April cried harder. “You can't just let him get away with this.”
I managed a smile. “What would making a scene actually get me?”
“He already made his choice, didn't he? If I go over there, all I'm doing is humiliating myself and giving everyone an even bigger show to watch.”
“Don't waste time on things that don't matter anymore.”
I knew I wasn't really talking to April. I was talking to myself.
Talking down the bitterness clawing at my chest, smothering the fury before it swallowed me whole.
April finally relented. She and the others left one by one.
Maybe this was for the best. He'd found the person he loved, and I no longer had anything tying me down.
It was time to go.
I booked a flight to Lakeshore Haven. All these years I'd been so consumed by work that even when Timothy and I traveled together, we never really stopped to look around.
Every trip was just ticking off a checklist, never a chance to slow down and actually see the world.
In whatever time I had left, I was going to be good to myself.
Before boarding, the hospital called.
When they'd given me the diagnosis a few days ago, they'd mentioned two treatment options, though neither came with any promise of a cure. The best they could offer was more time.
I knew enough about cancer to understand what that meant.
Either option would put my body through hell.
I didn't pick up. For now, I just wanted to figure out how to make whatever life I had left feel wider, even if I couldn't make it longer. The length, I'd already accepted.
The plane touched down and I headed straight for Crystal Lake. By the time I arrived, the sun hung low on the horizon.
I sat by the water, letting the wind wash over me.
A couple wandered into my line of sight, posing for a photographer, shifting from one arrangement to the next.
The bride's white gown was blinding. It cut right through me, and the tears came before I could stop them.
From the moment I learned it was Jemima that Timothy was marrying, I'd told myself I was fine. Told myself I could accept it all with grace.
But now the tears and the grief poured out together, and there was no holding them back.
I curled into myself and let them fall.
I missed home.
If I'd listened to my parents back then, I wouldn't have run myself into the ground trying to make a living. Maybe I never would have gotten sick at all.
And now, on top of everything, I was the woman who'd been thrown away.
With a disease like this, I couldn't bring myself to call my family. I didn't want them to see what I'd become.
I pulled myself together. I refused to let anyone see me break.
I didn't know how other people handled staring down their own mortality.
All I knew was that fear filled every corner of me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quiet it.
My first night in Lakeshore Haven, I didn't sleep at all.
Timothy and I had talked about death once. He'd said he hoped I would go first.
He knew how much I feared being alone. He worried I wouldn't manage the small, grinding details of life by myself, worried I'd cry alone in the dark.
We were both still alive, and I was already facing the darkness on my own, already drowning in the terror of dying.
The moment the sky lightened, I ran to the balcony and gulped down the air like I was starving for it, standing in the first pale warmth of morning, feeling proof that I was still here.
And once more my mind circled back: what if Timothy had run into some problem he couldn't solve? What if he was facing something as dire as I was, and marrying Jemima was just his way of pushing me away to protect me?
My fingers tightened around my phone. The urge to turn it on was almost unbearable, to reach out to our mutual friends, to dig for any scrap of news about him.
I was seconds from powering it on when I looked up and saw two figures outside the hotel.
Timothy and Jemima.
They were here. Of all places, they were here. I moved to duck out of sight, but Jemima spotted me first.
She nudged Timothy. He lifted his head, and something complicated flickered across his face.
He murmured a few words close to Jemima's ear, then walked into the hotel.
I knew he was coming to find me. Was he going to explain?
Timothy stood before me. His eyes still held the tenderness I recognized, but threaded through it now was a struggle I had never seen in him before.
