Present Perfect (40 page)

I wasn’t in the mood to go home right then. My parents hugged and kissed me goodbye, got in their car and drove home. I had never seen them so visibly shaken before. I think we all needed our alone time to deal with this, without trying to keep up the brave pretense.

Noah and I sat in his truck decompressing from the appointment. Out the corner of my eye I could see he was fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It looked like he was about to say something.

“Noah, don’t. I need a little time to process what was said in there.”

“I know. What do you want to do?”

I continued staring straight ahead and said, “Runaway.”

He didn’t respond. He simply started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot.

We drove further into downtown, pulling up to a very nice condo that I didn’t recognize. Noah cut the car off, turned to me, and said, “I’m staying here for a few weeks.”

“It’s nice. Why are you staying here?”

“It’s Carter Perry’s place. I hang out here all the time. He asked me to stay while he was out of town for Christmas. He won’t be back until after New Year’s. It’s great having some privacy,” he said.

“Emily’s place is only a couple of blocks away. You’ll be so close by.”

“I know, funny how it worked out that way.” He smiled at me before getting out of the car. I had a feeling that his staying at this condo wasn’t just a coincidence.

I watched as he walked around to my side of the car and opened the passenger door for me. I placed my hand in his and we walked inside.

It was a very nice two bedroom open floor plan condo. It was a typical guy’s place, sparsely furnished with a huge sofa and flat screen TV. We shrugged out of our coats, tossing them on the sofa.

“Do you want anything to drink or eat?” Noah asked.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Ok.”

I walked over to the large floor to ceiling window and looked out. There was a nice view of the pool, clubhouse, and grilling area. My mind drifted to planning my funeral. What music would I like? What kind of coffin would I want to be in? I wonder if they make yellow coffins. Do they even make different color coffins? I was so engrossed in my thoughts I didn’t hear Noah at first when he came back into the room.

“Tweet, are you sure you don’t want anything?”

I continued to staring out the window. “I don’t want to die.” My voice was so soft and low, like I said it more to myself than to Noah.

There was a slight pause before Noah said, “You’re not going to die.”

He was standing by the kitchen counter, drinking a bottle of water when I turned to face him.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he said, just before taking another drink of water.

“But, I do. I need to talk about it with my best friend. I know it’s not easy. We haven’t talked about it at all. Things are going to get bad, and I need you to understand that.”

Lowering his head, he took in a deep breath. I saw his shoulders start to tremble. The next thing I knew a plastic bottle of water was flying through the air, smashing into the wall. He looked up and I saw pain and helplessness in his beautiful blue eyes as they filled with tears. “You don’t think I understand how bad things are? I’m going to be a fucking orthopedic surgeon one day. You don’t think I know, that if the cancer doesn’t eat you up that, the meds they’re going to pump into your body might do it? You don’t think I’ve read that you have a sixty-five percent chance of surviving five years? For most people, that would be pretty good odds, but not for you. You deserve a one hundred percent guaranteed survival.” Tears were gushing from both of us.

He was standing in front of me in three quick strides. I was pinned to the window as he placed his hands on either side of my face palming my cheeks. Our eyes locked. Our lips were barely touching when he whispered, “I can’t lose you. You’re my everything. Not having you in my life wrecked me before, but not having you in my world would completely destroy me. My purpose is to take care of you and protect you, but there’s nothing I can do to take this away from you. I don’t know how to help you.

“Noah…,” I said breathlessly.

“Please, don’t push me away, Tweet,” he begged.

“I’m not pushing,” I whispered.

My fingers found their way and twisted in his hair. Noah’s hands slid down my body and landed behind the top of my thighs. As he lifted me up, I wrapped my legs securely around his waist. My back was pushed harder against the window with every grind of his hips. I wanted him to take my pain away. I wanted to feel safe and protected like I always did when I was with him. I wanted to feel normal one last time. I’ve never told Noah how much I loved him and I needed to before it was too late.

My chest pressed against his with each rapid breath. We looked into each other’s eyes.

“Noah, I…” Before I could get another word out we heard the front door open and his name being called.

Quickly, I disentangled my hands from his hair and slid down his body, until my feet hit the floor. Running his hands through his hair a few times, Noah stepped away from me a second before Brooke rounded the corner. Seeing me, stopped her in her tracks.

“I didn’t know we were having company.” I found her choice of words odd. This wasn’t even Noah’s place. I didn’t understand how she even got in.

Never taking his eyes off me, Noah said, “Brooke, can you give us a minute, please.”

“No, I can’t,” she said, annoyed.

“Please.”

“Noah, we were supposed to have this place all to ourselves through New Year’s Eve.”

Noah turned on his heels and headed toward Brooke, grabbing her arm, they disappeared into what I assumed was a bedroom.

