Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

Turning the corner and arriving in front of the apartment, Josh started to cry, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He turned on his heel, drying his face on his sleeve and stepping into a bar. He wouldn’t wallow, he decided. He wasn’t the one suffering. He would bear this burden in silence. He would be strong. He would act normal. Acting normal was the least he owed Hope. He would be perfectly normal. Normal, my ass, he thought as he knocked back a shot of whiskey.

He left the bar and bought some gum at a nearby grocery store. If Hope detected alcohol on his breath, she would ask questions. Just be normal, he reminded himself.

Passing by a florist, he considered buying a bunch of flowers, but shrugged the idea off. Hope would be surprised. Normal, remember?

Four days went by, and still he couldn’t summon the strength to talk to Hope and to suggest they see a neurologist. Four days of back-and-forth glances with Luke, furtive, heavy looks they exchanged over her head. Josh wanted to believe that everything was as it had been before, when in reality, everything had changed. Four days of classes during which Josh felt like an explosives specialist trainee with orders to dismantle a ticking time bomb, a bomb that awaited inside the mind of the woman he loved, and whose ticking came as fast and heavy as the frantic beating of his heart. Every time Hope mentioned her migraines, his pulse began to race, his mouth dried up, and his hands grew clammy.

On Friday, Hope asked him to take her out to dinner. She was craving Italian food and explained to Josh that a big bowl of pasta always felt more special at a restaurant than at home. He knew better than to ask questions. He pulled on a shirt and jacket and called a cab, which dropped them off outside one of the best restaurants in town. So much for being normal.

“How can we afford this?” Hope asked once the waiter had pulled out her chair and called her “miss” several times.

“I’ve put aside a little money over the past few weeks,” he replied, staring intently at the menu.

“A little?”

“Don’t worry. We won’t end up washing dishes to pay for it,” he said.

“You should have told me we were going to be celebrating. I could have grabbed a bug from the lab and put it on my plate so we would get our meal for free. That’s what they do in the movies. You scream and act all outraged, and they don’t make you pay.”

“That’s an old trick they would never fall for in this kind of restaurant.”

Hope ordered the clam linguine, and Josh decided to have the same. They refused the waiter’s offer of the wine list, saying instead that tap water was plenty good enough for them.

Hope ate her meal in silence, and from time to time, Josh looked up to watch her.

When she had finished eating, she wiped her lips delicately, placed her napkin on the table, and looked Josh straight in the eye.

“The other night when Luke asked me to be his guinea pig, was there some kind of problem with my scans?”

She asked the question so calmly, Josh was incapable of replying.

“On the way back, you both had these long, sad faces,” she continued. “And it’s like you look sadder and sadder every time you look at each other. I came to the conclusion that either you were seeing someone else, or . . .”

“It wasn’t anything, really,” Josh blurted out. “It was a speck; that’s all. Luke isn’t a radiologist, and there’s every reason to believe he just messed up the scan. But better safe than sorry, so it would be a good idea for us to go and ask a real doctor to run an MRI scan.”

“So you’re worried?”

“No.” Josh shook his head. “It would just be a precaution.”

“Don’t lie to me, Josh Kepler.” She took his hand in hers. “If you lied to me just the once, I would never forgive you. Right now, I really, really need to believe that the person I love more than anyone in the world will always tell me the truth.”

Josh wanted to protest. He grappled for the right words, but Hope didn’t give him the chance.

“Yesterday, my migraine was stronger than usual, and my vision went blurry. It lasted about fifteen minutes. Long enough for me to start connecting the dots. Ever do that, when you were a kid?” She smiled at him. “I loved it. Connecting the dots to make a picture. I could spend hours over it. Although back then, I didn’t have a brain tumor.”

Her voice was so chillingly detached. She was calm, collected.

“I thought back to Luke’s theatrics, and how over the past few days, you’ve been pretending everything is great, even my cooking. I think that’s what scares me the most. Because seriously, Joshy, I’m like the world’s worst cook. I called my dad and told him I wasn’t feeling good, that I was feeling shitty,” she continued. “That was enough to make him move heaven and earth to get me to spend a day doing an MRI scan. My dad is totally obsessive when it comes to my health.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Right back at you.”

“Because I was scared.”

“In that case, I forgive you. I know what it feels like to be scared now. Fear can make you do crazy things.”

“What did the scan show?” Josh said. His voiced sounded weak.

“It’s a glioblastoma. A malignant tumor that’s not good news. Apparently, they’re quite aggressive.”

“Stop, Hope. Please . . .”

“The good news is that it’s still small enough to operate on,” Hope added in the same ironic tone.

“Great! So they’ll operate, and everything will be back to normal. I swear it.”

Hope smiled bitterly. She leaned over the table and planted a kiss on Josh’s lips.

“I believe you. Remember? To love someone is never to doubt them.”

When they got home, Hope took a long shower before