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“I met one of his friends at the bar last night, and you won’t believe what he told me,” Wrenley announced.
“What?” I asked. “I’ve been torturing myself over this. I would rather you just told me up front what you have to say. Anything that will make the sting of this go away even a little would be very much appreciated.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to help how you feel right now, but I do know why he broke up with you,” she said.
At once, I snapped to attention. It was the one thing that had been haunting me since the breakup happened. I knew relationships didn’t always work out and people did go their separate ways. I knew that there were plenty of people who were blindsided by breakups and didn’t know how to react when it happened.
But, I always figured it was best to give someone a reason when you broke up with them. Something that told them why it wasn’t working out so they had the chance to decide if it was something they wanted to deal with themselves or not.
It didn’t seem fair to me that he would come and break up with me without any real reason, just telling me that he couldn’t do it anymore. That left me with nothing to go on. Nothing but wondering what I did wrong.
“What did I do?” I asked. “I refuse to think he just broke up with me for no reason at all. But I can’t think of what I could have done that would warrant this. It’s frustrating, I can tell you that much.”
“Slow down,” Wrenley said with a laugh. “It wasn’t anything you did. But, it’s pretty shocking, even still. I’m not sure he was going to tell you this, but I can see someone like him breaking up with you over it.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?” I demanded. “I’ve been dealing with this for a week now, I would just like to have some answers so I can put it to rest in my own mind, okay?”
“He has cancer,” she announced.
I did a double take.
“What?” I asked.
“I know I don’t usually talk about things like that because it’s a violation of the patient’s privacy, but I didn’t learn this from the hospital. His friend came and sat next to me at the bar last night. Said he recognized me as being your friend, and wondered how you were doing,” she explained. “I told him you were okay, but you were going crazy wondering where you went wrong, and if he had anything I could pass along to you that might help with that, I would.”
“And he said Cole has cancer?” I asked, shock in my voice.
“Yes. He’s got it in the leg he broke. They were able to find it with all the attention his leg has needed, so that’s good. But, his friend said that Cole felt like he didn’t want to put you through the trouble of dealing with cancer, especially since he lost his mother to cancer when he was a kid. He was doing it to protect you, even if it was a stupid thing to do.”
I shook my head, trying to absorb what my best friend had just told me.
It did make sense. I could see Cole doing something like that. He was so stubborn, and he didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. He was determined to pull his own weight with everything, and he hated being seen as someone who wasn’t capable of taking care of things himself.
All in all, it only made sense that he broke up with me to save me the pain we would share if we went through the treatment together. But, just because it made sense didn’t mean I agreed with him or what he did. I wasn’t going to leave him because of the cancer.
Cancer was something we could deal with together. I didn’t care what we had to do. I wasn’t going to walk away from him because of sickness. That just wasn’t the kind of person I was. When I was with someone, I stood by them no matter what.
I was a firm believer of being together in sickness and in health, and that didn’t mean it had to start after marriage. I had fallen in love with this man already, and I was willing to stand with him through anything. But, I didn’t know what to do now. He had broken up with me over the cancer, but he hadn’t been the one to share with me that he had it.
Now, I had to figure out a way to talk to him about the cancer, and, more than that, I had to figure out how to convince him that two were better than one. I would be there for him and with him no matter what – and that was what I wanted.
“So, while I think the guy is an asshole, I also thought you should know that that’s what’s going on with him, you know?” Wrenley said.
“Thank you for telling me,” I replied. “You really have no idea how much it helps to know that.”
“Are you going to talk to him?” she asked.
“Of course,” I replied. “I don’t know how I’ll make it happen, but I’m telling you right now, I’m not walking away from this. I have dealt with a lot of hardship in my life, making a living out of working with people who are going through hardships of their own. I’m not going to abandon him because he is going through something like this.”
“I hope it works out for you,” Wrenley said. “I mean that.”
I gave her a look of surprise. It wasn’t what I thought she would say, considering how she felt about Cole. But then, she had come over to tell me what was going on with him. If there was a clear-cut sign of a true friend, I knew that was it.
“Thank you,” I said as I gave her a hug. “You really are my best friend, you know that?”
“And that’s why I did this for you,” she said with a grin as she hugged me back. “I miss my cheerful Raya, and once I knew what was going on with him, I knew how I could get my happy Raya back.”
“Well, I’m not going to get my hopes up yet. But I have to say, I feel a flicker of hope,” I admitted.
“You know, sometimes that little bit of hope is all you need,” Wrenley said. “I’ve seen miracles happen with the slightest amount of hope keeping people going.”
I smiled. I had seen the same thing in my own line of work, and I could relate to the feeling. She was right. As long as there was hope, there was a chance for us to work out. It might not be easy, but then, what relationships were?
All I knew was it was worth it.
Cole was worth it.
