Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) (195 page)

When I’m with him, like this, the world ceases to exist. Time stops. When I give way like this, there is no cancer, there is no shitty heart, there are no backstabbing friends or ex-spouses or falsified rape charges.

There is only…
us
.

A man and woman together in perfect harmony. A man and woman so much in sync it is almost surreal.

A man and a woman perfectly in love.

“Forever,” he says, and he slides his cock deep into me.

My eyes go wide. There’s no condom. I don’t care. I want the intimacy. I want the connection in full, skin on skin, not sheathed behind a thin film of latex.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes, James. Forever…” he starts to pump into me, “…I am forever yours.”

5.

I have an exam early the next morning. I leave James slumbering in bed without saying good-bye.

I know he loves his sleep.

I’m a bit late, so I hurry along the frozen sidewalk huddled into my coat. I had two double shots of coffee on the way out to wake myself up. I’m buzzing from the sex last night, but still tired from lack of sleep.

Fucking all the way to morning does that to you. And to think, I thought I wouldn’t have the stamina.

I arrive a little winded and a lot sweaty. I strip off my jacket and grimace as I feel the wetness on my back. It doesn’t feel very nice, but I don’t pay it much mind. I find a seat in the auditorium and settle in.

The professor walks in and distributes our exams. I glance around the room and accidentally make eye contact with Summer. She’s staring right at me. When our gazes cross, she gives a vicious little grin and blows me a kiss.

I bury my head and wait for the professor to call start. Summer’s a vindictive, fucking bitch. I know she wants to throw me off. I won’t let her affect me.

“You have ninety minutes, beginning…” The professor looks at the ticking clock at the front of the room, waiting for the second hand to hit twelve. “…now. Go!”

A flurry of rustling noise fills the room as students flip the examination booklet open. I do the same and begin writing.

Everything’s going well until, halfway through, I get the enormous urge to urinate.

Shit, I think. Caffeine’s a diuretic. I shouldn’t have had so much.

I try to hold it in but only manage that for a few minutes. I glance up at the professor’s desk at the front. Only one student’s allowed to leave at a time. All the seats are taken.

I can go, but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time to complete the test in full if I do.

But my concentration’s shot anyway. Better get it over with and rush back as soon as possible.

I pick the test up and hurry to the front of the room. The man looks up. “Done so soon?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper. “Washroom.”

“Oh. Okay. Here. I’ll take that…” I hand him the test. “It’ll be waiting for you right here. Quickly, now.”

“K,” I say, and shuffle out of the room.

In the hall, I break into a run. I get to the restroom, fling open the doors and rush inside. The stalls are empty. I take one. I pull my pants down, do my business, and come straight back out to wash my hands.

But as I’m rubbing them under the water, a strange fleck appears in my vision. It’s like a dancing worm made of pure white light.

I blink and steady myself against the sink. The little worm’s not going away. I close both eyes, but it’s still there.

And it’s growing.

It becomes bigger and bigger, until it takes up nearly a quarter of my vision. I squeeze my eyes together. Everything is black except for the zig-zagging line. I open them. It’s still there. Close them. Same thing.

Shit
. The worst feeling of apprehension takes residence in my stomach. I can’t blink the artifact away. I know exactly what’s causing it. I don’t know if it’s dangerous, or a bad sign, or permanent, or just passing…

I start freaking. Sweat breaks out all over my body. My limbs begin shaking. I’m breathing hard. I desperately try to stay calm, to focus on getting back to the examination room. But, my mind’s buzzing with all types of horrifying thoughts. The cancer. Is it getting worse? Is that what this means? Am I going blind? Christ! If this thing takes up permanent residence in my vision, then I’ve already lost twenty-five percent of my sight.

I can’t focus. I can’t breathe. My lungs aren’t getting enough oxygen. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

My grip on reality falters. The restroom starts to spin. The ugly floor tiles, the yellowing walls, the old stalls, all of them begin whirling around me, and I can’t stop it. I can’t reach out and take anything. All the objects around me are distant, faraway, foreign.

