King Of Nothing

Prologue

PROLOGUE

43.0760° N, 107.2903° W

Elora

W ith the weightofmy mom’s shoulder pressed into mine, I flip through a travel magazine that’s so tattered that someofthe images have started to disintegrate off the worn pages.

“I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans,” Mom says wistfully when I turn the page to a photoofSt. Louis Cathedral lit up at night.

“Really?” I ask, studying the pictures on the other page, photosofcobblestone roads, people drinking at cute bars, and couples walking hand in hand on sunlit streets.

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“You’ve never talked about it.”

“I’ve never had the money or the time to take a trip like that.” She laughs while my insides shrivel up. We’ve never had money—or at least not enough—so that’s never been a big deal to me. But time is something I always assumed we’d have plentyof.

“Millie Hart.”

Hearing Mom’s name, I get up and grab my purse along with hers, then take her hand as we walk across the waiting room toward Tiffany. The pretty redhead has worn an ever-present reassuring smile every time we’ve seen her. “How are you today, ladies?”

“Good, and you?” Mom asks as we walk down the cold hallway toward Dr. Howards’ office.

“All right. Jackson’s summer break started yesterday, so you’ll have to ask me that question again in a coupleofweeks when he’s been home every single day.” She laughs, and Mom and I join in. Her son is a little older thanthe kids I teach at the preschool where I work, so I imagine having oneofthose little rascals around all summer when they’ve been at school all year would be a lot. Especially since he’s a boy. I mean, don’t get me wrong; girls can be a handful. But boys have an energy inside them that seems unlimited most days.

“Are you guys doing anything fun this summer?” I ask as Mom removes her shoes and steps onto the scale Tiffany stops in front of.

“I have to work, so he’ll be at camp for a few hours each day. Then, at the endofthe summer, we’re taking a Disney cruise for a week, so that should be fun.” She jots down Mom’s weight.

“I’ve heard those are fun,” I say as Mom leans her weight into me and slips her shoes back on.

“Me too.” She pushes open the door across the hall and smiles at us. “Dr. Howards should be just a coupleofminutes. Do you want any water while you wait?”

I look at Mom, and she shakes her head.

“I think we’re okay, thanks,” I tell Tiffany, and she nods before she backs out, closing the door.

As Mom gets settled in the seat next to me in frontofthe huge desk taking up mostofhis office, I look at all the plaques and framed newspaper clippings on the walls around the room. Each one showcases Dr. Howards’s accomplishments in the fieldofcancer.

“Millie, Elora.” Dr. Howards steps into the room, seeming so much older than the first time I met him eight years ago. “How are you feeling today, Millie?” His gaze becomes laser-focused on Mom as he takes a seat behind his desk.

“Great.” Her hand finds mine on the armofmy chair.

He nods, then steeples his fingers under his chin. “I got your labs from the blood work you did today. I wish I had better news, but your numbers don’t look good,” he says, and Mom’s cold fingers squeeze mine.

“Okay.”

“So what is the next step?” I ask him.

“Honey,” Mom whispers, and I look over at her. “I’m done.”

“What?”

“I’m done. I’m not trying any more treatments.”

“You still have options.” I turn to Dr. Howards. “She still has options, right?”

Her fingers around mine squeeze tight once again. “I don’t want to spend the last… however long I have left… in bed, because I’m so exhausted and can’t get up. I want to live.”

“You just said you’re done,” I bite out, getting angry.

“I’m done with chemo, radiation, and getting poked and prodded like some kindofscience experiment, honey.”

“Tell her that she has to keep trying.” I look at Dr. Howards, pleading with my eyes. “Tell her we can do other things and have other options.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Mom repeats, and when I meet her gaze, the mask she’s worn for years has slipped. The pain I see in her eyes is so overwhelming my chest constricts while my knees turn to Jell-O. If I weren’t sitting, I know I would fall over.

“But what about me?” The question is whispered.

“You’ll be okay.”

Will I? She’s been my whole life, my entire life, and now I’m just supposed to start figuring out how I’ll survive without her? I can’t do that. She’s my best friend.

“Mom.”

“We still have time.”

