“So cocky?—”
Eitan shuts me up with a kiss that would put Cary Grant to shame. “I think I’m a little obsessed with you,” he whispers.
“Sounds unhealthy,” I say breathily. “Might want to talk to someone about that.”
“Smartass,” he mutters, pulling my face toward his.
“I’m a little obsessed with you too,” I say against his lips.Maybe a little more than obsessed,I confess, just to myself.
chapter
twenty-eight
I walkinto the Department of Hematology Oncology like I’m walking on water. I smile at every single person I pass and hum to myself. Eitan dropped me off, and it was the first time I didn’t have to schlep here on the train. The kiss he gave me before I got out of the car felt like invincibility. A protective shield that even the clinic’s waiting room can’t penetrate.
“Good morning!” I waltz up to the front desk, singing to the receptionist who checks me in. I don’t even bat an eye when she tells me my oncologist is running thirty minutes behind. Today, not even the sight of everyone here for treatment can get me down. I give each and every one of them a smile and scribble for thirty minutes in my notebook. Since the camping trip, ideas have been a faucet I can’t turn off. Spare musings and new ideas mingle and flow onto any proximate surface.
It’s the perfect time to find a new story, when I’m so close to finding representation for the old one.
I’m already halfway done filling in a new notebook.
“Ruby?” A nurse calls my name and I jump up.
“Hi, Bethany,” I say as I follow her behind the double doors.
“How are you?” she asks when we get settled in the room.
I lean back in the treatment chair and kick up the recliner. “Great,” I say, smiling, meaning it.
“I’m glad.” Her eyes crinkle in encouragement as she cuts off my circulation painfully with her blood pressure machine. But today, not even the machine from hell can get me down.
“Dr. Jain will be with you shortly,” Bethany gives me a nod and leaves me to change into my gown.
A few minutes later, a knock on the door interrupts the silence. “Hi, Ruby.” Dr. Jain scrubs her hands with sanitizer and puts on new gloves. “I’m going to do a quick exam, and then we’ll have a nurse come in and administer your shot.”
As Dr. Jain does the exam, I stare out the window, daydreaming. “How have you been feeling?” she asks.
“Good,” I tell her. “Great, actually.”
She looks a little surprised. Suffice it to say I’m not always at my most positive when I come in to see her. “That’s good to hear. Any reason you’re feeling so great?” Dr. Jain raises her eyebrows.
I roll my eyes dramatically. “If you must know, his name is Eitan.”
“Eitan,” she repeats. I can tell she’s smiling beneath her mask. She tilts me back against the exam table and pulls my arm over my head. This is the worst part of the exam. It feels like she’s carving out the inside of my armpit as she checks my lymph nodes. “How did you meet him? Was it on one of those dating apps?”
“Surprisingly, no. We met…through a mutual friend,” I land on.
Dr. Jain moves my left arm down, and kneads into the implant, checking for lumps. “That’s how my husband and I met. I think it’s nice to meet in person. No expectations, no judgments.”
I hold in my snort. If only wehadn’tjudged each other. Eitan and I could have made it here a lot sooner.
Dr. Jain’s exam moves to my right armpit, kneading one spot several times, not speaking.
The room is quiet for a few protracted seconds.
“What is it?” I ask. My stomach begins sinking into dread.
“I’m going to have my N.P. get you in for an ultrasound,” Dr. Jain says, levity gone. My stomach takes the full plunge into fear.
