Chapter Fifty-Two
Fifty-Two
GOOGLE SEARCH: huntington’s disease
A hereditary, degenerative disease that causes a progressive loss of movement control, thinking abilities, and emotions …
GOOGLE SEARCH: huntington’s disease life expectancy
Average life expectancy is about ten to fifteen years after diagnosis. In rare cases, symptoms can begin as early as infancy and go unnoticed for long periods of time.
GOOGLE SEARCH: huntington’s disease cure
There is no known cure for Huntington’s disease. However, patients can be asymptomatic or presymptomatic for a number of years.
The words blur into each other, black letters burning my eyes against the harsh white light of my phone screen. Why am I even looking at this? It’s done. He’s got a clock. There’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.
I squeeze the phone in my hand, wishing I could change the answers.
Change everything. After all this—after everything—some horrible, mutated, twisted blip in his DNA is going to rip him from this world?
Some microscopic thing I can’t even see?
It’s unfair, so unbelievably, tragically, outrageously un-fucking-fair.
Tears have the nerve to sting my eyes again and I hate them.
And I hate myself. And I hate the world.
And I even hate Peter—for making me care so much.
For being him and making me love him like this.
For leaving me. I take my phone and hurl it across the room.
It slams against the wall, and I can’t tell if the sound is my phone screen shattering or my heart cracking wide open.