“And if you weren’t here, I probably would have let him. This is bad, Karen.”
“Okay, that is what I don’t understand.” She scooted her chair closer to the table. “He’s gorgeous and, from what I just saw, is pretty damn into you.”
“He’s my best friend.”
That excuse was getting so old, it fell from my lips with no affect or emotion. It was a fact that I used to use to attempt to explain us, but that wasn’t us anymore—or wasn’t the only thing about us. We were so much more, more than I knew what to do with.
She rolled her eyes. “My best friend doesn’t press herself against my ass and take more than a minute to back away. Again, I don’t understand what’s making you hesitate so much.”
I let my head drop to my hands and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“What if we try, and it doesn’t work out? And I lose him?”
She huffed out a sigh.
“He married you to make sure you had health insurance, and he didn’t think twice about it from what you said.”
“He called it a solution.” I scoffed, rubbing my eyelids. “He worries about me, which was why I was so hesitant to tell him I was sick.”
“I caught how he was looking at you, whether you want to face it or not. Offering marriage to make sure you have insurance like it’s nothing, is something. And you’re smart enough to know that.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, narrowing her eyes. “Please tell me that Nate doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
I scrunched my nose and shook my head. “Nate and I are very, very over. The only feelings I have for that asshole are those of disdain.”
“That’s not what I mean.” The concern creasing her brow made me uneasy. She was a little too intuitive sometimes, and I didn’t want to think about what I knew she was going to say. “You told me what he said to you before he moved out.”
“What, when he told me that I was fine and needed to stop feeling sorry for myself or else no one will want to be around me? When I got sick, I got on his nerves. He didn’t say it, but he more than showed it. He couldn’t handle it or understand it, and if he’d loved me, that wouldn’t have mattered.”
“No, it wouldn’t have. But I think he made you think of yourself as baggage.”
“Aren’t I?” I huffed out a laugh. “I feel good at the moment, but that can all change tomorrow. Maybe it’s not fair to put that burden on Landon.”
“You are not a burden. And while I don’t know him or your history that well, from what you’ve said about him and after all he’s done to make sure you stay healthy, I doubt he’d ever think of you that way. Talk to him if you’re so concerned about what will happen when temptation finally gets the better of both of you.”
“It’s not a foregone conclusion. I can find a way to control myself.”
“Right,” she scoffed. “You’re living in aThree’s Companyepisode. Your tongue was practically hanging out of your mouth when he came downstairs, and his eyes tracked you from the second he saw you. All this sexual tension between the two of you is crackling all over the place.” She rolled her shoulders in an exaggerated shiver. “Wait until you catch him in a towel.Ifyou can find one that covers him,” she said, throwing a forlorn glance toward the stairway. “Seriously, twenty years of knowing that guy, andthisis the first time you’ve realized that you’re attracted to him?”
“No, I’ve noticed him. He was just…Landon. I mean, he still is, but now…” I trailed off, no clue how to finish that sentence. “Maybe it’s just been a while for me. Nate and I hadn’t beentogetherfor a very long time before we split.”
“Or…” she began, setting her elbows onto the table. “Or maybe this was brewing all along, and you both ignored it for the same reason of not wanting to lose each other. And in a weird way, maybe your diagnosis gave you both a push to see each other differently.” She leaned over and squeezed my hand. “Sometimes the worst things in life bring the best perspective.”
I’d never thought of a silver lining to anything when it came to getting sick, but maybe there were a few. Everything was different, and so was I. While this diagnosis filled my life with a fear and trepidation I still wasn’t used to, it made some of the little things I’d taken for granted blessings.
“Life is short” was always a cheap expression to me, but having a chronic illness truly made it feel finite, like a stopwatch I’d never paid attention to until it started to tick.
Was it the same for him? The thought of losing me someday made him realize how much he wanted me? A mean voice in my head said he felt sorry for me, and while I knew that would never be Landon, maybe Nate had messed with my self-worth enough that pity was easier to believe than love.
After Karen left, I headed upstairs, avoiding a glance at the closed spare room door, to search for something to wear, my cheeks flushing hot when I walked past my own bathroom.
I blamed Karen for adding to it with the torturous visions of him in a towel.
I rummaged through my closet and settled on black leggings that could pass for pants and a light green sweater. I hadn’t gone jean shopping yet, and shoehorning myself into an old pair, no matter how many times I’d jump, would exhaust and depress me.
I fluffed my hair and smoothed some product over the stubborn baby hairs from regrowth. As annoying as it was, pinning them down was better than figuring out how to hide a bald spot. As I swiped on some mascara, my gaze drifted to the photo on my dresser of the four of us from graduation. Dean and Maria were on either side of Landon and me, still in the enemies stage of their love story, all of us beaming at the camera.
Landon and I had leaned in close, his arm looped around my neck as if he were yanking me closer. My head rested against his chin—clean-shaven and smooth back then—as if there was nowhere else I’d wanted to be.
We’d both been dating other people at the time, but we looked like a couple happy to be together. We’d laugh when we’d often get mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend, but maybe we were the fools, too dense to see what was obvious to everyone’s eyes but ours.
