Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Right now, college isn’t a priority. Making enough money to keep us afloat is. I know if I’m late, it’s going to mean a talk with my boss, who’s going to point out that university jobs are for people who are committed to actually attending the university and not people like me, so the best thing I can do is stay off his radar.
I race in the door with moments to spare. “I’m changing and racing back out again, David,” I call out as I rush from the front of the house to my room. “Are you good on dinner?”
“I can manage,” my older brother calls back. “I’m just watching the game.”
That makes me pause because my brother isn’t a huge sports fan. Between his part-time job and his classes, there’s not much television time for either of us. I rip a dark sweater over my head and toss my work slacks on the floor, calling out. “You don’t have class tonight?”
He says something that I can’t hear through my door.
“What was that?” I say, hiking a plain beige skirt on over my hips and stepping into a pair of flats. Now dressed, I head back out to the living room. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”
“I said no class tonight.” He stares at the television, not turning to look at me. His hand is on his chin, and he’s slouched in his easy chair in the middle of the small, run-down apartment we share.
There’s something about his posture that worries me. Something about it that makes my blood run cold. David and I are siblings, true, but we’ve been through so much together. He’s seven years older than me and when our parents died, David got a job and took over guardianship of me so I wouldn’t go into the system. Then, when David got Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had to go into treatment, I pulled out of all my classes and took on jobs so I could pay the bills and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything except getting better. He’s been in remission for eighteen months now, and even though we’re drowning in his medical debt, we’re trying to get back to a semblance of normalcy, with both of us taking college courses again. David has always wanted to be a doctor—a pediatrician—and I just want to do something other than sling coffees for the rest of my life.
“I thought you had classes on Tuesdays,” I say to him. “Today is Tuesday, right?”
David is silent.
I cross the apartment to our small kitchen to check the calendar tacked to the fridge. “Did I get the day wrong? I could have sworn—”
“I dropped classes, okay?”
David doesn’t sound like his normal self. He’s had a rough go of things (we both have) but at thirty-five, things are looking up. Or so I thought. I come out of the kitchen and face him. “You dropped your classes? But we’re mid-semester. That’s money we’re not going to get back—”
“I don’t care about the money,” he lashes out. “Just let it go, all right?” and this time when I get a good look at his face, I see how red his eyes are from crying. How pale his face is. He turns to look up at me, and a trickle of blood leaks from his nostril.
“It’s back, isn’t it?” I whisper. My entire body feels suddenly cold. I can’t breathe. “The cancer?”
“I had an appointment yesterday. The scan shows that it’s metastasized.” He grabs a tissue from the coffee table and presses it to his nose. “It’s in my lymph nodes.”
I flinch because I know what that means. Spreading cancer that has returned means David’s options are limited. I move to his side and crouch next to his chair, forgetting all about work. I hold my hand out to him, and he grips it tightly even as he holds the tissue to his nose with his other hand. “You didn’t say anything to me.”
“What am I going to say?” His expression turns bitter and full of despair. “That we’re going to have even more debt? That medical school doesn’t matter? That nothing matters because I’m going to end up dead by the end of the year?”
“We’ll figure something out,” I whisper, holding his hand tightly. “We always do.”
And instead of thinking about my poor brother or our already overwhelming debts, I’m thinking about the stranger in the coffee shop this morning. Lachesis.
She knew all of this was going to happen. She said she’d be back in the morning.
I grip David’s hand tightly as he cries silently.
I’ve got to fix this. Somehow. Some way.
This can’t be how it ends for my brother.
Chapter
Two
Ican’t concentrate the next morning. It has nothing to do with the early hour or the fact that I’ve gotten almost no sleep at all, or the fact that I got written up at my university library job yesterday and I’m looking down the barrel at unemployment. I make coffees and hand out orders, all the while watching the door to the cafe with a burning determination. Silently, I will for the next person to enter to be the forgettable-looking woman with the strange name.