“We met… on the boat. Remember the yacht party?”
She slaps a hand over her mouth. “No! You did not.”
“Yup,” I shrug.
“What about… all your rules and shit? Never sleep with the same man twice and all that?”
“Rules are made to be broken,” I say weakly.
“You got that right! You liked him that much, huh? I didn’t even know you exchanged details! You told me it was a one-night fling.”
“It was,” I say. “But then I ran into him, out of the blue. He recognized me. We got to talking…” I give an uncomfortable roll of my shoulders. “You know how it goes.”
“Do I ever,” she says. “So, this guy… You think he’s a keeper? I mean, you broke your own rules for him. He must be quite special to sway the impenetrable Celeste.”
“We’re not, like, in a relationship or anything,” I tell her.
“God, no! Of course not.” She winks at me. “But you do like him.”
“He’s… okay,” I admit.
“Okay?” She laughs. “Honey, if you come back here looking like that and claim the guy is just ‘okay,' well, I’d be afraid to see you after you hook up with someone good!”
I laugh a little, still hating the way I can deceive her about all this. I mean, she’s going to have to find out eventually. She’ll be pissed when she realizes I’ve been keeping it from her for so long.
Then again… I mean, she’ll be pissed no matter what.
I’ve just got to figure out a way to ease her into it. Somehow. I’m not exactly a master of deception. But denial? Pfft, denial’s easy.
I stretch my arms out and give way to a yawn.
“Really sleepy, huh?” Summer asks.
“Yeah,” I say into my fist.
“Fine,” she agrees. “Me too. Call it a night?”
“Yes, please,” I say. I get up and go to my bedroom. “Don’t forget to wake me on time.”
“Will do,” she affirms. I close the door and collapse into bed.
27.
I crash the next day as soon as I get home. I went to the hospital to get my scans so missed seeing James. The rest of the week I spend in the library, trying to catch up on all my assignments and readings I’ve neglected so far.
Before I know it, Wednesday arrives. Time for my big appointment at the hospital. Time to really find out what the hell is going on with my heart.
I stop in front of the hospital doors. I look at the people around me. Undergrads, graduates, some members of faculty. All going about their lives. All without the slightest clue that I’m due to be struck by that proverbial bus very, very soon.
I take a deep breath and then step inside. I didn’t come here to lament. I came here to face the truth. To find out how much time I have left. To leave with that knowledge tucked securely under lock and key in the deepest part of my soul.
I greet the woman at the reception desk. “An appointment for Celeste Adams,” I tell her.
She looks me up on the computer and ushers me into the waiting room. “The doctor will be a little delayed,” she says.
“Oh. I have class. Maybe I can reschedule?”
“He was very clear that he needed to see you today,” she informs me. She gives a tired smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It won’t be too long,”
I fidget in my seat as I wait. He needed to see me today? That means the test results, the CT scans… it means they didn’t come back good.
Eventually, the woman rouses me with a “Ms. Adams? The doctor’s ready to see you.”
I take a deep breath, give her a tight nod, and push myself up.
The doctor’s office is small but tidy. There’s a desk and an executive chair on the far side, two regular seats on my side.
I take a seat and receive another tired smile as the receptionist closes the door. I don’t blame her. When you see death on a day-to-day basis, it takes its toll.
I wait and wait and wait. When I can’t take the waiting anymore, I take out my phone and try to distract myself from dwelling on where I am.
Yet, I can’t stop thinking. I’ve pretended everything was fine for so long. I started skipping regular check-ins with the doctors taking care of me in college. I didn’t even consider transferring my medical records here.
I wanted a clean slate.
Irresponsible? Maybe. But with all I’ve gone through, health-wise, in my life, I just wanted to pretend things were normal.
At least for a time.
The door opens, startling me.
I look over my shoulder and see the doctor. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Dr. Robinson.” He extends his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
I take it and shake. He has a firm grip. It’s sturdy. Somehow, that simple physical connection makes me feel surer of myself.
“So.” He sits down across from me. “I’ve seen your results. I’ve heard that you’re already aware of your condition?”
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
“Still, let me pull them up so we can both look at them.” He logs onto his computer and turns the screen to me.
I see a scan of my chest. There are my lungs, my heart. It’s all very familiar.
“I see here you told the ER staff that you’ve had an operation previously?”
“I did,” I say. “In college.” I take a deep breath. “I had cancer as a little girl. Lymphoma. It went away, but then came back when I was nineteen.”
“Hmm,” he says. “You received treatment?”
“Yes. A bit of chemo at the start, but the cancer was too aggressive. They had to operate on the tumor to take it out.”
“Did they?”
“Yes. They did. But between the heavy dose of radiation and the stress from the procedure, my heart weakened. I had a catheter in for a time. I guess it ruined some of the valves or flaps or something.”
“Yes, I can see that right here,” he tells me, zooming in on the appropriate region in my heart. “How long ago was that?”
“Three and a half, four years?” I say.
“And you’ve been monitored afterward?”
