Kristen waved her off. “He’s just the backup plan. Believe me, I have no intention of initiating that deal.”
“Right,” Laura drawled. “You’ll just go out and find yourself a husband in the next six months. Easy peasy.”
Laura’s tone dripped sarcasm, but Kristen either didn’t hear it or chose to ignore it. “Exactly, and before you try to sneak out, what’s your plan for a second chance?”
Laura had actually risen again. Kristen had busted her in the act of trying to escape.
“Mine’s going to sound dumb.”
“Dumber than me looking up old boyfriends or Josie’s fucking Howl List?” Georgie asked, rubbing her hands together with glee. “Can’t wait to hear this.”
They all laughed.
Laura sighed. “Maybe dumb was the wrong word. Mine’s actually pretty boring. I just want to find myself again. Want to find the girl I was before I let my marriage, my kids, my husband define me. I used to have fun. I laughed all the time, did crazy things with my friends. I’m tired of being so serious and predictable all the time.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that goal,” Shelly said. “It’s a good one. So what about you, Zoey? You haven’t told us yours.”
Zoey closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself happy, tried to figure out where that emotion could be found. The answer was obvious, but it wasn’t one she felt comfortable saying aloud. Instead, she said, “My goal is to get healthy. I’m going to make a doctor’s appointment a month until I’ve gotten the all-clear on my teeth, eyes, boobs, and hoohah.” Her friends accepted her answer with a laugh. Zoey smiled while her true second chance whispered inside her head.
I’m going to tell my best friend I’m in love with him.
Chapter One
Twenty-five years earlier
“Who has the baseball?”
When Zoey heard the voices of boys heading her way, she stepped off the front porch of her family’s new house and drifted toward the sidewalk. Her parents had thought they were doing her a favor, postponing their move to Harrisburg until after school was over. They didn’t want her to have to change schools in the middle of her fourth grade year. At the time, she’d been happy not to have to leave her best friend, Crystal.
Now she realized her parents had made a big mistake. It was the beginning of summer and she was in a strange place with no friends to help her pass the long, boring days until school started again in September.
To add insult to injury, it looked like her mom and dad had managed to buy a house in a neighborhood filled with nothing but boys. After a week of roaming around by herself, Zoey had only spotted one other girl on the street—a four-year-old whiner who was constantly crying for her mother. She hated it here. She was bored. And lonely.
The gang of boys slowed down when they spotted her on the sidewalk. After five days of watching them traipse by her house to the park, she’d decided she wasn’t going to spend today alone.
“Hey,” she said as they drew nearer. There were five of them and they all seemed to be around her age. They had baseball mitts dangling from their hands and one boy was dragging a bat behind him.
“Hey,” the tallest boy in the group said.
“Going to play baseball?”
They nodded.
“Can I come?”
A couple of the boys looked like they wanted to invite her, but once again, it was the tall boy who answered. “No girls allowed.”
“I’m a good pitcher,” she lied. Truth was she hated baseball, but anything was better than the solitude that had plagued her for days.
Apparently she’d chosen the wrong position. “I’m the pitcher,” the tall boy said angrily. “And I told you. No girls. Come on, guys.”
They continued walking toward the park as Zoey’s eyes filled with tears. She batted them away quickly. Boys were jerks.
She walked back toward her front porch, disheartened. She’d exhausted her mother’s list of so-called fun summer activities. She was tired of coloring, watching movies and reading. While her room was unpacked and completely decorated, her parents were still busy painting and fixing up the rest of the house. She’d offered to help several times, but they told her she’d just be in the way and instructed her to go out and make some new friends, play.
Zoey sank onto the top step of the porch and sighed. She hated this stupid town, this stupid house and those stupid boys.
Another boy came running down the street in the direction of the park. Clearly he was late and trying to catch up with the others. Zoey didn’t stir, didn’t bother to wave. What was the point? No girls allowed. The brown-haired boy had almost passed her house when he noticed her and slowed down.
When he turned to look at her, she felt a stirring of hope. Maybe this boy would be nicer than the others. She lifted her hand and waved.
He stopped and approached her house. “Hi,” he said.
His face was friendly, open, and Zoey liked him instantly. She grinned. “Hi.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “We just moved in last week. I’m Zoey.”
The boy’s smile widened. “I’m Robbie Granger. I live across the street, three houses down that way.” He pointed to a home with deep blue shutters and a wide front porch that resembled the one she was sitting on.
She gestured to the glove in his hand. “You going to play baseball with those other boys?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You wanna come?”
“They told me no girls were allowed.”
Robbie frowned. “Since when?”
Zoey shrugged. “I don’t know. The tall boy just said I couldn’t play.”
“That would be Jeff. He’s a jerk.” Robbie glanced toward the basketball net hanging above her garage. “My best friend, Johnny, used to live here,” he said. “We spent all last summer playing basketball. You shoot hoops?”
Zoey didn’t, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t learn. “A little. There’s a ball in the garage. Johnny’s family must’ve left it behind. You want to play?” she asked hopefully, spying an end to at least one boring day.
Robbie tossed his baseball mitt to the ground. “Sure. I hate baseball.”
She hopped up quickly, dashing into the garage to grab the basketball at the speed of light. She was afraid Robbie would leave if she left him alone for too long.
For a few minutes, she watched him shoot, then she took a couple turns. When it became obvious she’d never played the game in her life, Robbie taught her how to shoot, then they spent the rest of the afternoon playing Horse.
