Page 49 of The Promposal

He took in a big breath and leaned back in his chair. “Dr. Okafor was just telling all of us that my mom’s biopsy results were negative. She doesn’t have breast cancer.”

That cleared my head and made me sit straight up. “You thought your mom had breast cancer? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jake let out a small, deprecating laugh. “There were so many reasons. Reasons that I told myself were good and made sense. My mom asked me not to say anything to anyone. Even you. She wanted to keep it private until we knew for sure. Then that whole thing with your mom happened, and I don’t know, I didn’t want to add to what you were going through.”

I quickly filled him in on how I’d contacted the reporter and made some corrections to my mother’s version of the truth. “And just because my mom wants to turn Dalmatian puppies into coats doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about your mom. I know how much you guys love each other, and you should be able to talk to me. About anything.”

“That’s the thing, Tills.” He reached over and laced his fingers through mine, sending little shocks and thrills all up and down my arm. “You’re my girlfriend, but you’re also my best friend. You’re the person I want to tell stuff to. Sometimes it feels like things don’t really happen until I tell you. But if I told you that the doctors thought my mom had breast cancer ...”

“If you told me, then what?”

“Once I told you, it would have been real. And I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted to pretend like it wasn’t happening. That’s not really an excuse, though. I should have told you.”

“You should have told me,” I agreed. “I could have been here for you. Helping you. So that’s why you’ve been so weird and secretive? Because you thought your mom was sick?”

He leaned over to kiss me softly, gently, and it was over far too quickly. “That was probably most of it. But then something else happened, and I wasn’t sure how you would take it.”

Here it was. Now was when he told me that he’d changed his mind about us. He knew he could do better.

“You found someone else?” The words threatened to strangle me.

“What? No! How could you think that? I would never—” He paused. “Is that why you called Dr. Okafor a teenage tart? You thought that she and I were hooking up?”

“Not with her, specifically, but after that whole Trent-was-cheating-on-Ella thing there was this quiz from a teenage girl’s magazine about whether your boyfriend was cheating, and you were doing all the things on the list. Taking secretive phone calls, acting distant, canceling at the last minute. And you lied about where you were.”

“Lied? I wouldn’t lie to you. I haven’t.”

“What about you missing Kenyetta’s party because you were going shopping with your mom? Or that day I asked you about your after-school plans and you said you had baseball stuff, but you left school in the middle of the day?”

He looked confused for a moment before answering. “My dad was working so I did go shopping with my mom that day. She wanted to look at hats and scarves for her head in case she had to get chemo. She deals with a crisis by preparing for it. If she was going to lose all her hair, she wanted to have everything she needed lined up first. And I did do baseball stuff after school. I left in the middle of the day to be here with my mom and dad for an appointment, then went back.”

Oh Buddha, I was the worst girlfriend ever. “Okay. Well, so you have rational and logical explanations, and I sound like I’m living on this side of crazy. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

He took my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing against my cheeks. “I would never cheat on you.”

His words made tears start in the corners of my eyes. “Part of me knows that. But Ella had so much faith in Trent, and we saw how that turned out.”

“What Ella and Trent had? Not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to you and me. It’s like comparing ... I don’t know, a candle to the sun. They both give off light. But one lights up a room, and the other lights up the whole world.”

“Half the planet at a time,” I corrected him, while my body melted over how unbelievably sweet and romantic he was.

He laughed. “Half the planet at a time. But we aren’t the same as them. What we have is so much more.” He made sure I was looking deep into his chocolaty brown eyes. “I love you. You are perfect for me and the only girl in the whole world that I care about. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

I believed him. A hundred and fifty percent. I knew that he was telling me the truth, and I felt so dumb for having suspected him of messing around on me. “Now I feel bad. And stupid. But mostly bad for not believing in you.”

“It’s okay. I’ll make a list of things you can do to make it up to me.” That teasing, devilish sparkle was back, and I knew I was in trouble.

“I have a pretty good idea of what that list will contain.”

“That’s because you’re so smart.” He kissed me swiftly, burning my lips with his. Like he was branding me, and I was all too happy for the world to know we belonged together.

“Wait,” I said, pulling back. “You said there was something else going on.”

“Oh. The athletic department from UCSC just called to tell me that I will be required to live in a dorm all the way across campus next year. They should have told me when I accepted my scholarship, but they didn’t. Which means I’m messing up all our plans to be close to each other.”

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