Page 40 of The Heartbreak List

“She can get hurt if someone grabs her the wrong way these days.” Theo clenches his jaw as he strips out of his jacket and places it with my bag in one of the lockers. “Do you have anything you want stowed?”

EJ empties his pockets, placing his stuff with ours. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s nothing.” I reach inside the coverall and tug at my sleeve. Gray wasn’t hurting me. It’s the chemo drugs that are the issue. “And I get to choose whether this is too dangerous.”

“But—"

Theo drags the coverall up over his wide shoulders as he comes toward us. “Fine, man, you’re afraid of what could go wrong if we hand your sister a mallet and let her go to town on some crockery. Those shards can be sharp. Plus there’s three of us… so if one of us accidentally swings the wrong way it could cause a lot of damage.”

“Exactly. This is what I’m saying, Indy.”

“Yeah, but your sister is dying anyway. So what does it matter?”

“Excuse me?” EJ’s nostrils flare.

“Your sister is dying.” Theo enunciates each word with care. “She’s going to die, and you can’t stop it. Or slow it down. Or control it in any way.”

“But that doesn’t mean she needs to take risks,” EJ snaps back. “That’s not you, Indy. You’ve always been careful.”

“Well, maybe I regret that,” I say softly before I pull on the helmet and pick up a baseball bat from the milk crate outside the entrance to the rage room.

The walls and floor are painted concrete, which has been chipped and beaten in places. It’s filled with cheap bookshelves holding all kinds of vases and ceramics. Several small tables are stacked with glassware and plates. An old TV sits on the floor at one end.

Theo puts his helmet on with one hand while he hauls a long-handled metal mallet inside. He steps up close to me. His voice is muffled behind the protective gear. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Never better.”

My brother is freaking out about everything. My fiancé is trying to fix me and keep me bubble wrapped. My mother is terrified. My father is barely talking. The only person who seems to understand what I need at all is Theo. And I am so sick of crying. It isn’t fucking fair that I only have six months to live, and I still don’t have a clue what will make all this worth it.

He touches my elbow. “So what are we going to do?”

I lift the bat up around my shoulder and swing it as hard as I can into the glassware on the table. Some of it explodes on impact. Some shatters when it tumbles to the floor. The noise eases the sickness in my soul. “We’re going to rage.”

“That a girl.” He hoots before he lifts that hammer over his shoulder and sends it crashing into a pile of plates.

EJ joins us in the room, gripping the handle of a golf club. He watches at first while Theo and I smash everything our weapons touch. But then Theo goes over to him, and he must say something to my brother because EJ starts swinging that golf club into everything in range.

We’re surrounded by dust and debris at the end of our session, each of us dripping in sweat as we take off our helmets. Our breathing is loud and fast.

“How are you feeling?” Theo asks me with a knowing smile curving his mouth.

I bounce on the balls of my feet. “Fantastic.”

He lifts my feet off the floor and swings me around. “You’re a total fucking badass.”

I get caught up in the gleam in his eye. In the heady sweetness of letting everything but the here and now fall to the side. His lips part on a giddy shout.

I’m way too aware of how much thicker the bottom lip is to the top one. Of the scar on his chin. There’s another across the bridge of his nose. Another on the thin skin between brow and eyelid. Are they all from fighting?

When my toes touch the ground again reality seeps in. I’m hyperaware that I’m too close to Theo. It takes me far too long to remove my hands from his shoulders. He mustn’t like it because his smile fades.

My brother is staring straight at us with a wrinkle between his heavy eyebrows.

Theo’s soft eyes harden. Tension thickens the muscles across his shoulders. Turning his back on me, he strides out of the room.

EJ is still staring at me.

“He’s a good guy.” I’m not looking for an argument. I don’t want EJ’s opinion on what I’m trying to accomplish with Theo’s help. I press a hand to the wall and hang my head as I catch my breath. It takes longer now. Everything is more tiring than it used to be, but coming here and smashing things… totally worth it. “And he’s helping.”

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