22. Jensen
JENSEN
Seven hours into the road trip, after a break for gas and snacks, Sloane and I climb back into the SUV she rented for the fifteen-hour drive to Tahoe.
I’m behind the wheel for this stretch—we’ve been switching off every couple hours—but she maintains firm control over the aux cord, and I’m not about to fight her for it.
Every song she picks, from old-school Joni Mitchell to current Sabrina Carpenter, feels like another window into the woman I’m flat-out obsessed with understanding. Does everyone read too much into the playlists of people they’re falling for?
I want to believe all of this means something more.
I’ve got a fresh cup of black gas-station coffee wedged into the cupholder, and Sloane is sorting through our convenience store haul like she’s evaluating a new shipment of books.
“Dude, come on.” She holds up a bag of trail mix. “This is too healthy to be allowed.”
I chuckle and signal to change lanes. “Do you know how much of my life has been spent on tour buses? If I only ate garbage, my body would’ve staged a rebellion years ago.”
“Well, my body’s revolt is what started this whole thing.” She drops the trail mix into the center console and grabs a package of Twizzlers instead, tearing the top open with her teeth. “We’ve come to an understanding, and now it wants some red licorice.”
“The perfect road trip snack,” I agree, trying to sound casual.
It’s not the first time Sloane has referenced her cancer offhandedly.
Well, not counting the conversation on the trail, which was anything but casual.
But hearing her deliver a throwaway line about the disease that almost killed her sends a wave of something that straddles the line between regret and respect rushing through my veins.
I don’t know why her attitude is affecting me so much, but it does.
When my mother was sick, her illness consumed everything.
She talked about it constantly. Her symptoms, her prognosis, and which herbal supplement some woman at church recommended.
Cancer wasn’t just inside her body, it filled every crevice of our lives.
Jamie and I couldn’t take a breath that wasn’t touched by it.
But most of the time with Sloane, I forget. I know she doesn’t want sympathy or special treatment. She’s just herself, irreverent and fierce, and it startles me when I remember there’s a disease she’s still fighting, because she makes it easy not to see it.
Sometimes I worry that I’m being negligent or willfully trying to ignore reality.
I know she has cancer, and even at her stage of treatment, it can take a toll.
And because of what my mom went through, my mind can spiral to some pretty dark places if I let it.
Like when she fell asleep so fast in the ATV yesterday and stayed that way for the entire ride.
Was that her body hammering home a message she’s been actively trying to ignore?
But I’ve also known plenty of roadies and musicians who spend most of their highway time unconscious.
Sleep in a moving vehicle doesn’t have to mean anything.
But it could, and I’m sure that’s a fact she never forgets.
She dangles a Twizzler in front of my face, and I lean forward and bite off the end, wrapping my free hand around her smaller one to steady it. She doesn’t pull away immediately, and maybe I can blame the comfort of her warm skin for what comes out of my mouth next.
“My mom spent hours trying to figure out why her body turned against her.” I keep my eyes on the road, tightening my grip on the steering wheel as I feel Sloane go still in the passenger seat.
“Was it the cleaning products she used? The bottled hair dye to cover her premature grays? For a while, she was convinced it was the water in our apartment complex that never ran fully clear. There were so many possibilities and not one answer.”
“Not having answers sucks big time,” she says quietly, all the levity from our snack debate drained from her voice.
Fuck.
Why did I choose to go down this road when we have nothing but highway in front of us for hours?
I don’t talk about my mother or her death to anyone with this level of detail.
Even my brother knows the topic is off-limits, and he didn’t even get a pass when he was a half-dozen whiskeys deep and crying on my kitchen floor.
“She hated feeling like her body betrayed her,” I continue, apparently unable to make myself shut up.
Talking to Sloane is too easy, like some locked door inside me swings open before I can stop it.
But her story isn’t my mother’s, and I don’t get to project old ghosts onto what she survived.
“Not knowing why ate away at her as much as the disease.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. “I had a few weeks of going down the why rabbit hole too,” she says. “Eventually, I decided none of it was going to help me or change what was already happening. So I set my sights on radical acceptance.”
I feel those words all the way down to my bones. Damn, she blows me away.
