Chapter 32
Lo
“I know what it looks like, but Emma Kinnane is just a fan who wanted to say hi,” Aidan insists, his face scrunched up on my phone screen. The ocean between us didn’t scare me a few days ago, but after playing phone tag for the last twelve hours, I feel every mile stretching between us.
“The label wanted you to do a PR relationship with her, though.” I scowl at the clock in the nourishment room as it inches toward six. I just want to go home.
I wasn’t expecting to be blindsided by a rumor about Aidan and another woman less than twenty-four hours before my biopsy.
Then I couldn’t get ahold of him for hours and doubt festered.
From the uncertainty around tomorrow’s procedure to the snide comments my mom sent along with the gossip site links, I’m completely off-kilter.
This will come up in every conversation with my mom that so much as mentions Aidan from now until the end of time.
“Lo, I would never humiliate you like that. All that happened was she came up after our set, said she loved the new song, and we took a photo.” Aidan looks deep into my eyes through the camera.
“When I say that you’re mine and I’m yours, I mean it.
I don’t want the world thinking that I’m with anyone else. ”
I want so badly to trust Aidan, but am I going to ignore a massive red flag because I’m scared of losing him—and facing leukemia again on my own?
People will be interested in his love life no matter who he’s with.
It comes with the gig and I’d thought I was prepared for that.
But how will the fans treat a regular Latina med student who dares date an Irish star?
How will I manage if I’m sick and a photo of me is compared against a singer he shares a stage with or a celebrity he brushes elbows with at an event?
Can he stay attracted to me if he’s surrounded by beautiful fans on the road, and I’m bald and bedridden back in Galway?
The stethoscope around my neck, a gift from my dad, serves as a reminder that not everyone can handle the stress of loving someone who’s sick.
Instead of responding to Aidan’s declaration when I’m feeling so uncertain, I change the subject.
“How are you feeling about the meeting with Nigel tomorrow?”
“Shitting bricks,” he answers. “After tonight’s set, the band and I are going to squeeze in a last-minute demo recording. Martin found a studio willing to rent out to us on short notice.”
My brows pinch. He’s barely slept since arriving in New York.
“Aidan, I know this meeting is huge, but I just want you to know that you’re enough on your own. Your music touches people. The more I listen to the album, the more things I find to love—”
Oisín bursts through the door of the nourishment room. “They’re doing a lateral canthotomy in room 206. We need you over there right now.”
“Sorry, I have to go.” I frown down at Aidan’s face on my screen. How can this work when we have to steal every moment together? “You’re ready for this.”
If only I felt ready for what’s ahead of me.
I tuck a cake under my arm and head toward the register.
Yes, a whole cake because screw it . After a busy shift in the A&E, I’d called Aidan again to complete our conversation but he didn’t answer.
We hadn’t even managed to say goodbye to each other, much less I love you .
Is that how the divide starts, being too busy to say three words?
Frustrated, I dragged myself to the supermarket as the streetlamps flickered to life.
All day, my mom has been texting me about the yearly oncologist appointment.
I’ve been ignoring her, but it must look like I’m so upset about our conversation about Aidan that I refuse to speak to her.
In reality, I don’t know how to truthfully answer without sending her into a complete meltdown, so I haven’t answered at all.
Each message escalates from the last. Guilt needles me as I read them.
First, the lecture about how important monitoring is.
And then she laid into me about Aidan. How it will never work and I know it.
Better to know this about him now than before I really get attached.
Yeah, too late for that. Each of her texts gives a megaphone to my internal doubts.
The one that sent me to Tesco in search of a comforting confection just read, He’ll leave you. They always do.
A lady with an overflowing cart cuts me off and the cake slips from my grasp, the plastic clamshell packaging popping open on the floor and sending it face down onto the grocery store tile.
I stare down at the ruined dessert. I just wanted to feel sorry for myself for a few minutes, in the company of a cake, but I can’t even do that.
“I’m so sorry!” the woman says, but it’s too late. My chin starts to wobble right there in the checkout line next to the Cadbury. “Let me find someone who works here to clean this up—”
Mortified, she runs off and abandons her cart at the end of the line.
It’s all too much: Aidan with that beautiful woman, my mom berating me for being dumb enough to date him in the first place, my bad blood test results, the dropped cake. My breath starts to come faster and my eyes fill. I’m spiraling. I need Lark, but she’s on her honeymoon.
“Lo?”
Saoirse walks up, the handle of a basket tucked into the crook of her elbow. She cringes at the splatted cake at my feet, then takes a long look at me.
I take a shuddering breath to try to keep it together. “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
For the first time in weeks, I tell someone the unvarnished truth. I don’t have to protect Saoirse’s feelings or manage my expectations or worry about upholding a reputation. “No. I’m pretty awful at the moment, thanks for asking.”
“Is it…Aidan?” she asks cautiously.
My chin drops to my chest. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
Saoirse steps out of line and motions for me to follow her down an aisle. “Forget the cake. Do you mind drinking the garbage wine that comes out of a box?”
Saoirse slides my phone back across my coffee table. On the screen are Aidan and Emma Kinnane. “Maybe Emma didn’t even mean for her post to start rumors, you know? She’s mentioned Aidan’s music in an interview before. That’s probably what gave his team the PR idea in the first place.”
“I believe him when he says he didn’t agree to a PR stunt,” I tell her. “I don’t think he’d disregard my feelings like that. It still sucks, though. My mom will be forever convinced he’s a cheater. She’s been calling me a delusional fangirl all day.”
“Oof, parents are tough.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I take a swig and grimace at the robust notes of nail polish remover and cough syrup. My cheeks are starting to numb, but my emotions are still vivid.
