Last Goodbye

by Holly C. Webb

  Evan

  As I slipped my key into the door of my dorm room, I felt a pang of sadness form deep down inside. This would be the last time I would walk into this room that had been my home for the last three years. My time at Stanford had been amazing, but now that finals were over, it was time for me to begin the next step of my journey into the world of sports journalism.

  I had managed to land myself an internship at the San Francisco Chronicle in their sports department and I was beyond excited. My oldest brother, Mike had even offered me a place to stay at his townhouse, which was in the centre of the city, so everything was going exactly how I wanted it to go.

  I wasn’t due to start at the newspaper for another ten days, so I was going to stop by Mike’s for the night to drop my stuff off, before I headed home to see my parents for a few days. Mike had taken a few days off, so he could drive back with me too.

  As I stood in the middle of the room, I looked around, making a mental note of what else I needed to pack before I set off for Mike’s place.

  I began to gather up a few books I had still sitting on my study desk, when a photo slipped from one of the books, falling to the floor. Setting down the books, I picked up the photo from the floor, before turning it over in my hand.

  The moment I did, I saw Cassie’s smiling face sharing back at me, and the familiar pull in the pit of my stomach took hold. It was a picture my mom had taken of me and her on our back porch several years earlier. She was wearing her favourite Minnie Mouse t-shirt and her trademark purple sneakers.

  From the first day I met her, she had always worn purple sneakers. It would drive her dad, Will, crazy that she would drag us from store to store until she found a new pair of purple running shoes, every time he took us shopping.

  I smiled at that memory, but there was an ache in my heart that almost took my breath away. It was stupid that even after all this time, I missed my best friend more than I had ever missed another living soul in my life.

  I thought about the last time I saw her. It was last Christmas, and Will had dragged her along to my parent’s annual Christmas party. Cassie looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there and I hated that she felt so uncomfortable. I could never get used to seeing her looking so out of place in my parents’ house. There was a time when she was more at home there than she was in her own house.

  I remembered that I had decided that I would try to talk to her. This stupid thing had gone on for long enough already. Five and a half years without my best friend in my life. But when I went to look for her, she was gone. Mom said she had a headache and had gone home, but I knew it was a lie.

  I had considered going after her. I’d even made it out as far as our front porch, but then I remembered her face the night of her fifteenth birthday and I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Even after all that time, I could still see the look of betrayal on her face, and I knew that I had hurt her too much for her ever trust me, or even want to be my friend again.

  I stared at the photo for a few moments longer, before I stood up and slipped it into my back pocket before I continued on with my packing.

  It was a little before seven when I pulled my jeep into Mike’s driveway. As I switched off the engine, I looked up at the house that was going to be my home for at least the next twelve months. I smiled to myself, happy that I would get to spend some proper time with Mike again. I was only thirteen when he left for college, and while he’d come home often, it was never the same as having him home for good.

  Mike had always been my hero when I was a kid. Of my three brothers, he was the one I was closest to. It was kind of funny that Cassie was still close to him too. I knew that they talked regular, but he very rarely mentioned her, and I knew better than to ask.

  Still, I was happy that she still had him in her life. Mike was a good guy. Exactly what Cass needed in her life too.

  I pushed open the car door and climbed out. Heading to the back of the car, I opened the trunk and pulled out one of my large holdalls and one of the boxes, before I slammed the trunk close and headed up the pathway to the front steps.

  I had just started up them, when the front door opened wide, and Mike appeared with a broad smile on his face.

  “Welcome home!” He exclaimed as he hurried down the steps and grabbed the box from my arms. “I’ve got the beers cooling and the pizzas are on the way.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I replied as I followed him into the house. “I could get used to this kind of treatment.”

  “Well don’t,” Mike laughed. “Most nights I don’t get home until late, so, for the most part, you’ll have the house all to yourself.”

  “Sounds good,” I said as I set my bag down in the hallway. “I have another bag and three more boxes in the car.”

  “Well, let me show you where your room is first,” Mike replied. “Then we can get the rest of your stuff. By then the pizza should be here.”

  “Great,” I replied as I picked up my bag again, then followed him up the stairs.

  Once we had all my stuff in from the car, Mike headed to the kitchen to grab two beers, before he joined me on the sofa in the living room where I was waiting with a giant pepperoni pizza.

  He handed me one of the bottles, then twisted off the cap from his bottle

  “Here’s to new beginnings,” he said as he held out his bottle to me. I tipped my beer against his before I brought it to my lips, taking a long, welcomed sip. “So, when do you start in the newspaper?”

  “In ten days,” I replied, as I leaned forward to set my bottle down. As I did, Mike spotted the photograph sticking out of my back pocket. He reached out and grabbed it.

  “What’s this?” He asked as he turned over the photograph to have a look.

  “I found it in one of my books when I was packing up,” I said, glancing down at the photo in his hand. “Mom must have put it in one of my books when I was home.”

  “Are you going to try to talk to her when you get back home?” Mike asked, giving me a curious look.

