CHAPTER 42
“I LOVE YOU” OVER A TRIO OF SCOOPS, MINUS THE THREE SCOOPS, MINUS THE “I LOVE YOU”
I think we should take some time apart.
I tried not to let the words become bigger than they were, but I hadn’t seen Grant since he’d dropped me off after the ride four days ago. We hadn’t spoken. Now, work was suffering—I’d called a client by the wrong name earlier in the day.
I needed to see him, so I’d texted, asking him to dinner on Wednesday night because I couldn’t let another day pass without putting myself out there. All the way.
He’d told me to pick the place, but he requested Thursday night instead, which worked just as well for me, except for how excruciating it was to suddenly know what to say and be forced to wait.
But Wednesday had slowly faded to Thursday, and tonight, if all went according to plan, life would be as close to perfect as it could get.
I’d taken special pains with my appearance, a black sheath, elevated by a simple strand of exactly fifty-eight pearls and matching bracelet with twenty-three. I’d reserved a table at Old Hickory Steakhouse inside the Opryland Hotel, a Nashville resort with indoor gardens and waterfalls. Locals went there to have dinner, walk around the tall, glass-ceilinged atrium, eat waterside, or ride in the Delta Riverboat along the indoor river. It was a Nashville must-see, and I had never been. I wouldn’t tell Grant about the room I’d reserved with the internal atrium view until after dinner, after me and my eighty-one sea jewels had told him I loved him.
This evening as I’d spritzed on my special-occasion perfume, a subtle floral scent, I’d practiced in front of the mirror, trying different combinations of the three words to accentuate.
Ilove you.
I love you.
I love you.
Three words, Grant. I. Love. You.
Definitely not that last one.
My skin vibrated with the thought of speaking the words, however I ended up saying them.
“Hi.” I bit my lower lip, almost shy at seeing Grant again, at my front door, after what had felt like months.
“Hi.” His smile was as big as mine, and his navy suit made his eyes pierce even more deeply into me.
I wanted to run to him, wrap my hand around his royal blue tie and use it to pull him to me, but seeing him also knotted my stomach.
“I’ve missed you,” I managed as we headed down the sidewalk to my car. I told him I’d drive because I needed to focus on the road so I wouldn’t self-destruct in the passenger seat.
His smile faded slightly, not a lot, but I noticed, which only made me more nervous, and determined at the same time. But I didn’t want to tell him I loved him while we were in the car. Then, I didn’t want to do it while we parked and near-silently walked into the hotel, padding across the carpeted halls like friends instead of people in a committed relationship, then onto the concrete pathways where there were too many people to have an I-love-you declaration.
I decided to wait until we were settled across the table from each other, beside a waterfall, surrounded by real, live foliage, with comforting, rich smells wafting up from the plates in front of us.
But now, as I sat and picked at a Cowboy Rib Eye Steak, the anticipation had amplified my nerves and made my tongue as thick as the Lobster Mashed Potatoes I’d ordered. I was afraid that if I tried to speak, it would all come out as one unintelligible blob, conveying a brain abnormality instead of the sentiments of my heart.
But the lights were perfectly dim, a combination of flickering gas lampposts and curtains of twinkling lights raining down all the way from the glass ceiling that appeared to be miles above us. I needed to do it now. I inhaled and counted to three under my breath.
“Grant?”
“Hmmm?”
“I—”
Something was off. His body sat across from me, but his mind was somewhere else. He glanced at the water cascading over the rock, snaking between elephant ears and ferns and all other manner of vegetation that I didn’t have names for. He wasn’t looking at me.
I was competing with water for his attention, and so I stopped, waiting for a better moment.
He didn’t notice that I’d cut myself off. Another bad sign.
Now, the meal was over, and we were walking along the water’s edge, past people taking pictures with their phones, my arm in his, slowly heading for Bravo Gelato.
I’d do it there. “I love you” over a trio of scoops. Two spoons. One bowl. Zero waterfalls.
