Back to normal, as quickly as that. I didn’t flatter myself to think that everything had been smoothed over for him by a five-minute talk with me. He had to get himself together for Emma and Michael, who were due in minutes. He didn’t want to spend the entire evening uncomfortably dwelling on an argument or his troubles.
When he’d been going through chemotherapy, I’d always ask for an end date, or a milestone. Once he’s able to come off the ventilator. Once he’s strong enough to eat. Once his cell count is this number, or he hasn’t run a fever in x-amount of hours. There was no timeline of symptoms for this disease, for healing these wounds. This could go on and on, remissions and relapses, forever. Or he could gradually get better.
When I said for better or for worse a few weeks from now, I still wouldn’t know which it would be. And that scared the hell out of me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the end of April, the oppressive gloom of winter had somewhat lifted. With the wedding creeping up on us faster and faster, my schedule had started looking a lot less like a fashion magazine editor’s and a lot more like a trophy-wife-to-be’s.
Not that I’d let work slack any. I was still putting in totally crazy hours at the office. I’d only been home two nights in the past week, and only because I’d felt guilty for abandoning Neil with my mom.
No matter how busy things were at work—our online subscriptions were soaring, so we couldn’t stop producing steady, engaging content now—I still had to tend to the business of being a bride. It wasn’t as much of a chore as I sometimes made it out to be; when it came time for my dress fitting, I was pretty psyched.
“I can go with you,” Neil offered, sipping his morning coffee and looking at me over the rim of the mug like I was the silliest person in the world. “It isn’t as though we’ve strictly adhered to tradition thus far.”
I leaned over the kitchen counter and squinted at the number on the food scale. “We’re being more traditional than you think. But that’s one tradition I am not going to mess with. I cannot wait to see your face when I’m walking down that aisle.”
“I can’t wait to see you walking down the aisle.” He came over and put his arms around my waist. “I can’t wait for you to be Mrs. Neil Elwood.”
“Mmm, no.” I put my arms around his neck and shook my head, enjoying the sassy weight of my swinging ponytail behind me. “I will be Ms. Sophie Scaife, and I will be married to Mr. Neil Elwood.”
He sighed. This was a losing battle he wouldn’t quit fighting. “No chance of a Ms. Sophie Scaife-Elwood?”
“None at all. I’m not a conglomerate.” I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him.
He leaned back and frowned at the turkey on the scale. “That’s not all you’re having for breakfast?”
I waved him off. “No. This is what I’m having after the fitting. I’m not eating beforehand.”
“You have to eat something,” he insisted. He scanned the counter, and his eyes brightened. “Ah.” He snatched up a tomato and handed it to me. “Eat it in the car.”
“There are apples right over there,” I pointed out.
He went to them and playfully tossed me one. “Promise me you won’t thin
k negatively about your body at this fitting.”
“I cannot promise that.” I turned back to my two ounces of deli turkey and put the apple on the counter beside the scale. “What prompted that remark, anyway?”
His expression slowly faded from fun and sexy to sad and serious. “I’ve been noticing some…” He paused in frustration. “Since your mother arrived, I’ve noticed you’re being a bit…overcautious, we’ll say. About food.”
I frowned. “No, I haven’t.”
“What did you eat for lunch yesterday?”
The question came so fast, it bumped me back a step. “I don’t remember. Do you remember what you ate for lunch yesterday?”
“Raw spinach tossed with goat cheese and cherry tomatoes in a pear vinaigrette,” he rattled off without a second to think.
“Well, most normal people don’t have that kind of memory,” I snapped. “Plus, I’ve been really busy at work. It’s not like I have time to sit down and have a full lunch.”
“All right,” he conceded. “What do you remember eating yesterday?”
I scanned my brain. I hadn’t been eating much, he was right. But it was just because work had been so hectic. “I ate, like, half a bag of baby carrots in the car on the way home.”
“And when you got in last night, you told me you’d just eaten, and you weren’t hungry for dinner,” he reminded me.
Damn. I felt myself growing defensive, much in the way I expected the Hulk felt himself growing angry. It only made me more defensive. “Look, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and I don’t want to eat. It’s not a big deal.”