Page 27 of While You're There
“Damnit, Tori!” He hit the roof of the car with such force she felt the vibration of the metal jolt up her forearms. He was back around the car and by her side in just a few strides. He spun her around and boxed her in against the passenger door, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Don’t do this, V. Don’t lie to me. You don’t get to say you’re fine and try to hold me at arm’s length like before. I see you. I know what you’re doing. But it’s not going to work this time, beautiful. I’m in it. I’m right here with you. Your pain is my pain. There’s no saving me anymore.” He lowered his forehead and pressed it into hers, willing her to let him in and let him stay. “Let me be here for you.”
She didn’t have the energy to defend her bad habits. Now that he called her on it, she realized that was exactly what she had been doing. The tension in her muscles released and her entire body sagged. She wrapped her arms around his midsection and leaned in, knowing he would hold her up.
Rhett hugged her hard and worked one hand into her hair before kissing her forehead and pulling back to look in her eyes. “I love you,” he vowed, “and I’m here for you. No matter what comes next. No matter what we decide.”
“This is everything I was always afraid of,” she admitted in a whisper.
“What is? The surgery?”
“No. This. Us. Every reason I resisted being with you is raging inside me right now,” she choked out as a fresh wave of tears streamed down her face.
Rhett gripped her tighter. “Now is not forever. It won’t always be this hard Tori, I swear. We are going to have a full and happy life together. You and me, V. It’s you and me.”
She wanted to believe him. But the reality of her own experience defied every reassurance he could offer. “What if it’s not enough? What if even after the surgeries cancer still catches up with me sooner rather than later? You could be a widower in your 20s or 30s, Rhett. It’s so fucking selfish for me to think—”
“Stop,” he demanded as he dropped to his knees before her. He took both her hands in his, running his finger over her engagement ring before looking up to meet her eyes with an intense gaze.
“Listen to me right now, beautiful. I’m not going to promise you it’ll all be okay, or that you won’t get cancer someday. I know the reality of what we’re facing. But even if this is it… even if all we get is a few years. It’ll be worth it. This moment with you? In this parking lot? You and me, together? This is all I ever wanted. This is enough. You are enough. For my whole damn life, this one single moment is enough.”
“Rhett…” she tried to interject. But he wasn’t done. His blue-grey eyes were a storm of emotions as he bravely put words to her deepest fears.
“If you get cancer, and if you die way too young, I’ll spend the rest of my life mourning you and what we had. But at least we had it, V. At least we had the chance to love each other full out.”
She swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat, letting his words galvanize her and banish all the fear and doubt in her mind.
“What do you need?” he prompted as he pushed to his feet and wrapped her up in another hug.
She sucked in a steadying breath, willing herself to rely on him and trust in his ability to take care of her. She didn’t have to do this alone. Not anymore. Not ever again. "Take me home, Rhett.”
They drove is silence as he navigated through the city and eventually merged onto the highway. “Do you want to talk about anything?” he finally asked once he set the car’s cruise control.
Tori blew out a long sigh. She didn’t want to talk, but she didn’t want to shut him down again, either. “I don’t even know where to start…”
“Just tell me what you’re thinking. You can vent or we can talk shit about the first two doctors we met. You’ll feel better if you don’t keep everything bottled up. Just tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”
She let out another long breath. “Fuck.”
Rhett chuckled as he reached for her hand. “I can’t remember the last time I heard that come out of your mouth, V.” His tone shifted as he raised their joined hands and placed a kiss on the tips of her fingers. “But it’s definitely justified. That was a lot. You have so much to think about, and we have a lot to talk about.”
“I know. I feel like everything I thought I knew and had figured out just changed.”
He squeezed her hand a bit harder and glanced at her before shifting his gaze back to the road. “I think having both surgeries this year is a really good idea, and something you should consider.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that to be an option, but I think it’s a good idea, too. Especially if Dr. Silko can get me in with Dr. Brennan. I’d be crazy not to do it. I know it means taking the semester or even the year off from school… and I’d probably have to take a lot of time off from work… but that would be okay now, because it’s not like I’m racing the clock to get a job with benefits anymore, right?”
“Right. There’s no deadline anymore. We have to get you well, then you can focus on finishing your degree.”
Tori shifted in her seat to face him a bit more. “I’m good with that. Knowing I could just be done with both surgeries by the end of this year is a huge relief. It’s just not how I expected things to go. The surgeries and the timeline aren’t even what’s throwing me off. I just feel like we have no time. She dropped that bomb about egg retrieval and fertility preservation, and we literally have the next three weeks to decide what to do.”
“I’m sure we have a little more time than that…”
“Rhett. No. If I want to do this, we have to do it in June. Otherwise, I won’t be able to have surgery in July. I researched everything there is to know about egg freezing years ago. Or, at least I thought I had. It takes two weeks, and it has to be all lined up with my menstrual cycle. I would need all these ultrasounds and shots, and then it would take a little while for my body to recover from the bloating and hormones. All that would have to happenbeforeI could have surgery…”
She trailed off to give him an opportunity to share his thoughts, but he didn’t say anything to fill in the silence. She was growing increasingly annoyed with his cool, stoic responses. She knew he was putting on an act for her—staying strong and steady to support her—but it felt like they weren’t even having an actual conversation.
Rhett had to have opinions. This was his future, too. Why wasn’t he being more candid? She didn’t want him to just agree to everything she decided. They had played that game for far too long. She needed to know how he really felt about all this.
She was determined to get some sort of reaction out of him, one way or another. “I know you want kids.”
