don’t think I feel up to it. You go on without me.”

  “But you feel good enough to go to the gym this afternoon?”

  She’d tripped him up, and his face flushed red. “Julie … I never know exactly how I’m going to feel.…”

  “No problem,” she said, backing away. “I’ll go without you.”

  “Julie, I—” He looked troubled, but she brushed it aside, suddenly wanting to get as far away as possible from the noise of the machinery and the pain Luke was causing her.

  “I’ve got to go.” She turned and darted off.

  “You’ll let me know about your first day of work?” he called as she fled.

  She felt like saying, Fat chance! But she didn’t. Because no matter how badly he was hurting her, she knew she couldn’t hurt him. She couldn’t because she loved him. She couldn’t because something deep inside her kept saying that he still loved her too. And it was that ray of hope that she clung to.

  The golden sunshine of Monday morning did little to dispel Julie’s gloom. The weekend had been long and difficult. She’d reached for the phone many times to call Luke, but each time she’d pulled back, telling herself that if he wanted to talk to her, he would call. Except that he hadn’t.

  She left for her new job at the library, entered the hushed building, went to Mrs. Watson’s office, and knocked on the closed door. She was ushered inside by a heavyset woman with graying hair and lavender-framed eyeglasses.

  “Julie! So glad you’ll be working with us this summer,” Mrs. Watson said with a smile as she pumped Julie’s hand.

  “ ‘Us’?”

  “Yes. Meet my nephew, Jason Lawrence.” She gestured to a tall, slim boy with blond hair and green eyes. “Jason’s a sophomore at Ball State University in Muncie and he’ll be living with me this summer, and working here too.”

  “Hello, Julie Ellis,” Jason said with a grin that sent her a message of approval.

  She smiled politely, but coolly.

  Mrs. Watson went on to discuss their respective duties. The work seemed simple enough to Julie, and by lunchtime she had begun to catalog a stack of new volumes while Jason manned the front checkout desk. He asked her to lunch, but she told him no. By the end of the workday, Julie could barely keep from dashing out the door. “Take you home?” Jason asked as she hurried past. “Maybe you could show me around town.”

  “Can’t tonight,” she told him. All the way home, she pondered her situation. Julie had gotten a plum of a job without any effort. She was working with a good-looking college boy who was going to be around all summer. She was to be working with him all day, every day, for three solid months.

  Grimly, Julie pulled into her driveway and hurried into her house. Her situation looked like a setup. And it had her mother’s fingerprints all over it.

  She found her mother in the den, sorting through piles of papers. “How was your first day?” Patricia Ellis asked cheerfully.

  “Did you know Mrs. Watson’s nephew is working at the library too?” Julie asked without preamble.

  Her mother’s gaze avoided Julie’s. “I think she mentioned it to me. Is he nice?”

  “I think he wants to date me,” Julie said boldly.

  “Well, that might be fun. I’m sure he’d like to make friends—”

  “Mother!” Julie interrupted. “How could you? Did you think I was going to fall into some other guy’s arms just because we were working together every day?”

  Her mother looked startled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You don’t let me drive to the mall without a third degree and yet when I told you some stranger you’ve never met wants to date me—which, incidentally, I made up—you say, ‘That might be fun.’ ”

  Color stained her mother’s face. “Well, of course, I’d have expected you to bring the boy to meet your dad and me. What do you mean, you ‘made it up’?”

  “I mean that I’m not interested in anybody but Luke. No one is going to come along and make me forget him.”

  “I never expected you to stop dating Luke, but I have noticed how things have cooled off between the two of you, and when Mrs. Watson told me about her nephew and about how he’s a journalism major at Ball State, I thought that maybe you’d like to get to know him. He can tell you a lot about college life, Julie. Ball State is a fine school, one you should apply to this summer.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Julie felt furious. “I don’t believe you’re trying to sabotage my life.”

  “Oh, really—”

  “No, it’s true. Please hear me, Mother, once and for all. I don’t want to date anyone else but Luke. I will go to college and I will start applying in the fall. But this is summer vacation and Luke is sick and he needs me.”

  “He certainly hasn’t acted much like it,” her mother fired back. “You sit home most of the time waiting for him to call.”

  “Well, that’s about to change,” Julie said. She grabbed her purse from her mother’s desk and fished out her keys. “I’m going to Luke’s. Don’t wait supper for me.”

  “Julie!” Her mother called.