I start breathing hard. I’m gasping for air. But my lungs can’t seem to get enough. I’m choking. I’m suffocating. I’m having a panic attack, and my whole body is drenched in sweat, and my thoughts are rocketing all over the place, and, and, and—

I place my weight badly on the side of my foot and lose balance. My knee buckles. I tumble down.

My head rebounds off the porcelain sink, and then…

Darkness.

6.

Consciousness is a long time coming.

The first thing I become aware of is this distant yet very intimate feeling of unease. Apprehension and worry mingle together with fear and stress. A black vacuum consumes the entirety of my mind. I feel trapped and unable to break away, unable to break free—

Light. Light shines onto me. I
feel
rather than see it through my closed eyelids. It’s bright but not overpowering. It steadies me. I focus on it.

Next come voices. My mind latches onto them. If I concentrate, I can make out snippets of conversations.

I hear my name.

Celeste.

That comes loud and clear amidst all the confusion.

Celeste.

Then again, with more fervor, with more force:

Celeste. Celeste, get up. Celeste, open your eyes!

I feel hands on me. A familiar male touch. Strength comes from that grip. It flows into me and makes me remember—

“Celeste!”

My eyes burst open.

James’s face is right above mine.

His features are hard. His eyebrows furrow together. His jaw is clenched.

Then he sees me, and all the hardness flows away like water over a dam.

“Celeste!” he gasps, and wraps his arms around me.

I let him lift me off the floor to a sitting position.

“What…?” I begin. Then I look around. I’m still in the restroom. There’s a crowd of people surrounding me.

My clothes are wet. I put my hand on the floor and feel it slosh through a puddle.

Christ! My head hurts. I touch the spot where my forehead connected with the sink and wince. Pain shoots through me at the slightest pressure.

“What happened?” I ask. “How did you get here?” Alarm rips through me. “Ohmigod! The exam!”

“Sh, shh,” James says. He holds me to him. “Don’t worry. The paramedics are on their way. They’ll be here soon. They…”

“No!” I push off him. I look around me wildly. I feel like a caged animal on display at a zoo. The people are too close together. The crowd is too tight. The concentration of bodies plays havoc with my thoughts. “I need to get back,” I gasp. “The test, I need to…”

“It’s over, Celeste,” James says. His voice is firm but gentle. “You’ll be given another chance later, if you so choose. Right now, the important thing is getting you to the hospital. You have a nasty welt on your head. They have to make sure you’re okay…”

“Fuck that!” I burst in. “I’m fine. I—”

I cut off as a searing pain explodes against the inside of my skull.

“I—ahh!” I cry out. I grab my head. A high-pitched ringing sounds in both ears.

The pain consumes me. It’s blinding. It’s immense in its intensity. I cradle into a little ball and try desperately to dissociate from it.

I can’t. It’s too much. Too strong, too real, too
powerful
. I don’t have any sense of my surroundings. All I know is the sharp, ripping pain inside my head.

And the shrill, horrible ringing.

I hear James calling my name. But it’s vague and distant. I’m trapped in my mind. “God, oh God, it hurts,” I mutter, over and over again. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

The door bangs open. I have enough clarity to see it for a split second. A team of paramedics rushes in.

I watch, from some distant vantage, as they set up their stretcher and lift me onto it. They clear the crowd and run me out through the hall.

The whole time, through the pain, through the confusion, all I can think is:

I failed.

7.

At the hospital, I get morphine injected into my arm. It eases the pressure in my skull immediately.

I feel weak and useless. I’m broken. I’ve let everyone down—James, most of all.

I have no doubt anymore that the tumor is getting worse.

I failed. I failed because I’d come
so close
. I’d come so close to finishing the term.

I was almost there. I could see the finish line. I’d come all this way without succumbing to my illness, and then:

Bang
. It hits me. It blindsides me at the worst possible time. One more week, and I would have made it. Another week, and I would have had closure on this part of my life.

That’s all I fucking wanted. One week.

But I don’t have a say in it anymore.

As I lie in the ER and look at all the patients surrounding me, I feel—and it’s horrible to say—but I feel a little bit less alone.

