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If I had known…
You kill everyone you love.
Maybe my dad was right after all.
Curling my fingers around the bottle tightly, I drink more.
I drink until the pain dulls to a distant throb.
I drink until the image of her becomes blurry in my mind.
But even falling into oblivion doesn’t take the pain away.
And those three little words that slammed like a wrecking ball into my life? They keep up the wreckage even as I sink into darkness.
I have cancer.
CHAPTERFOUR
JADE
I stare at the message I sent at some point yesterday, somewhere between living and dreaming the nightmare that’s my life. But there is no reply to the four words I sent. The only thing left that I could offer him. Not that I expected one.
Me:
I am so sorry.
Letting out a sigh, I turn the phone face down before pushing from the bed. My whole body feels stiff from lying around all day, and my muscles are weak from unuse. Running my fingers through the mess that’s my hair, I go toward the door and listen.
The apartment seems quiet, so I open the door and slide out into the hallway, only to come to a stop when I reach the living room and find all my friends sitting there and whispering.
Penny is the first to notice me, so I must not have been as quiet as I hoped for, and all the girls turn toward me, suddenly silent.
“You know I’m not dead yet, right?” I ask, forcing a smile out.
Grace’s eyes widen, and Rei’s lips part in surprise.
“So it’s true? You are sick?” Penny asks, her hand landing on Henry’s back, her fingers running over his soft fur.
“Yeah.” With a sigh, I look over my friends, my eyes landing on Grace’s. “I never wanted you to find out like that.”
“Did you ever plan to tell us at all?” Grace asks, her voice harsh.
“Grace!” Rei chastises, but I shake my head. “It’s fine. She has the right to feel angry. You all do. I planned to tell you, but…”
“When? When did you plan to tell us? When you were actually dead? ‘Oh, by the way, I had cancer. I hope you live a happy life. Love, Jade?’”
“I would have told you.”
“Yeah, right. Just like you told us that you’re hooking up with Prescott?”
I tilt my head back, the mention of Prescott making the bile rise up my throat. Of course she’d bring that up. It was just another secret I’d been keeping from her, from all of them.
“You and Prescott?” Penny’s voice hitches in excitement because only she could ever be excited about it.
My stomach twists with unease. Of the two things, I’d rather talk about cancer than Prescott any day of the week. Cancer was straightforward, you either lived or died, but there was nothing simple or clear-cut about Prescott or the way he makes me feel.
Pushing from the door, I cross the room to the kitchen and open the cabinet. I rummage through it until I find what I’ve been looking for, tequila. Wrapping my fingers around the bottle, I grab a shot glass and join the girls, sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of them.
