“Yeah, that makes perfectly no sense whatsoever. You need help. I know you don’t want to talk about the PTSD, but it’s eating you up inside. You may not think anyone can help you, but maybe you just need another opinion.” She refused to back down, refused to be kicked to the curb like an old sofa up for grabs. He could be harsh and hurtful, but she could deal with it.
“Goodbye, Jillian.” He looked away.
“I’m not leaving, you stubborn SOB.” She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. He was it—her last chance at love and she was determined to take it. Her past had taken too much already. It wasn’t deserving of him too. He was her future—a future she would fight for.
“Is this a bad time?”
Jillian turned.
A doctor in a white lab coat stood at the door.
“No … sorry, come in.” She smiled past her anger and released AJ’s face as if she hadn’t just manhandled a patient.
He nodded, walking toward them. “I’m Dr. Rinehart from oncology.”
Every last bit of air evaporated from the room. Jillian couldn’t find a single breath.
“Doctor.” AJ nodded. “This is my friend, Jillian.”
Jillian looked at AJ, not Dr. Rinehart. “W-why do you need an oncologist?”
“Tell her, Doc. Why do I need you?”
Dr. Rinehart gave Jillian a regretful smile. “AJ has a brain tumor. It was discovered on his MRI after his accident yesterday.”
The air. Where was all the fucking air? The migraines, the personality that flipped without warning, the PTSD pigeonholing for everything … how could everyone have missed it?
“Cancer?” she whispered.
“We’re not sure,” Dr. Rinehart replied.
“When will you know?”
Dr. Rinehart looked at AJ.
“When I’m dead and an autopsy confirms it.”
Jillian turned, glaring at AJ. It wasn’t the time to be mad at him, but she was. How could he say that? Why would he say that?
“You’re not dying!” She looked to Dr. Rinehart for confirmation.
“I’ve consulted with the neurologist that saw AJ yesterday. The tumor may be inoperable.”
“But … you can do radiation or chemotherapy or something else, right?”
“Yes, there are other options.”
“But the neurologist confessed that the success rate is lower with tumors like mine. And I’m sure as hell not going to be a guinea pig, so—”
“So what?” Jillian snapped at AJ. “You’re just going to do nothing? Wait until your headaches get even worse? Wait until you’re having seizures every day? Wait until you—” The familiar pain in her chest crashed like a wrecking ball. She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her cheeks until she tasted their salty presence.
“Die?” AJ grabbed her hand and squeezed it so hard that pain in her chest exploded into something irreversibly destructive. “Yes, Jillian. I’m going to die.”
Chapter Two
There was nothing and yet everything to say, but the nothing won over. AJ left the hospital with a grim nod from the doctor and a handful of medications to help with the migraines and lessen his chances of having seizures. Jillian opened her mouth to speak at least a dozen times on the way home, but nothing came out.
“Thanks for the ride.” AJ mumbled, getting out of her car.
“Have you told Cage or your parents?” She jumped out and chased him toward his door.
He shook his head and kept walking.
“Don’t shut me out.” Raw emotion bled from her words. Everything had happened so fast she couldn’t process it.
The man that dared anyone to cross him stood in defeat at his door with his back to her, head bowed, hands on his hips. “Why? You shut me out all the time.”
“I don’t—”
He turned. “You do. You’re orphaned Jillian from New York. You have a sick need to make men bleed. You’re thirty and your greatest skill is selling sex toys. That’s so fucking pathetic. Yet somewhere along the way, I bought into all of it. Part of me loves you, but I don’t know how and I sure as hell don’t know why, because I don’t really even know you!”
Her teeth clenched. “You didn’t want to know. You said it yourself.”
“Well I do now.”
“Well I … can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.” She would never be able to make him understand. “I don’t want you to die.”
Why couldn’t he see the pleading in her eyes that said everything she couldn’t?
“Tell me what happened to you. Tell me and I’ll make an appointment with the oncologist on Monday.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I have a goddamn tumor in my head. Life’s not fair!”
She continued to shake her head. It was a nightmare. Eventually she would have to wake up. “You’re blackmailing me with your fucking life? What’s wrong with you? You have a son and parents who love you.”
“You don’t trust me.” He narrowed his eyes then turned toward the door.
“It’s not about trust!” She grabbed his arm. “Just…” the anger and desperation pulled the pin to another grenade inside her chest “…forget it ever happened. Please.”