‘Yeah, even after that.’
The sound of her laugh lifted his weakened heart.
‘I think I was in shock – mainly at the fact my mum knew how to send an email, let alone organize a secret rendezvous behind my back. But also’ – the truth dawned on him – ‘seeing you meant I had to face up to the reality of my situation. And you know me: never one for real life.’
The echoes of their argument hung heavy between them.
‘But I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your email, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on. I guess I didn’t know how. Every time I tried it sounded weird and wrong, and then it got really bad, and I didn’t want you to see me like this. Plus, knowing what you’d told me about Leah, I just … I couldn’t put you through that again.’
‘I understand.’
‘Really?’
‘I understand why you didn’t tell me, but I don’t understand why you aren’t accepting help.’
It seemed his mother had got her up to speed quickly.
‘Is that the reason why my mum brought you here? As another persuasion technique? Bravo, Helen. I bet she’s been filling you in on all the details.’
He turned his face away from her. He knew it wasn’t fair, but a part of him felt betrayed.
‘She only told me a bit.’
A small relief, but not enough for him to return her gaze.
‘And look,’ she continued, her voice more insistent now, ‘I know it’s scary, and I know everything feels unbearably hard right now, but don’t you deserve to give yourself achanceto live?’
Jacob knew what was coming. He’d heard it a thousand times from his mother, and his doctors and the random family members that seemed to descend on the house in a constant stream. It was the same every time, and quite frankly he was fed up with it.
‘You know what it feels like, do you?’ Rage, fiercer than he’d ever experienced, raised its head from the depths of him. ‘You know how scary it feels to be walking around with a death sentence hanging over you? A ticking time bomb lodged in your own damn head?’
He was close to shouting now, but he didn’t care.
‘I made a promise to myself to stop fighting. To stop putting myself through the operations and the chemo and the recovery. To stop beating up my body for – what? Maybe a couple of years more, at best? And what will my life be like after the operation, hey? More hospitals, more medication, more fuckingpainfor me and everyone around me.’
Hot, salty tears were burning his eyes, his brittle hands clutching each other as tightly as they could.
‘I don’t need another lecture. And I don’t need anotherperson who doesn’t understand what this is like telling me how to live my life.’
Abruptly, Olivia shot up to standing. Her eyes were wild with fury, and he could see the tension gripping her body.
‘I understand more than you give me credit for. And I know that my little sister would have givenanythingfor another minute on this earth. Another second with the people she loved.’
She let out a snort of derision, the resentment pouring out of her so freely that all he could do was watch in awe.
‘You preached to me for so long about making the most of life. Throwing caution to the wind. And yet you’re just going to give up? Put up your hands and surrender when you don’t have to? When there’s a chance that you can live? You took a chance on so much. Why won’t you take a chance on yourself?’
‘Because I’m fuckingterrified,’ he cried, the truth surfacing at last. ‘I’m so scared of trying and dying anyway. Putting myself throughallof it again for nothing. I’d rather die on my own terms. As my own man. Not cut up and pulled apart on an operating table, or attached to machines in a hospital ward.’
He didn’t know when the venom turned to grief, but before he knew it, his whole body was racked with sobs, and Olivia was there. Holding him. Pulling him closer to her.
‘But what if you got more time? What if …’ She whispered now, her mouth so close to his ear. ‘What ifwegot more time?’
Carefully, he pulled away, lifting his face to meet hers. Her blue eyes were ringed with sadness, but just as dazzling as he remembered.
‘Olivia, how can there be awewith me like this?’
Her grip slackened a little and he felt her start to move away.
