Erica's Choice (29 page)

How could she possibly care?

“I know, it’s weird.” Somehow the shaking remained confined to her fingers, leaving her voice blessedly flat. “They’ll do a reconstruction, but I won’t be the same. I won’t feel anything, for a start. And what the heck? I’ll probably go a couple of sizes smaller. I might actually be able to take up jogging in comfort.”

Erica had never felt the yen to jog in her life.

Corey’s voice was as toneless as hers. “I don’t think you should do this, Erica.”

A flash of anger finally gave Erica the temerity to face him again. “It’s not your choice. It’s mine.”

Chapter Sixteen

Cancer.
Cancer.

The very word scared the shit out of Corey. Cancer killed people, and his Erica was not going to die, simple as that. Cancer was not going to ruin her life either, make her destroy her beautiful body this way. He couldn’t fathom the fact she’d been going through this kind of hell and she’d never told him. All their confidences, everything they’d shared. What did any of it mean if she hadn’t felt she could tell him
this
? Christ, he’d discovered he was bisexual and Erica was the first to know. Now Corey found out she’d honestly thought she might die or get really sick, and she hadn’t said a single bloody word to him.

And she was going to do this
thing
to herself. Why? Because she was scared? Why hadn’t she turned to him or Griff and talked to them about it?

“I don’t get any say in it at all?” he rasped. “It didn’t occur to you to discuss something this important with me?”

Her expression was shuttered. “It’s not your problem.”

He
loved
her. He’d given her everything he had in him. But she decided this was her problem to deal with alone. That
hurt
. “There must be another way. People get c…” His throat closed over the word. He didn’t even want to link it in his mind to Erica, let alone voice it. “People get sick all the time but they have treatments. Chemotherapy and diet and…”

“Yes, Corey. I’m
aware
of the treatments. My mother endured every one available. They made her miserable. They stole her life years before she died. And she had to have a double mastectomy anyway. This way is better—it’s preventative. I don’t want chemo.”

“You said the lump was benign,” Corey pointed out. “Isn’t this a non-issue? Why don’t you wait until—
”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with an axe hanging over your head? It’s not living, Corey. I won’t wait for cancer to attack me any longer.”

“But you’re so
beautiful
.” Corey couldn’t understand how someone so physically desirable would want to disfigure herself, all to avoid something that might not happen anyway. “There has to be another way.”

“Corey, that’s enough.”

Corey sent Griff a sidelong glance. “You heard her, Griff. She’s just going to…” …
lop them off.
Christ, he couldn’t bare the thought of his Erica going under a surgeon’s knife, of anything about her changing so drastically. “Tell me you’re not upset.”

Griff’s eyes narrowed. “Of course I’m fucking upset.”

“So we need to stop her. She’s afraid of facing something scary alone, but if we promise to be there for her, she won’t be.”

“You know what, Corey?” They both turned to Erica, stilling at the note of inevitability in her voice. “I’ve been alone a while, I think I can handle it. I dealt with a mother who was often too sick to play with me and being an only child because the chemotherapy she had after I was born made her infertile. I dealt with watching my aunt, whom I loved like a second mother, die in agony right before my eyes. I dealt with Doug leaving the
second
he found out there was an almost ninety percent chance the same thing would happen to me. And I can even deal with the fact that I probably won’t have children because…”

Her voice cracked, and she had to clear her throat before continuing. “Because I’m genetically predisposed to ovarian cancer too, and the next thing I’ll have to do is have them taken out. So you see, Corey, I’ve pretty much always been alone, and I figure I always will be. So forgive me for saying this, but I will live my life the way I see fit. What I do is none of your fucking business.”

She stormed out before Corey could utter another word. Corey stumbled out of bed, grappling for his pants. He only had one leg in them when the front door slammed, announcing Erica’s departure. He hurried to finish dressing but didn’t chase after her. The sound of her car starting already pierced the morning quiet. Corey had no clue what to say to her anyway.

A ninety percent chance. What the fuck?
Her odds had to be better than that.

She couldn’t have children.
That flayed Corey, made his knees weaken until he dropped onto the bed. He had to admit he’d imagined certain things about his future, the future he wanted to share with Erica and Griff. Kids had been a part of that picture. He adored his nieces and nephew and had always figured he’d have about five offspring of his own one day. He hadn’t been able to stop himself envisaging Erica being the one to carry them, he and Griff both being fathers. Lots of kids these days had two dads, or two mums. It wasn’t so crazy an idea.

But Erica had shut the door on that. She was going to have all the necessary equipment removed. Corey was devastated—for her and for him. Erica, with her difficult-to-ruffle demeanor and empathetic heart, would make a fantastic parent.

From behind him, the sound of Griff’s voice emerged like the growl of a tiger from the depths of some dark cave. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

“Me?” Defensiveness reared instinctively at the venom underpinning the query. “Ask Erica that. She kept a huge secret from us for
months
. Aren’t you pissed she didn’t say anything?”

“I’m not surprised she didn’t tell me.” Griff climbed out of bed and pulled on his jeans with a couple of sharp jerks. “I haven’t exactly been approachable. And you… I suppose she was right not to tell
you
.”

Griff looked at him, so much disdain in the expression Corey tingled with mortified heat. “I was only trying to make her listen.”

“No, you were freaking out.”

“What do you expect? The woman I love starts throwing out words like mastectomy and c…”

“You can’t even say it, you piss-weak prick. Erica’s been dealing with
cancer
her whole fucking life and you can’t even face it. There she was, trying to tell you about her darkest fears and her biggest life decisions, and you acted put out because you weren’t going to get to play with her tits anymore.”