  “I don’t know,” I said, taking the photo from his hand, I stared down at it once more before setting it down onto the coffee table. “You know, we haven’t talked in such a long time. I wouldn’t even know what to say to her now.”

  “You could just start with hello,” Mike said with a smile, but before I could reply, his phone began to ring. Mike pulled it from his pocket and looked down at his screen. “It’s Mom.”

  He hit accept on the phone and brought it to his ear.

  “Mom!” He said with a smile that made me smile too. “Yes, before you ask, your baby boy arrived here safe and sound, and I promise to take very good care of him.”

  I laughed at his comment. My brothers like to tease me about being the youngest and Mom’s baby boy.

  As he listened to Mom talking, I reached out and picked up the photo again. I thought about what Mike had said. It was the summer, so no doubt Cassie would be back home too. I tried to imagine what she would say if I just knocked on her door.

  I set the photo down onto the table and glanced back up at Mike. The moment I did, I froze when I saw the look on his face. He had turned pale, and there were tears dancing in his eyes.

  “Okay, Mom,” he said, and I could hear his voice crack with unshed tears. “I’ll talk to Evan now.”

  I stared at my brother as my heart was hammering in my chest and my mind raced with what the hell it was that he was about to tell me.

  The first thing I thought of was Dad was sick, or that something had happened to Riley or Travis.

  I waited patiently for him to hang up the phone.

  “What’s happened?” I asked the moment he hit end on the call. “Is… is it Dad? Is he okay? What… what’s happened?”

  “No, it’s not Dad,” He began as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “Dad is okay. It’s nothing to do with him.”

  “Then what is it?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was Mom had told him, it was something that I wasn’t g
oing to like. “And why are you upset?”

  “Mom got a call,” he began as he blinked back the tears dancing in his eyes. “It was from Will.”

  “Will, as in Cassie’s dad Will?” I asked, my heart now almost jumping out of my chest. “What is it? Is it Cass? Is…is she okay?”

  “Evan!” Mike called after me as I hurried to my car. “I know you’re upset, but I need you to stop for a moment and take a deep breath.”

  “I can’t Mike,” I cried as I reached for the handle of my car door. “I need to go and see her. I need to tell her that I’m sorry for being an asshole all this time. I need her to know that she is still my best friend and I am here for her if she needs me.”

  “WAIT!” Mike exclaimed as he grabbed hold of the door. “I get it. I really do. But I just need you to take a moment and catch your breath. Evan, you crashing your car and killing yourself is not going to help anyone.”

  “I…I’ve wasted all this time,” I said, as the enormity of what I’d been told finally hit me. “Now she is sick and all I can think is, I need to be with her. I need to tell her that I love her, and she has always been my best friend.”

  “And you can,” Mike assure me. “Just not tonight. It’s almost a seven-hour drive to L.A. They are not going to let you into the hospital at three in the morning.”

  “Mike,” I pleaded, knowing there was no way I was going to be able to sit there and do nothing. “I need to go see her.”

  “I know you do, but I need you to come back inside for now,” Mike sighed, clearly realising he was never going to get me to back down. “We can get a good night sleep and we can set off early in the morning. I will drive you there myself.”

  I released a long sigh, then nodded as I closed my car door once more.

  “Thank you,” Mike said as he turned and headed back into the house, leaving me standing there, staring up at the night sky, praying to God for a miracle.

  Cassie was sick. She had cancer and they didn’t know how bad it was. As much as I tried to get my head around it, I just couldn’t take it in. Cancer wasn’t something that happened to people you knew. It happened to strangers; people on the TV. It wasn’t supposed to happen to a sweet, twenty-one-year-old girl who had so much to live for.

  Walking back up to the house was the hardest thing I had to do. Every fibre of my body told me that I needed to go then and there. I needed to see her.

  “Mike,” I called out, stopping my brother just as he reached the front door. “I can’t. I need to go.”

  I didn’t wait for him to reply, instead I just turned and hurried back towards my car.

  “Evan,” Mike called after me, but I didn’t stop. Instead, I just climbed into my jeep, turned on the engine, then moments later I was reversing out of my brother’s driveway, heading for L.A. and my best friend.

  It was a little after three a.m. when I reached UCLA. I had no idea what I was going to say to Cassie when I saw her, no more than I had any idea what I was going to say to security to actually get into the hospital.

  Deciding that I would think on my feet, I tapped in a text message to Mike to let him know I had made it there in one piece, before I climbed out of the car and hurried towards the entrance of the hospital.

  When I walked in through the main doors, I made my way up to the security guard that was sitting behind the front desk. I knew that I had one shot at this, and I needed to make it good.

  “Can I help you, sir?” The man sitting behind the desk asked, giving me a tired look.

  “I need to see a patient,” I blurted out. “Cassie North.”

  “Sir,” the man sighed, clearly unimpressed with my request. “It’s the middle of the night. You will have to come back tomorrow. Visiting time is…”

  “No, you don’t understand,” I stopped him mid-sentence. I knew I needed to be next of kin for them to let me in, so I decided to lie. “She is my fiancée and she is really sick. I’ve driven for seven hours straight to get here. I promise I won’t wake her. I just need to see her for a few minutes.”

