mistake? What the fuck is going on? Explain. Now.”
“Nate,” his mother said, her voice severe, her glare pointed. That was the Behave yourself look. The Don’t lose your temper look.
Well, it was too late for that. He was about thirty seconds from throwing his chair through the nearest window. Or through Mr. Young’s expensive teeth.
Dr. Irshad adjusted her glasses and said, “Ms. Davis, you don’t have lung cancer.”
“Well,” Shirley said cheerfully, “that’s a relief.”
Nate couldn’t quite share the sentiment. “If she doesn’t have cancer,” he gritted out, “why the fuck has she been going through fucking chemotherapy?”
“Oh, well, that’s the good news,” the doctor said brightly. “Some of the medication has actually been treating her, so—”
“Treating her what?” he snapped. “What’s wrong with her? And how the fuck do you make a mistake about fucking cancer?”
“Please,” Mr. Young said reasonably. As if Nate were interested in reasonable right now. “I understand that you must be very upset—”
“Upset?” Nate spat. “Upset? Are you taking the piss?”
“Nathaniel,” his mother snapped. “Sit down!”
Nate hadn’t even realised he was standing. He took a breath and sat. Did oxygen always burn his lungs like this? He was pretty sure it shouldn’t. Could sheer fury spawn fire-breathing abilities? At this point, he kind of hoped so.
The doctor pushed her hair out of her face and, after a moment’s hesitation, started again. “What you’re suffering from, Ms. Davis, is a relatively rare condition called sarcoidosis. You do have tumours in your lungs and windpipe, which are a concern. But they aren’t cancerous. Sarcoidosis actually mimics cancer—hence the confusion with your diagnosis—and treatment plans are often quite similar. The methotrexate you’ve been taking has reduced your tumours, which is good, but the bad news is, sarcoidosis doesn’t really go away. Tumours can appear anywhere in your body, at any time.” She collected a little pile of pamphlets and handed them to Shirley. “We’ll need to carry out more tests urgently, to make sure that you aren’t suffering from neurological or cardio sarcoid—”
“Hold on,” Nate said, keeping his voice low this time. He almost ground his teeth into dust with the effort, but he managed. “Are you saying that she… she’s not…” His voice cracked slightly.
“Am I going to die?” Shirley demanded.
Doctor Irshad blinked. “Well, sarcoidosis is a very serious illness. It’s incurable, and it can cause disability or death. As I mentioned, we still have to scan your mother’s brain in particular. But well-managed respiratory sarcoidosis only reduces life expectancy by 2 to 5 percent, which is far better than the statistics around lung cancer.”
Nate’s entire body sagged. Was it possible to feel sick with relief? Was this relief, or was it thwarted adrenaline and disbelief making his stomach churn and his hands shake?
She’s not going to die. Probably. Hopefully.
He pushed down the tumult of emotions rising in his chest and looked at his mother. Her mouth was slightly open, and she’d wrapped a finger around the edge of her head scarf as she stared blankly at the floor.
He reached across the space between their seats, which moments ago had felt like a gulf of mortality. “Are you okay?”
She blinked at nothing for a moment, then turned to look at him. “I’m not sure. I… I should just be happy, shouldn’t I? But I thought…” Her face crumpled like a sheet of paper, and he realised that the cheerful calm she’d radiated over these months had been a front. He watched as her wall collapsed, brick by brick.
“I thought I was going to die,” she whispered. “I was dying. I was dead. Now I’m not. What do I?”
He shook his head slowly, mind racing. “From this moment on? I’d say whatever the fuck you want.”
Oh, what a joy it was to be drunk.
Nate sat in his mother’s living room while she slept like the dead—the not dead—upstairs. He had his seventh shot of Jack in his hand and his little brother by his side. Which was, to Nate’s mind, the perfect way to handle the revelation that months of dread had been a lie.
This strange, new lack of fear was making him afraid all over again. There was a huge gap in his mind where a dragon named Terror had once stood, and he was telling himself to walk through it—while fighting the certainty that he’d be hit with invisible claws and burned by invisible fire.
“You’re overthinking again,” Zach accused, his voice slightly slurred. “Shot.”
Ordinarily, fraternal pride demanded that Nate contradict his brother’s every word. But tonight, he