I shut my eyes and snapped the band on my wrist once.
It’s not real…
I couldn’t open my eyes.
He was fine. He was healthy.
I snapped the band on my wrist twice.
It’s not real. It’s not real…
The sliding door opened to the balcony, and I listened to the footsteps grow closer. Kellan leaned against the railing beside me.
“You set me up,” I said.
“I didn’t want to tell you like that. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“What kind?”
“Colon.”
Shit.
“I—” My voice started but then it trailed off. I felt like I should say something, yet I didn’t know what the right words were. Were there any right words in a situation like this one?
My fingers gripped the railing tighter. “We have to go see TJ. I won’t believe it until he tells me straight to my face.” TJ was the doctor that both Kellan and I always went to as kids. He was a good friend of Kellan’s father, so even though I hadn’t had any money or healthcare to go to a doctor’s office, TJ always checked me out for free. He was a weird guy, but a good man, and the only doctor I’d trust to tell me the truth about my brother’s diagnosis.
“Logan.” Kellan’s voice softened. “I’ve already spoken with TJ. Besides, he’s not an oncologist.”
“I trust him,” I said through clenched teeth. “I trust him, Kellan. And only him.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. We’ll go see TJ tomorrow if it will make you feel better.”
“It will.” I cleared my throat. “Until then, tell me everything you know. What stage are you in? It’s curable, right? How do we get rid of it? What can I do? How do I help? How do we fix this?” How do I fix you?
“It’s stage three.” No. That’s not good. “But for now, we wait. Like I said, I had the surgery to remove the tumor and two lymph nodes. We start chemotherapy in a week and we have to give it time to see if it works. The chemo will help stop any potential cells that may have spread elsewhere in my system.”
“What happens if they spread elsewhere?”
He went quiet.
No.
No.
No.
I bit my tongue. “You should’ve told me.”
“I know.”
We turned around to face the house. Erika screamed at her mother as she yelled back at her. Alyssa tried her best to neutralize the situation, but had no luck whatsoever.
“You can’t marry a person who has cancer, Erika. It makes no sense! You’re thinking with your heart instead of your head.”
What a fucking awful thing to say to a person.
“God. Their mom is insane. I forgot how insane she is. She actually makes Erika seem…normal?”
“She’s a tough one, that’s for sure.” Kellan dropped his head a little and stared at his shoes. “She’s not completely wrong, though.”
“What?”
“Erika’s in this panic mode. She’s rushing to marry me, just in case something happens. Just in case, things go wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be her husband but…” His words faded off and he looked back up into his home, which seemed like it was seconds away from exploding.
I wanted to dive deeper into his thoughts on marrying Erika, but I could tell by his body language that he wasn’t in the mood.
The conversation going on inside the house must’ve hit its boiling point, because Lauren went storming off. Erika quickly started clearing the dining room table, breaking plates in the sink, and rearranging chairs while Alyssa stood back watching.
“Uh, should we go help her?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s part of her process. Just let it happen.”
I snapped my band once more. Or twice. Maybe fifteen times.
“You know what’s crazy? I smoke and you get cancer.”
“What’s yours is mine…”
“And what’s mine is yours,” I replied.
“If it makes you feel better, you can’t get colon cancer from smoking. But you should stop smoking.”
I huffed at his parenting voice.
But he wasn’t wrong.
“Grandpa had colon cancer,” I said, my voice cracking. It was what ended his life.
“Yeah.” Kellan nodded. “I know.”
The only person in my life who loved me like my brother did was my grandfather. Watching his life be sucked away from him was the hardest thing I’d ever had to witness. What was even worse was how fast it happened. One day he was there, and a few months later, he wasn’t. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye, because he lived so far away.
“Listen. Maybe I should move back here for a while. I really had nothing going on back in Iowa.”
“Yeah?” he asked, sniffling his nose, placing his hands on the back of his head.
“Yeah. No big deal. I might even go see Ma soon. See how she’s been doing.”
“It’s not good,” he said. “I was going to go grab her food stamps card and take her some groceries later this week.”
“I can pick it up tomorrow.”
He cringed. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Logan. You know…with you being clean and all. Plus, with what you just found out. I don’t want you falling back into that world.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
I laughed and shoved him. “Dude. You’re the one with cancer, and you’re sitting here worrying about me. Stop. You’ve taken care of Ma and me our whole lives. It’s my turn, okay?” When the word cancer fell from my lips I felt like dying.
“Okay,” he sighed, crossing his arms. “I have a few things to do tomorrow after we go see TJ, but Erika can drive you.”
“She’ll do that?”
“If I ask, yeah. But don’t be surprised if you have to make a few stops beforehand.”
I shrugged my left shoulder.
He shrugged his right.
We watched Erika destroy the house, before she put it together again, and I wondered the whole time if I was really strong enough to face my past again. I didn’t know how it would feel, coming face to face with Ma.
I didn’t know how strong I was.