To My Romeo, with Love novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Last Light

"He lived four more hours," Fraser said. "Four hours of the worst night of my life, and he was awake for all of them."

"Frasie."

"Nobody calls me that anymore."

"I'll stop."

"Don't."

He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

"I told him no because I couldn't stand it. That's the truth. It wasn't for him. It was for me."

I took his face in both my hands.

"You were nineteen," I said.

"He was telling you he loved you and that he was done, and you said no because you loved him back."

"You were in the chair. That's what he needed."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's what I'd need."

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he put his forehead against mine.

We sat on the concrete in the dark until my father's headlights came across the shop window, and honked, once, politely.

The fourth cycle ended in March.

The scan was on a Monday, at the same hospital, in the same cold tube, with a nurse I knew by name now.

I lay in the machine and thought of nothing at all.

I had gotten very good at it.

The oncologist called on Thursday at eight, and Fraser was sitting beside me on the bed with my hand in both of his.

"The news is mostly good," she said.

"Mostly."

"The chest is clear. The neck is clear. The big mass is gone, Laurel. It's gone."

I put my other hand over my mouth.

"But there's a spot behind the breastbone, about the size of a grape, that's still taking up the dye. It's much smaller than in December."

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