She knew. And she didn’t tell him.
Cancer.
“Fuck,” he muttered, thrashing his head back and forth, desperate to find some way to force that fucking word out of his thoughts forever. Why wouldn’t it just shut up?!
“Shut up!” he shouted into the night.
He quickly jogged down the block, away from the pub, when the door opened and someone started to walk out. He couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t talk to anyone.
The sound of voices he didn’t recognize drifted away from him, mercifully growing softer as whoever it was walked the opposite direction.
When he reached the corner, a wave of nausea caught him completely off guard. He bent at the waist, his hands on his knees as he retched, dry-heaving, choking on a knowledge he didn’t want to face.
I can’t do this again.
He replayed those words over and over and over as he swallowed down the bile and forced himself to stand upright. Raindrops splattered his face. He realized belatedly that the rain had finally started, but he barely felt it, his body chilled from the inside out, ice coursing through his veins.
Padraig drifted farther down the street with no direction in mind. He just needed to walk, to move. If he stopped…
I can’t do this again.
Too many memories started pounding inside his brain, each one slicing through him deeper and deeper.
The nose bleeds, the seizures, the headaches, the countless medications with shitty side effects, the hours spent in doctors’ offices and the hospital. Mia kept hoping against hope for a miracle. He’d done the same. Kept thinking it was all a nightmare they’d wake up from. Then she went to sleep forever, and…now he was plunged back into the same horrifying nightmare.
There’d been no miracle.
Only pain. Fear. Misery. Uncertainty. Sadness.
God no. Please! He didn’t want to see it again, didn’t want to remember.
Then he realized this time, it wasn’t Mia he saw bent over the toilet, throwing up as a migraine ravaged her.
It was Emmy.
Tears streamed down his face as he saw himself lying next to Emmy in a hospital bed, holding her hand, the only sound that goddamned horrible, rasping breathing, as she took one last look at him and…
I can’t do this again.
“No,” he said aloud, barely able to hear his own voice over the driving rain. It was beating down on him hard now, thunder rumbling in the distance. “No. No. No.”
Glancing up, Padraig realized he was standing outside Emmy’s building. He looked up and saw the light in her window. She’d have spaghetti sauce simmering in a pot on the stove, the television playing in the background. She’d probably be watching one of those cooking competition shows—Chopped or Crime Scene Kitchen or some silly shit like that. Seamus would be dogging her every step, the sweet mutt completely devoted to her.
Just like Mia.
Padraig sucked in a deep breath, stiffened his spine, and forced himself to walk inside.
I can’t do this again.
11
Emmy heard the knock on the door just as she turned on a pot of water to boil.
She grinned as she opened it. “Did you forget your key?” she asked before her gaze landed on Padraig. “Oh my God. You’re drenched. Where’s your umbrella?”
Padraig didn’t speak as he entered. He only took a few steps inside before shutting the door behind him.
“Let me grab you a towel,” she said, turning to head to the bathroom.
Padraig reached out and grasped her wrist, halting her. “No.”
“Paddy. You’re going to catch your death of cold if you don’t dry off. Take off your clothes and I’ll run to the bedroom for some dry things for you.”
Both of them now had a drawer in each other’s apartments filled with spare clothing. While she’d pushed off his suggestion that they move in together, there was no denying they were getting there on their own even without further discussion.
He retained his grip on her wrist, then lifted his other hand, revealing a soggy piece of paper. “Were you going to tell me about this?”
Emmy, confused, took the paper from him, and felt a stabbing pierce in her chest when she realized it was the letter from the doctor. “Where did you—”
“It was on the seat of the booth where you were sitting.” His tone was cold, angry.
“It must have fallen out of my purse,” she said stupidly, as she struggled for some way to explain.
“Were you going to tell me?” he repeated.
She nodded. “I was. After the second test. I swear. I talked to Sunnie about it today. She said false positives are very common. Thirty-five percent are typically wrong. I googled it.”
Padraig’s face appeared to be carved in stone. She’d never seen him so still, so stiff. “Do you feel okay? Are you alright…physically?” he asked, with no inflection, no emotion.
His concerned questions might have touched her if it didn’t seem like he was a stranger. She didn’t recognize this cold, detached man, and it scared her. “I feel fine.”
“I thought the check was an annual physical. Did you go because you knew something was wrong?”
“God no! It was just a checkup. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I wanted to wait. Until I got the results of the second test. According to the medical websites I looked at, less than one percent of people who have this test actually have…” She hesitated.
“Say it.”
She didn’t want to. She really didn’t.
“Say it, Emmy.”
“Cervical cancer,” she finished.
Padraig winced when she said the words, but he didn’t respond, his silence deafening.
“I should have told you. I just—”
“You just what?” he asked woodenly.
Emmy’s heart was racing. It felt like nothing she said was helping or setting his mind at ease. She was helpless to fix what she’d broken. But God, she wanted to fix it. “I didn’t want to worry you. After everything…you’ve been through.”
She watched him swallow heavily, his Adam’s apple moving slowly, as if there was something lodged in his throat. She knew the feeling.
“Emmy. When I read those test results, it felt like I’d been punched in the gut, like someone had swung a sledgehammer at me.”
She blinked rapidly, trying to stem the tears suddenly filling her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Please, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t hide something from you if…I just wanted to wait until…”
“I understand why you didn’t tell me.”
It was obvious that while Padraig might understand the reasons for her silence, he sure as hell didn’t accept them.
“I made a mistake,” she started, but Padraig wasn’t listening to her.
He was shaking his head slowly, back and forth, his gaze far away. “I know why you didn’t say anything, but when I read those words, the idea…that you might have…” He swallowed deeply again, his voice gruff, suddenly hoarse with emotion.
Emmy noticed the puffiness around his eyes. She’d attributed it to the rain, but now she wasn’t so sure. Had he been crying?
The thought triggered her own sorrow, and she was powerless to stop the tears now streaming down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but Padraig wasn’t looking at her, didn’t notice her distress, too lost in his own pain.