It Was Me Page 16

  Zanzibar was a coffee shop on Garnet. Abby and I had spent countless mornings and afternoons there. Drinking coffee. Studying. It was our go-to place when we needed to get things done. There were no distractions like showers or beds to tumble into. It was the second to last place I wanted to go with her twin sister.

  But I didn't want to say no because, like it or not, I wanted to hear what she had to say. I needed to hear it.

  I nodded. “I'll meet you down there.” I turned back around, fishing my keys out of my pocket as I made my way toward the parking lot.

  “Hey, West?” she called after me.

  I looked at her over my shoulder.

  “It's not good news. Just so you know.”

  THIRTY SIX

  I circled the block a couple of times, looking for a place to park on Garnet. I slid into a spot a block away and made my way back up the street towards the coffee shop. The sidewalks were filled with tourists sporting sunburned noses, bogged down with bags from all the local shops. I'd spent years anticipating the end of summer, when the tourists would leave and PB would go back to some semblance of normal.

  I pulled open the doors to Zanzibar and the coffee aroma hit me like a freight train. Most of the tables were full, the ones by the window housing a couple of familiar faces. I nodded at them before heading toward the back of the shop.

  Annika was already seated at a table, a tumbler of iced coffee in front of her.

  And Abby was with her.

  I felt my heart trip a little as I stared at them. Abby was oblivious to me, staring at the steaming mug of coffee in front of her, slowly stirring the red plastic coffee stirrer. She only drank hot coffee, never iced, not even on the hottest of summer days.

  It had only been a few days since I'd seen her but it felt like forever. A mix of emotions battered me, anger and hope and love all colliding inside of me. I took a steadying breath and moved toward the table.

  Annika caught my eye and smiled. I watched, almost as if in slow-motion, as Abby's head lifted and her eyes followed Annika's gaze. She froze when she saw me.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached the table.

  She flushed a deep red. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well,” I said, sliding into one of the empty chairs. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I'm with my sister,” she said, her voice condescending. “She asked me to meet her here.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Weird. Because she asked me to do the same thing.”

  Abby's eyes shot daggers at her sister but Annika just smiled.

  “Look, someone has to cut through the shit and get the two of you talking,” she said. She sipped her coffee. “And I know I haven't exactly been the biggest Abby and West cheerleader, but you're driving me crazy.” She stared at her sister so there was no doubt who she was talking about.

  Abby muttered something under her breath.

  “You can cuss me out all you want,” Annika said. “You already hate me.”

  “I don't hate you,” Abby said.

  Annika shrugged. “Maybe not. But you don't exactly like me. I figured I had the least to lose by forcing you two to see each other.” She picked up her tumbler and stood.

  “Where are you going?” her sister asked.

  “Home.”

  Abby made a move to stand but Annika stared pointedly at her. “If you don't tell him, I will. And that's a promise.”

  Abby paled and her sister smiled and left.

  I drummed my fingers on the table and watched her. She looked nervous, like a deer caught in the headlights, ready to jump up and run. It broke my heart and pissed me off that she was acting that way with me.

  “So,” I said.

  She continued to stare into her coffee.

  “Look, if you don't want to talk, that's fine,” I said. “I didn't come here for the silent treatment.”

  “I know. You came here for my sister.” She looked up and glared at me. “Looking for a replacement already, huh?”

  “That's bullshit and you know it,” I said.

  She didn't say anything.

  “I came here because your sister said she would tell me what was going on with you. I don't give a flying fuck about her. You know that.”

  Her cheeks reddened a little and I could see I was getting to her.

  “I'm not here to try to win you back, Abs. The last thing I want is to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. But I just wanna know what happened. That's it. Tell me and I'll go. I won't bother you again.”

  They were the hardest words I'd ever had to say but I meant them. I missed her and I still loved her like crazy but I'd realized something during my conversation with Patrick. I didn't want to end up like him. I didn't want to be with someone who couldn't make time for me. Who couldn't make me a priority. I'd always thought Abby was it for me. But if she wasn't? I needed to grieve and be pissed off for a while, no doubt. But then I needed to lick my wounds and get back in the game. And I couldn't do that until I knew what the hell had gone wrong.

  She sighed and brought the cup to her lips. She took a sip, holding it in her mouth before swallowing it down.

  I leaned back in my chair and waited, my fingers still lightly tapping the surface of the wood table. It was a nervous habit and I tried to still my hand but I couldn't.

  “My mom,” she finally said.

  I frowned. “What about your mom?”

