What We Choose novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Luncheon

I texted back.

Talk.

She called three minutes later, while Colter was still asleep with his hand on me.

I took it in the kitchen, under the teapots, with the door closed.

"Thank you for answering," the admin said. Her voice was smaller than it had been in the infusion room. "I didn't think you would."

"You filmed me getting chemo."

"I know."

"You told me it was for the group."

"Sienna told me which chair you'd be in," she said. "And which side to film from, so the big guy would be in the background. I thought she was helping."

I didn't say anything.

"The post in September. The one about you and Colter." I heard her swallow. "She wrote it at my kitchen table. I approved it in two minutes. Eleven thousand people."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because people are saying there are texts. Mr. Penhallow won't talk about it. Nobody will." She took a breath. "And because she wants me to hand you a plaque at the luncheon, in front of two hundred women, with a photographer. And I need to know what I'd be holding."

I looked at the closed bedroom door.

Then I opened the thread and found August eighth and took one screenshot.

Just that one.

I sent it.

It went quiet on her end for a long time.

"That's the night you were diagnosed," she finally said.

"Yes."

"My sister had her mastectomy four years ago." Her voice cracked. "I'd have killed anyone who wrote that about her."

"I'll come to the luncheon," I said.

The Larkhaven Yacht Club ballroom had pink tablecloths and pink roses and pink balloons tied to every chair.

Two hundred women in good blouses.

The room where I was supposed to get married in June.

I'd paid twelve thousand dollars of my mother's money for that room. I'd never once eaten in it.

Radiation had started that Monday. Five days in, all it had done so far was make me tired by three.

I walked in at noon with Kenna on my arm.

I wore a black sweater with a high neck and no padding of any kind, flat under the wool.

My hair was half an inch of soft auburn fuzz.

Kenna wore a pink blazer she'd found at a thrift store.

"For camouflage," she said. "I'm a spy."

"You're a very loud spy."

"The loudest."

The room noticed me.

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