Page 48 of The Promposal

Nobody had banned her. That had been more self-imposed, probably because she didn’t want to be stared at and get hate looks. Which I understood. But if she needed my permission to do those things, well, I could do that. “I’d hate to be the one responsible for separating Belle from her Beast.”

“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you don’t like hugs, and I’m sorry.” Then she threw her arms around me for a brief second before letting go and running down the hall to find my sister.

I was getting seriously sappy in my old age. I looked back at my phone screen and entered the cross streets in my maps application.

Jake was at the hospital again.

Time to put all my cards on the table.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I resolved to remain cool, calm, and collected when I found Jake. I would be reasonable and logical and get all the answers I needed. I would not overreact or freak out or accuse him of anything. I would let him explain himself.

And I kept my resolutions right up until the moment where I found him on the fourth floor of the hospital hugging some girl. Some girl who obviously did not value her life. She had her back to me, which meant I could clearly see Jake’s face. And he had the biggest grin imaginable.

Something about the girl seemed vaguely familiar, and I wondered if that was because I had dreaded and imagined this moment so many freaking times that I’d become temporarily psychic. She wore lavender scrubs, and I couldn’t remember if that was what those candy strippers wore. Maybe this one was a nurse stripper. Who should be old enough to know better.

I had waited almost my entire life to be with him. Nobody was going to swoop in and take this from me. I marched over, ready to confront them both. “This is what you’ve been doing? This is why you’ve been missing school? Running around with some teenage tart?”

Jake and the girl let go of each other, and the girl turned around.

Only she wasn’t a girl or a teenager and was someone I actually knew.

Dr. Bahati Okafor.

“Tills?”

“Mattie?”

They both said my name (well, one of my names) at the same time, and then looked back at each other. “How do you know—” Again, they spoke in unison and laughed.

I was so glad I could be amusing for them. I supposed that someone could find it funny that I accused Bahati of being a teenager and cheating with Jake, but in my defense, she was so young looking that she could have easily passed for a teen if she wanted to, especially given her smooth, flawless skin. At least that’s what I would be telling myself for a long time as justification for being oh-so-jealous of someone who had at least a decade on us.

“Mattie is Kenyetta’s tutor,” Bahati said when I wasn’t forthcoming about our connection. “Kenyetta is my boyfriend’s daughter.”

“Yeah, I know Kenyetta. Tills—I mean, Mattie is my girlfriend.”

“That is why you’ve seemed so familiar to me, Jake. Kenyetta has a picture of you on her phone. I thought you were just some online model that she had a crush on.”

My mind was temporarily distracted by my fervent belief that Jake could have so easily been a model.

“That’s funny. It’s a small world!” Jake said.

“The smallest,” she agreed.

We could get on that Disneyland ride later because it had just occurred to me what kind of doctor Bahati was.

An oncologist.

“I have other patients to see, more test results to deliver. Jake, Mattie, I’m sure I will see you soon.”

She left, and I couldn’t keep quiet. “Moretest results? Oh my Buddha, why are you seeing an oncologist? Are you dying?” Was that why he’d been so secretive? Why he was pulling away? Because he had only six months to live and wanted to spare me the pain of losing him? Which was so something Jake would have done.

All the blood left my brain, and I felt woozy and weak. Which I didn’t realize until I felt Jake’s arms go around me, as he led me into a waiting room and had me sit down. I couldn’t imagine a world without Jake in it. My hands went clammy, and I could feel the sweat pouring down my back.

“How you’re feeling right now? That’s how I’ve been feeling for the last two weeks. But you don’t have to worry. I’m not dying, Tills. I’m not sick. I’m not here for me.”

Relief, overwhelming and sudden, rushed through me. But that was tempered by the fact that there was a reason Jake was talking to an oncologist in a hospital. “Then why are you here?”

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