Page 38 of Edge of Heaven

“Shh, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, rubbing her eyes. “I try to be strong, for him and for myself, but it’s so hard. I’m scared. He could die… and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

“But you are doing something—you’re getting him the help he needs.”

“It’s an experimental treatment. We have no idea if it’s going to work. But the traditional treatment failed so I was desperate.”

“Is he tolerating it okay?”

“He has good days and bad days.”

“He must have been diagnosed right after we met,” I say thoughtfully.

She nods. “About a year later.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“In general, it’s good in kids. There’s a ninety-percent cure rate for the type he has. Unfortunately, he went into remission but then it came back. So now we’re trying this. If this doesn’t work—” Her voice breaks and tears leak from her eyes.

“Shh.” I hold her tighter. “If it doesn’t work, I can talk to Angus—his family has ties to the Mayo Clinic. There may be some new cancer treatment we can get him into. I’m sure he knows someone somewhere.” The band’s illustrious drummer is very well off, though we didn’t find that out until recently. Luckily, he’s as generous as he is wealthy.

“Th-thank you.” Her voice is hoarse, and she collapses against my chest like no one’s held her for a long time. And not for the first time, I wish I knew what the hell she’s doing with Callum. He’s the one who should be comforting her, but I know instinctively that he doesn’t.

Because if he did, she wouldn’t be here inmyarms.

And we sit like that for a while, until her sobs turn to sniffles and my shirt is soaked. But I don’t mind. I stroke her hair and back, whispering those soft shushing noises you use with a child, and though I’m not trying to treat her like one, it seems like the most appropriate response to something like this.

When the knock on the door alerts us that dinner has arrived, she hurriedly gets up, wiping her face and disappearing into the bathroom. I allow the room service waiter to set up the rolling cart where I want it, open the champagne, and then quietly slip out. I don’t know how the champagne will go over since I hadn’t anticipated a story like the one she told me about Toby.

“You’re so sweet,” she whispers when she comes out.

Her eyes are a little red from crying, but she seems calmer as she sinks into a chair by the little table.

“I thought champagne was appropriate to celebrate our potential new deals with Rock Vibe,” I say sheepishly. “I didn’t know about Toby or…” My voice trails because I’m not sure how this looks.

“It’s wonderful,” she says. “You had no way of knowing about Toby, and anyway, it’s not like anything new is happening. I can’t help but worry, and sometimes it just…comes out.”

Because she can’t let it out with Callum.

I don’t know how I know this but I do.

“Is Callum not sympathetic?” I ask, because I can’t help myself.

She sighs, rubbing her eyes. “The short answer is—no. He’s not. But he helps in other ways.”

I frown, staring at her.

She lifts big blue eyes to mine. “If I tell you the truth, you can’t tell anyone. I’m serious. Not Angus, not your management, not your family—no one.”

“Of course not.” I sit across from her and wait.

She seems to be gathering her courage, as if telling me about Callum is somehow painful. Embarrassing. And it makes me hate him that much more.

“This clinical trial that Toby’s in is private. It’s from some new pharmaceutical company called Vita Soleil. They didn’t divulge any details, but from what I gathered, they had government funding for the first round of trials but instead of going through traditional phases—which I don’t pretend to understand, with the FDA and the CDC and all that—they wanted to do it their own way. So the government or whoever it was pulled the funding. Everyone in this new phase has to pay out of pocket.” She pulls in a shaky breath. “And my mom’s insurance denied the claim, saying it wasn’t covered.

“Oh, no.”

“We had to come up with over ten thousand a month between the cost for him to stay at the facility and for all the different meds. I don’t mean the experimental ones, but stuff for nausea, for the headaches he gets, stuff like that. Insurance covers those, but there are copays, and some of them are high, like a hundred bucks a pop.”

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