Just One Week (Just One Song) (23 page)

“It’s about Mia,” I start and Nicole’s eyes widen.

“What?” she asks but just as I’m about to speak, her eyes get even wider and then a large smile fills her face. She’s not looking at me anymore; she’s looking behind me.

“Elijah!” She screams and pushes right past us and runs down the hallway. I turn around just as she throws herself into some guy’s arms, laughing.

“Elijah?” Zack asks, with a frown on his face.

“Don’t be jealous,” I say and bump his shoulder. “It’s Mia’s brother.”

I take off after her, the other guys following right behind me.

“Hey Elijah, I’m Chase.” I hold out my hand when he lets Nicole go and turns to me. He looks friendly enough but exhausted and really fucking concerned.

“Nice to finally meet you.” He shakes my hand and his eyes flash to Nicole.

She loses her excited look instantly. “What is it?” Her voice cracks, and Zack instantly moves to put a hand around her waist.

“It’s Mia.” And I swear to god with the way his voice sounds, his shoulders hunch over, and how he runs his hands through his hair, my heart drops to the fucking floor at my feet.

Nicole gasps and falls back into Zack. Yeah, she knows something isn’t right either.

“Where is she?” I bite out. I’m leaving right now and am going to find out what in the hell is wrong.

Elijah rubs the back of his neck and curses before raising his eyes, looking between Nicole and me. “Listen, she’d kill me if she knew I was here, but I was with her when you called earlier and heard what you said about the pass,” his eyes go to mine before turning to Nic. “She’s at my place.”

Nic looks like she might pass out. “What? She said she was in New York. Why isn’t she here?” Her voice is high-pitched and bordering on panicky by the time she’s done.

Elijah shakes his head. “She’s been here for a few weeks now.”

“But she said she had some project she was working on.”

“She lost her job before your wedding, Nic,” I say quietly, not wanting to freak her out any more than she already is. “And then when you were on your honeymoon she left L.A. saying she was coming here to deal with some family emergency.” I look at Elijah. “It’s not a family issue is it, it’s hers.”

“Why is she at your house?” Nicole demands, her little hands gripped into tight fists at her sides.

He swallows slowly, and suddenly I can see fear in his eyes and exhaustion wrapped all around the edges of his features. This man’s been through a lot lately.

“She’s having surgery tomorrow.” He runs his hands through his hair and bites the inside of his cheek. When he speaks, the words get caught in his throat. “They found a tumor.”

Nicole gasps. Zack lets out a string of curses. And I stand still – frozen to my spot.

There’s no way I heard him right. Flashbacks to our time on the beach when she told me about her mom almost dying assault me. This is what she’s always been afraid of and I let her go to deal with it on her own.

Someone always leaves, Chase
.

I can hear her sad voice in my head as clear as I did the day on the beach.

And I did leave her. Or at least I let her walk away so easily it’s the same thing as leaving. Fuck!

“I need to see her,” Nicole says, and Zack is already reaching for his cell phone. She wiggles a finger back and forth between Elijah and me. “And you need to tell me what in the hell is going on. Both of you.”

Nicole’s glare pierces me with such intensity I think I could actually explode on the spot from the fire in her eyes.

“Come on.” She begins marching down the hall to her dressing room, assuming we’ll follow. We all do, too. Like ashamed little inmates on our way to our death sentences.

“Start talking. Now.” Nicole is standing with her backside resting against the counter in her dressing room while the rest of us just sit here watching her pace and mutter to herself while chugging a bottle of water.

I’ve never seen Nicole really pissed before, but she can get fired up. Not that I blame her. She’s scared as hell and pissed off – mostly likely at me. I think we’re all a little scared of her because none of us guys start talking.

Elijah finally clears his throat. “You know the history of cancer in our family, Nicole. She had a doctor’s appointment in New York a while ago that didn’t turn out so great.”

Nicole’s face pales a little bit more with every word Elijah speaks. I don’t think mine looks any better either as everything Mia said to me in L.A. starts making more sense.

“Why would she hide this from me?” Nicole asks, barely audible.

I shake my head and then crack my knuckles. “Because she’s Mia, and she refuses to let anyone help her. Fuck!”

I jump up and start pacing the room, the anger at being lied to and the fear of something being wrong with Mia, all presses down on me and all I can do is pace and fight the urge to hit someone.

“Who is she to you?”

My feet stop moving and I turn to Elijah. Who is she to me? Pfffftttt. She’s nothing because she refuses to be, but that’s only what she says. “Everything. She’s everything to me.” Elijah glares at me, challenging me in a way I only imagine a big brother can do, and then he nods once.

“What in the hell!?” All of us jump when Nicole throws her metal water bottle across the room. The sound of metal crashing into cement echoes throughout the room. “I’m her best friend! How can she not expect me to be there for her? And you!” she yells again, turning to me. “You knew about her job and didn’t tell me? What the hell, Chase?!”

“I tried to get her to tell you in L.A.”

“You’ve known for over a month and you haven’t said anything to me!?”

“Nicole, love. You need to calm down a little bit.” Zack walks over to her, but she throws her hands up, breathing heavily. He doesn’t let it stop him though as he simply curls her into his arms and then onto his lap in the chair she used to get ready for the show, spinning it around so he’s facing the rest of us.

