“Yeah…this is Dr. Velia. I’m a friend of Mark Godson’s. He said you had some questions for me.”

Taking a deep breath, I start to tell him what I know and hope that he can enlighten me about what I’m facing.

Chapter 12

Olivia

“You have about another hour to go,” the nurse says as she makes an adjustment to the IV bag hanging above me. “Need another warm blanket?”

I shake my head at her with a smile. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“Nausea okay?” she asks.

“Much better than yesterday,” I tell her, and Sutton reaches over and grabs my hand for a squeeze.

“Okay…just holler if you need anything,” the nurse says with a smile and a comforting pat on my leg. “I’ll check back in a little bit.”

“I can’t believe how sick you got yesterday,” Sutton says. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Oh, stop it,” I grumble at her. “I didn’t want anyone there watching me vomit.”

Stevie had taken me to yesterday’s chemo treatment. It was a bit longer than today’s, as I got both Rituxin and bendamustine, and it took almost five hours for those concoctions to drip into my veins. Today’s treatment is just the bendamustine. It’s not going to take as long, but the pisser is that this is the drug that made me sick yesterday. Dr. Yoffman didn’t seem too worried about it, and just said that some people can get really sick. He did increase my antinausea meds, and they even gave me an infusion of them via IV before they started the treatment.

Sutton is on chemo duty today, and she brought a ton of magazines for us to read. Instead, they’ve lain untouched because I ended up dozing for a bit. I’m still wiped out from all the toilet hugging I did yesterday.

I still can’t believe Garrett came over. I so didn’t want him to see that. I so didn’t want him to even know I had cancer. I thought this fling was over because it definitely exceeded his timetable.

When he had texted me yesterday morning, I didn’t respond because the nurse was at that very moment sticking a needle in my vein. I didn’t respond later, once I had nothing better to do than listen to Stevie gossip, because I didn’t want to encourage him. I knew I’d be out of commission for a few days, and the farther Garrett stayed away, the better.

But then he texted me again, and my heart got all squishy because it was clear he still had an interest in me, and God help me…I’m totally into him. So I responded and felt almost a sense of giddiness that I’d see him again.

But only after I made it through these two chemo visits and was past the accompanying sickness. Dr. Yoffman said I’d be back to feeling normal within a few days of the last treatment.

Needless to say, when Garrett showed up at my door, I panicked for a moment. I was so very close to getting him to leave without him being any wiser to my plight, but then those fucking dry heaves started again. And afterward…as I lay on the bathroom tile with my stomach muscles aching, my head splitting in two, and another wave of nausea rolling through me, I didn’t have the strength to keep my secret anymore.

He was wigged out. No doubt about that. The look on his face said it all. Horrified and angry.

I haven’t seen or heard from him since I fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later feeling a little better, having successfully kept the medication down. I stumbled out into the kitchen and ate a few dry crackers, drank some more Gatorade, and fell back asleep. I stayed under until my alarm went off this morning, and then I was getting ready for my next chemo visit.

Sutton picks up one of the magazines and flips through it distractedly. I pull the one blanket the nurse had given me up to my chin and curl my legs up underneath me. They have these really cool recliners the patients sit in that are spread around a large, airy room done in peaceful colors of mauve and gray. Large plants sit everywhere and soft music plays in the background. By my count, there are thirteen other patients in this room, all hooked up to IV bags.

Some of them look pale, sick, and wasted away. Some are bald. Some are fairly robust-looking. There’s quiet talking, some laughing, and one patient sits with her husband, who cries softly by her side. Cancer has so many different faces, I’m finding out.

Sutton closes the magazine and throws it down with a frustrated sigh.

“Nothing good in there?” I ask as I nod toward the gossip rag.

“It’s not that,” she says distractedly.

“Then what is it?”

“I think I really messed up,” she murmurs with pain-filled eyes.

“Okay…what did you do to Alex, and I’ll tell you how to fix it,” I tell her with a smirk.

“It’s not Alex,” she says quietly. “It’s Garrett.”

“Garrett?” I ask stupidly, because what could she have possibly done to that cocky man? I had told her about him coming over last night with soup, and that he now knows what’s going on with me. She didn’t say much, and, now that I think about it, it was uncharacteristic of her to remain quiet. She’s always been vocal about Garrett. She loves him to death, but she also doesn’t think he has much depth when it comes to women and likes to give him hell about it.

“He came to the house last night…after he found out you have cancer,” she says, her eyes cast down to her lap while she fiddles with the hem of her shirt. “He was pissed.”

“Pissed no one told him,” I guess.