Chapter 11
Eleven
Not an option….
Less than an hour later, I sat in the waiting room of the Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre. Completely stunned. With Iain. He had laced his fingers through mine, and placed our clasped hands on top of his left denim-clad thigh.
The waiting room was tiny. I hadn’t noticed that before. But that’s how it felt now, especially here with Iain. His size and larger-than-life vitality seemed to fill up the small space to capacity.
The right thigh our hands weren’t resting on jiggled impatiently. But I didn’t bother to remind him he didn’t have to wait with me. I’d already done so—several times—and had only gotten scowls in return as if I’d somehow insulted him.
Despite his apparent impatience with all the waiting, he’d only released my hand once since we walked through the main entrance doors: when one of the nurses came to take me back for a blood draw and urine sample.
And when I returned to the small row of seats in the outer office, he’d snatched my hand back into his as soon as I sat down beside him.
“I’m sorry it’s taking so long.” I eyed the front office staff who’d whisked me away for more tests only to leave us waiting in the uncomfortable chairs for over an hour.
“It’s fine,” he answered, voice tight. “They want to compare these latest results to those of your previous tests. They need to be sure before they have you meet with the doctor.”
I peeked sideways at him. “It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here.”
He shifted in his seat, his grip on my hand becoming a little tighter. “I have some inkling.”
A couple entered the room through the Cancer Centre’s patient treatment exit door just then. The man with red hair and a somber expression on his face, and the woman wearing a knit cap and bald spaces where her hair and eyebrows should have been.
She looked to be one or two decades older than I was, but cancer had a way of crumbling a person until it was hard to know their real age. She carried a portable oxygen tank in a backpack, with a long clear tube running from it to a nasal cannula fitted to her nostrils with an elastic headband.
I watched the woman carefully shuffle out on her husband’s arm. And as she passed by, I could swear I could smell the disease eating away at her like rot, along with the medicinal scent of the chemo she’d just been injected with to fight it. Smell it, but not mind it.
Another item on the list of things to ask Dr. Keller about. Not only had my sense of smell become significantly more heightened since my diagnosis, but I’d also undergone some weird psychological changes.
For example, I used to hate the smell of Marmite—a gross food paste that was a snack food favorite among many Scots, including Iain.
But when we grabbed a quick breakfast in the clinic’s cafeteria, and Iain spread the dark goop on his toast, I’d been surprised to find I didn’t care one way or the other about its dank and yeasty aroma.
It was as if I could smell everything now, but intense smells that used to make me gag no longer struck me as unpleasant.
They just were. And then there was my 20/20 vision.
And the intense sex craze that had fallen over me for four days straight only to disappear just as suddenly and mysteriously as it had started.
My cheeks burned, wondering how I planned to bring that one up …
Iain looked over at me. “I, you know you don’t have to—” he began but was cut off when the waiting room door opened.
“Millicent Odom?” a voice called.
I gently removed my hand from Iain’s and made my way toward the nurse. “That’s me,” I said, my voice sounding as nervous to my ears as I felt.
“Hello, luv. Right this way,” the nurse said, beckoning me forward with a manila file folder. “Dr. Keller can see you now.”
Iain had followed me across the small room and stood resolutely by my side as if he meant to accompany me to my appointment with Dr. Keller.
“No, Iain,” I said, reaching out to pat his hand.
“Millicent, I’m coming with you,” he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. He clasped my hand in his as if to further emphasize his point.
But I didn’t back down. “No … this is something I need to do on my own. I really appreciate you offering, though, and I promise I’ll be back soon.”
He blinked hard, nose flaring…then he released my hand with a sad sigh. “I’ll be waiting here when you get out, Millicent.”
I turned to follow the nurse only to stop again when Iain caught my arm and pulled me back towards him. He gently cupped my neck, thumb stroking hard as he kissed the hell out of me.
He didn’t seem to give a damn about the staff watching him from the check-in window, or the nurse who waited patiently next to the treatment area’s double doors.
“You can do this alone if you want to, chridhe, but from this point forward you will always have a choice. I’m here now.”
His endearment and his sweet words brought tears to my eyes. Especially coming from someone I’d been certain gave less than two craps about me only a few days ago.
“I always cared about you,” he said. “And that was the problem. Humans are so fragile. It makes it difficult to form connections. But I am sorry for how I handled your announcement when you came into my office. I was just … caught off guard and didn’t know how else to keep you here where you’d have my support to get through this. ”
I gazed up at him, feeling so unbelievably touched. Our history rewriting itself, forcing me to reevaluate everything I’d thought I knew about him. It seemed more and more evident that I’d been reading him wrong this entire time.
“I love you.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Because it was true. Because it felt stupid to hide my feelings from a man I’d spent all weekend with naked. Because I didn’t have much time left. And what did I have to lose when my life was already on the line? There was no point guarding my heart like a wounded animal.
So I said it again. “I love you, Iain. And this weekend was the best one of my life. I never get to be the healthy girl. But you changed that. I felt whole, sexy, and strong—like I could do anything. No matter what Dr. Keller tells me in there, I’ll always have these last four days when I got to experience what it was like to be normal, to be someone who isn’t walking around under a Leukemia cloud.
So … thank you. I’m so damn grateful for this time I had with you. ”
“Millicent, moi chridhe …” His voice became rough with emotion as he pulled me in close again.
“Millicent, Dr. Keller is waiting,” the nurse reminded us.
Her expression was sympathetic, but her firm tone made it clear that I needed to follow her into the back.
I broke away from Iain, honestly afraid I wouldn’t be able to return to Dr. Keller’s office if I didn’t do it immediately. But leaving Iain’s arms felt like it should be accompanied by a ripping sound.
It hurt, almost on a physical level. And even though I still had every intention of getting the updated diagnosis on my own, I threw a few looks over my shoulder as I left.
And my heart panged at the sight of Iain, standing in the waiting room, arms folded over his chest as if it was taking everything he had to stay behind.
Which was why I wasn’t all that surprised to find him standing in the exact same place I’d left him when I returned to the lobby a mere twenty minutes later. His position hadn’t changed. Nor had the expression on his face. Not one iota. He was the same Iain I’d left behind.
But this was more than I could say for myself.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
I was in a complete state of shock, and totally mute.
Iain scanned me closely and then seemed to make up his mind about something. “Right then. Saw a pub on the way here. We’ll go there for this conversation.”
He curved an arm around my shoulders and gently guided me out the main exit towards the car park. “Think I’ll be needing a drink as well.”