I was frozen in place. I didn’t know what to do. I could hear them through the door arguing.

“Noah, I’m sorry she’s dying, but she’s not going to use that to come between us and ruin our time here. The world does not revolve around Amanda Kelly.”

“Don’t you ever talk about her like that.”

“I’m not trying to be a bitch. It’s just, this was supposed to be our time. We wouldn’t have to worry about roommates or your mom catching us. That’s what this time was supposed to be…”

Oh my god, they were playing house together over Christmas break. The privacy he was talking about was so he and Brooke could screw each other as much as they wanted.

I hurried out the door as I texted Emily to come pick me up. I walked as quickly and as far away as I could tolerate. I was starting to limp a lot more, due to the pain the cancer was causing. I didn’t think I could handle anymore walking or Noah at the moment.

What was he thinking taking me there? He had to know she would be coming back. I was a second away from telling him how much I loved him and being in his bed. What I heard of their argument about my impending death kept playing on a continuous loop in my head.

Suddenly, a realization hit me. Noah felt sorry for me. He wanted to make me feel better and the only thing he could do was have pity sex with me. Wrapping my arms around myself, I tried to keep my sobs trapped in my throat. I could feel the tremors start to course through my body as I continued to walk until I spotted Emily and she drove me home.

It was time to crawl into my bed, throw the covers over my head, and block out Noah, Brooke, and cancer for now. I knew I would have to deal with each of them soon enough, but right now I needed to shut down.

If anyone looked on my computer at my recent searches...let’s just say I’d have some splainin’ to do.

My leg will be sawed off. Since there’s cancer, the tissue will be studied, and then the leg will be incinerated. Up in flames. I asked the doctor what would happen to my leg after the surgery. He wouldn’t tell me. I don’t know why. It wasn’t like I was going to ask them to wrap it up to go so I could take it to show and tell.

I’m not sure why I wanted to know the gory details of my legs future. I guess because it had been with me forever and to just let it go, without even knowing what would become of it, seemed wrong to me.

My surgery was scheduled to take place a week before Christmas. My parents asked if it could be done after the holidays, but Dr. Lang said it was too risky to wait.

I was sitting in my room. It was the last night my leg and I would spend together. I didn’t know what bone cancer looked like, but I imagined it to be black in color and gooey. It was hard to believe that between my knee and ankle this black goo was eating away a part of my body.

I tucked my left leg underneath myself as best I could. I wanted to prepare myself for how my body would look after surgery. I looked online at some pictures of amputees. A lot of the pictures showed how life could go on after amputation. In the photos, the people were surfing, skiing, and hiking mountains. I did none of those things now and hoped that I wouldn’t be peer pressured into becoming a shining example of how full a life without limbs could be.

I took a deep breath then quickly looked. When I saw only my right leg out in front of me, reality set in. Things had been so hectic the past weeks that I hardly had time to think. All the focus had been on the actual surgery date, the chemo schedule, and learning about the cancer. All the attention was on the action of doing, but none on the being. What was life going to
be
like as an amputee? After everyone had done their job and gone back to their normal lives, what was it going to be like “
being”
this way? At this time tomorrow, a part of me would be gone.

I straightened my leg back out, rubbed it with some strawberry scented body lotion, dressed it up in my cute red patent leather heels, and took a few pictures of it with my phone. My leg was getting the royal treatment on its last night. After all, it had been with the
present company
almost twenty years and had served me well. Giving it a proper sendoff was the right thing to do. After the fifteenth picture I took of the leg, my phone chimed with a text.

Noah: I’m at your window. Park?

Noah and I agreed not to discuss what happened at the condo the other day. I had too many things on my mind that took priority. We’d deal with it, just not now.

Me: I don’t think I can make it there. My leg is hurting.

Noah: Put your coat on. I have a surprise for you.

Me: What is it?

Noah: A surprise. I’m headed to the front door. ☺

Noah carried me the entire three blocks to the park. There was no other place I wanted to be tonight than in his arms. Instead of taking me over to our spot, he headed to the fire pit area. He placed me in one of the chairs that surrounded the pit, and draped a big fleece blanket over me that he had already brought here. I watched as he built a fire. He was wearing his high school letterman jacket and a College of Charleston baseball cap twisted backwards. He looked so cute. It was sweet the way he was trying to get my mind off of tomorrow.

Sitting beside me, he poured two cups of hot chocolate from the thermos that was sitting by his chair. I lifted the blanket up as he scooted his chair closer and joined me underneath. I snuggled into his side as his arm draped over my shoulders and he pulled me closer to him. Through my coat I could feel his hand running slowly back and forth over my shoulder. We were quiet for a while drinking our hot chocolate. My eyes took turns between looking at the fire and the beautiful clear sky filled with stars. It was as if Noah had ordered those stars just for tonight.