Count On Me

Laugh or Cry

MONDAY, JULY 28, 2014 | 2:30 PM | BEATRICE

The moment Mom falls asleep, I make a bee line for the family lounge. I can't hold back the tears a moment longer. The doctor's words echo in my head. Growth accelerating... extremely aggressive case... metastasized... I didn't even have a reason to know the word 'metastasized' before last week. But now I know what it means. It means it's spread. It means it's getting worse.

I swipe at my eyes with the back of my hands, trying to clear the tears away as I pull out my phone and unlock the screen. For a moment I just stare at it, then I give in and tap the messaging icon and pull up Tobias's name.

Beatrice

[Tobias, are you there? Please... I really need you.]

I send the message and stare at my phone, as if looking hard enough at it will somehow force him to respond. And I do get a response...

[Message could not be delivered]

I growl in frustration and try calling him just to be sure. "We're sorry. The number you've dialed could not be connected or is no longer in service. Please check—"

I jam my finger into the end icon. I can feel the sobs building inside me, ready to burst like an overfilled balloon as I open my email app in a last-ditch effort to reach Tobias.

Then I stare at the screen, frozen in place.

There is an email from Tobias.

I take a deep breath and open it.

Beatrice,

I'm so sorry I left without really saying goodbye. I can't stay in Chicago any more. It has nothing to do with you and it kills me to leave you, but I need a fresh start, I need to be someone new and leave my old life behind.

You are the best person I've ever known, don't forget that. I will always love you.

Tobias

I drop my phone on the floor as the dam finally breaks. Sobs rack my body, it is all too much, I don't know how I can bear it. The only people that I've ever felt have really understood me and loved me as I am... are leaving me.

I would never have been able to just leave Tobias like that, I love him too much. I was stupid to ever believe that he could really love me. I was never good enough for him—I always knew it, I always knew he deserved someone better, but he convinced me otherwise.

I choke and heave as I release the pain that has been snowballing all week, but the well never seems to run dry.

Then suddenly strong, warm arms wrap around me and a deep voice says my name soothingly. Slowly I begin to calm down. I gasp and hiccup and look up, through blurry eyes with swollen lids, at the person comforting me. Uriah.

He rocks me back and forth, as though he's soothing a child after a nightmare. I am too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to care that he's seeing me like this; too exhausted to care that a boy I met two days ago is holding me in his lap.

After all, that's inevitable with this sort of friendship, isn't it? Our bond is borne from the fact that our parents are dying. We were already bound to see each other through the worst.

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MONDAY, JULY 28, 2014 | 7:15 PM

"So what's the prognosis now?" Caleb asks, his voice shaking.

Mom releases a long breath. "Two months at best."

Caleb lets out a strangled, inhuman noise. I glare at my feet. All I can think, as much as I don't like having him around, is that Dad should be here. His wife is dying, she might be gone in just weeks—we have so little time left with her. And where is he? In New York, on a business trip. I guess we know for sure, now, where his priorities lie.