Salient Secret

Chapter 34

It has been 5 days since that lunatic injected me with god knows what. I have been keeping my distance from everyone as much as possible. I told my mom that I am nervous for the surgery so I just want to be alone until then. Thankfully my mom, being my mom, told Kai and the rest of my family to just give me space until then.

Here I am, Monday morning, sitting on the hospital bed once again, awaiting my scan results to see if they can remove the tumor surgically...or if Dane was telling the truth about it being a cancer cure.

A big part of me is hoping that the scan shows whatever that injection did to me, if so, I didn't tell anyone, they found out, which is not breaking the rules. However, a bigger part of me also knows that Dane is smarter than that, he knew I'd be going to the hospital therefore he wouldn't have injected me with something they could trace.

The meeting last week was so off track, they were talking about going to South America to find Dane, but he is right here. I kept trying to get them to at least consider that he could be here but Uncle Arlo kept saying how if he was here then we'd know by now. I couldn't exactly tell them that I saw him, he has a camera in that house, he could hear and see everything. I tried to spot the camera, I looked in every corner, I studied the things on the shelves closely, but I just couldn't find it. I was so distracted by everything that happened that day that I didn't even get to meet Palmer, I saw her, but I didn't say hi or anything. I feel really bad about that, but I need to find another way to shove them off Dane's trail.

I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Doctor Mitchell, with an odd expression on her face.

"Avery, I don't want you to get your hopes up, we still need to run a few more tests to be certain, but your tumor isn't there anymore. I don't know how this is possible...have a look for yourself," she says handing me the envelope in her hands, I open it and pull out a scan of my lungs, there really is no tumor..."We have to run a lot more tests, but you have to keep this under wraps, if the media finds out someone's cancer was cured then your life could be in danger, many people will try to find you and maybe even try to experiment on you or themselves trying to find out how this is possible. We will gather as much information as we can, and if we find out exactly what happened we can go public, but for now..."

"...stay quiet," I say finishing her sentence. 

"Yes. You can tell your family, I'm sure your mom will be thrilled," I give her the best smile I can and watch her walk out. A few minutes later my mom comes in.

"What's wrong?" she asks, immediately noticing something is off, I hand her the envelope, she opens it and takes a look.

"Is this recent or real or both???" she says getting very excited.

"It's my scan from earlier today," a huge smile takes over her face.

"How is this even possible?"

"Doctor Mitchell said they're going to run more tests to figure that out."

"We've been praying for you that's how, this is God's work." More like Satans work. 

I weakly smile and say, "I don't want to get my hopes up just yet mom, let's wait for the results of the other tests first."

"You're right, sorry."

"Don't be sorry, but I am tired though, do you mind?" I say hinting that she must leave. 

"Yeah sure honey, I will be back later."

"Alright, bye mom." 

When I say tired, I don't mean sleep deprived, I mean tired of having to lie, tired of not knowing what the hell this injection did/is doing to me I stubbed my toe the other day and didn't feel a thing, that's how distracted by this I am. Sure it cured my cancer but at what cost? And how long does it take to be in full effect. 

 Kai noticed that I haven't been myself lately. I have no idea how to be cool when he talks about protecting his sister, I know she will be okay but I can't stand the thought of Kai having sleepless nights worried about her, plotting how to save her, going through all the different options in his head, like running away, changing her name, faking her death etc, and it's all for nothing. I have 2 options really, either work really hard to lie to Kai and play along or... remove myself from Kai's life.

It would hurt like hell but it has to be better than lying to him forever. 

*****

The doctors ran all their tests and they couldn't find out how or why the tumor is gone, but I am home now, for good I hope. I haven't seen Kai since the night of the meeting but he messages me everyday to check on me, he called me this morning to ask if he could stop by later because I told him that I am home, I said yes obviously, I need to talk to him...

I hear the doorbell ring so I go downstairs, I open the door and before I know it Kai is holding me and spinning me around.

"Oh it's so good to see you," he says with the biggest smile on his face, for the first time in a while I feel a real, genuine smile taking over my face. "I thought flowers would be pointless so I got you these instead..." he hands me a box of chocolates, it's not what it sounds like though, it's a literal box filled with my favourite single chocolates such as Snickers. 

"I'll take this over flowers any day, thank you," I say giving him another hug. 

"I have something to tell you," he says while we walk inside towards the kitchen.

"Yeah?"

"My mom wants to have you over for dinner, me, you, her, Sammy and Palmer," he says waiting for my reaction. I can't tell him it's over now.

"That sounds great, since when did you and your mom become besties?"

"Lorenzo spoke to me and I decided to give her another chance to fix what she has broken."

"That is really brave of you."

"Yeah well, if she blows this one chance I'm going to..." he says clearly doubting himself. 

"She won't," I say before he can finish that thought. He doesn't say anything after that so I decide to change the subject. "What do you feel like eating?"

"I don't know, that Italian restaurant down the road is pretty good."

"You know we don't always have to eat out," I say opening my fridge and pulling out pizza ingredients. 

"What are you a chef now?"

"Baby I'll be anything you want me to be," I say in a country accent walking towards him and planting a kiss on his lips. 

We spent most of the day in the kitchen, after the pizza, Kai suggested dessert and he showed me how to make thee best chocolate chip cookies, even though I wanted waffles. 

"You kids better clean up in here," my dad says walking into the kitchen seeing a big mess.

"We will dad," he kisses me on my cheek, greets Kai and walks upstairs. 

After cleaning up, it's now 4 pm, Kai needs to go pick up Sammy and get ready for tonights dinner. 

"I'll see you in a few hours," he kisses me on my forehead and leaves. I can't help but smile when he leaves.

This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.