Page 87 of The Charade

But being in limbo wasn't exactly that great, either, because I couldn't fully relax. As long as everything was still up in the air, I couldn't really make plans for what to do next.

Carter cleared his throat, bringing me back to the present. "I, um, I should probably let you know that I'm not going to be able to make it to our tutoring session after school today."

"You're not?" I looked up at him, my chest sinking a little.

He nodded. "I had some things come up."

I studied his face, trying to figure out if he was just making up excuses for why he couldn't spend time alone with me today, when so far this year he'd never had anything interfere with our tutoring sessions. Was this his way of breaking things off?

Was sitting at the same table with me disgusting to him now?

He was sitting as far as he could from me. Whereas over the past few weeks, we couldn't seem to sit close enough during math, with our thighs glued together and our fingers entangled under the table so we could hold hands while Mrs. Simmons taught in the front of the room.

Carter must have noticed that I'd just realized how he was hugging the other end of the table because he sent me an apologetic look.

But he didn't move to scoot closer, either.

I pressed my lips together and nodded slowly before saying, "I'll see if Elyse can work with me after school."

She had taken Statistics the year before and was in Calculus right now, but she was smart enough that she'd probably remember the material and could help me if I needed it.

I endedup not needing much assistance from Elyse with my math homework, so I took that as a good sign that maybe I was finally understanding this math thing for once in my life. If tutoring me was too difficult for Carter to bear from here on out, maybe I would be fine math-wise and not need his help anymore.

Or maybe the school could assign me someone new. A girl this time, so I wouldn't be at risk of falling in love with another math tutor who might be related to me, since apparently, I had bad luck with that.

Carter didn't show up to our Thursday tutoring session, either. He didn't give me a heads up or anything about it this time. He simply just didn't show up, and I ended up waiting in the library for a full hour after my texts to him had gone unanswered.

When we had our regularly scheduled study session with everyone that evening, Carter didn't show again. He usually came to our Thursday night study sessions, so I could only assume his absence had something to do with me.

"Do you know where Carter is tonight?" I asked Cambrielle as we worked on our AP Biology assignment. Even though Cambrielle was a grade below us all, she was another Hastings family genius and was taking a lot of the AP classes that everyone else did this year.

"I think he's hanging out with Mack and Hunter tonight." she said with a shrug. "Mack's mom hasn't been doing so well this week, and I think he needed some time to blow off steam."

So maybe he wasn't avoiding me? But this was the first time I'd heard anything about Mrs. Aarden being sick.

I frowned. "What's going on with Mack's mom?"

Cambrielle shifted in her seat, an uncomfortable expression crossing her face before she said, "She has cancer."

"What?" I couldn't keep from asking as a feeling of shock flooded me.

I looked at Elyse who seemed just as surprised by this fact. I knew I'd been living in my own little bubble with Carter ever since school started, but was I really that bad of a friend to not even notice that anything was going on with Mack?

He always seemed so upbeat most of the time—always the first guy to crack a joke when we were hanging out.

I never would have guessed that he had anything going on that was bothering him aside from the regular things a teenage guy worried about.

Cambrielle seemed to realize that this was the first I'd ever heard of it, so she explained, "His mom had a brain tumor a long time ago, like before I was born. They were able to remove it back then and she was really healthy for a long time. But they found another one this summer, and this one is harder to treat."

"So…is she dying then?" I asked, my stomach and chest feeling with dread.

Wasn't Mack's dad, like, a neurosurgeon or something?

Scarlett, who had looked up from her studying, set her pencil down on her notebook and said, "Mack doesn't really like to talk about it. I think he's been hoping that if he doesn't talk about it, then it’ll make it so it's not as real. But yeah, it's not good." Scarlett swallowed, eyeing Cambrielle briefly for confirmation. "I think the doctors say that she'll be lucky if she makes it to Thanksgiving."

Oh no.

Tears instantly pricked at my eyes as I thought about what that meant for Mack. I looked across the table to Elyse and saw she had tears in her eyes as well.

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