Chapter 19 #3
“You didn’t cause this, Cara,” she said more gently. “Stop trying to shoulder it.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “It’s just—this is cosmically unfair.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What is?”
“This!” I gestured helplessly at the room around us—the beeping monitors, the too-white sheets, the IV pole beside her bed. “All of it. You don’t deserve this.”
Trixy snorted. “Well, I certainly hope not.”
“It’s not funny,” I snapped. After everything she’d been through—the cancer, the chemo, the amputation of her leg—how could fate or whatever higher power existed allow this to occur?
“It’s only been six weeks since you got your test results back.
You were finally—” I broke off, breath hitching. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“Of course not.” She shrugged and offered me a small, tired smile. “But, Cara, that’s life.”
Nothing about what she said or her nonchalant attitude made sense to me. Trixy was lying in yet another hospital bed, but she spoke as if she’d been mildly inconvenienced, like this was a flight delay, not a wreckage.
“How can you be so…okay about this?” I asked, question slipping out before I could bite it back.
“Okay?” Trixy’s eyes sharpened. Late afternoon light slanted through the narrow window, catching the tangle of tubes and wires that were attached to her like some cruel, modern art installation.
“You think I’m okay? Like I don’t give a fuck that every bone in my only leg is broken?
Or that my arm is basically a hardware store right now?
” She gestured weakly at herself. “I’m going to be stuck in this fluorescent hellscape for God knows how long and—”
She faltered, her voice pitching high as her breathing turned shallow. Every instinct screamed at me to fix this, to reach out, to say something comforting or stupid or reassuring, but she lifted a finger, stopping me before I could speak. I clamped my mouth shut and waited.
After a minute, she cleared her throat. “I’m so bitter, Cara. But I also know how lucky I am to be alive, and I will never take that for granted.”
“Oh,” I said, the single syllable falling flat between us.
“Yeah, oh.” She shifted slightly, wincing before settling again.
“Look, I get that you’ve been struggling since your transplant.
That kind of fear doesn’t just evaporate, and nobody understands how loud death can get better than a cancer kid.
But… You know that’s not the only thing that can kill you, right? ”
“I know,” I said. “This is different though.”
“How?” she asked. “Should I never drive again because someone might T-bone me? Should I stop living because the future is unpredictable?” Her gaze held mine, unflinching. “Being afraid of what might happen seems like a terrible way to spend your life.”
Something in me cracked open then, not painfully, but cleanly.
Like a window finally unlatching. I saw it all at once: what JJ had tried to tell me that morning in my bedroom, what Stella had been raging about for the better part of a year.
Existing in remission and actively living life were not the same thing.
I’d collared myself to a state of limbo, locked between my sickness and the future, terrified that if I took a step forward, I’d be thrown back into the dark.
But Trixy’s accident illustrated how fragile and fleeting life could be.
A clean bill of health didn’t guarantee longevity.
It didn’t matter if you were healthy or sick, young or old, because nobody was invincible.
Everything—love, life, the future—could change in the span of a song, in a long, drawn-out kiss, or even in a single heartbeat.
“Earth to Cara.”
I blinked, the room snapping back into focus. Trixy was watching me now, eyebrow raised, mouth quirked in amusement.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I spaced out.”
“You good?” she asked.
“Yeah. I just…realized something important.”
She tapped the bed’s metal railing once with her knuckle. “Does this have something to do with JJ?”
A reflexive flinch gave me away, so I nodded. “I did what I always do. I panicked and pushed him away.”
Trixy pursed her lips but didn’t lecture me, which somehow made it worse. “Do you think you can fix things?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, my gaze dropping to the tangle of blankets at the foot of her bed. I wasn’t sure I deserved forgiveness. JJ didn’t owe me anything, especially not after I’d bolted the moment things got real. “But I’m going to try.”
The words felt fragile as they left my mouth, like they might splinter if I examined them too closely.
I pushed myself to my feet, smoothed my hands down my thighs, and focused on the solid feel of the floor beneath me.
The fear was still there, humming low in my chest, but it no longer had the final say.
“Sorry, but I should go.” I gave her uninjured hand a brief squeeze, then stepped back. “There’s something I need to do.”
Trixy smiled then, the first real one I’d seen since arriving at the hospital. “Good. It’s about damn time you stopped waiting for permission to live.”