  But Julie wasn’t listening. She rushed out the door, jumped into her car, and sped across town to Luke’s house. She pounded on the door until he opened it. He looked shocked at seeing her. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know, Luke.” Julie brushed past him and planted herself in the center of his living room floor. She crossed her arms and leveled her gaze at him.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he insisted.

  “Guess again.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  She rolled her eyes i
n exasperation. “You sound like my mother.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.” She glared at him. “You’ve been ignoring me for weeks, Luke.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I’ve just been giving you space.”

  “Space for what?”

  “Space. You know, breathing room.”

  “Did I ask you for breathing room?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair, which had grown to over an inch. “I don’t want to fight with you, Julie.”

  “Good, because I don’t want to fight with you either.” She took a deep breath and held it. Finally, she said, “My new job is going to work out fine. There’s a college guy working with me who’s really nice. He wants me to go out with him.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m considering it.”

  A flood of emotions crossed Luke’s face. “Please don’t.” His voice was scarcely a whisper.

  “Why shouldn’t I? I mean, you’re giving me all this space. I can’t sit around doing nothing with it.”

  He came to her in one long stride, threw his arms around her, and crushed her against his body. “Don’t, Julie,” he pleaded, sounding tortured. “Don’t leave me. I can’t make it without you.”

  14

  After the way he’d been acting toward her during the past weeks, Julie was caught off guard by his impassioned plea. She said, “You have been avoiding me, Luke. And it hurts.” Tears welled in her eyes. Her anger was gone, but not her frustration.

  Slowly, Luke released her. He took her hand and walked her to the sofa, where he sat her down and studied her face with his dark brown eyes, so intently that she thought she might drown in them. “Staying away from you hasn’t been easy for me.”

  “Why would you do it in the first place? If you’re miserable and I’m miserable, why would you continue to ignore me?”

  “That’s not what I was trying to do, Julie.” He sat next to her without releasing her hand. “I—I really don’t know how to explain what I’ve been feeling.”

  “Try.”

  “It really bummed me out when the cancer flared up again and I had to start radiation. After I went through chemo, I thought it was finished. Instead, I discovered it had just begun. Dumb of me.”

  “But this could be a fluke. Once you complete radiation, it’ll be gone for good. You’ve done it all—chemo and radiation. What’s left?”

  “If this doesn’t do the trick,” he said quietly, “I’ll need a bone marrow transplant. If the cancer spreads to my bone marrow, there’s no other treatment.”

  A chill frosted her heart and made her stomach tighten. She’d read enough and seen enough on TV to know that bone marrow donors were scarce, mostly because it was so difficult to find a compatible match. “You aren’t there yet,” she said emphatically. “And I don’t think you ever will be. Chemo and radiation will do the trick. You’ll see.”

  “A lot will depend on how the tests turn out in Chicago. The scans and bone marrow aspiration will tell the story.”

  “I know.” She squeezed his hand. “And speaking of the hospital, why won’t you let me come with you? Why are you shutting me out?”

  “Maybe because I’m worried the scans won’t be all right.”

  “Don’t you want me with you if the news is bad?”

  He looked vulnerable and terrified. “Yes. More than anything.”

  “Then let me come.”

  “I want you to have a regular life, Julie. You shouldn’t have to sit around hospitals and doctors’ offices waiting for me. Waiting to see if my life’s going down the toilet or not.”

  “Luke, tell me, what’s a ‘regular life’? Dating someone else?”

  He answered her question with one of his own. “Do you like this guy from the library? Do you really want to date him?”

  “No way. But you’re not dating me either.”

  “It’s because I hate tying you down.” He glanced at the floor, looking ashamed. “If I love you, I should want what’s best for you, and you didn’t sign up for having a sick boyfriend. You’re beautiful, Julie, and you should have more than I’m giving you. You should be going to parties and doing stuff that’s fun.”

  Her heart went out to him as the reason for his actions became clearer to her. “So you thought by avoiding me, I’d get interested in somebody else.”

  “Yes.”

  “But when I told you I might date somebody else—”

  “I couldn’t stand it,” he blurted. “I love you so much it hurts. So you see, I’m not only sick, I’m a coward too.”

  She eased off the couch, knelt on the floor in front of him, rested her palms on his thighs, and gazed into his face. “I hate what’s happening to you, Luke. I think it’s gross and unfair and horrible. But it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I still love you, and the feeling isn’t going away.”

