Chapter 12

At the hospital, I should have sat at my mom’s bedside, but I couldn’t.

Not that I didn’t love her. Not that I didn’t want to be with her. Not that I couldn’t handle it or she didn’t need me, although she did seem to be sleeping peacefully.

It was the beeping.

I couldn’t stop watching the monitor tracking her heart, the little line darting up and down feeling like a never-ending roller coaster. Maybe if I watched it hard enough, I could will that monitor to keep beeping. Between beats, I felt my own heart seize up, waiting for the next beep, wondering if it would ever come. And when it did, I wondered if that would be the last. If I could handle it if it was. What I would do when that little machine stopped beeping?

Because, according to the doctor, it wasn’t if but when. Months, he kept saying, if the treatments work. Weeks if they don’t.

So I sat in the waiting room with my head in my hands. After a long day of sitting around and worrying, my grandparents brought Jillian to their house to get some sleep. I’d insisted on taking the night shift. Exhausted or not, I couldn’t leave Mom now .

In another life, she and I would have caught a plane to Paris this morning. I imagined us sitting next to each other watching chick flicks and going over our itinerary. My mom would have her shoulder bag, complete with her organized file of tickets, hotel confirmations, and transportation plans. She was the most organized woman I knew, always put together, always prepared for anything.

Now she lay in a thin tissue-paper gown in a hospital bed, eyes closed, hair unkempt. She’d hate it, seeing herself in this state and knowing she now depended solely on the care of others.

Somehow, I’d have to tell her the truth when she woke. Yet another reason I sat out here, practically clawing my eyes out at the thought of having that conversation with her. But there was nobody else. The doctor offered to explain the diagnosis, but I insisted it should be me who broke it to her. Mom deserved to hear it from her eldest daughter.

Well, she deserved to hear it from the man she loved, but he’d abandoned her and stolen her daughter, so that left me. Welcome to adulthood.

By the way, it’s crap.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said softly from the doorway.

I didn’t look up. I knew that voice in my sleep. “Hey.”

Hunter swung around the row of metal chairs to take the seat next to me. “I heard.”

Of course he had. He’d driven me to the hospital and stayed for who knew how long. His mom ran the gossip network of the town. Between the two of them, they were bound to discover the truth of it. How unfair that Hunter’s mom knew of the cruel ugliness taking over my mother’s body even before she did .

“I waited downstairs through the afternoon,” he began. “Then I went to your house and cleaned up all the glass. Your window is covered in plastic now. Figured you didn’t want birds and bugs flying free in there.” He handed me my phone, fully charged, as well as my backpack, the one I’d intended to take on the plane, with a change of clothes and three brand-new books I’d bought with graduation money. “Your grandma wanted me to bring you this. Might need it if you’re staying.”

Staying. That had more meaning than I wanted to consider. Paris, nearly within my grasp just a few hours ago, now felt as distant as the comet I’d seen last night. A fleeting, bright moment in an otherwise dark and weary sky.

It felt like a lifetime ago.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” Hunter said. “About your mom. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I know it’ll be harder with your dad gone and everything, but I’m here. Whenever you need me, I’m right next door.” He took a deep breath. “And there’s one last thing.”

I turned to look at him. His eyes flicked to mine and immediately away again, probably because I looked like a zombie from his video games. My eyes would be swollen from crying and red from missing nearly two full nights of sleep. Within a day, I’d gone from the top of the world to the deepest, darkest valley.

I’d already lost one parent in all the ways that mattered. Now, it was only a matter of time before I lost the second. Weeks, maybe months. Not nearly long enough.

“Kennedy Travell, I’m making you a promise here and now. When this is all over and you’re ready, you will see Paris. You will because I’m going to take you. I’ll make sure you see everything you want to see, every inch of it, and it’ll be everything you imagined. I swear it.” He took my hand. “Okay?”

Standing, I yanked my hand back. “Thank you, but I don’t care about Paris anymore.”

I grabbed my bag and walked away.