Zack lowers his head and whispers for her to calm down over and over until her breathing starts to slow down, but tears begin falling down her cheeks.

“I want to go see her,” she says quietly, and we all nod as she looks at Elijah. She hops off Zack’s lap disappearing behind the curtains in her dressing room.

“Darren has the car waiting for us,” Zack cuts in with a calm voice. I want to punch his face in. How can he be so calm right now? “And I’ve told Aaron we’re not going back to hang out with media tonight. We can deal with them later.”

“All right,” Nicole says, coming out from behind the dressing screens in a jean skirt and tank top. She snaps her fingers. “Let’s roll. Eli, you ride with us so you can tell me what’s going and why in the hell my best friend in the whole fucking world would keep this shit from me.”

Zack’s eyes widen. I think all of ours do. Nicole just said fuck, and if we weren’t so scared and pissed right now, I think we’d laugh. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard her swear like this.

It looks like Elijah opens his mouth to argue with her but he’s immediately skewered by the serious looks of four men and one pissed off Nicole, so he snaps it shut and nods slowly.

“I’ll follow you in your car if you want to give me your keys.” Garrett sticks out his hand, and Elijah drops his keys in them.

I hear the quiet footsteps and muted voices enter through Elijah’s front door and I know I have two choices. I can pretend to be asleep and wait for the fighting tomorrow, or I can pretend to be strong like my mom somehow thinks I am. Mostly I want to run. Again.

It’s not like I don’t know where Elijah took off to a few hours ago after he sat and listened to my entire conversation with Chase. Elijah left almost immediately afterward telling me he was going out with a friend. I wanted to call him on it. I wanted to tell him to just wait, and that I’ll tell Nicole everything in my own time. But I didn’t. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I secretly need my best friend even if I’m too much of a coward to admit it.

When she opens the door, she freezes in the doorway. I smooth my hands across the covers draped over my lap to give my hands something to do. She simply looks at me, her hand on the door knob, still as a statue in the doorway. There’s a mixture of fear, anger, and confusion written all over her.

“I’m not sure whether I want to hit you or hug you,” she finally says and launches herself at me so I have no other choice but to hold her. She hits me hard enough that I grunt, but our arms wrap around each other.

I think she has successfully managed to do both at the same time.

“I’m really mad at you,” she says as our arms are clasped around each other. Tears begin spilling over from both of us simultaneously. “I’m so mad at you for not telling me what’s been going on, for lying to me, and I’m so sorry for being such a shitty friend that I totally forgot about your appointment.”

She chokes all this out between sobs, and guilt hits me in the chest with a force strong enough to knock the breath out of me. She feels like a shitty friend?

I say nothing because there’s nothing to say. I cry along with her until we’re both a soggy mess, and then she finally pulls back.

“Tell me everything.” She looks at me seriously, but I see the wariness in her eyes. I can only imagine the thoughts she’s had since Elijah found her.

“What did Eli say?”

She takes a deep breath and her chin trembles a little bit. “You’re having surgery tomorrow. How bad is it?”

That question is the same one I asked Dr. Gilbrath on my first appointment.

She sits across her desk from me. Her graying hair is cut into a short bob right at her chin. She has black framed bifocals perched on her nose and her smile is small, but tender. Her hands are clasped in front of her on her desk, resting on my file.

“You can beat this Mia.”

“How bad is it?”

She watches me for a second and then gives me one small head nod before opening my file. It’s something for her hands to do. I know she’s already memorized my results. “A two millimeter tumor in your right breast. Three smaller deposits in your left. One is concerning, indicating the potential of it being precancerous. The other two appear benign.”

“Treatment?” My body feels numb. I knew this was coming. At some point, this was going to happen to me.

She looks at me again, her head cocking slightly to the right. Is she wondering why I’m not crying? Why am I not shocked by this? She should know. I’ve prepared myself for this day since I was too young to wear a training bra. This has always been my destiny.

She purses her lips and opens her mouth to say something but seems to change her mind.

“Lumpectomy with radiation, or a double mastectomy …” She keeps talking, but I block everything else out after that. That’s the one question I already knew the answer to.

I shake my head, erasing the memory of the conversation and the way Dr. Gilbrath held my hand just a little bit longer when I left her office that day. She was trying to comfort me. I don’t envy her job at all.

“Mia?”

Nicole looks at me funny and I realize I’ve completely spaced her out. I totally forgot she has been sitting on my bed.

“Sorry,” I mutter and look down at my hands fidgeting on the edge of the bed sheet. “I’m having a double mastectomy tomorrow.”

A quiet sob leaves her throat and I squeeze my own eyes shut. “How bad is it?” she asks again, and I realize I never answered her first question.

“Tumor in my right. Possible precancerous ones in my left. I had the choice, but I just …” I look at her and understanding passes through her eyes. “I can’t choose radiation. Even if I did, there’s always the chance I’ll need to have the surgery anyway.”

We stare off at separate walls in silence before I register the sound of other voices in Elijah’s house. Male voices. Lots of them and one deep rumble that I’d recognize anywhere. Chase is here. Nicole catches me watching the closed door. A hundred thoughts race through my mind. He said he wouldn’t chase me, but he’s here. He’s downstairs and all I have to do is ask for him and he could be here in seconds. It’s what I want. Isn’t it?