  “Look, if you come back in the morning…” he began to say, but I stopped him once more.

  “Please,” I begged him. “The thing is, we had this stupid fight and then she got really sick. I can’t leave it like this. I just need to tell her I’m sorry, and that I love her.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and I knew that he was considering what I had said.

  “Please,” I begged again. “No one will even know I was here.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment, but then he typed into his computer and looked at the screen.

  “She’s on the second floor,” he sighed giving me a look that said he felt sorry for me. “It’s the oncology wing. She’s in room 23B.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, giving him a grateful smile, before I hurried to the elevator at the bottom of the corridor.

  As I rode up in the elevator, I tried to decide what I was going to say to Cassie once I reached her room. So many words tumbled around my mind, but nothing seemed to be the right thing to say.

  When the elevator stopped, I took a deep breath before I stepped off and made my way down the corridor to the nurse’s station.

  “Excuse me,” I said in a hushed voice. “I’m looking for Cassie North’s room.”

  “She’s in 23B, but you can’t go in there,” the nurse said as she glanced down at her watch. “It’s the middle of the night, and she’s sleeping.”

  “I know,” I replied, hoping I could get past this last hurdle. “But I’m her fiancé. I have just driven down from L.A. to be here with her. I promise, I won’t wake her, I just need to see her.”

  The nurse stared at me and for a moment I thought she was going to send me away, but she didn’t. Instead she released a long breath, then pointed down the corridor.

  “She’s in the third room on the right,” she explained, giving me a sad smile. “Please don’t wake her up. She needs her rest.”

  “I promise,” I whispered as I gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  I turned and headed down the corridor towards the third door on my right. Once I reached it, I stopped outside and took a deep breath. I knew once I stepped through the door, there was no going back. Either Cassie would be happy to see me, or she would tell me to go to hell.

  I reached for the handle of the door and slowly turned it. Pushing the door open, I stepped inside, and there she was.

  She was fast asleep, looking just as beautiful as I remembered she did. She was thinner than the last time I had seen her, but she still looked breath-taking.

  I walked slowly to the chair next to the bed and sat down.

  As I stared at her, I swallowed the lump in my throat that was almost choking me. How had I been so stupid to have let this ridiculous argument last this long? Six years we had wasted because I acted like a giant asshole. Now, she was sick, I would have given everything I had to have those six years back with her.

  I reached forward and slipped my hand around hers.

  “Hey, Cass,” I whispered as tears trickled down my face. “I’m sorry for being such a shitty friend. But I’m here now, and I promise, I will never let you down again.”

  She released a long sigh, her eyes opened, and she gave me the most beautiful smile.

  “I know,” she whispered before she closed her eyes once more and drifted off back to sleep.

  I watched her sleeping for the longest time, until finally my eyes grew heavy. I rested my head down on the side of the bed. Still holding her hand in mine, I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  Cassie

  I woke slowly and stretched out in bed feeling relaxed and well rested. For the briefest of moments, I wasn’t sick or scared, I was just warm and cosy in my bed, ready to face then day ahead. But then, when I opened my eyes and saw where I was, all memories of the last couple of days crashed into my mind, and once more panic took hold of my entire body.

  I was sick. How sick, I was yet to find out.
All I knew now was nothing was ever going to be the same as it used to be.

  I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I wished I could just close my eyes and go back to sleep forever. In my dreams I wasn’t sick. In my dreams I wasn’t stuck here is a hospital bed, having no clue the future would hold.

  Then I remembered a strange dream I had. I dreamed that Evan came to see me. I woke up and he was sitting there holding my hand. I can’t remember what he said to me, but I remembered the look of sadness in his eyes.

  I also remembered how nice it felt to have his hand wrapped tightly around mine. It felt just like it did when he held my hand when we were kids. Whenever I was upset, he would just sit next to me and hold my hand, and somehow the whole world seemed so much better.

  I wondered where he was right at that moment and what he would do if he knew what was happening to me. I knew it was ridiculous, but part of me wished more than anything else that he was here with me.

  Blowing out a long, frustrated breath, I rolled onto my other side, deciding the best thing to do right at that moment was to try to go back to sleep, and lose myself in my dreams once more.

  As I did, I froze when I saw Evan fast asleep in the chair next to my bed. That’s when I realised, it hadn’t been a dream. He’d come to see me, right at the moment when I needed him the most, just like he always did.

  I held my breath, as I lay there and watched him sleeping; a look of sadness on his face that almost broke my heart. I had no clue why he was here, or how he knew where I was or how he found me.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been lying there watching him sleep, when the door opened, and a nurse, whose name was Sara, came in quietly to my room.

  “You’re awake,” she said in a hushed voice as she made her way to the side of my bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay I guess,” I whispered, not wanting to wake Evan just yet.

  “I need to do your STATS,” she explained as she helped me sit up in the bed.

  She pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and popped it into her ears. Then she pressed the steel cap of the stethoscope to my chest and told me to take some deep breaths.