"Great, now that we've gone on an actual bike ride, I can't tell if you mean 'bike ride,'" she said, pointing to the back of the vehicle, "or 'bike ride,'" she said again, moving her hips back and forth.
"We—" She shut the vehicle door before giving me the chance to confirm what she already knew.
I was still chuckling as I pulled out of her driveway, heading toward my motel room. Then the reality of the situation set in. It was obvious by the way that she opened up to me on the mountain that Ashton was starting to trust me. Two days ago I would've been happy about it, but now I couldn't help feeling like a fraud. I'd charmed my way into her bed on so many bogus pretenses that I no longer knew which ones were true and which were untrue. One startling fact that sat at the forefront of all my thoughts was that I no longer cared why she had run. I wasn't about to turn over her whereabouts to anyone. I also planned on telling her why I really came to Woodfalls. Not tonight, though. I wanted at least one more night with her before she made her choice. She'd most likely run once she knew, and I would let her go. I at least owed her that.
Chapter 19: Taking a sick day
Ashton
By the time I woke from my nap several hours later, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck or something. Every move I made was answered with an ache or pain in muscles I didn't even know I had. Sore muscles weren't my only issue either. My skin felt warm and dry like I had a sunburn. I actually felt pretty crummy. As icing on the cake, a headache also made itself known when I sat up to check the clock.
I was pretty sure I needed to get up and get ready since Nathan was coming over, but my body refused to cooperate. Anytime I felt sick like this I always panicked. I witnessed the symptoms firsthand with my mom. I watched them consume her until she was taken from me. Then I suffered from the same symptoms myself. Four years, three hundred and fifty days ago. I was a different person then. Four years ago, I believed I could beat it. I accepted the news when they told me I would need a complete hysterectomy, even though I was only seventeen at the time. I pretended the hair loss didn't bother me as the chemo ravaged through my body making me sicker than I could have ever imagined. I tolerated the looks of pity from my classmates and the snubs I received when I had to repeat my senior year since I missed half the year clutching the toilet, trying to rid my body of the toxins they were pumping in me. I accepted it all because I believed I could beat it. I had statistics on my side. We had caught it early. The doctors were confident that I wouldn't wind up like my mom, that we had an early diagnosis on our side, so I fought. I never gave up, and when I went into remission, I believed everything they had told me. I would be considered cured when I stayed in remission for five years. Time began a countdown as I kept the five-year mark in my head.
I finished my senior year of high school a loner; no longer the person I was before I found out I had cancer. My so-called friends had graduated the year before and moved on with their own lives, all glad they no longer had to face me. The rest of the students avoided me like the plague, like they were afraid they would catch what I had. High school became nothing more than torture as I avoided school functions. I just couldn't take the looks of pity. I would have avoided prom completely if my father wouldn't have bullied Shawn's father into making Shawn take me. Giving Shawn my virginity that night was my rebellious way of trying to finally feel normal, not that it worked.
With high school finally behind me, I immersed myself in college, hoping to make up for lost time. Fighting cancer made me realize how fragile life was and I was anxious to start feeling alive. The moment happened the day they handed me my diploma. I was two hundred days shy of reaching the five-year mark, and I was confident I would make it. Ten days later, my body began to ache and I became fatigued. I didn't need a doctor to tell me the cancer had returned. I recognized the symptoms. I had been there before. That was the day I wrote my bucket list and began to make the necessary arrangements to leave. One thing I knew without a shadow of a doubt was that I couldn't put my father through another cancer crisis. He had watched my mother die and then had to watch me battle it seven years later. I would never forget the pain in his eyes as he worried himself sick that my fate would be the same as hers. He wept when the doctors told him I was in remission, confessing that he'd been so afraid he'd lose me also. I could not face telling him I was sick again. I knew it would destroy him, just like I knew I no longer had the will to fight it. The cancer would not be happy until it took me. So I left.
My father received a letter from me filled with lies once I was gone. I claimed I was sick of his hovering, that I was done been treated like a child, and I needed time to discover the person I was supposed to be, without his meddling. I told him he was suffocating me, and I could no longer live in the same town with him. I knew my words would hurt him, but that was my intent. I wanted him to hate me, to think I was ungrateful so he could move on. Hate was easier to overcome than grief.
I shivered slightly in my bed, probably from a fever, but also from the memories. I missed my father. I missed his words of wisdom, his goofy laugh and the way he loved to drag me to see old sci-fi movies. He was serious at times and needy other times, but terrific the rest of the time. It broke my heart that I would never see him again.
I was still lying in bed when Nathan arrived a half an hour later with pizza and a bottle of wine in hand.
"You're sick," he said, taking one look at me as I pulled the front door open to let him in.
"Probably from the outside shower we took last night," I joked.
"Crap. I'm sorry, honey," he said, setting the pizza and wine on my coffee table.
"I'm just sorry I'm messing up our date. We don't seem to have the best of luck with our dates. Between me passing out, your allergic reaction, a canoe ride in driving rain and now my annoying cold, I'm beginning to think someone is trying to tell us something," I contemplated, sitting on my couch.
"They're just trying to test our resilience," he said, tucking a quilt around me from the rack that hung on the wall.
I snorted. "I don't know. I think maybe we're a part of some cosmic joke. Someone is getting a laugh at our expense."
He threw his head back and laughed at my words.
"What?" I asked.
"I kid you not. I had the same fucking thought last night when the sky opened up on us. I don't care though. The cosmic gods can throw as many curve balls as they want at us."
"You're awfully cocky tempting fate like that," I said, trying to keep my voice light, even though the idea scared the shit out of me. I knew the ultimate move fate could use and the outcome would change us both forever.
"I just believe in making my own fate. Life may be a greedy bastard at times, but I'm confident I can handle whatever is thrown my way," he said, grabbing plates and wineglasses from the lone cabinet in my kitchen.
"I didn't have you tagged as an optimist. I would have pegged you for a pessimist for sure," I said.
"Shit, I'm one hundred percent pessimist, but that doesn't mean I don't believe I make my own fate. Let me guess, you're one hundred percent optimistic," he commented, handing me a piece of pizza.
"I used to be. I'm not all that sure I am anymore," I mused, nibbling at my pizza, although I wasn't all that hungry. "I've changed a lot lately. I guess you could call it growing up. Maybe I'm becoming boring and dull in my old age."
"Interesting," he pondered, taking a big bite from his own pizza. "Boring? You're far from boring. You may be stoic, but there's nothing dull about you."
"In what way?" I asked, unnerved that he considered me stoic. To the best of my knowledge, stoic meant someone who endures without complaint. It bothered me a little that he saw me that way despite the lies I had fed him. "Stoic" wouldn't be the word I would use to describe myself. "Liar" was more accurate, but of course, he wouldn't know that about me. I'd always been a truthful person. Really, all the half-truths and lies had turned me into someone I hardly recognized anymore. I'd convinced myself that was my intention all along. After living so long under a microscope with everyone knowing my every secret, the lies I told now were intended to shield me.
"Maybe it's because you're always so upbeat, although every once in a while you get this little hint of sadness in your eyes. Sometimes, it's like you're hiding something or a part of yourself. You quickly distill it, but I've seen it," he answered, grabbing another slice of pizza.
I waited him for him to go for broke and ask what I was hiding. His intuitiveness was dead on, and I couldn't help wondering if it was the reporter in him or just a gift he had. I prepared myself mentally for how I would handle this question, knowing that he of all people could not know the truth. I never wanted him to look at me with pity, or worse yet, run for the hills the moment the big C was mentioned.