  “It's my mom.” Her voice broke and she looked away.

  I thought back to the time at the casita. Her mom had been one of my biggest cheerleaders. She'd been just as excited about the news from the university as Abby's dad had been. And, later, when we'd talked about Abby coming with me, she'd been the staunch supporter. Not Mr. Sellers.

  Her voice was so soft, I almost didn't hear her. “She has cancer.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  She nodded. “Breast cancer. They...they found a lump last month” She spoke rapidly now, the words tumbling out. “Annika and I... we didn't know. They didn't tell us. She had a lumpectomy. But it had spread. Stage 2.”

  “Aw, shit,” I said. “I'm sorry, Abby.”

  She nodded. “I know. Me, too.”

  Her eyes filled with tears and I wanted nothing more than to slide my chair next to her and gather her in my arms. But I couldn't. Because I wasn't sure how she would react.

  “So, what's the next step?” I asked.

  “Radiation and chemo. She starts tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “And...and the prognosis?”

  “I don't know. The doctors are optimistic. But they always are, you know?”

  I didn't know. No one close to me had ever been sick. I'd always been a unit of three. Me, my dad and my mom. And even though my dad was in prison and my mom had left shortly after, divorcing him and moving back to Austin, we'd always been healthy. Dysfunctional as hell, but healthy. None of my friends from school had dealt with sick parents. The closest I'd ever come to someone with a grave illness had been my 11 grade physics teacher who was diagnosed with ALS at the beginning of the school year. Nine months later, Mrs. Marcus was in a motorized scooter, her legs frozen from the disease that would eventually take her life one year later.

  So cancer was a new thing for me. I didn't know anything about what Stage 2 cancer meant or how doctors would be. But I wanted to find out. For Abby.

  “I'm sorry,” I said again, keeping my eyes on her. “How can I help? What can I do?”

  It wasn't about me or us anymore. I didn't want to try to fix things between us right at that moment. I just wanted to help her.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  I frowned.

  She shook her head. “Actually, I take that back. There is something you can do.”

  I waited.

  “You can go to Arizona. The sooner, the better.”

  THIRTY SEVEN

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  She dropped her eyes again, focusing on the dwindling
liquid in her coffee mug.

  “Abby.” My voice was sharp.

  She wasn't looking at me but I could tell she was on the verge of tears. “I want you to go.”

  “To Arizona?”

  She nodded. “You have to.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Back up. What does this have to do with us? Your mom, I mean?” I was beginning to put the pieces together but I wanted to hear it from her.

  “I can't leave,” she whispered. “I can't go with you. Not when she's sick.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I wouldn't ask you to. I would tell you to stay here.”

  She nodded again, as if she was confirming that she knew this.

  “And I would stay, too. With you.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “No.”

  “Hear me out,” I said. I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. She tried to pull away but I threaded my fingers through hers, holding tight. “Tell me something. And promise you'll tell me the truth.”

  She didn't answer but she stopped struggling against me.

  “Do you still love me?”

  Again, she was silent.

  “Abby.” I stretched my other hand out and touched her chin with my fingertips. Gently, I tilted it upward so she was looking at me. Her eyes were bright with tears. “Do you still love me?”

  She nodded and the tears spilled down her cheeks. I brushed at one of them with my thumb, my heart threatening to hammer right out of my chest. It was what I'd known all along, even with everything she'd thrown at me, but it still thrilled me to see her admit it.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling, feeling the wetness in my own eyes. “I love you, too. You know that. And I get what you're doing. You freaked and you needed time to work through all of this. Totally get it. Doesn't mean it makes me happy—you should have come to me with it, dammit—but we'll get through it. You and me and your mom and everyone We're gonna get through this.”

  She pulled her hand away. “No, West.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You don't understand. We aren't going to get through this.”

  I was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I don't want your help,” she said. “I don't want you to stay.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” My voice had risen a notch and a few heads turned but I didn't care.

  “You have to go,” she said. “You have to go to Arizona. Take the baseball scholarship and forget about me.”

  I laughed. “What? Forget about you? No fucking way, Abs.”

  “I mean it,” she said. The tears fell freely now and her voice was choked with sobs. “You can't stay. I won't let you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I'm not going to let you walk away from this,” she said. “You've already had one chance slip away from you. No,” she said, shaking her head. “It didn't slip away. It was taken away. By your dad. And I'm not going to let that happen again.”

  “You can't make me go,” I told her gently. “And I'm not leaving you.”

