Vibrations

Chapter 26

We all sat in the doctor's office. Me. Casey. Roo. Dad. Deb and Adrianna.

We all had that hangman at the gallows look on our face. We were all waiting for the shoe to drop.

The doctor looked at us, smiling. It was hard to tell what kind of smile it was. Was it one of those, 'everything is going to be okay' smiles, or was it one of those, 'I really need to seem like I care because I'm about to give you some really bad news' smiles...

He opened a little folder and looked over my mom's information, studying it. When he looked up, his smile got a little wider.

"Well, we got the results back from the pathology lab..."

He let the information sit in the air so long you could feel the tension in the room grow.

It was dad that finally had enough, "Well, spit it out doc. What's the news?"

The doc nodded, smiling wider, "No cancer."

I let out a sigh, releasing the tension I hadn't known had even built up.

Deb was still recovering from the surgery, and she still had the staples in her neck from the work they had done to seal her back up. Her voice was still a little on the gravely side, mostly from the damage that had been done to her neck. She tired easily...

"So what was it?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Don't know."

All of us kind of looked at him in dumb shock. How could they not know? How could there be thousands of dollars in medical bills. Hundreds of hours of work by trained professionals and nobody know?

He smiled again, this time wider, "These things happen. You'd be surprised how common they are. Sometimes our bodies just do weird things. Grow off weird little tendrils of stuff. Most of the time, we never notice. Deb, you just had one of the ones that causes problems, and that made us notice."

"What happens now?" Dad asked.

The doctor nodded, "Well, nothing really. We get Deb all healed up. We keep an eye on the area going forward. Maybe do some ultrasounds every year or so to make sure nothing is going to grow back."

Deb's face was filled with so much relief my heart wanted to sing for her...

Chapter 28

Casey lay beside me, breathing hard from the effort of our lovemaking.

I held her close, my right arm circled around her, my left hand playing with the hair on her head, brushing at her bangs. I was fighting off that feeling of sleepiness...

That beautiful feeling of absolute bliss that comes after connecting intimately with someone we love...

I felt her stir a bit against me, sensing her looking at me and her desire for me to look back at her. Looking at her, all I could do was smile. She made me so fucking happy...

She nibbled at her lip, looking at me like she was nervous...

"Can you stay there, right there for just a second?" Her voice was quiet, full of doubt...

I smiled at her and nodded, afraid that if I spoke I would shatter her into a million pieces.

She crawled out of the bed and went over to her dresser. She opened the top drawer and took something out. When she came back, she had my ring.

She held the box out to me and I felt my heart drop into my stomach...

She was giving my ring back to me...

She smiled at me, "If you give it to me now... I'll take it..."

I felt my eyebrows crawl up my forehead like they were trying to escape my face.

She smiled again as I looked at her.

I opened the ring box up and looked at it, "Well... I don't know..."

She slapped my arm.

"Will you marry me?"

She smiled, nodding her head as she took the ring. My heart sang as she took it out of the box and put it on her finger.

I smiled at her, "It looks good on you."

She nodded, cradling the ring to her chest, holding it close.

I shook my head, trying to understand, "Why now?"

She lay down against me, pushing her body against mine once again, "I was sitting there in the doctor's office today and the thought hit me... what if it was me they were talking about. What if I was sitting there with you, and we were wondering if I was really sick? What if we were sitting there and it was you. What if I had to sit there and wonder if it was you that was sick and maybe dying?"

She shook her head, "I'm done wasting my life. I fucked up, and if you were mad at me, I'd have to eat that and learn to live with it. You say you want to be with me. Maybe I need to trust that. In the end, I need to just do what I can and help us both to move on with our lives. Maybe you're angry with me. Maybe this won't work out, but one thing I know for certain... I know how badly I want you, and I know how badly I fucked up trying to keep that from you. I'm done with that and I want to spend the rest of my life making my mistakes up to you..."

I grabbed her hand and pulled her close, kissing her, knowing that she was right. In the end, all we were going to have was each other.

We would find a way to make that enough...