And I’d tell Grant what I hadn’t told anyone in years. His face would widen into a grin that would make his absurd, beautiful mustache stand away from his lip in delight. He’d sweep me into his arms and loudly proclaim “Finally!” as he spun me in the air, carried me to our room, and threw me on the king-size bed, where we’d make love all night. Then, the next morning, after we were blissfully sore, we’d eat croissants on the balcony overlooking the atrium, like we were lovers in Paris, sipping green tea in plush, white bathrobes.
Yes, I would tell him over gelato. I smiled at my impending triumph. His detachment would fade when he knew I was all in. We would be happy.
But on the way, he stopped on the indoor sidewalk, next to the ridged trunk of a palm tree.
He hesitated.
Grant never hesitated.
He took my hand.
His eyes burrowed into mine.
He swallowed.
His face was not the face of a Parisian lover. His face held regret. “I wanted to tell you something over dinner, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
He looked back at the damn waterfall.
I had no idea how hard I’d been holding on to this romantic fantasy until the look on his face and the tone in his voice threatened it.
The edges of his mouth were pulled down in a deep frown, like each corner was just barely holding on to the weight of what he had to say.
Blood rushed through my ears, or maybe that was the sound of the waterfall.
Why’d they keep it so hot in here?
And how had I missed the signs? I’d been so preoccupied with plans to tell him how much he meant to me, and his plans were to tell me that things were over between us. Why else would he have that look on his face? But it didn’t make sense. Just days ago, he’d told me he loved me.
I could fix this. I had to fix this. I hadn’t been open enough with him. He didn’t know how I felt. I hadn’t said “I love you,” but I was ready. Ready to scream it loud enough for anyone and everyone passing by to hear, for all the people in the rooms with interior atrium views to look down on us and witness.
We needed to get to the gelato, the cool, creamy gelato. Everything would look different over ice cream. I pulled at his arm, tried to move toward the—which way was it?
“Penelope.” The way he said my name made me think there was a part of him that didn’t want to say it. And it was the first time I didn’t want to hear him say it.
And then my mind caught up with my body; this was more than a breakup.
My ears struggled to parse the words as the tone behind them deafened me.
How could I stop this from happening? It was so damned hot in this place. The water looked cool. If we weren’t going for gelato, maybe I could go for a swim, a quick one. Then I could get out and tell Grant—
He took my other hand, but I couldn’t feel his hands on mine. I looked down, saw the line where his skin met mine, but it could’ve been a drawing. I tried to wiggle my fi ...
“I have cancer.”
Cancer.
Cancer.
Cancer.
The word echoed in my head, rolled down the indoor sidewalk, slammed the balcony doors of all the rooms with an interior atrium view.
“Penelope, did you hear me?” he asked.
“Cancer,” someone said, maybe me.
“Yes. Pancreatic cancer. That CT scan suggested it; a biopsy confirmed it. My doc’s sending me to a surgical oncologist. I see him tomorrow.”
I think he paused, but all my senses were so dull I couldn’t be sure.
“I suspected, but I was trying to be optimistic. Penelope, pancreatic cancer is ...”
Routine. What the hell happened to routine?
His words faded in and out.
Poor.
Prognosis.
Surgery.
Stent.
Chemo.
Radiation.
The words didn’t make sense, at least not in the sporadic way I was hearing them.
“I’m sorry.” Then I heard my mother’s voice say the same thing to a little girl who also didn’t want to hear an apology. “Given everything you’ve been through, I can’t imagine telling you anything worse than telling you I have cancer.”
Please, God.
Cancer.
The word became a tangible thing that stepped outside of Grant’s body and punched me in the stomach. The word grew in size, towering over the trees, the greenery, covering all the lights on its way up to the glass ceiling, where jagged shards rained down as the word burst through the panes and reached all the way up to the moon, turning everything pitch black, darker than pitch. This was nothing, the blackness of nothing, and my whole body vanished into it, completely lost.