“Wow.” I narrowed my eyes. “What a shit thing to say. What about Mom? What about Cassie, Liam, Adam, Chip and Nina? Don’t they get a say in this?”
“What about you?” Grandpa John placed his elbows on the table, studying me. “You’re so worried how others will cope, but I’m more worried about you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you never got over Ren’s death. You can’t stand hearing someone cough. You—”
“We all have faults.”
He shook his head. “Those aren’t faults, Jakey. They’re phobias.”
“You’re saying I need therapy? Like the rest of the people in this town?”
“No, I’m saying life isn’t black and white, alive and dead, happy and sad. It’s a blend. The only guarantee is today. Not tomorrow or next year. It’s good to plan for the future, but at the end of the day, you have to be content with what you have right now. Otherwise, you’ll never live.”
Anger worked its way down my spine. “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”
“Perhaps you need one.”
“What I need is for you to tell me what’s wrong.”
John leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his considerable bulk. “When I asked you over here, I intended to tell you anything you wanted to know. To list how it will happen. What to expect. To put your overactive imagination to rest. But…”
I sat taller, prickling with unease. “But?”
“I’m not going to.”
“You’re not going to tell me how you’re going to die?”
“Nope.” He stood, taking his empty mug to the sink. “I’m not. Because that isn’t the part that matters.” Striding back toward me, he stood over me, dwarfing me, driving me deeper into the chair like a headmaster telling off a delinquent student. “Listen to me, Jacob Wild, and listen well. I’m alive. Right now. I’m happy. Right now. I’m going to battle for however long I can, and I’m going to love you for always. The end hasn’t changed. It was always going to end with me dead, just like your story will end when you’re dead. Who cares how it happens? It’s not important. What is important is what you do with the days you have right now.”
Patting my shoulder, he squeezed me tight.
Normally, I’d allow him the liberty.
Normally, I’d bite my tongue and swallow my pain and pretend I enjoyed the contact.
Not this time.
Not after he hid his illness.
Not after he dare scold me like an idiot.
He wanted to be honest?
Fine, I could be honest.
Soaring to my feet, I shoved his hand off me. “You want me to live right now? How the hell can I, huh, when all I can think about is attending your funeral? I already feel that pain. Already know what it’s going to be like without you around. How am I supposed to accept right now, when I’d much rather have yesterday? At least yesterday isn’t a surprise. At least the past can’t hurt.”
“The past is what’s hurting you the most.”
“Wrong. The future is.”
John’s face fell. “That’s not normal, Jake—”
“It’s a fact of life. You just said it so yourself.”
“Death is a fact of life, but it shouldn’t be in your daily thoughts, for God’s sake.”
“How can it not when it’s taken so much from me?”
“It’s taken nothing more than it’s taken from other people.”
“And maybe they’re not coping, either. Maybe they’re all screwed up like me.”
John stood to his towering height. “You’re forgetting I’ve lost two people who I loved with all my heart. My wife and then my son. Ren might not have been blood, but he was my son. To bury your partner is one thing, but to bury your child? It sucks, Jacob. It fucking sucks. But you grieve, you remember, and then you move on.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not. It’s the hardest thing in the world.”
“Then why bother? Why put yourself through it?”
John laughed sadly. A laugh full of the same heartache I lived with. “Because the world wouldn’t be the same without love. Humanity wouldn’t exist. The cycle of life wouldn’t exist. Nothing would exist.”
The thought of a barren wasteland was an image I’d imagined before. A world where animals lived singular and humans never paired.
It was one of the saddest things imaginable but perhaps the safest too.
“You shouldn’t block yourself from caring because you already live with the pain of them gone,” John said. “That’s a sure-fire way to drive yourself crazy.”
“Maybe I’m already crazy.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t make me love you any less.” John reached for me, aiming to pull me into his signature bear hug. “Come here.”
“Hell no.” I dived out of his reach, breathing hard, heart rate pounding against the sky. “Don’t touch me.”
“Someone should touch you. Remind you to stay with the living.”
“I don’t need reminding.”
“I think you do. What about Hope? She wants to care for you. She’s a stubborn, patient little thing. Let her care.”