“I think…” I clear my throat. “I think that’s extremely admirable.”
“I wasn’t always successful. But I kept trying, and eventually things got better, both physically and emotionally.” Her laugh holds an edge of self-deprecation. She’s a big fan of that. “Not before they got worse, though.”
“I wish I’d known,” I say. “I could have—”
“No.” The word carries a vehemence I don’t understand. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to see me sick.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“Don’t lie,” she says sharply. “You know better than most people that cancer makes everything different.”
“But you—”
“I didn’t want anyone to see me at my worst, not even my friends. I was in Nashville, so it wasn’t that hard to keep them away.”
“I was in Nashville,” I mutter, feeling the cord of regret tighten around my neck. So close and yet…
“You were probably touring.” She flips a licorice strand toward me, clearly wanting to lighten the tension that has crept up in the SUV’s interior. I take it from her, because what else can I do?
A thought springs to mind that makes the Twizzler turn to ash in my mouth. “Tell me you weren’t alone.”
She shakes her head. “Jeremy was with me the whole time. There was no chance of keeping him away.”
“What about your parents?” I ask, wondering if she’ll reveal any more.
“They mostly called. Well, they mostly pretended I was fine. Jeremy flew them in one weekend for a visit, but it was awkward and not good for any of us.”
My blood heats with the way she talks so matter-of-factly about her negligent parents when she deserved every bit of support the people around her could muster.
“When was this?”
“I came to Vanderbilt for a stem cell transplant right after Thanksgiving.” She adjusts the visor against the low afternoon sun. “I was supposed to be there a couple of weeks, but I had a reaction to the drugs and kind of crashed.”
“Kind of?”
“Fully,” she admits in a flat voice.
“That must have been terrifying.” And now I’m even more enraged at her mom and dad.
“I didn’t love it, that’s for sure. Ended up being in the hospital for almost two months. I was weak as a day-old kitten when I got out.”
I shake my head. “I was back in Whisper Falls for the holidays and then flew to New York to finish recording an album with a friend of mine. If I’d been in Nashville, I might have seen you. I try to get to the oncology floor at least once a month.”
She gives me a sideways look, one eyebrow raised. “I made it very clear that I wasn’t interested in visits from any guitar-wielding volunteers.”
“You wound me, Sunshine.” I press an open palm to my chest. “You were that determined not to see me?”
She presses her lips together like she’s fighting a smile. “At the time, yes.”
Okay. I like the sound of that. “But not now?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“And we’re picking up your ward at the airport.”
I snort out a laugh that morphs into a groan.
I called Cody last night from the hotel, and he told me in no uncertain terms that he was done with Whisper Falls, although he conceded that Kate is a great cook.
I also forced myself to listen to multiple voicemails from his manager and my producer friend demanding to know why I’d pawned off their golden goose.
Cody was supposed to keep that part under wraps.
I booked him a flight into Reno and told him we’d be working on songs for the new album in Tahoe.
He liked that idea. Tahoe has enough of a cool factor to appeal to his ego.
And then I convinced Sloane to let me rent a three-bedroom house on the south shore, in the vicinity of where Kristen Quinn seems to be currently stationed at her wellness retreat.
Which, if I had to guess, means she’s napping and drinking overpriced smoothies while workshopping motivational quotes that belong on throw pillows at HomeGoods.
Bringing Cody here is a complication I don’t want, but the house keeps me in Sloane’s orbit, and I’ll put up with whatever it takes for that.
I want to ask more about her treatment, about the timeline and the odds and the plan. I’m a person who needs plans the same way I need oxygen. But when I glance over, her eyes have drifted closed, and there’s a tiny bit of drool pooling in the corner of her mouth.
She really cannot stay awake in a moving vehicle.
Knowing that about her makes me smile. I want to know every small, ordinary thing about this woman. Things that only matter when you’re gone for someone the way I’m gone for her.
She sleeps most of the rest of the drive, waking up as I take the exit for the Reno airport, and blinking at the flat Nevada landscape like she’s not sure what planet she’s on.
“We’re here already?”
“You slept for four hundred miles, Sunshine.”
“That’s a personal record.” She stretches her arms overhead, yawning.