"I guess I was in good company since none of her family knew either." He tilted his head. "But you knew."
"Not at first. Like everyone else, I was trying to figure out what happened when she broke off...your engagement and took off for Europe."
"But eventually she did tell you," Nate pointed out.
"Yes. I basically forced her to. I told her I was coming to visit her and flew to London. She had no choice but to tell me how to get to her place. She was a bit of a mess so it didn't take too long to get the truth from her."
"It was a shock. Of all the scenarios I'd run through my head, that hadn't been one of them. After all, she was young and, by all indications, healthy."
Before Megan could reply, Elsa appeared at the booth. She set a plate in front of Nate and another in front of Megan.
Megan smiled at the older woman. "Thanks, Elsa.”
Elsa laid a hand on her shoulder. "You're welcome. I'll send someone with drinks for you."
Though it felt a little awkward, Nate offered to pray for their meal. Once they were done, a waitress approached them to bring them water and asked if they wanted any other drink.
"I'm good with the water, thanks." Nate picked up his fork as Megan also declined a drink. "Did you hear that Jessa had her baby?"
"No, I didn’t. Is everything okay?"
"Cami said that aside from just being small, he looked good. He'll have to stay in the hospital a bit." He cut a piece of meat and said, "I'm surprised Lily didn't let you know."
"I've been giving her a bit of space to get reacquainted with her family. I'm the easy one to be around since I've known about the MS longer. She needs to learn to be around her family."
"Today was a rough day for her.” Nate frowned at the memory. “She had difficulty walking, I think."
Megan nodded. "It seems that's something she struggles with when she gets overtired or stressed."
"Have you been around her when she's been like this before?"
"No, but she told me about it. That was early on. It seemed that she learned to read her body pretty well and had relatively few symptoms or relapses brought on by her own actions."
"Yeah, this was out of her control today."
Megan lifted her glass and took a sip, her gaze curious as she watched him. "You seem to know a fair bit about how she's handling things."
"Once Will told me what she was dealing with, I made it my business to be informed. And she also explained to us a little bit about how she faces each day. I know something about dealing with a debilitating illness day in and day out, but with my mom, each day just seemed to be progressively worse once she got past a certain point. There were no good days after that."
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Nate was curious as to why Megan had sought him out. Though she and Lily had been best friends, he and Megan had never become buddy-buddy. So her coming to him when Lily wasn't around was kind of odd. Finally, he just came right out and asked her.
She pushed her food around on her plate. When she eventually looked at him, he couldn't read her expression. "I was just concerned."
"Concerned? For Lily?"
She hesitated then shook her head. "For you."
Nate sat back. "Me? Why are you concerned for me?"
"I don't want you to get hurt again." Megan bit her lip. "Lily is very determined not to pick things back up with you. I don't want you to get your hopes up."
Nate had to admit, her words didn't sit well with him. In fact, they stung more than a little. He really had hoped that Lily would give them a second chance. "Why is that?"
"Her reasons are her own. I won't divulge them even if I don't one hundred percent agree with them. I just want you to be aware. If you two weren't living in such close proximity I wouldn't be as worried." Megan frowned. "Just...be careful."
"So how do I deal with her then?" Nate wasn't going to give up hope, but he didn't want to frighten her away by being too aggressive. Somehow he just wanted to show her that her diagnosis didn't scare him off, and he was going to be there for her...however she wanted him in her life.
"Don't try to do things for her. She needs to show that she's still capable of taking care of herself."
