by Leddy Harper
“What about your sister? You guys are twins…why hasn’t this affected her?”
Layne cupped my cheek and tilted her head. “We’re fraternal twins. Two eggs, two sperm. Realistically, we’re nothing more than regular sisters born at the same time. We have different DNA, unlike identical twins, so even though there’s a possibility she could have the mutated gene, it’s not guaranteed. And not everyone with it will get cancer, either. It simply means you have a higher risk.”
“Is she going to get tested?”
“If my results come back positive for it, my doctor will want her to get tested as well.”
I couldn’t move as I absorbed everything she’d told me. The idea of Layne’s cancer returning gutted me, and it was almost as if my brain wouldn’t accept it. I’d worried about it so much at the beginning, fretting over every follow-up appointment she had. But eventually, the worry had faded. I’d let my guard down. The one thing I had been most fearful of had crept up on me like a thief in the night, hammering down a sucker punch straight to my heart.
I pulled her into my lap and weaved my fingers through her hair to keep her head against my shoulder. She needed me to be strong for her. She had such courage…such fight, but I needed her to hone that in on surviving. She shouldn’t be strong for me—I had to be strong for her. “So what do we do now?”
Layne wrapped her arms around my neck as she settled into me. “I will call him in the morning and tell him we are moving forward with the surgery. He told me once I decided what I wanted to do—remove my ovary or hold off until after harvesting the eggs—to let him know and he’d get me in right away.”
“No waiting?”
“Well, I’d obviously have to wait for the surgery. It won’t happen tomorrow. And then I’d have to wait until I heal from that, go through some more tests to see what’s left, and then we move on with the chemo.”
“And then you beat it…again.”
“I was asked once what would I do if the cancer ever came back. It was the easiest answer in the world. I’d fight it. I’ll never stop fighting it, no matter how many times it returns, no matter how hard it gets. I’ll never stop. Cancer is a war…this is just another battle I have to conquer.”
“You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, Yen. I hope you know that. I hope you know how much I love you, and I’m going to be by your side every step of the way. You don’t have to fight this alone.”
“I know,” she said right before gently pressing her soft lips to mine. “I never doubted it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Now
With less than an hour to the Texas border, there was a pileup on the interstate. I figured it was a good time to pull over and get rest. The sun had just started to go down and my stomach began to rumble. My drive-through lunch had held me over long enough.
A few miles off the exit, I found a burger joint. It was lit up and seemed lively. I was sick of my own company—not to mention food served in paper sacks—and I longed to be around the crowd. I hadn’t been around other people since the diner I’d stopped at on Thursday night, and had started to miss the noises of a busier place. I pulled into a parking space, feeling lighter…maybe even easier.
The door opened before I could grab onto the handle, and it made me take a step back, allowing whoever was on the other side of the space to leave. But when I noticed a woman—maybe a few years older than me—with a child on her hip and another one by her side, I stepped forward and held the door for her. Her smile was genuine, but what caught my attention was the scarf neatly tied around her head. The second I took notice, the toddler in her arms reached up and grabbed ahold of it in his fist. All at once, the woman’s eyes grew large, her mouth fell open, and the child pulled it off before tossing it to the ground behind him, leaving the bare skin on her head visible for everyone to see.
Without a second thought, I hurried to pick it up, and then handed it back to her. Her cheeks flared as she fumbled around to situate it back on her head. My heart sank, remembering Layne. I shouldn’t have gotten involved, but I did, because it pained me to see another woman hide her strength. I took the colorful fabric from her hand and locked eyes with her. “Let me help.”
I thought she’d push me away, but she didn’t. She stood in front of me, pacifying the child in her arms while the little boy next to her played with his balloon on a stick. I had no idea how she liked to wear it, so I fit it over her head as best as I could.
“I know this isn’t my place, and I hope you forgive me for being forward, but I think you are far too beautiful to hide beneath this.”
Her brown eyes lit up and the fire in her cheeks intensified as she quietly thanked me. She took the hand of the little boy at her side and moved past me, but spoke before I could walk inside. Her voice was gentle, and it made me turn to her when she asked, “Do I know you?”
I shook my head, hoping to block out the painful reminders of Layne. “No. I’m just a stranger passing through.” With a small grin, I turned back around and went in before I found myself telling her all the things I’d said to Layne to help comfort her.
Then
I pulled her from the shower and wrapped a towel around her trembling body. Tears continued to flow from her eyes as I sat her down on the toilet lid. After the third treatment, her hair started to fall out. It was intermittent at first, a little here and there, but tonight, I found her crying in the shower, thick strands of hair dangling from her fingers. I was as devastated as she was. When we first started dating, she told me what it was like to lose her hair, and I never forgot the agony in her voice.
I took the blow dryer from the counter where she kept it and carefully dried the area around her chemo port. Then I turned it to her hair. She tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t let her. She could hate me for what I was about to do, but I refused to let her endure the same agony from before.