I’m not the only one who’s been dealt a crappy hand.

There’s a little girl crying softly in the far corner. The drugs are making my brain loopy. It’s hard to focus. But I can still hear her cries. She looks maybe eight or nine. An old woman is sitting beside her, holding her hand. She doesn’t say anything, but there are tears in her eyes, too.

I wrench my gaze away. Clearly, there are people who have it worse. I can’t feel sorry for myself.

But I
do
feel sorry for James. I tangled him in all this darkness. If it weren’t for me, he would have had his tenured term by now. He wouldn’t have had to deal with Angela, or Summer, or my illness.

He wouldn’t have had any of the sadness that I know I bring.

How can I do that to him? He says he loves me. I know I love him.

Shouldn’t love be enough to make me do the thing that is best for both of us and just turn away?

Shouldn’t love make me strong enough, courageous enough, to whisper to James that he should move on and forget me before it’s too late? If I truly love him, wouldn’t I be doing him a mercy by allowing that?

But despite this outer façade of strength, deep down, I am a coward. I do not want to be alone. I’m frightened—terrified—of dying without having my life mean anything. And because of my weakness, I tied James into it. When my time comes—and I’m absolutely certain it will come sooner rather than later—I’m going to leave James broken.

How selfish if that? I’ll be gone, I’ll have used him for his love, and he’ll be worse off for it.

He’ll hate me for it. He’ll despise me. He’ll loathe my memory.

That’s
the certain truth.

So I have two choices: I either break things off with him right now, or I wait, like a coward, for my time on this earth to run out and leave James broken in the aftermath.

I should choose the first. There’ll be sadness, of course, but it’s infinitely preferable to heartbreak.

…Isn’t it? I don’t… I don’t know. I can’t tell by myself. I
want
to be with him, but I know we have no future together.

I don’t have a future, period.

Fuck
.
Fuck
! I wish there were someone I could talk to. Mom’s long since gone. Summer is, too.

Who do I go to for advice when I have nobody around but myself?

The pitiful line of thought comes to a bleaker end when Dr. Robinson enters.

“Hello, Celeste,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” I manage.

He checks the nurse’s notes. “It says here you were found unconscious,” he tells me. He looks at my bandaging. “You hit your head?”

I glance down and away. “Yes,” I say, still ashamed.

“Did anything else happen?” he asks. “Have you noticed any other symptoms? Anything unusual, out of the ordinary?”

“I just… I don’t know. I think I had a little panic attack,” I lie. I bite my tongue on the subject of the dancing light. It’s gone now, and I don’t want to think about it. “Stress. I’m tired. It’s exam season.”

The doctor smiles. “I know,” he says gently. “We drew blood when you came in, Celeste. I’ve checked your markers. They’re within range, all things considered. You haven’t missed any doses of the chemo drugs?”

“No,” I say. “Each day I take the pills.”

“Good,” he smiles. “And your head? You were given some potent painkillers. Does it still hurt?”

“Not really,” I say.

“Okay.” He touches my shoulder. “You’ll be discharged quickly, in that case. If there haven’t been any other symptoms?”

“No,” I say, thinking back to the staircase, to the time I lost the ability to read.

“Then, I think you’re all right. You’re due for a follow-up exam at the end of the week, if I’m not mistaken?”

“That’s right.”

“We’ll have a clearer picture then. In the meantime, I don’t want you to worry. I don’t believe this is connected to the tumor.”

You would if you knew the truth, I think.

Instead, I say, “Thank you. That’s a huge relief.”

He smiles. “I’ll see you this weekend.”

8.

James is pacing the waiting room when I emerge.

He turns and marches straight to me as soon as I enter. He grips me by the upper arms.

He searches my face. His mouth works but only the barest sound comes out.

Then he pulls me into him and holds me tight. I gasp as the air is squeezed out of me.

He doesn’t let go.

“I’m okay,” I say in his ear. “Really, James. I’m fine.”

He steps back. His face is creased with worry.

I can’t bear to see him like this.