Corey rose to his feet like a shot. “It was not like that.”

“It sounded exactly like that to me, and obviously to Erica. She’s been in agony these last few months—hell,
years
—and somehow you managed to make it about
you
.”

“Bullshit.” He hadn’t done that. Had he? “Anyway, I didn’t hear you saying a damn word.”

Griff’s teeth clenched. “Because I was trying not to say the
wrong fucking thing
.”

Corey’s own words filtered back to him.
People get sick all the time
like cancer was no biggie.
Didn’t you think to discuss it with me?
like it was his decision, not hers.

Holy shit. He had made it about him.

“Face it, mate, you flinched.”

“What?”

“Couldn’t you see the way she was watching us when she told us all that? She was waiting to see how we’d react, waiting for us to be like Mr. Wonderful who dumped her when her aunt got sick. And you did it, you fucking idiot. You didn’t understand. You proved that you wouldn’t be there for her when she needed you.”

“I was trying to
help
her!” Corey tried to hang on to a sense of indignation, but it was crumbling fast under the weight of suffocating panic. He was starting to realize how badly he’d stuffed up, and his stomach swirled like he might vomit.

“How, exactly, was that helping her?”

“You know what she’s like. She tends to think the worst about a situation first, like she did with us. She didn’t want a relationship with us, but we changed her mind. Maybe she’ll change her mind about this.”

Maybe, but as Griff had pointed out, that wasn’t Corey’s decision. Yet he’d acted like it was.

Corey had a sinking feeling that the only thing Erica would change her mind about now was him.

Griff pushed out a rough sigh, dropping his head back and staring at the ceiling as though the way out of this mess might be written up there. Divine guidance on his paintwork. Not likely.

He’d never felt so gutted, so helpless, so utterly furious with Corey. And yet if he really stretched his powers of logic, he understood why Corey had reacted the way he had. He was scared shitless because Erica and the prospect of terminal illness did not want to lock together in his mind, and he was grasping at any straw to try to convince himself the situation wasn’t as bad as she’d made it sound.

Understanding it didn’t lessen Griff’s desire to punch the living snot out of the man he loved.

“If Erica was a smoker,” Griff posed patiently. “Would you want her to give up?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone knows smoking gives you…”

“Cancer, Corey. You gotta wrap your mind around that.”

Corey’s voice was thready. “I don’t think I can.”

“Tough.” Griff’s ire returned. “You have to grow the fuck up, Wachawski.”

“So now I’m immature.”

“Right at this moment you are. In fact, you’re kind of being a dick, when what Erica needs is a man.”

Corey’s eyes narrowed. “So now you think you can do a better job on your own.”

Oh Lord help him, he really was going to hit the dense son of a bitch. “One more comment like that and I swear to God I’ll shut you up for good.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll get out of your hair.” Christ, he sounded twelve years old, proving Griff’s point about the maturity of his behavior. Corey found his shirt and dragged it on. “I have to go to work.”

Griff thought of stopping him, hell, of holding on to him so tight Corey let out all this anger and made way for what was really churning his gut—fear. The same fear that churned inside Griff because he’d finally fallen in love with a woman who was worth the risk to his heart, only to find out she was in danger. And not from something he could protect her from. Not something that could be prevented by a smoke alarm or a better-quality deadbolt. Something Griff couldn’t see and couldn’t fight for her.

He thought of stopping Corey, but he let him walk out the door, telling himself he needed time to get his own head together before he could help Corey work out what he felt. Sure as shit he needed time to figure out how to fix this, because the responsibility seemed to have fallen to him. Erica was too vulnerable and Corey was too confused for either of them to work it out on their own.

So it turned out, they needed him.

What a way to discover he was an integral cog in the machine that was their little love triangle.

The last day of high school for the year always meant sparsely populated classrooms and virtually deserted quadrangles. It had always seemed like a light, breezy day to Erica, even when the mercury often hit the high notes.

Today the empty school felt eerie. On the horizon black clouds trapped the summer heat to the ground and ramped up the humidity unbearably. It was a desolate, horrible day that thoroughly matched Erica’s mood. Her eyes felt layered with sand although she hadn’t cried when she’d left Griff’s house that morning. A blessed numbing had taken over, allowing her to move through this day on autopilot.

Corey was gone, out of her life. If he didn’t understand the most important thing about her, they couldn’t have a meaningful connection. And Griff’s place was with Corey.

She’d lost them both.

Nobody expected to learn anything on the last day, when exams had been sat and results handed out. The students who turned up usually did because they had nowhere else to go, no invitations to parties hosted by the cool kids to attend, no parents at home because they had to work. Kids Erica identified with.

So she played movies and let them watch or read their novels. She was sitting at the back of the class watching
10 Things I Hate About You
with the five children who’d turned up to second-last period when the classroom door swung open.

Erica’s heart stopped when she saw Dale Griffin standing there.

His shorts and T-shirt looked unironed, his face unshaven. His expression was inscrutable as he walked into the room without a word and took the chair beside Erica, stretching his long legs out before him and crossing them at the ankles like he was settling in and about to order popcorn.

Erica’s heart restarted with a vengeance. She wondered how he’d found out which room she was in but figured one of the admin staff would have been happy to reveal all if he flashed that confident smile of his. Even though he appeared wracked by exhaustion, he still looked damn good.

He was here to tell her he understood Corey’s objection, perhaps agreed with it. He and Corey would move on together without her. Perhaps he felt the responsibility to say goodbye.