I hated watching her in so much pain—I wanted to help her, make her better—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fix this—I couldn’t eradicate the cancer. Nothing makes a man feel more emasculated than watching the physical essence of his heart fracture in front of him.
Once I had it all dried, I grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer. Her gaze met the shiny blades and then fell away. Her chin dropped and the tears started all over again. However, she didn’t get up. She didn’t fight me. She sat on the toilet with her shoulders drooping, wrapped in terry cloth, and let me cut off her blond hair.
I cut it short at first, taking off as much as I could. I planned to stop there, but she grabbed my hands, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Just shave it.”
I was dumbfounded, at a loss for words. My mouth opened and closed numerous times before I finally sealed my lips and nodded. I’d been brave until this point. Determined. Steadfast in my quest to carry her over the hurdle. It was excruciating to watch the strongest person I’d ever known become so feeble, shaking violently and covered in sweat during her first days of chemo. It didn’t take long for her to reach a point she no longer wanted to talk—four hours in that facility seemed like fourteen. We’d sit in silence, hand in hand as we’d watch whatever was on the TV. I’d occasionally circle my finger over her tattoo, silently showing my support and reminding her our souls were connected. Yet as I stood in front of her now, the sound of the electric razor filling the space in the bathroom as it vibrated in my hand, I couldn’t hold back my tears. They flowed in heavy streams down my face. I didn’t even have the strength to wipe them away. My vision clouded, and I had to blink constantly in order to see what I was doing, but I didn’t stop. She wanted the hair gone, so I did as she asked. I hated every second of it, and couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for her, but I did it.
She cried.
I cried.
And then her hair was gone.
I carried her back to our room and dressed her as she sat in a daze on the edge of the bed. She stared off into space, not even acknowledging me in front of her. Her b
ody sagged and her arms were limp as I pulled one of my T-shirts over her head and helped her step into a pair of underwear. I didn’t bother with putting shorts on her before getting her under the covers and then climbing in behind her.
Even as she curled up to my chest, it was almost as if she wasn’t there. Physically, I held her in my arms, but mentally, she was a million miles away.
“I love you,” I said into the back of her neck. When she didn’t respond, my tears returned, but I didn’t give up. It didn’t matter if she said anything back or not. I’d never stop talking to her. “I’d say my favorite thing about you is your smile, but that’d be a lie. Because I can’t pick just one thing about you to call my favorite. So instead, I’ll list them all.”
Her shoulders shuddered, and I knew her tears had returned as well.
“Your eyes remind me of the sky on a summer day. Clear, bright, and full of so much promise. When I look into them, I can’t help but remember last summer when we took that trip to Myrtle Beach. I think about the way you ran into the surf, full of excitement, and then ran back screaming because you stepped on something. It turned out to be a shell.” A whispered laugh passed my lips before billowing off the back of her neck and warming my face.
“Your eyes remind me of the trees across the river from our rock.” Her words were so broken and her voice so faint. Pain so deep it was etched into every scratchy syllable.
“I love your voice first thing in the morning. It’s soft, and you hum every word.”
“Yours is deep and gruff. It’s super sexy.”
It didn’t matter that her sentences were short because I could only focus on the fact I’d gotten her to talk. It was better than the silence I’d gotten from her before we laid down. It made me want to never stop detailing my endless list of everything I cherished about her.
I pressed my lips to her shoulder. “When you stand at the counter to cook, and you prop your foot on the side of your knee…it makes you look like a flamingo, but I love it. I could watch you stand like that all day. And when you brush your teeth, you pull one knee up to the counter. It’s like you’re more comfortable on one leg.”
“I took dance when I was younger.”
“And I love how it’s still a part of you, even though you haven’t danced in years. To me, it shows the kind of person you are. When you set out to do something, you don’t half-ass it. You give it your all, and it becomes engrained in you. It becomes who you are.”
“Like you,” she said hoarsely. “You set your mind on getting into Duke, and here you are. It’s a tough school, but it didn’t deter you. Most don’t make it past the first year…” She rolled over until she faced me and cupped her hand on my cheek. “Which is why I need you to focus on your work. I chose to stay here because I knew if I went to my parents’ house, you’d be over there all the time. I love how you love me, Creed. How much you sacrifice in order to take care of me, but you can’t afford to lose your focus.”
Her parents thought she should be at home during the chemotherapy, and at times I agreed, but she was relentless in her determination to stay, so her parents were at our apartment constantly. Her family knew how to care for her better than I did. They’d been through it before and I hadn’t. I was grateful she chose to stay but had been concerned as well. However, after the first treatment, Layne had asked that I stopped going with her. She never said it, but I think having her mom and me there was a little overwhelming. Although, that never stopped me. I skipped class to sit with her, which she protested a few times—she was scared I’d fall behind in school, but I’d promised her we were in this together.