“I’ll tell you one thing: A guy has never said the kind of things to me that Aidan has sung about you.
” Saoirse sips her wine. “The last one I went out with used to come into the flower shop every week and buy a bouquet. He said they were for his mam. After four dates, I ran into him and his girlfriend at a coffee shop. With their infant twins. Turns out that all our dates were during nights she’d stayed with them in the NICU. ”
“If I were you, I’d rip him in half with my bare hands. Right in front of his babies.”
“You terrify me,” Saoirse says, laughing. “But I can’t say I didn’t want to. I tracked her down and sent her proof of his cheating that night. A couple months later, she emailed me an update that she’d left him and took the house and the dog.”
She’s strikingly beautiful, with a warm heart. It’s a shame that she can’t seem to find anyone worthwhile.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask, separating the purples out of a handful of Skittles.
I pile them up on the coffee table. We’ve chewed through two bags already.
Rather, I have and she’s grabbed a few discarded currant-flavored ones.
“I don’t know if you know this, but I had leukemia in high school. ”
“I remember.”
“I’ve been NED—no evidence of active disease—for a long time, but you still have to get a checkup every year. This last one was…scary.”
She scoots closer. “It’s back?”
“Maybe. Probably. I have a biopsy tomorrow afternoon to confirm.”
“Will Aidan be back in time?”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. It might take a few days to get my results back anyway.”
Saoirse’s face hardens. “He didn’t want to be here for you?”
“He has his big meeting with that Nigel Culpepper—”
“Oh, screw that guy!” Tipsy Saoirse is a real girl’s girl.
“This is a huge deal for him, so I didn’t say anything about the appointment.”
“Wait. He doesn’t know? At all?”
“No one knows about the lab results but you. Until there’s concrete news to share, I just want to keep it to myself.”
She looks at me like that’s the saddest thing she’s ever heard. No doubt she means well, but I hate it. “You’re going alone?”
“Yeah. It’s cool. I’m an independent woman.” If I’m getting sick, that’s probably for the best. Relying on Aidan now will only make the heartache worse if he lets me down later. I think about the scissors inked on his arm and how much it hurt to cut him from my life before.
“I’d go to the clinic with you, but I have a baby shower to set up. Maybe I can move something around—”
“It’s not a big deal. Really. And focusing on this meeting is the right choice for Aidan.”
“It’s not a choice if you don’t let him know what’s going on,” she says.
“He can’t do anything at the appointment anyway. It would only distract him. Between Harvest in the Park, recording the demo, and the meeting, he’s got a full plate. I wish he could be here with me, but it’s just horrible timing.”
“Hey, it’s okay to be scared. I’d be scared, too.” Saoirse can see right through the final wall left standing between Aidan and me. I might as well be honest with her.
“It’s not just the cancer. I mean, that’s a huge part of it, but this thing between Aidan and me, I worry that it’s doomed to fail.
My performance during rotations is slipping.
I need to put more of myself into it. Aidan will be recording and touring again soon.
And if these results come back positive…
” I wring my hands and try to focus anywhere but her eyes.
“What, you think he wouldn’t be there for you in a worst-case scenario? Which, it might not be.”
It sounds so simple, but it’s not. She hasn’t experienced it like I have.
It’s not something he’d consciously decide out of shallowness, but it would come between us sooner than later.
“My greatest fear is getting sick and being abandoned for it again. Having to go through it alone. My first real boyfriend cheated on me while I was hospitalized.”
“Unbelievable.”
Buzzed and emotional, I plow on. “My own dad couldn’t stand being around me because it was too depressing.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “Your dad? Wasn’t he at Lark’s wedding?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t talked since. And he’s the last person I would tell if I was sick again. It just…brings up lots of painful memories. Sometimes love isn’t enough and people can’t handle it when things get hard. Aidan might not be able to handle it.”
“Look, I can’t guarantee it’ll work out between you two, but I do know Aidan wouldn’t ditch you for having cancer or see it as some kind of flaw. You can’t make him out to be a villain here when you haven’t let him know what’s happening.”
I sigh. That’s fair. I haven’t given him a chance to be there for me.
“And you don’t have to be this perfect ice queen all the time. You’ve got to be vulnerable from time to time or else you’ll have a breakdown and find yourself crying in Tesco.”
I give her a small smile. “Thanks for rescuing me back there.”
“Don’t mention it.” She tosses a Skittle into her mouth. “No matter what happens, you’re not going through it alone. You’ve got me. You’ve got Lark.”
The boxed wine glugs as I refill my cup under the spout. “Thank you, truly, but I’m sick of talking about this. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Is this the part where I’m meant to lament the guy with twins? Because I already forgot his name.”
“Just tell me what’s new with you. Got any more weddings booked?”
Saoirse swirls her glass. “Well, the museum is having this botanical art exhibition and they want me to do the event design for their opening gala.”
“Seriously? That’s amazing!”
“You know, when I was setting up for Lark’s wedding, this guy…”
I lean forward at the change in her tone and she hides her pink face behind her glass. “Oh my god, tell me.”
“He was a right bollix.”
“He was hot,” I translate.
Saoirse laughs. “Long hair. Big brown eyes. Very…sturdy. Just my type, really. Until he insulted me and my work.”
“Who was he? Was he a guest?”
“At first, I thought he worked for the castle, but he’s an event planner. Gabriel something.”
“Point me to him and I’ll kick his sturdy ass.”
“I think someone beat you to it. He was using crutches.”
“You think I won’t beat someone with their own crutches for trash-talking my friend?”