Page 75 of Stitch
“I never thought I’d get to do this again.”
Yeah, you and me both, pal. I wrapped my arms tight around him, taking in deep breaths to try and calm myself when tears threatened, and I didn’t want to release them. The time for tears would be later, if this didn’t work out.
We hugged for so long that I think we both just relaxed into each other, and finally it was Stitch who released me, and tilted my chin up, pressing his lips against mine just for a second.
“I’m sorry, wifey. I fucked up today. I guess I just kinda lost my mind. Jesus… what if the cancer is in my brain and that’s why I-”
“This is the problem, Stitch!”
He nudged me to sit down, and sat opposite me.
“Tell me.”
He was going to be mad at me for this. There was no way he wouldn’t be.
“The reason I went to see Ice this morning was to ask him for a favour, and you should know that he told me ‘hell no’, like a dozen times, because he said he wouldn’t violate your privacy like that.”
Stitch
The fuck? I reachedfor her trembling hand and she let me take it. I squeezed it lightly, trying to offer her some strength for whatever the fuck she was trying to say.
“He touched you.”
“I was upset, Stitch. He was trying to offer comfort, well, actually I think he was trying to apologise because he thought he’d made me cry. He didn’t. I did. Ever since last night, I can’t help but think that I need to take action, because if I don’t, we’ll just be stuck in this holding pattern for as long as your stubborn ass can get away with it.” Okay… and we’re retrieving the hand. What the hell, I guess I got what I asked for.
“I guess I can be stubborn…”
Camille rolled her eyes. “I can handle stubborn, Stitch. What I can’t handle is this limbo we’re in. I know that right now you could choose to pretend everything’s fine, and nothing bad is gonna happen, but let’s be honest, you’re not even doing that. You’re not using this time for burying your head, and pretending you’re fine. You’re using it to try and tick things off a list before you die. What if you’re not dying, Stitch? What then? You could be living life the way you want to.”
Did I feel fully verbally spanked? Yeah, of course, and it was doubly embarrassing, because she was fucking right. Hadn’t I just been thinking the same shit, right before I nearly took a nose dive off a cliff, and made the whole thing moot?
“The life I want is with you, Camille. What if knowing is what pushes us apart? What if either knowing I’m dying, or knowing you’re stuck with me after all, is what makes you wise up to the mistake you made? I’m the mistake, babe, as you well know. How the fuck I’m sitting here with you, when you could do a million times better than a loser like me, I have no idea. I’m just as scared of making this end, as I am of finding out how long I have left. I mean, what if it’s years? Decades? Are you gonna want a divorce? This was never meant to be long term, was it? It was all part of the fucking game.”
She fixed me with that feisty glare that mostly just gave me a semi, and shook her head.
“I was never only in it for the short haul, dammit. You just had your headburied so far up your ass that you couldn’t see that. You think I’d just marry a guy out of the blue if I didn’t want him more than anything? If I didn’t fucking love him already?”
Love. We’d hinted at it, maybe even said it, but was it real? I was pretty sure she was it, for me, but what if what she felt was pity? Or some kind of infatuation for a man she thought would disappear from her life, so she’d desperately clung to me. Could it literally just be something like that? Wanting what she knew she couldn’t have for long?
“Stitch, say something, dammit. Is this not what you want? Did you only get into this because you figured it’d be short term? I really hope to god that you didn’t marry me just for a fucking laugh.”
I grabbed her hand again. “Will you shut that gorgeous mouth for a minute, babe? You’re right, okay? You’re right about so much. I am being a dick by hiding from my results. I know it. I’ve known it all a-fucking-long. I’m being a coward, and the longer it takes, the harder it is to chase it up.”
“It’s time, Stitch. We both need to know, so we can make our future, right?”
Jesus. Why was it so hard to take that step? Had all of my courage been in the one ball I’d lost?
Cammy
“Wait, so what didyou ask Ice, exactly?”
I felt my cheeks redden a little, because it was bloody intrusive, what I’d asked him to do. I wondered if Stitch would see it as an option now, or whether he’d put it off yet again.
“I asked him to hack your medical records, Stitch. To find out what the hell the test results were, so you’d finally know.”
I wondered if that had even occurred to him, or maybe asking the doc at the clubhouse, because he could have probably gained access too. From the look on his face, I was pretty sure he hadn’t let those thoughts in at all. He dragged hisfingers over his jaw, taking a resigned breath.
“Well, I guess we could ask him again. With me there, he can’t really say no, right?”
