Sinful Ever After - Vivian Wood Page 0,1

look as I do. It’s a text from Grayson about how he and Olivia are both thinking of me. I know that my best friend means well, but reading the words just makes me feel numb inside.

That’s a whole barrel of snakes that I’m not really ready to deal with just yet. Rolling my eyes, I shove my phone back in my jeans.

Eve sips her coffee with a vaguely amused look. “It seems like someone is checking up on you too.”

Sighing, I lean back, sprawling out a little bit. There is no one else in this hallway except the nurses at a station at the end. It’s still and silent.

“Grayson,” I admit begrudgingly. “He was just texting that he and Olivia are keeping me in their thoughts.”

Eve looks thoughtful. “Olivia’s his little sister?”

I picture Olivia, with her soft dark hair and her timid smile. It makes my lips lift. “Yeah. You guys would’ve met at that fourth of July barbecue party that I took you to a year ago.”

Eve doesn’t pull a single fucking punch. “Ohhh. She was the one you were flirting with all night?”

I look at her, my annoyance clear on my face. “I think you’re thinking of someone else.”

“No. I remember her. She was a pretty brunette and she blushed at everything you said in her direction. And because you are Dad’s son, you ate it up.” Her lips quirk. “Grayson would be smart to watch you.”

I cross my arms. “Are you trying to be a pain in the ass right now, Eve?”

“No. Just telling the truth. Or am I predicting the future?”

I narrow my eyes. Eve of all people knows that I have spent my whole life hearing that I’m bad.

Bad at school.

Bad at staying calm.

Bad at being faithful to one person.

And Eve is always posed at the other end of the spectrum, the good little girl to my rebellious bad kid. She usually resents the label more than anything, but I guess today she’s just being a priss.

Granted, neither of us is at our best today. Not with our mom dying in the room beyond.

A light starts flashing outside Mom’s room. I sit up a little straighter, gripping my coffee cup. Overhead, there is an announcement pumped through unseen speakers.

“Code blue, room 220. Code blue, room 220.”

Fuck. Is this it?

This can't be it.

I’m not ready.

Eve slips her hand into mine, gripping it hard. I rise out of my seat, unsure what to do. My mom’s room is a sterile environment, requiring everyone who enters or exits to be wearing a gown and a mask. Three doctors clad in white coats come running down the empty hallway, intent upon entering Mom’s room. One of them is my mom’s main oncologist Dr. Erslinger, a tough, no nonsense type of woman.

I’ve never seen Dr. Erslinger run before. That can't be a good sign.

They rip open the door and go in, putting masks on as they do. I get a glimpse of Mom as the door shuts; pale, limp, surrounded by tubes and beeping machines as she lies on the hospital bed.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I’m not ready. I’m not.

Eve tugs me back down to her level, forcing me to sit down. I look at her, wondering how the fuck she can be calm right now. But when I look at her face, all the color has been leeched from it. Her eyes are fixed on the door and they are slowly filling with tears.

She’s not calm. She’s petrified.

As another doctor comes down the hallway, I wave an arm at him. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

The doctor pauses by the door, glancing in the window. “I think Mrs. Moreland is in acute respiratory distress. That means—”

“She can’t breathe,” my sister cuts him off. She sounds hostile, even for a person with tears in her eyes. “Give us some damned credit.”

Bowing his head, the doctor turns and pushes Mom’s door open. As he is about to go inside, Dr. Erslinger comes out, tearing off her mask. The doctor is probably in her sixties, her blonde hair gone mostly silver. As she starts to speak, I feel Eve grab onto my arm, as if she’s holding onto a life raft in the middle of the sea.

The doctor hesitates a beat. “The alarm you just heard was fairly serious. Your mother had trouble breathing. As you know, your mother’s cancer has spread to nearly everywhere inside her body, including the liver. She’s in acute liver failure. Based on my observations, I believe that