Every Time (Brush of Love 3)

“What’s the long-term goal?” she asked. “To shrink the tumors enough to where operation and regular chemotherapy won’t kill me before it can destroy the cancer.” I raised my watery eyes to Anna, and for the first time in my life, I saw fear at the forefront of her eyes. I saw her face contort with sadness as her arms threaded around my body. I felt her shaking against me while I held her close, absorbing her warmth while I felt my strength draining from my body. “The doctor says that if the immunotherapies go well, I’m looking at surgery in two months. It’ll be a total removal of the tumor on my kidney with the possibility of losing it altogether as well as brain surgery.” “Brain surgery,” she repeated. “Yeah,” I said, sighing. “It’ll take months to recuperate from that alone.” “Have you—?” Anna cut off her own sentence, and I knew what she was going to ask. I saw her choke on her own words while she grimaced, her face shooting off to the side while she tried to compose herself. Her lawyer mind was slowly kicking back into gear, and I could tell how much it physically hurt her and how much she hated dipping into that part of herself. “Have you settled your estate yet?” she asked breathlessly. “No. Not even sort of,” I said. “You need to. I can help you if you’d like.” “I can’t ask you to do that,” I said. “Not after—” “The paperwork’s quick and painless, honestly. You just designate an executor of your finances and your property, which would be your art gallery. Have you given any thought as to who you would want to give that responsibility to?” “I haven’t even given thought to telling Bryan, much less settling my fucking shit,” I said.

“Wait. You haven’t told Bryan?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because he’s still regaining his emotional center and finally starting to find himself again. He’s coming to a good place with his business as well as the story surrounding his brother. Hell, we just got back on good footing ourselves. I can’t hit him with something like this,” I said.

“So, you’re going to keep it from him. Like last time.”

“Last time was different,” I said.

“No, it wasn’t. You kept the truth of your brother’s death from him, and now you’re keeping the truth of yourdeath from him.”

“Fucking really, Anna?”

“Fucking really, Hailey.”

“This would devastate him. I already postponed moving in with him because of how busy our schedules are and how much farther away he is from the gallery. The exhaustion’s already setting in, and he’ll know. If I’m around more, he’ll see that something’s wrong.”

“All the more reason to move in with him, Ha

iley,” she said.

“The last thing I want is to cause him unnecessary pain,” I said.

“And you tried to do that last time, which, by the way, almost cost you his existence.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“No, Hailey. Fuck you. Fuck you and your selfish ways. Fuck you for finding this beautiful man who wants to support you and throwing it in his fucking face. Fuck you for having this wonderful romance where this man that died brought the two of you together, and fuck you twice with a cactus for throwing it all away because you want to be ‘Miss Independent’ or some shit. Don’t play the martyr when you’re scared. It only makes you look like a bitch.”

I whipped my gaze up to her, and I could see her nostrils flaring. She was angry. My sister was actually angry at me.

“You’re angry at me for having cancer and not telling Bryan about it?” I asked.

“No. I’m angry that even though you’re the smartest person I know, you’re willingly making the same dumbass mistake. Bryan wants you to move in with him because he loves you and because he wants to support you through thick and thin. He’s poured his ugly out to you, showed you his dark side, and you’ve accepted it willingly and loved him even more for it. Why the hell would you rob him of the same thing you’ve so wonderfully and selflessly given him? Don’t you think he would want to be the one sitting here right now talking with you?”

“I can’t tell him. Not yet,” I said.

“And why not?” she asked.

“Because I just can’t, okay?”

I ripped myself up from the couch and raked my hands through my hair. The wind was blowing against the window, howling at the throbbing of my head while I tried to take deep breaths. My headache was raging out of control again, and I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I walked to the window and took deep breaths, feeling the aching pain in my body slowly giving out and ricocheting through my system.

I wondered if John had felt like this while he breathed his last breaths in that dank alleyway while I was too scared to do anything about it.

“Swear to me you won’t tell him, Anna,” I said.

“Fine,” she said breathlessly. “Under one condition.”

“What?”

“I’m telling Mom and Dad.”

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “Not like they’ll care.”