Chapter 28
Tansy
I’m still in remission.
It’s not cancer.
I don’t have cancer. I don’t have cancer. I don’t have cancer.
Relief swamps me, has me wrapping my arms around myself as I curl into a ball and just breathe. Just breathe.
“Oh, thank God!” my mom exclaims, tears in her voice and rolling slowly down her face. “Did you hear that, Tansy? You’re fine. You’re fine!”
I nod, but I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I could trust my voice anyway.
“What is it, then?” my father asks. “What’s causing the fever?”
The doctor smiles. “Actually, a rather harmless virus is to blame. It’s called roseola, and is part of the measles family. She’ll run a fever for a couple days and then she’ll break out in a noncontagious rash that will last about forty-eight hours and then she’ll be fine.”
“Roseola?” my mom repeats, sounding baffled.
“It’s one of those viruses that usually get passed around by children. You can get it more than once, but it’s rare. Usually kids build up immunity to it, but I don’t see any record of Tansy ever having it, so …” He shrugs eloquently.
Just a virus. Not cancer. Not rhabdomyosarcoma. Not cancer. I’m going to live.
The doctor says a few more things, says he’ll be discharging me today, but I stop listening. He’s told me everything important, everything I need to know. The rest is just extra.
As he finishes up, there’s a knock on the door. Figuring it’s Anna or Topher, I call for them to come in. Then freeze as Ash appears in the doorway, his face sheepish and his right hand shoved deep into his pocket.
My mom looks from him to me, her already huge smile somehow getting even huger. “Hi, Ash,” she tells him. “Come on in. The doctor was just leaving.”
Ash nods, takes a few more tentative steps into the room. He looks like he’s about to face the firing squad—or like he expects me to launch whatever’s closest straight at his head. But I’m not angry at him at all. I’m angry at fate for putting two such ill-fitted people together, but I’m not mad at him. How could I be when he’s already suffered so much.
Behind him, my mom makes some ridiculous excuse to follow the doctor out of the room. She drags my dad with her, who looks a lot more reluctant to leave his daughter alone with a guy who looks like Ash. I want to assure him that it’s okay, that Ash is a good guy, but to be honest, my voice has pretty much stopped working. Whether from the news that I’m perfectly healthy or from Ash’s sudden appearance, I don’t know.
The door closes behind my parents and I swing my legs out of bed, so that I’m at least sitting up. Whatever this conversation is going to be about, I already feel completely vulnerable. The last thing I need is to be stuck in the bed like some kind of invalid, too.
“What are you doing, Tansy?” Ash demands, rushing the last few feet to my side. “Get back in bed.”
“I’m fine, Ash. Sitting up isn’t going to hurt anything.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he bites the words down. Which is a little surprising, really. Nice, but surprising.
“How are you feeling?” he asks after a minute.
“I feel fine. Just this stupid fever which should be gone soon.”
“Good.” He holds out his left hand, which—I notice for the first time—has a bouquet of flowers in it. Bright red and deep purple, they are absolutely beautiful and I can’t help the appreciative sound I make when I reach for them.
“They’re beautiful.”
He smiles a little. “They reminded me of you.” He gestures to my hair.
“Oh, right. Because of the dye.”
“Yeah.”
Ugh. Could this conversation get any more uncomfortable? How, in the space of less than forty-eight hours, could we have gone from laughing and joking in each other’s arms to treating each other like total strangers? Worse than strangers, actually, because at least strangers would be able to make polite small talk.