“For a bit,” I say. “But…um…” I look away from the doctor. “I haven’t been going to my follow-up appointments for the last few years.”
I expect him to scold me, but he only nods. “That’s understandable. After all, who wants to feel sick all the time?” He pulls up my bloodwork. Lots of different numbers and values flash on the screen. “You’ve had no symptoms in the interim?”
“No,” I say. “Up until last week, I’ve been totally fine.”
“Can you tell me what happened that night?” he asks. “I’ve read the reports, but I want to have the full picture. I want to hear it from you.”
I exhale. “It was totally unexpected. I was fine the entire day. No flare-ups. No nothing. I felt healthy and strong. And then, at night, I felt this sudden tightening in my chest. It was like I couldn’t breathe. My vision started to blur. I think I panicked. I didn’t recognize what was happening to me. Everything went hazy, and I passed out.” I bring my shoulder up in a small shrug. “Next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital… and that’s when I connected the dots.”
“So you’ve experienced episodes like this before?”
“Two or three times, yes,” I confirm.
“Hmm.” He taps his lips and looks at the screen. “Well, the good news is that your heart valves are still operational. There’s nothing wrong with them that I can see. And we’ve already checked your lungs for blood clots, which you don’t have. The other option…”
He exhales. “There is another possible cause. You’ve battled cancer twice. This could be a third recurrence.”
My stomach sinks. I look down. “I know,” I say softly.
“We’ll have to test you specifically for it. I’ll order bloodwork for any abnormalities. I don’t want you to worry yet, Celeste. But you do need to prepare for the possibility.”
I exhale. “Okay.”
&n
bsp; “I don’t like to speculate,” he continues. “So I’m going to hold off until we have all the data. I’ll write you a requisition now. We’ll want to get a full CT scan of your brain and then an MRI…”
I stop listening as he goes through the procedures I’ll have to return for. I know the drill.
And I know I’m sick. I’ve been sick for a very long time. I’ve ignored the warning signs for as long as I could, but there’s no shying away now.
Now, it’s time to finally come face to face with the consequences of the decisions I’ve made.
28.
I collapse in bed and dig my phone from my purse. I’m exhausted. The walk back from the hospital took fifteen minutes, but it feels like I’ve trekked for hours.
That’s what getting caught in the cycle of illness does to you. You lose your autonomy. You become a slave to hospital visits and doctor appointments and constant monitoring, monitoring, monitoring.
I remember it well from when I was a child. I remember the long, sleepless nights I spent with my mom at my side. I remember all the times she came into my room after she’d been crying.
She always tried to hide it from me. But I knew.
Mom and I had been on our own our whole lives. My deadbeat dad abandoned us a month after I was born. I never met him and never cared to.
I was seven when the lymphoma hit. It took a greater toll on my mom than it did me. She had to take on a second full-time job to cover the expenses that having a daughter with cancer brought.
Slowly, I scroll through the list of contacts on my phone. I reach her number. My finger hovers on her name.
Then, with a sob, I throw the phone as far away from me as I can and stuff my head into my pillows to cry.
Mom died just over a year ago.
I haven’t erased her number. I never will.
In college, I hid the cancer from her because she was going through her own struggle.
She had a faulty heart. It was hereditary. I don’t know how many operations she’d had on it in total, but there were a lot.
They did as much as they could for her. In the end, it made little difference. Her health started fading when I left for undergrad. She was a fighter, just like me, so she kept the battle to herself.
She promised me, though, many times, that she would see me graduate college.
She never made it. A heart attack in the waiting room of the doctor’s office killed her only three months before.
The irony was awful and perfect at the same time.
The only solace I could find was that she could have been in no better place to suffer the attack. If she could have been saved, they would have done it. There were no ‘what if’s’ with her death. No uncertainty or second-guessing or regret.
She wanted to see me in my black graduation gown. So I wore it to her funeral. It was my way of saying good-bye.
That’s when I reconnected with Summer. Her parents were there. They told me how sorry they were for my loss and gave all the regular words of sympathy. But even if I knew they were genuine? The words felt hollow. They were no different from what people would have been telling my mother if our places had been switched.
I watched them lower the casket without shedding a tear, without showing a flicker of emotion. Only when I retreated to my crappy little motel room did I let the sobs come.
She wanted me to complete college. I did that.
I make a promise to myself right then and there that I was going to complete one semester of graduate school, at least. Fuck the cancer. I’d do it for her.
Summer bursts through the door. “Hey Celeste, guess what? I just got a—” She sees me. “Oh shit.”
Immediately, I sit up straight and try to make it look like I haven’t been crying. But the damn mascara’s probably leaked all over my face.
Summer’s voice goes an octave lower. “Celeste, what’s wrong?” She comes closer and sits on the bed. “What is it, honey? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I snivel. My voice cracks. “It’s stupid.”
Summer touches my knee. It’s a soft, caring gesture. “Tell me.”
I rub at my eyes. “Really, Summer, it’s… it’s nothing.”
