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“And what are we looking at without treatment?”

The doctor hesitates. Mom whimpers beside me, shaking her head. She swipes at her tearstained cheeks, barely keeping it together.

“Tell me,” I say, sensing her hesitation.

“If treatment doesn’t shrink the cancer, and we’re strictly working on prolonging life, you have a thirty-five to fifty percent chance of surviving five years. Without anything? You have less than a year.”

Less than a year.

Whatever happens after that, I don’t remember.

Mom breaks down entirely. In a desperate attempt to console her, I vaguely recall the doctor mentioning something about trials or alternative treatments.

I don’t really know.

I stopped listening because I heard all I needed to hear.

Chapter twenty-one

RYLEIGH

I jolt awake, heartpounding through my chest.

Shadows dance over my bedroom wall as my lungs tighten. A cough rips through my chest, lungs rattling as my entire body jerks upright and I fight for breath. A guttural rasp claws at the back of my throat like an animal seeking to be let out. Each spasm leaves me breathless, echoing in the stillness of the room while I clutch at the shirt I’m wearing as if I can somehow choke back the gnawing ache flaring to life behind my ribs.

My eyes water as a thin sheen of sweat collects on my brow, and I briefly wonder if this is how I’ll die. Right here, in my bed. Alone. Scared. Fighting for breath.

A few more excruciating seconds pass before the hacking begins to subside. I pull oxygen into my lungs, and all at once, the vise on my chest releases its death grip.

“Fuck,” I moan.

A glance at my alarm clock reveals it’s just after one o’clock in the morning. I listen intently to the sound of a settling house and the crickets outside my window before my dry throat beckons me to get up.

I begrudgingly push myself out of bed, my throat raw and chest aching from the coughing marathon I just performed, but somehow, my stiffness eases with each step down the hallway.

I’m halfway there when I pause at the sound of my mother’s voice, thick and raspy in the dark.

She’s been crying.

I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s barely stopped since we left Dr. Hammond’s this afternoon.

Closing the distance, I bypass the bathroom and pause at the end of the hallway, risking a peek around the corner into the living room where I see her on the couch, tucked into John’s side.

I wonder how long they’ve been up, then decide it doesn’t matter. If I can’t sleep, Mom probably can’t either.

I swallow and close my eyes for a brief moment and debate what I should do. Stay and listen, or go?

I allow my head to fall back against the wall with a gentle thud before I slide against it to the floor. Stay.

My arms wrap around my legs, and I press my cheek against my knees and listen. I know I shouldn’t. I should go back to bed and give them their private moment—this time together—but I so rarely get to hear my mother’s unchecked thoughts. I never know what she’s really thinking. Whenever I’m around, sherefers to my cancer with manufactured optimism, platitudes and positivity. For once, I’d like to know what she’s truly thinking. I want to know if she thinks I’m as fucked as I do.

“Seven months to a year, John. That’s how long we have if we don’t do something,” she says, her voice trembling.

“Is that what the doctor said?”

A sniffle, followed by silence. I can only assume she’s confirmed his question with a nod.

“And this trial you told me about, how promising is it?”