But I didn’t feel that way at all. I was afraid, ready for the cancer to come back. My parents didn’t help, hovering, overprotecting me. I felt like one of those glass ballerinas in a music box. I couldn’t relate to people, and I couldn’t pretend to be like everyone else. I felt alone. Isolated, spinning to my own tune in my own world. You shattered the box, freed me. You made me want to live like I should have been—savoring every moment.”
He didn’t move, didn’t say a thing. His mouth was soft, partly open, as though he wanted to speak but the words had stalled.
“Say something,” she said. Because it feels weird, you looking at me like I said something crazy. Or too personal.
He rubbed his hand across his mouth, but it was all in his eyes. She’d said something crazy and personal, and he didn’t know how to process it. “I did?”
She smiled in relief. “Yeah, you did. You thought you were just flirting with a girl.”
“I knew it was more than that.”
She swallowed hard. How much more? How did he know? But he spoke before she could ask those questions.
“So now you’re doing all right, with the cancer and all?”
“Still in remission. Fingers crossed. The doctor says it’s unlikely that it’ll return at this point.” She was always tempted to add But you never know at the end of that sentence, knowing that children who underwent chemo had a slightly increased chance of developing a second cancer or other health issues. She stopped herself. “I’m trying to call myself cured.”
“You should consider yourself cured.” His eyes searched her face again. “Of all the people to have to undergo more surgeries…”
“Actually, I was the perfect person to face that.” She smiled gamely. “I was a pro, after all. Prepping for surgery. Time spent in the hospital. I knew all the lingo, what to ask for.”
He wasn’t buying it, offering no smile of his own. “And the effects of the accident? The cracked rib, broken arm. And, of course, the burns. You’ve recovered?”
She involuntarily touched her cheek. “All healed.”
She ached for him, for what he must have gone through as well. “And you? Were you hurt badly? Right afterward, I was too drugged up to think about anything. Later, no one would tell me much, other than you didn’t die. I asked Grandma, and she said I should ask you. But I couldn’t.”
He nodded, probably remembering how she’d hung up on him.
She needed to clarify. “When I hung up, it was because…” She glanced away, hoping she wouldn’t stun him again with too much. “You, our time together, gave me a lot of strength during my recovery. Yet your voice threw me completely off. Hearing it made me feel how much I’d lost, including you. It was too much to deal with. I guess I was a coward.”
“You weren’t a coward,” he nearly barked. He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head as though she’d uttered the craziest thing in the world. “You’re the bravest person I know.”
“Not when it concerned you, I wasn’t. Then I wrote you a letter.” She wrinkled her nose in self-disgust. “Coward,” she sang. “But I’m here now. Straightening it out.”
He gave her a sweet smile. “Thank you.”
Okay, so he wasn’t being effusive about it. Wasn’t telling her about the angst he’d suffered, wondering if she was angry at him. Hopefully, that meant he hadn’t been suffering angst. “Grandma would only tell me that you had minor injuries. What happened to you?”
He turned and drew up his shirt to show her a faded scar that ran from his shoulder down the creamy skin of his side to the bottom of his rib cage. “Metal cut me. I broke my shoulder. Got some burns. Nothing as horrendous as what you went through.”
“Burns?” She’d never heard about him being burned. “Where?”
He held out his hands, and she recognized the scarring across the backs. She didn’t even realize she’d reached out until her fingers brushed the surface. He’d suffered, too, and probably hadn’t had anyone there to comfort him. No, indeed, he’d been arrested. Blamed. Jailed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He pulled away, dropping his hands to his sides. “Why are you sorry? You did nothing wrong. I was the one who put myself—and you—in a dangerous situation by racing. I bear full responsibility.”
She could hear the guilt that weighed heavy on his words. “But it wasn’t your fault. I mean that; I don’t blame you.”
He looked