I angle my face away. ‘I have real symptoms, Zac. This isn’t in my head.’
He catches my jaw in his fingers and gently guides me to look at him. ‘Do you know that severe anxiety can cause all sorts of physical symptoms? I think you should go and see a doctor about this. I know an amazing oneup here; she’s been brilliant for me and my shit. Andthis,’ he adds, holding up my phone, ‘is not a good idea. Misinformation is going to make your anxiety ten times worse. They’re doing studies at the moment on Doctor Google and how bad it is.’
A wave of shame swells in my chest. Zac’s fiancée died in his freaking arms, and he’s having to counselme.
That thought makes my eyes spill over again like a tap that won’t switch off, and I bury my face in my knees.
His palm strokes up and down my spine. ‘You don’t have to hide from me, OK?’ he says softly. ‘If this is a part of you, then I want to know about it.’
I cry into my knees while his thumb gently rubs circles into my back. When I finally catch my breath, I scrub my hands down my face, certain that I look like Frankenstein’s bride by this point.
My voice comes out strained. ‘Around a year ago, I found a swollen lymph node in my armpit that my doctor wanted to keep an eye on. It went away in the end, but because of what happened to my aunt and my grandma, it scared the absolute shit out of me. Since then, every time my body does something weird, I become fixated on it. I google, I panic, and I convince myself I have cancer.’
I leave out a key part of this explanation—the part about how Tara’s death has screwed me up too. It’s made me terrified of dying young, and I’m pretty sure it triggered all this—even before the lymph node.
Zac’s hand covers mine on my knee, the tips of our fingers threading together.
‘It’s ruining my life,’ I admit. ‘I think the reason I was sent up here from Sydney was because I screwed up on air while I was interviewing a breast cancer doctor. She said something that freaked me out, and I had a panic attack on live television. I’m surprised they didn’t fire me.’
‘Oh, sunbeam,’ Zac says softly.
My eyes sink shut, and my chest wrenches with a vehement ache.
Sunbeam.
He has no idea how much I’ve needed to hear him call me that.
My shoulder wilts against his, and he wraps an arm around me, pulling me into the warm cradle of his chest. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,’ he says into my hair. ‘When you were dealing with all this.’
I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, either. I’m so sorry.
My fears about my health begin to disappear as my focus shifts to all the places where Zac’s body is touching mine. When he tilts his face towards me, his lips accidentally brush over my hairline, and I instinctively shift even closer until I’m practically hugging him. Zac stills as my mouth hovers close to his neck. His skin smells like the woody aftershave balm I found in his bathroom. I can’t help but inhale, and neither of us moves as my exhale washes over his warm neck, my heart tripping over itself.
Is it normal to feel flutters in your stomach when your best friend’s body is pressed against yours and your lipsare almost touching their skin? To want to lean in even closer when you hear their soothing voice near your ear?
Zac suddenly detaches himself from me and climbs onto his feet, sending a blast of cold air over my body.
‘You let me know anything you need from me, OK?’ he says, his expression as tight as his voice. ‘I’m here for you.’
I gaze up at him with a grateful smile, but my heart is jackhammering my chest.
If only I knew what it is that I need.
CHAPTER 17
Two years ago
‘Zac. I’m so,sosorry.’
My useless words summon another surge of tears, and I slip my fingertips beneath my sunglasses to brush away those that spill.
Zac says nothing, his arms hanging by his sides, his empty gaze aimed somewhere in the direction of the solitary palm tree that’s planted between two graves.
Behind his shoulder, those who were invited to the burial remain gathered, some quietly chatting, others crying or comforting Tara’s poor parents, who haven’t stopped weeping.
‘It was a beautiful service,’ I mumble to Zac again because what on earth else is there to say? I’m not going to ask if he’s OK—I’mnot OK, and I wasn’t Tara’s fiancé.
‘It was,’ I think he replies, but his tone is so muted that I can’t be sure.