“I’m fine.” I couldn’t allow her to be concerned about me; she had to focus on herself and getting better. “I can do school and be there for you at the same time. Please, don’t worry about either one. I’ve got this. All I need you to do is focus on your health, focus on beating this.”
The chemo wore her out, and she became extremely ill. It tore me up inside to see how it ravaged her. Her whole body would quake, her hands trembled like someone with Parkinson’s Disease. She’d spend days violently throwing up, unable to keep even a sip of water down and had headaches causing her to be overly sensitive to sound. She would cry as she clutched the sides of her head, cursing the sharp pains that were like needles in her ears. She spent days bedridden in agony. When I wasn’t in class, I’d lay with her, holding her close with the shades drawn and the apartment eerily silent. When the vomiting stopped, the headaches lingered, and in came constipation.
One good day—then the cycle started again.
I did everything I could to help her through the struggles. And even though I couldn’t make it go away, there were times I knew I’d offered her the smallest reprieve. Every time I walked into the hospital room between classes to bring her things to read, watch, or listen to, her eyes would light up. It wasn’t much, but the tiniest spark was all I needed to see. It was all I needed to know we’d get through this together.
Her gentle breath blew across my neck. Without even seeing her face, I knew she’d started to cry again, and by the way she paused before speaking, I could tell she wished to calm down to keep from upsetting me. That’s the way it was with us, always trying to spare the other. I’d carry the burden if it meant making things easier for Layne, and she’d do the same. In the end, we’d each end up with half the load, sharing everything equally. Although, I knew she couldn’t do that now, no matter how badly she wanted to. And it made me love her even more, because no matter what she went through, she still desired to nurture me.
“Creed,” she whispered and then glanced up at me. “You have a twenty-five-page paper due in two weeks. I overheard you talking to Drea about it, so I checked your stuff. You barely even have an outline done. Don’t tell me you’ll be okay. I believe you can do this—you can get through law school. But you have to do the work. If you don’t make it, I’ll never forgive myself for being sick.”
“I’ll get the paper done, Layne.”
“I know you, and I know you’ll cram at the last possible second to have it done on time. But your work will suffer. And then your grades will drop. Please…if I only ever ask you to do one thing for me, it’s for you to put yourself first and concentrate on your degree.”
I tilted my face down and pressed my forehead to hers. “You will always come first.”
“You can do that once you’re out of school. As soon as you graduate, I’ll let you make me your priority. But for now, I need you to take care of yourself. I’m going to beat this, Creed. And if you don’t finish law school, you won’t be able to care for me.”
“I’d flip burgers if I had to in order to support us.”
She traced a line from my jaw to my chin with her fingertips, and then outlined my lips before speaking again. “I don’t doubt the extent you’d go to for me. Because I don’t doubt how much you love me for a second. But let’s face facts. If you drop out, your parents won’t continue paying for your bills. You’ll have to get a job doing something you’re not passionate about.”
“I have a degree.”
“In history, Creed. What can you really do with that?”
I wanted to fight with her, tell her everything would work out no matter the outcome of law school, but she had a point. Having a life with her and being a lawyer were both important to me; although, she meant more. Without graduating, it’d be harder to make a life with her, so realistically, I couldn’t fail no matter how much I was willing to put my dreams on hold to make sure she was taken care of.
When I didn’t say anything else, she kissed my chin and said, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. When I’m in bed, there’s no reason you can’t be next to me on your computer or with your books open. As much as I love it when you hold me, I’m just happy you’re here with me. If I’m on the couch watching a movie—a movie I know you have no desire to watch—you could be studying. You don’t have to choose, Creed. You can do both. You can be at my side and keep up with yo
ur assignments at the same time.”
Layne had to drop her classes; she didn’t want me missing mine too. I hadn’t been able to find it in myself to care about school, or missing classes, when the love of my life was practically fading away before my eyes.
“Okay…you’re right. I’ll focus more on my schoolwork.” I conceded, not wanting her to waste energy on fighting with me.
She tucked her head beneath my chin and released a pent-up sob. I had no idea where it had come from considering I’d agreed to her wishes. All I could do was rub her back and try to calm her down.
“Talk to me, Layne. Why are you crying?”
She shook her head against my chest, not giving me an answer.
Finally, I lifted myself onto my elbow, rolled her onto her back, and leaned over her. “Tell me why you’re crying. Is it because of your hair? Are you in pain? Do you feel sick?”
“No,” she cried while continuing to shake her head against the pillow.
“Then what is it?”
Her arms wrapped around my neck so fast I nearly fell on top of her. “I’m scared, Creed. I’m so scared.” She paused to catch her breath, and I allowed her the time to finish. “It wasn’t this bad before. And it scares me because…because…what if it’s not working? What if it doesn’t work?” I didn’t know Layne when she went through chemo the last time, I had nothing to compare this to and I hated seeing her so sick. I only wanted to make it better, but nothing I did seemed to work.
