Chapter Eight
“You gonna kill me for inviting Lauren over?” Jeni asked after Lauren left.
Andrew regarded his sister, tilting his head. “Actually, no. You’ve proven quite useful. I think I’ll keep you around. Though, I have to ask—what are you trying to do?”
“If you don’t know, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”
Andrew ignored that. “Parks and Rec and pizza, though? Where the hell did you come up with that?”
Jeni shrugged. “Sounds like an awesome holiday to me. And I think Lauren agreed.”
“We’ll see,” Andrew said. He figured his chances of her actually coming were low.
Even so, seeing Lauren today was the highlight of what had otherwise been a shitty couple of weeks.
Last Monday, three days after his last chemo treatment and two days after his non-date with Lauren, Andrew had felt so awful he’d skipped his Ethics class. Even though Dan had brought him notes the next day, he still felt like it was a bad sign. That had been only the second of eight planned treatments.
Where would it go from here?
To make matters worse, last Thursday he’d woken up to find a disturbing amount of his hair still on the pillow and had immediately called Jeni. Good twin sister that she was, she’d maintained a perfectly businesslike demeanor as she’d shaved his head. She hadn’t laughed, she hadn’t wept all over him, she hadn’t cracked jokes. She’d strode in, gotten the job done, and left for work. They both knew it sucked, but it was part of the deal.
Supposedly, it would grow back.
He’d had eight days to get used to his new look before today’s chemo appointment, when he’d assumed he might see Lauren. She was probably used to seeing bald men and women…but that didn’t ease his self-consciousness. He’d experimented with baseball caps and hipster-style beanies, but typically went with the latter, even indoors. November in Kansas City boasted temperatures in the forties, and Andrew wasn’t prepared for how cold he would be without hair blanketing his head.
The hat he chose for today was dark gray, and as he sat in a similar-colored leather-encased chair in the chemo infusion center, he blended in quite well.
“Have you talked to Mom today?” Jeni asked from beside him. Her chair was perpendicular to his, her feet propped up on his armrest. She tapped at her phone and didn’t look up when she spoke.
“No, why?” Andrew’s eyes were on his phone as well as he scrolled through Instagram.
“I really did talk her out of bringing the extended family down for Thanksgiving. But she still wants to come. With Rhonda and Valerie’s family…and Dad.”
“I hope you told her no.”
“Of course I did. But you know Mom, she’s devastated we won’t be together as a family. I told her there’s a first for everything, and that you didn’t need the commotion and stress of being around that many people. Especially on your week off, when your immune system is the weakest.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Lauren said so.”
He tried to remember anything about that…but the only thing that came to mind from that first day was an image of her red hair and the blue shirt she’d worn underneath that long white coat.
And his mother’s question about sex. He’d never forget that.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Tell her you don’t feel up to celebrating the holiday.”
“I don’t.”
“I know. But she doesn’t believe me.”
Andrew opened his text messages. “I’m on it.”
But before he could send off a message to his mother, an incoming call came through.
Andrew stared at the screen. What the hell? “Dad’s calling me.”