  The look he gave her reminded her of a drowning man miraculously thrown a lifeline. He caressed her cheek gently and she turned her head and kissed the inside of his palm. “I’m sorry, Julie. Sorry if I hurt you in any way. I only want what’s best for you, and sitting around waiting for me to get well doesn’t seem like something you should have to do.”

  “But it’s what I want to do. And this time next year, when this is all over, being with you is still where I’ll want to be. This time next year, you’ll have a college all picked out, and wherever you go, I’ll go.”

  “But your mother—”

  “Will live with it. I figure you’ll only take a scholarship to a great college, so she’ll be happy when I choose the same great college. No matter how you look at it, everybody wins.”

  “If I get offered a scholarship.” Luke’s face clouded. “Who’ll want me, Julie? What college coach is going to take a chance on a quarterback who has cancer?”

  “You’ll be well by then. And remember, my father’s on your side. He won’t allow anybody to reject you because of possible health problems.”

  “You have more faith than I do.”

  She patted his hand and rose. “One of us has to.”

  He stood and took her by the shoulders. “When I go for my testing in two weeks, will you come with me?”

  “Absolutely,” she said with satisfaction.

  “And this guy at the library who wants to date you?”

  “Is history.”

  A slow smile spread over Luke’s face, making Julie’s knees go weak and her pulse flutter. “Let’s go to a movie, and afterward get ice cream to celebrate,” he said.

  “I’d love to. I missed dinner tonight.”

  “Then I owe you,” he said. “I owe you big time.” Luke swept her into his arms and buried her mouth in a kiss.

  Julie, Luke, and his mother made the trip to Chicago one warm morning during the last week of June. Julie held Luke’s hand while he stared pensively out the train window. She knew he was worried. The last time they’d made the trip they’d expected everything to be fine, but things hadn’t been fine. And now, after weeks of radiation, Luke had no assurances that he was rid of his cancer.

  At the hospital, Julie and Nancy followed Luke from department to department throughout the long day of testing. They sat in cubicles and lounges, flipped through magazines, watched dull afternoon TV. The three of them ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria amid the clank and clatter of trays and silverware. No one ate much.

  In the late afternoon, Dr. Kessler ushered them into his office. Julie’s palms were sweating and she felt sick to her stomach, remembering the last time he’d spoken to them and dropped the bomb about the tumor. But today, he was all smiles.

  “You’re looking good, Luke.”

  “Really?”

  “Thank God,” Nancy whispered, her voice trembling.

  The CT and bone scan films were spread across the light board hanging on the wall behind his desk. “We won’t have the results of the bone marrow aspiration for a few days, but I don’t expect any surprises.”

  L
uke rubbed his hip, which was still sore from where the needle had been inserted to extract marrow for the test. “So I’m cured?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Julie’s elation did a stutter-step. “But if there aren’t any bad cells?…” she began.

  “I prefer to think of your disease as in remission,” Dr. Kessler explained. “No two cases of cancer are alike, but the longer you remain in remission, the higher the probability that you’ll recover completely.”

  A grin split Luke’s face. “I don’t care what you call it, I just want to be rid of it.”

  “What do we do now?” his mother asked.

  “Go home and have a great summer. I’ll see you in three months.”

  Luke fairly sprang out of his chair. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Julie and his mother.

  After good-byes to the doctor and staff and the scheduling of another testing day in September, they headed for the train station. This time, the ride back passed in a state of euphoria. This time, even though dusk was falling, the world zipping by the window looked bright and beautiful.

  Once home, they decided against a party. But Julie’s father insisted on celebrating and took all of them out to dinner at a fancy restaurant on the outskirts of Chicago.

  The dinner was perfect and her father couldn’t stop grinning and slapping Luke on the back and toasting him with pitchers of iced tea. Julie’s mother seemed equally happy over the news and Luke’s mother couldn’t take her eyes off her son.

  “I knew you’d lick this thing,” Coach Ellis kept saying. “Can’t keep a good man down for long.”

  Under the table, Luke slipped his hand into Julie’s, and when they returned to Waterton that night, he gave her six long-stemmed red roses—one for every week he’d isolated himself from her. She put them in a vase and fingered the petals tenderly. “You always can get to me with flowers, Luke Muldenhower. They’re beautiful.”

  “So are you.”

  “I’m going to miss you when you go off to Los Angeles,” she confessed.

  “I want to talk to you about that.”

  She noticed that his eyes were glowing and realized he’d been guarding a secret. “What about it?”