“But how long?” Tears clog my throat, and she looks at Dr. Howards.

“You know I don’t like putting a timelineonthese things,” he says gently, and my hand balls into a fist so tight my nails dig into my skin. “But without treatment, I’d say a year. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more.”

“One year.” Oh God, I’m going to pass out or throw up all over his fancy desk.

“Then we’ll make it the best year we’ve ever had,” Mom inserts, squeezing my fingers, and I wonder what the hell is wrong with her and how she can think this is okay. This is the furthest thing from okay. And the best year we’ve ever had? This will be the worst time in my life, not the best.

“Can we talk about pain management going forward?” she asks Dr. Howards. “I’m not in pain now, but I’d like to know what happens when I am.”

“Absolutely,” he agrees. I try to listen to the twoofthem discuss drugs and what she will be facing over the next few months, but I don’t hear a word they say because it feels like I’m sitting underwater, watching the world explode above me like someillusion.

When it’s time to leave, I walk outofDr. Howards’s office, feeling the complete oppositeofwhat I did on our first visit. That glimmerofhope he planted in my chest during our first appointment has been replaced by fear and inevitability.

“Sit with me for a minute,” Mom says, taking my hand in hers, I let her lead me into the atrium set up in the middleofthe hospital. As we take a seat on a memorial bench someone’s family donated, she looks around. “It’s so beautiful in here.”

“It is,” I agree, not really seeing the flowers, trees, and plants that have been tended to with love over the years and overflow the space. Each one was planted in memoryofsomeone who didn’t make it and probably some who did.

“I know you’re upset.”

Upset? I’m not upset. I'm devastated.

“This wasn’t an easy choice for me to make.” Her hand squeezes mine. “Please look at me, Elora.”

Slowly, I turn my head her way, and my chin wobbles when our eyes meet.

“I love you more than anything in this whole world. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” Her smile is soft. “Me getting sick has been so hard on you, and I wish I could take your hurt away. I never want to hurt you.”

“Mom.” My throat constricts.

“I want to see you happy again. I want to be happy again, even if it’s just for a little while.” Tears fill her eyes. “I’m sorry I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not doing it on purpose.” And I know she’s not. Logically, I know this isn’t even about me. It’s about her. Even if I’ve brought her to eachofher appointments, I’m not the one being filled with drugs that make me so sick I can’t get outofbed for days and days. I’m not the one suffering from radiation burns that blister and bruise.

I drag in a breath and close my eyes. She’s given me so much and never asked me for anything but this.

I can give this to her.

I can put my own feelings aside and pretend this is okay.

“All right.” I open my eyes and lean into her. “Let’s make this the best year ever.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, and I shove all the pain sitting on my chest like a lead weight into a tiny box, then lock it up, where I’ll keep it until the day I have no choice but to say goodbye to her.

Only, I don’t know the time for that will come sooner than either of us realize…

Roman

40.7644°N 73.9772°W

1:11 p.m.

I jolt awake when someone pounds on my bedroom door, lifting my head off my pillow to look across the expanse of the dimly lit room.

“What?” I bark, and the naked female sprawled out on the other side of the mattress opens her eyes to look at me.

“Roman!” Clifford calls through the thick wood, and I shake my head.

Fuck no. “I’m sleeping.” My head falls back against the pillow, and I close my eyes.

“It’s Valentino.”

My muscles tense.

“Fuck.” I toss back the sheet that barely covers me and get out of bed. After walking across the room to the door, I turn the lock and throw it open. When I see the look on Clifford’s weathered face, my knees weaken. “What happened?”

“You need to get dressed, kid,” he says quietly.

“What happened?”

“Roman, please, get dressed.”

“Just fucking tell me!” I bite out, and he shakes his head as his eyes fill with sympathy.

“He’s in the hospital.”

The hospital?

“How bad?”

“You need to get to him.”

I need to get to him.

My vision dims around the edges as dread crawls up my throat. “Can you get her home and call for my car?”

“Of course,” he says, dipping his chin, and then I hear him quietly talking as I walk across the room to my closet.

Having no idea that two hours later, my life is going to be irrevocably changed forever.