My heart stopped and I swayed for a second, light-headed. “What? How? I thought…” I couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. “Cancer?”
“Yes.” Hannah pulled herself out of my arms and paced across the tiny office to the miniblind-coveredwindow. “That phone call I got earlier was from my doctor. I’d found a lump on my neck. My thyroid. There was a mix-up in the lab and it took them longer than usual to run the tests. This here”—she pointed to the Band-Aid that she still wore on her neck—“wasn’t from a curling iron. I had a biopsy done that Monday, when I left you a note. The results just came back.”
“I don’t understand.” My lipsfelt numb. “You said everything was okay. You just burned your neck with a curling iron. None of this makes sense.”
“I LIED.” Hannah screamed as tears coursed down her cheeks. “I didn’t want it to be true. We just met. I didn’t know how to unload all that on you. And the longer I avoided it, the less it felt real. I thought, I hoped, that everything would be okay. But it’s not.” Hannah bent overand held her stomach. “It’s not.”
I crossed the office and pulled Hannah back into my arms, but she fought me the whole way. “It’s going to be okay,mon chou. We’ll get through this together. I promise.”
Hannah pushed me away. “You can’t say that! You don’t know. It’s not easy. It’s not pretty. It’s scary. I’m afraid that I’m going to die. I’m so scared. I’m so scared, Luc.”
My heart plummetedand I pulled a now limp Hannah into my arms. She fell against my chest as sobs wracked her body. I held her in my arms and rocked her slightly as I ran a hand up and down her back, trying to calm her as I would a child.
“It’s too early to think like that. You have to see a doctor and have tests and make a plan. You are light-years from losing hope. You have to fight.”
Hannah made a sound halfwaybetween a sob and a laugh. “I wish it were that easy. I’m so mixed up. I don’t know what to do.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Do you want to stay here? I can have the best specialists flown here in a matter of hours. Or do you want to go home? Be with your family and your doctor there?”
“Home. I want to go home.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Can we stay at my apartment? I want to sleepin the bed my dad made me.”
“Done.”
The next few minutes were filled with bureaucratic agony as my people got the plane ready. All I could do was hold an exhausted Hannah and pray.
When we finally got in the air, it was an excruciating flight. Unlike the one to Monaco that’d been so full of hope and laughter and lovemaking, this flight only had tears and anguish.
“I’ve spent my entire juniorand senior years in high school being ‘the hospital girl,’ and now it’s happening all over again. Did I ever tell you about the aftermath of my accident?” Hannah gave an ugly laugh as she looked out the dark window. “I spent so much time in the hospital—first in the intensive care unit and then in the pediatric ward because I was under eighteen. It was a special hell of numbness and pain and doctorsand nurses and little kids crying. It was not how I wanted to spend my junior year in high school. And my dad is just a plumber—my mom works as an aide in an elementary school—so we didn’t have the best insurance. Medical expenses almost bankrupted my parents. And here we are again. Only worse because now it’s…” Hannah trailed off like she couldn’t say the word.
“Mon chou.”I reached a hand towardher but she pulled away.
“I can’t do this. If I let you touch me, I’m going to fall apart. And I can’t do that. I need to keep it together.”
“There is nothing wrong with falling apart. That is what I’m here for, Hannah. I’ll be your shoulder, your support, whatever you need. I am here for you.”
Hannah’s eyes welled with tears as she shook her head. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I’m going to go lie downfor a bit. I’m tired.”
I sighed in frustration but let it go. “Okay. Get some sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
The rest of the flight passed by in a blur. I texted my brother to update him on our situation and had my assistant, Morgan, cancel all my upcoming appointments. Hannah was my only priority. I tried to comfort her as best I could, but it felt like the closer we got to LasVegas, the more distance she put between us. By the time our plane was on its final approach, Hannah was asleep on the seat next to me, exhausted from the tears and stress.
She only murmured softly when I picked her up and carried her off the plane. I wish the rest of the night could’ve gone as smoothly, but I had to wake her up so we could get through Customs and Immigration.
Ten minutes laterI bundled a cranky Hannah into the back of our SUV, where she promptly fell asleep on my shoulder. And later, when I carried her into her apartment and placed her, still sleeping, on the bed her father had made for her the last time she’d gone through this, all I could think was that we’d get through this. As long as we stayed together and held each other, we’d get through this. We had to. I’dalready lost my twin; I couldn’t contemplate a future that didn’t have Hannah in it.
