Chapter 10 #2
I’ve missed that.
“Can you believe this?” Saoirse says.
At the sound of her voice, my hand slips away and tightens around the rail.
Callum exchanges a glance with Aidan before he guides Lark by the elbow. “Let’s see if there are more porpoises on the starboard side,” he says.
“But these ones are so close—” Her voice shifts higher, and she scuttles across the deck. “Oh! Yeah, let’s see.”
Rory, Deirdre, and Anvi follow suit and move to the other side of the boat. Subtle. Real subtle.
Lark loves to fix people up. She’d even tried to matchmake for her own fiancé before they got together and keeps an eye open for eligible men and women for Saoirse. She’d better not try to pull anything with me and Aidan. Moving backward isn’t an option and there is no future with him.
The moment is ruined, anyway. The captain’s fishing rod twitches and Aidan goes over to look.
Lark notices I’m alone and scoots onto the bench beside me. “Hey. I don’t want this maid of honor thing to be one more stressor. If there’s too much on your plate with rotations—”
“No, no, no! I’m good.”
“Are you sure? You looked kinda out of it earlier.”
I nod rapidly. “Yeah, I just zoned out for a second, but you can count on me. I won’t ruin your wedding, too.”
Lark gestures to the bay around us. “How is this ruined? It’s beautiful—the sun is shining and I’m enjoying this view with the man I love and my favorite people. Seriously. Chill, Lo.”
She waves the rest of the wedding party back over.
“Lark and I were talking earlier,” Callum begins. “And we’re gonna need some help on Wednesday.”
I already had to request Wednesday afternoon off for my follow-up care appointment at the oncologist’s office, so it’s good timing.
“We’d planned to put favors together for the guests, and welcome baskets for the out-of-towners,” Lark explains, “but one of my animators is out with the flu and I need to put in some extra hours so production doesn’t fall behind.”
“I’ll do it—” Aidan answers at the same time I say, “I can handle that.”
We glance at each other. Amusement is splashed across his face.
“Great!” Lark says. “I was going to ask you two to do it together. Thanks so much, you’re both lifesavers.”
No matter how many times you wear a hospital gown, you never quite get used to the feeling of your ass hanging out the back. Every year since I got the all clear, I’ve had a full annual workup to monitor my health. Poked, prodded, the whole nine yards.
The phlebotomist gives me an apologetic smile as she labels the last blood sample vial with my name, birth date, and patient ID number. I smooth down the bandage she’d placed in the crook of my elbow.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia has a good remission rate, but my case had required three treatment cycles of chemo. I always figured if I could get through that, I could get through anything.
But I didn’t do it alone.
My mom gave me a bone marrow donation for a stem cell transplant. It allowed me to take a higher dose of chemo, which ultimately saved my life. Finding a family match was a stroke of luck; it’s not always so easy.
When my dad learned that leukemia rates are higher among Latine people and ethnicity can be important in tissue matching, he organized a local drive to get hundreds of his coworkers’ cheeks swabbed.
My dad cared—but whether it was due to stoic machismo or depression, or a mixture of the two, he struggled to connect with me when I was actually in treatment.
If there’s any way we’re alike, it’s that we both hate feeling powerless.
We just handle it differently. I made treating cancer my own life’s mission.
He could never quite handle the loss of control and stayed away.
“Any concerns?” the doctor asks, breaking my reverie.
“Not really. I’m a medical student. Stress and insomnia are part of the deal.”
She nods. “Yes, I remember.”
I don’t mention that my stifling mother is adding to the stress load.
She’s already texted me twice: once to remind me of the appointment—as if I’ve ever overlooked my calendar—and just a few minutes ago to follow up.
When it comes to these annual visits, she practically foams at the mouth until we get the all clear.
Honestly, I can take feeling like a pincushion; it’s the wait between the exam and another No evidence of disease on my chart a few days later that is the worst part.
When the appointment is over and I’m back in clothes that don’t expose my backside, I confirm with my mom that (a) I am alive and (b) I made it to the cancer center.
She always assumes I’m kidnapped or in a roadside ditch when I don’t answer and sends me increasingly unhinged messages until I do.
Having an ocean between us makes her even jumpier than normal about these visits.
Which, in turn, kind of makes me anxious about them.
My greatest fear is a relapse that would derail my medical training.
Of course, I don’t want to go through chemo again either, and there are always those big mortal fears that revolve around the diagnosis—especially considering how difficult it was to treat—but I’m worried it will interfere with my purpose.
Everything I’ve worked for can’t be rendered moot. It just…can’t.
Shaking off the itch of anxiety, I exit out of my mom’s text and click on Aidan’s contact.
Hey, are you around to take care of those wedding favors?