Page 53 of No Place Like You

Dexter stands, looking down at me in the seat next to his. “You’ll be okay while I go downstairs for a minute?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly, reaching for his arm to give a reassuring squeeze. “Take your time.”

Once Dexter leaves, it’s just me and Janet. Along with the monitors by her bedside displaying squiggly lines and neon green numbers and the low volume of the television playing an episode ofShark Tank.

“Thank you for coming to visit, Lucy.”

“Of course,” I tell her. “I hope I’m not intruding on your time with Dexter.”

She waves a hand at me. “We’d probably be fighting over the TV remote anyway.”

I let out a giggle, and Janet smiles. “I hope this isn’t putting a damper on you two spending time together,” she adds.

“Oh, of course not,” I assure. I reactively reach my hand toward the rough blanket draped over her legs, finding her knee and noticing how bony it feels. “I-I can’t imagine what you’re going through—what Dexter’s going through—and it means a lot that he’d include me. I mean, even if it’s just to visit you here, it means a lot.”

A moment of silence lingers between us, and I worry if maybe I spoke out of place. Maybe it was too personal. Maybe, in reality, I shouldn’t be here, and I really am intruding on a space that’s meant to be carved out for Janet and her brother. Ididsort of invite myself. I look away, suddenly embarrassed.

But then Janet smiles, placing her cold hand on mine still resting on her bed. “It’s been hard on him, I know.” I look at her and notice a mistiness coating her eyes, along with her sad smile. “This all happened so fast. Cancer wasn’t really in the cardsfor us.”

My brow pinches together, and my lips purse. “It’s a pretty shitty card you’ve been dealt.”

“You know what I’m most scared about with this cancer?”

I shake my head.

“It’s that…if I don’t make it and this cancer wins, Dexter won’t have anyone.”

An enormous knot forms in my throat. It feels tight and stuck, no matter how hard I try to swallow it. Dexter told me this, that he has no one else besides Janet, but hearing it from her and making that possibility into a very likely probability crushes me.

“And I’m so scared to leave him here without anyone,” she continues, a small tear trickling down her cheek. “I keep picturing him on holidays and birthdays, all alone with no one to spend them with, and it sort of kills me. And if I think about it long enough—” Her words are cut off by a sudden sob, and her hand covers her mouth as if to stop the rest of that sentence. Like if she doesn’t say it out loud, then it won’t happen, and she can pretend Dexter will be just fine without her.

“He won’t,” I say hoarsely, my voice sounding scared and weak. “He won’t be alone.”

I can’t guarantee she’ll be fine. I can’t make false reassurances that this will pass and she’ll wake up one day to realize she worried for nothing. But I can promise one thing: Dexter won’t be alone.

Nat and I have a family, one that’s expanding with her upcoming nuptials to Hayden, and one I hope will continue to grow. Dexter can fit into that family. We have room, enough to love and embrace him as the friend who pummeled his way into our lives. I can promise Janet that much.

She nods, wiping at another runaway tear, and huffs a laugh. “I guess you can add ‘emotionally unstable’ to the long list of cancer symptoms.”

I smile back at her, but it’s much bleaker than her forced laughter.

She clears her throat and busies her hands with the hem of her hospital gown. “So,” she says clearly, smiling at me too kindly. “I hear your sister’s marrying Hayden.”

I nod, my smile a little brighter. “In a little over a month. We’re all flying out to Hawaii for the wedding.”

“Dexter too, right?” she asks, her question sounding more like a confirmation.

“I’m not sure,” I answer. “He was, but with you being sick, he might?—”

She throws a hand between us. “He’s definitely going,” she says sternly. “There’s no way he’s going to miss out on a trip to Hawaii because of me.”

I chuckle.

“You know, the last time we were on a beach together was in Ocean City,” Janet says in a hushed tone. We both smile and duck our heads toward each other. “He gotsosunburned. He started blistering all over. Charles and I called him Mr. Bubble Wrap.”

I snort a laugh.

“We spent the rest of the weekend hydrating him and rubbing aloe vera on his back.” She cowers forward, laughing into her hand. “So you make sure he wears plenty of sunblock when you’re out there.”

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