By the time the other boys returned from the park, she and Robbie had formed their own little club of two—boys
and
girls allowed. Jeff teased Robbie about playing with a girl, but Robbie shrugged off the taunts, not rising to the bait. Zoey knew then and there he was the coolest person she’d ever met.
When the other guys drifted back to their houses, she and Robbie walked to the middle of her front yard and dropped down to sit on the cool green grass. Robbie lay on his back looking at the sky, so Zoey followed suit. He pointed to a cloud that looked like a grizzly bear and she spotted one that looked like a teacup.
“Thanks for teaching me how to play basketball,” she said after several moments of silence.
“Sure.”
Zoey knew time was running out on her day with Robbie. The smell of fried chicken wafted from the kitchen and she suspected her mother would call her in soon for dinner. She forced herself to ask her question, the one that had plagued her all day. Part of her was afraid today had been a fluke, or that Robbie was just being nice and his goodwill toward the new girl would evaporate overnight. “You want to do something tomorrow? We could play basketball again.”
“Okay,” he said easily.
Zoey released a relieved breath. “Robbie. Will you promise me something?”
He looked over at her. “Promise you what?”
“Will you promise to be my friend when school starts? You’re the only person I know here in my grade.”
He grinned. “I’m already your friend, silly.”
Zoey’s whole body filled with joy. His words came easily and she didn’t doubt they were true. Still, the memory of feeling so lonely this morning still lingered. She didn’t want to go back there. “Promise me anyway.”
Robbie sat up and crossed his heart. “I promise.”
The rest of the summer passed quickly as she and Robbie filled the hours of each day shooting hoops or acting out scenes from scary movies or swimming at the local pool.
Robbie didn’t break his promise. When school started, they walked there together. He showed her around, escorted her to all their classrooms, introduced her to the other kids, and sat with her at lunch.
His promise to be her friend had never wavered and Zoey hadn’t felt lonely since that day in her family’s front yard. She opened her eyes, her gaze zeroing in on a previously unnoticed smudge on the ceiling of the apartment she and Robbie had shared for years.
She sighed. She hadn’t thought about her first summer in Harrisburg for years. The reappearance of the memory surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn’t. Her first week in town had introduced her to the concept of being alone.
However, that emotion was nothing to the bone-wracking, terrifying loneliness that consumed her tonight. Robbie had saved her from an eternal summer when she was ten, but she wasn’t sure he could help her this time.
It didn’t matter if he could or not. She needed him. Wanted him here. Desperately.
She remembered her determination for a second chance on New Year’s Eve. She’d silently vowed this would be the year she told Robbie how she truly felt for him. So much for that. There was no way she could come clean now. No way she could heap her disaster on him. Not now when he was finally on the path to finding true happiness. How could she drag him away from that? Thrust him into what was certain to be months of pain and misery.
She couldn’t.
The answer choked her. Jesus. She couldn’t, but how could she do this alone? She wasn’t strong enough. Her stomach clenched and the lonesomeness wafted over her again, the pain so overwhelming she felt lightheaded.
His voice. I just need to hear his voice.
Before she could think about her actions, she picked up her cell phone from the coffee table. When it began to ring, she considered disconnecting the call, but fear kept her hanging on.
“Hello?”
“Robbie?”
“Zoey? What’s up?”
She regretted dialing the number the moment she heard Robbie’s voice. “Not much,” she lied. “Just, um, wondering how things are going.”
Robbie was silent for a moment. She didn’t call him to chitchat thirty minutes before a show unless it was an emergency. And in twenty-five years of friendship, she’d never had that kind of an emergency.
“Everything is fine, Zoey. How are things there?”
Things were completely and utterly horrible. Instead, she said, “Fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Tears clouded her vision. Shit. She’d been okay all damn day. Hadn’t cried a single tear. Hearing Robbie’s concerned voice exposed the cracks in the dam. “Yep.” The word came out loud, awkward.
“I have to go on stage in a few minutes.”
She
knew
that. Christ. Robbie was living his dream. His band, Express Train, was opening for The Traffic, one of the biggest rock bands in the country. She’d been selfish to call.
“I just wanted to say—” She paused, her mind filling in the real words:
I have cancer. S
he cleared her throat. “I wanted to say break a leg.”
He chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye, Zoey.”
She dropped her phone to the carpeted floor and closed her eyes to avoid the onslaught. The action was useless. There was no stopping the inevitable. Tears escaped, flowing slowly and steadily for several minutes before giving way to huge, soul-wracking sobs.
Cancer.
So much for the run-of-the mill baseline mammogram.
Her baseline was fucked.
She was fucked.
She’d been surprised when the doctor’s office called and asked her to come in, but she’d dismissed it. It was her first mammogram. Maybe they wanted to explain it to her. Instead, the doctor had shown her the pictures, pointed out a shadow—an area of concern, he called it—and scheduled a biopsy for the next day. For the last three days, she’d held her breath waiting for the call.
It came this morning. The results were obvious when, once again, the girl who’d never been sick a day in her life was asked to come in. Even worse, the doctor had suggested she bring a friend or family member with her. Christ, could he have been any more transparent?
She’d gone alone. Her parents—both retired—were living it up in Florida and Robbie was on the road. She’d considered and dismissed asking Josie or Laura to go with her. She was afraid of how she’d react when she got the news. She didn’t want to fall apart in front of them.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to share this news with anyone yet. Zoey needed time to wrap her own head around it.
Cancer. I have cancer.