“Celeste.” Summer fixes me with a firm but gentle look. “I’ve never seen you cry. It’s okay. You can tell me. Really.” She rubs my leg. “I want to know what’s bothering my bestie.”
I look away from her. “You just came in at a bad moment. My hormones are all over the place. It’s… it’s that time of the month, you know.”
“Celeste, you were crying. Something’s up. Don’t you trust me? I’m not going to force you to say anything you don’t want. But it’s good to talk about things. I can listen. Come on…” She softens her voice and gives me a little smile. “Try me. Tell me what’s up. Maybe I can help.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But it’s nothing you can really help with.” I try to stand up.
She doesn’t let go. “Celeste. Come on. I want to know. Tell me what’s bothering you. Tell me what happened. Is it that guy? Mr. Porsche?”
“God no,” I say. I manage a laugh. “I wouldn’t cry over a random guy.”
“So tell me.”
I sigh and look away again. My eyes focus on the clouds, far past the window frame. I wish I could go somewhere far away.
I turn back to Summer. “You really want to know?”
She looks across scandalized. “Of course I do.”
“Fine,” I mutter. “I… I was thinking about my mom.”
Summer’s face breaks. “Oh, sweetie,” she says, and wraps both arms around me in a hug.
I stiffen at first, feeling somehow uncomfortable with the show of affection when all I’ve given her is lie after lie after lie. But I’m in too deep. I can’t back out now.
So instead of resisting, I let her hug me. My arms even creep up around her.
“I miss her too, you know,” she tells me softly. “She was like a second mother to me.”
“I know,” I say.
Summer and I lived on the same block when we were girls.
“Remember that one time, freshman year in high school, when you and I were paired together in our home ec. class, and it was our turn to bake brownies for everyone at the end of the week? And you were so sick with the flu you couldn’t even get out of bed, but I still came over and we did it?”
“Yeah…” I say.
She shakes her head. “We didn’t. Remember how I screwed up the recipe and poured way too much flour into the batch, then tried to fix it by adding more butter, and then it became too watery, so I added more flour, then more butter, on and on and on?”
“Sort of,” I say. “But we stuck it all in the oven and the brownies came out great anyway. Didn’t they?”
Summer gives a secretive smile. “Not exactly. Everything burned and was awful.”
“No,” I protest. “Remember? We got top marks.”
“That’s because your mom rescued us. She went out and bought all the ingredients and redid the recipe. She even tweaked it a bit. That’s why they were so good. I think she was up all night baking them.”
“She did that?” I ask. “How come I didn’t know?”
“Because you were sick as a dog, obviously. I wasn’t supposed to know either, I don’t think. But I spotted the leftovers of our batch in the trash.” She shrugs. “Your mom saved us. We would have flunked otherwise. She was the best.”
“Yeah,” I say sadly. “Yeah, she really was.”
“Hey, you know what we should do?” Summer’s eyes light up. “You know what we should do, right now?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“We should go visit. It’s not far from here, the cemetery, and I—“
“Oh no, Summer,” I say. “We don’t need to do that. Really. Reminiscing is enough.” I stand up. “Look, you’ve made me feel better already. We don’t need to go there.”
I don’t need to dwell more on death.
I want to change th
e subject. “You were so excited when you came in. I ruined your good mood. What is it you wanted to say?”
“Oh yeah,” Summer’s eyes glimmer. “It was good news.”
“What?” I say. “Tell me. Good is always preferable to this morose shit.”
She bites her lip. I can just tell she’s all-but-bursting with the need to splurge. “Well…” she begins. “You know the TA position I was so eager for?”
“Let me guess,” I smile. “You got it?”
“Yes!” she squeals.
“Summer, that’s awesome!”
“I know, I know. Professor Landon made the announcement after class. He was all calm and cool about it. But, when he listed the names his eyes darted up, and he looked right at me!” She’s getting more and more amped with each sentence. “He looked at me, and he winked, Celeste! I think I’ve really got a chance with him. Especially if I bring my A-game. You can help, too, you know. Sleuth out any other shady bitches who have their eye on my man. I’ll destroy them.” She grins at me. “Oh, this semester’s going to be so much fun!”
My stomach sinks. I think I’m going to be sick.
What would she say if she knew her apparent best friend was one of those shady bitches?
I decide that it’s beyond time to tell her. I don’t know why I even lied to her initially. When Professor Landon walked to the front of the auditorium first class, I should have just been honest and told her: Yeah, that’s the guy I hooked up with on the yacht.
But I didn’t, and ever since then, I’ve been harboring guilt. No matter how much it might hurt now, delaying will only make the inevitable worst.
“Hey Summer, I…”
“And you know what else?” she continues right over me. “I got this!”
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a brand new keychain. She dangles it in front of my face.
“You got a key?” I ask.
“No, dumb-dumb. I got us a car! My brother’s old mini! He just bought a new car and agreed to give this one to me.”
“Holy shit.” My eyes widen. “No way, really?”
“Yeah, really!” she exclaims. “Now we don’t have to walk everywhere like two idiots. I’ve got another set of keys in my purse just for you.”
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 133
