of angry desperation lingers in his dark brown eyes. My heart squeezes. I move closer to slide my arms around his waist.
“I don’t need to be flown anywhere,” I tell him, pressing my face to his shirt. “I’m going to fight this right here, on our own turf, with you at my side and our children happy at home with both their parents. I need you. I need them. I need our friends. I don’t care how fancy some hospital in New York or Texas is…if it doesn’t have us, then I don’t want to go there. I won’t.”
Dean folds his arms around me, his body shuddering with a long sigh. He brushes his lips across my forehead before detaching himself from me and returning to his tower office. I watch him go, disliking the tension in his body, the futile anger that has no tangible target.
I get a pad of paper and draw a picture.
I put the note in the pocket of Dean’s peacoat in the front closet. I walk upstairs and check on Bella and Nicholas, pausing to kiss their foreheads and pull their covers up. I do this every night before I get ready for bed, and I try not to think that now the simple act carries more significance because I might not—
Stop.
There are so many dark, narrow alleys twisting around me now, so many shadows reaching out to lure me into places I don’t want to—can’t—go.
I walk into the bedroom to change into my nightgown. My hands shake as I strip off my clothes and underwear. I unhook my bra, take a deep breath, and turn to face the mirror. For the first time since the diagnosis just over a week ago, I look at my naked body.
I don’t even know what I was expecting. Maybe that I’d have contorted into some twisted, disfigured, cancerous version of myself.
But no. My breasts look like they always have—well, maybe not always, considering I’ve nursed two children—but they’re still full and round, with the same dark pink nipples whose exquisite sensitivity I’ve enjoyed for so many years. My tapered waist flares into hips that are wider than they once were, but still have soft curves where Dean’s hands fit perfectly.
I have a good, strong body that has borne two children and gotten me to the age of thirty-six without failing once. My legs are well-shaped and supple, having walked countless paths through the Wonderland Café, delivering peppermint tea and rainbow cupcakes, and through Parisian streets and gardens. My arms are firm and toned from carrying my children, shopping bags of French baguettes and fresh market vegetables, and trays of Heart, Home, and Courage cookies.
I try to attend exercise classes regularly, but just living life and running around with my children is enough to keep me in shape. No gym can beat the workout of playing Frisbee in the park with your six-year-old son.
I look exactly the same. Exactly like Liv West.
I meet my gaze in the mirror, liking the woman looking back at me. I reach to unfasten the clasp in my hair and shake it out. My hair falls in a long, straight curtain down my back and over my shoulders, partly concealing my breasts.
I’ll lose my hair.
The thought bursts like a pipe bomb in my brain. I’ve been so fixated on my breasts and the potential of losing one, if not both, that I’d almost forgotten I could lose my hair too.
I back away from the mirror and sit on the bed. A chill ripples over my skin.
God. A misshapen, diseased body with no hair…
I rub my arms and look at my reflection again. My hair suddenly seems intrinsic to my relationship with Dean. He’s always loved touching it, running his hands through it. He tugs affectionately at locks of my hair and winds swathes of it around his hand to pull me in for a kiss. He buries his fingers in my hair when we’re making love and he’s moving over me, guiding my mouth to his.
And more. So much more. Dean grabs my ponytail when I’m sucking his cock, sometimes using mild pressure as a way to indicate what he wants. Or when I’m on my hands and knees, he fists the length of my hair in his hand and pulls, arching my back as he thrusts into me hard and deep from behind.
Then afterward, as we lie curled together in the hazy, delicious aftermath, he picks up the tendrils of my hair spread