“I’m not leaving. Paige? Daisy, it’s me!” My heavy head dropped to my hands. The sobs that ran through me made it difficult to breathe, thanks to the oxygen tubes filtering through my nose.
Pushing him away was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I did it for him. I didn’t want to let him go. I wanted him to hold me, tell me he loved me and know he would never leave me. I wanted that so fucking much it ached.
“Sir, please. She’s a very sick girl.”
In time, he’d see. He deserved someone who could give him a life, children, and a future. All things I can’t offer him, no matter how much I wished things were different. He deserved better than this, better than me.
The door was half closed but opened with such force that it banged into the wall and made me jump. Evan marched up to my bed and took my face in his hands. His hay-colored eyes filled with tears as his hands shook.
“I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” His voice quivered with emotion, but I wasn’t sure if it was sadness, rage, or a combination of the two.
“Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on. And why you lied to me.”
One year earlier
“Jack? Ellie? You guys up?” I banged on my cousin’s front door with my elbow, holding a tray with three coffees in one hand and bag with a dozen bagels in the other. Still sweaty from the gym, with no free hand to wipe the moisture from my brow, I hoped one of them heard me and was headed for the door. I breathed a sigh of relief when the lock clicked.
“Cuz, you are the best!” Jack took the bag and tray from me and I followed him inside.
“Yeah, that’s what you keep telling me. Where’s Ellie, still sleeping?”
“Yep. I’ve learned a few things about pregnant women these past few months. They cry all the time, they sleep a lot, and they’re horny as all hell. Number three helps me tolerate numbers one and two.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I smacked him on the arm.
“Not the visual I want at nine o’clock in the morning, pig.” I shoved his arm as he set everything on the table but the coffee was saved by their plastic lids. This was the most my cousin had been himself in months. Disgusting comments from him actually warmed my heart.
I plopped myself at their kitchen table, to create space to eat my breakfast among the clutter of pill bottles and mail. Jack took a seat next to me and rested his head on his hand. He eyed me with a smirk.
“What? Stop staring and spit it out.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day that you’d become a gym rat. Every time I talk to you now you’re heading to the gym, coming back from yoga, or on your way to Zumba. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you’re getting out of your apartment for reasons besides work. Just find it a little funny.” He shrugged as he spread cream cheese on his bagel.
My cousin and I had always been close, and it irritated me how he could see through me. He was more like a brother to me, like a twin brother since we share the exact same birthday. He was born at 11:37 A.M. on March eleventh, and I was born at noon. We were both only children, but he tended to think of himself as my older sibling, and honestly that half hour jump did make him a little older and wiser than me at times—not that I would ever tell him that.
“I like the gym. It’s a great stress reliever and I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. I’m trying to change things up, be—”
“A brand-new Paige Taylor. Yes, I’m familiar with the speech.” Jack rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I’d like to see you get back out there and enjoy life a little, not hide from it.”
“I’m not hiding, Jack. Really. I just want to be alone for a little while. Nothing wrong with that.”
Jack shook his head. “Nothing wrong at all. I don’t miss that tool you were with or that nasty friend of yours.”
I shrugged. “I have no one to blame for that debacle but myself.”
Jack set his coffee cup on the table and gave me an irritated sideways glance.
“This should be good. How was catching your best friend screwing your fiancé your fault?” Jack leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed.
I let out a long sigh. “Chris and I . . . we should have never gotten engaged.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” I nudged his shoulder and chuckled.
“I know, I know. When you’re over thirty, and all your friends are married and on their way to having children, you settle for what you can get. At least that’s what I did. It’s not something I’m proud of—at all. Did I ever tell you how he proposed? No getting down on one knee with some declaration of love. He slid the ring box across the table at The Clipper, shrugged, and said ‘so?’”
Jack shook his head and snickered. “And you said yes?” I nodded. “God, you’re an idiot.” I kicked him under the table, making him laugh harder. “In his defense, if the shrimp got down on one knee he would have come up to your ankle. Can’t fault the twerp for being small. For being a douchebag, sure.”
“And I know you didn’t like Coral either . . .”
“She carried her arrogant boney ass around like she was better than everyone. And personally, I thought she was jealous of you.”
“Jealous?” I narrowed my eyes at my cousin. I couldn’t imagine what she could be jealous about. Coral was beautiful and brilliant, and always loved to point out what was wrong with me and talk down to me, as though she was doing me a favor by being my friend.
“Cuz,” Jack put his hand on my shoulder. “If you only got your head out of your ass once in a while, you would see there are plenty of options out there besides what you let yourself settle for. Don’t blame the biological clock bullshit, either. You were always like this.”
I nodded. Since I was fifteen, my love life had been a train wreck. You would think it would have improved at some point. I’d accepted the fact I had perpetual bad luck.
“And if you actually looked around, you’d see guys interested in you besides the ones you end up with because you think you can’t do better.” Jack took a gulp from his coffee and raised his eyebrows at me. “Know how many fights I got into with my friends for saying stupid shit about you? A few of them used to drool. It was pathetic.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Yeah. I’m sure they drooled. As you’ve so eloquently pointed out, I make shitty decisions when it comes to men, so I think it’s a good idea to just be on my own for a bit. It’s not so bad; kind of freeing actually.
“As long as you don’t turn into the cat lady, I’m behind you one hundred percent.” Jack smirked at me.
“No cats, I promise. You look good today. How are you feeling?”
“Honestly, and I hate saying this out loud because I’ll jinx myself, I feel great. This drug seems to be working wonders. I’m not spending my day in a haze so I can actually function enough to work. Fuck knows if I’m going to grow gills or a second head, but as long as I feel like this, bring it on!” He would be the only one who could pull off gills like a champ.
Jack had an aggressive form of leukemia, and went through months of grueling chemotherapy. His doctor suggested an experimental drug when nothing else was working, and since then he’d made a fantastic turnaround. I hoped maybe the miracle we all begged God for had finally happened.
Jack furrowed his brow and turned serious. “I just want to see my baby. Any time after that is just gravy.” Before his treatment started, Ellie and Jack saw a fertility specialist to get pregnant right away, as the chemo would most likely make Jack sterile.
I nudged his shoulder. “Stop that! You’ll see the baby and be the pain in the ass father you were always meant to be.” I couldn’t handle it when Jack spoke like he may not be here for much longer. I wasn’t mature enough to discuss the ‘what if’s’ so I was determined to reside in denial. The possibility of living without my older twin scared the shit out of me. Jack was my rock, and I didn’t know how to function in a world without him.