Page 90 of Nice Guys Don't Kiss Like That At Christmas
"You don't have to—"
"I do," she cuts me off, setting her mug down with a determined clink."If we're doing honest, let's do honest.I can't tell you that you're not communicating and then do the exact same.Especially when I hid things from you in the past."
"It's not a competition.Let's not count points."
"I agree, but I want to tell you."She takes a deep breath, steadying herself."I realized my first thought when I saw that brochure wasn't anger about you keeping it from me."
"It wasn't?"
She tilts her head, thinking as if she's reviewing her feelings for the truth."Okay, it was.But it was more than … It was pure panic."She twists the edge of my hoodie between her fingers, a gesture so achingly familiar from our video calls years ago."Yes, I left Barnstable because every corner of that town knew me as the Foster girl with Hodgkin's."She pauses."People called it the Good Cancer, you know.Which when you're in the midst of treatment isn't… it doesn't feel good.But still, I had options.And then when the first lines of treatment didn't work, well… they looked at me with pity or admiration or maybe they looked at me too much or not enough.I don't know.That's things I'm still working through.They thought I might not make it to community college graduation.But it's not the only reason."
"Eve—"
"I'm not finished."Her voice isn't sharp, just determined."When cancer hits you at nineteen, it doesn't only take your health.It takes your certainty.Your sense of...inevitable future.And everyone there saw me at my absolute worst.But it also reminds me how quickly everything can change."
She looks up at me, eyes shining but tears not falling."These feelings I have for you scare me, Adam.I lost myself in Chuck.Tried to be what he wanted me to be.But maybe I never found myself in the first place."
I set my own mug down, shifting closer but still not touching her."You didn't lose yourself in him.He manipulated you.There's a difference."
"Maybe."She doesn't sound convinced."But then there's the other thing.The thing I never let myself think about with anyone else.The thing I always think about whenever I step back onto the Cape.I know it's not rational.My last scare was in Chicago, but..."
I wait, knowing what's coming.Giving her space to say it.
"What if it comes back?"she whispers, so softly I almost don't hear it."What if we start something and my cancer comes back?It's been six years in remission, but I'm more at risk for other types of cancer.And I don't even know about having kids.I want them.I've got frozen eggs.But what if it doesn't work?I met wonderful women in forums who got into early menopause.Some were thirty-five.Thirty-eight.And then one day from another.Hormones out of whack.I'm luckier.I'm here.My periods came back.But I still get tired.So tired.What if I'm broken in more ways than one?"
Her voice breaks on the last word, and something in me breaks with it.Before I can stop myself, I reach for her hand, covering it with mine.Not grabbing, not pulling—just connecting.
"Then we deal with it," I tell her, my voice rougher than intended."Together."
She laughs, but it's shaky."You say that now.But you haven't seen it.What cancer does to people who care about you.How exhausting it is.How it changes things."Her fingers tighten around mine, her knuckles white against her skin."Last year, at my five-year scan, something showed up.I needed a biopsy, time off because removing a few lymph nodes underneath my arm made it hard to move my arm for a bit.Chuck was already distant, but that week?He couldn't even look at me.Like my body betraying me was somehow betraying him too."
She swallows hard, her eyes fixed on our joined hands."It's always there, in the back of my mind.Some days it feels like ancient history, some days it feels like yesterday, and some days it feels like something I haven't fully processed yet.Like I've been too busy surviving to actually understand what happened to me.And Christmas time brings it all back like a snowball to the face.That's when I got diagnosed.When I got my transplant.When I had that scare.When I relive things that I really should have dealt with by now."
"You're putting a timer on feelings," I say gently."But I bet it's not the same as years ago.You're no longer in fight-or-flight response."I pause, choosing my next words carefully."But you're right.I haven't seen it," I admit, tightening my hold on her hand."But I've seen you, Eve.The real you."
I turn her hand over in mine, brushing my thumb across her palm, feeling the slight roughness from years of medical work."Not just the nurse who survived cancer, but the woman who color-codes her coffee pods, who makes alien pickles, who calms anxious Great Danes and puts antlers on Chihuahuas."
"You make me feel like a Hallmark heroine.Or a rom-com heroine," she says, her voice catching."I never thought I could be."
"Why not?"
"Because of the history?The anxiety?The fact that I'm worried about more hospital hours as a patient?And also hate that I worry when others are still in the midst of it all?Some don't get to stop being patients…" Her words come faster now, like a dam breaking."Because I'm weird and awkward, cold?Because I haven't cried when I saw my own husband dick-deep into someone I considered a friend?I haven't cried once since.Not when I signed the papers.Not when my Chicago oncologist retired and I really trusted him.Not when I got job rejections after rejections.I'm achieving Peak Ice Queen here."
"Eve," I say her name like something precious, because it is."Some rom-com heroines have sadness in their past.Tragedy.Trauma.It doesn't make you less deserving of all the light and laughter."
"I swear if you tell me you need the rain to appreciate the sunshine or that it's meant to be..."She rolls her eyes, but there's no real bite to it
"I saw a card once," I say, deadpan."Said, 'Sometimes life hands you lemons.Sometimes it hands you a flaming bag of dog shit.'"
A laugh bursts from her lips, genuine and surprised."God, that's accurate."Then, more quietly: "I was sitting in Sally's conservatory earlier, watching the snow fall, trying to figure out what I actually wanted.Not what I should want, or what I'm supposed to want, but what I actually want."
"And what did you figure out?"My heart hammers in my chest, steady but fast.
She leans forward, close enough that I can count her eyelashes, close enough that I can see the tiny flecks of amber in her brown eyes."I don't know what I want yet," she whispers, her breath warm against my face."Chicago, Cape Cod.Any of it.But I know I want this.Right now."
She lifts her hand to my face, her fingers tracing the line of my jaw with a tenderness that makes my throat tight."I want to try, Adam.Not because I'm afraid of being alone, or because I need someone to rescue me.But because when I'm with you, I feel like myself.All of myself.The clinical and the messy parts.The strong and the scared parts.And I've never had that before."
My hand covers hers, turning to press a kiss to her palm."I want that too," I tell her."Not the perfect version of you, but all of you.The whole complicated, brilliant, stubborn mess."