  “This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. She brushed at the tears and her mascara smeared, leaving a thin trail of black under her eyes. “What if this is it? It's now or never, West. You can't pass it up. And I'm not going to be the reason you don't take it. There's no way I'll live with that. Zero.”

  “I'm not leaving you,” I repeated. I wasn't. Not when she said she still loved me, and not when it was obvious she needed me.

  She looked away and took a couple of deep breaths. I held tight to her hand.

  “If you stay, I won't see you,” she said. “I won't talk to you. We won't get back together.”

  “What?”

  She leveled her eyes on mine. They were almost dry. “You heard me.”

  “You still love me. You just said so.”

  “It doesn't matter,” she said. “I'll probably always love you, West. But we're done. We're through if you stay here.”

  She wasn't making sense. She was trying to strong-arm me into going to Arizona, into not walking away from what she saw as an opportunity of a lifetime. But she didn't realize that there was something I wanted more out of life than a shot at a baseball career.

  I wanted her.

  “And if I go?” I asked. “If I go to Arizona, then what? We do the long-distance thing?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  “I don't want to do that to you. You...you deserve better.”

  “What the fuck ever, Abby. Don't tell me what I deserve. What I want is you.”

  “So, what?” she asked, her eyes blazing. “I sit here and take care of my sick mom and just write you emails and texts? What kind of relationship is that?”

  “It wouldn't be like that,” I said. “If I go—and it's a big if—I'd come back. If not every weekend, then every other. We could talk every day. Skype. All that stuff.”

  “All that stuff takes time,” she said. “Time you have to carve out of an already busy schedule. I'm going to be going to school. Helping out my dad at the office. Taking care of my mom. You'll have classes and baseball and friends. There's no way you'd get back here on weekends with baseball and you know it. Two separate lives, West.”

  I stared at her. “So you're telling me, whatever choice I make, we're pretty much done?”

  Abby nodded and the tears sprang back into her eyes. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  I wrenched my hand free of hers. “It's not your decision to make. There are two people involved here. I get a say, too.”

  “No, you don't,” she said.

  “We love each other.”

  “I know,” she said. “But sometimes love isn't enough.”

  THIRTY EIGHT

  I had two choices. Drink myself into oblivion or burn off my anger doing something productive.

  I laced up my running shoes and grabbed my iPod and hit the street at a full sprint before I could grab a bottle instead.

  I'd left Abby at the coffee shop, my blood boiling from our conversation. She was being pig-headed and stubborn and she was flat-out wrong about everything. But she wasn't giving me a choice. She'd made a stupid, reckless decision to try to force me into going to Arizona, into not giving up on something she thought was important.

  And I was pissed as hell at her.

  I ran north on Lamont, headed toward Kate Sessions Park. I needed hills. Lots of them. Cars whizzed past and a horn honked, a familiar VW bus loaded with boards headed toward the beach. Keith, a buddy of mine, stuck his head out the passenger window. I pulled one of the earbuds out so I could hear him.

  “Waves are breaking at Bird Rock right now, man. You heading out?”

  I shook my head.

  He shrugged and waved and they barreled by. I shoved the earbud back in place and cranked the volume and Nine Inch Nails drowned out everything. Everything except my thoughts.

  I thought about Abby and everything she'd said. How she was staying here and helping with her mom. How she'd planned to help her dad with the real estate business. I had a dozen questions I'd wanted to ask but there hadn't been time. Because the only thing she'd been focused on was getting me to agree on Arizona and getting me out of her life.

  She'd backed me up against a wall with her ultimatums. Whatever I chose to do didn't matter when it came to us. Because she wasn't going to let there be an us.

  I hooked a sharp left and headed into the park. It was a Monday evening but it was summer and the park teemed with people. People out running and walking their dogs, people bringing their kids to the park instead of the beach. I circled the path, my eyes drifting to my right to take in the view of the bay. Sailboats dotted the water and, a little further, the spinning compartment of the Skytower at Sea World rose slowly, giving riders a spectacular view of the bay and the ocean. It was the end of another perfect day in San Diego.

  Except mine had just gone to shit.

  I thought again about my options. Or, rather, my lack of them. Abby hadn't left
me with any choices. Not when it came to her, anyway. Part of me wanted to run to her house and break down her fucking door and scream at her, tell her just how wrong she was. That same part of me wanted to grab her and kiss her senseless, remind her just how much there was between us. Kiss her and touch her, over and over, until she was begging for me to take her back. And I would. Without question.

  But then I remembered her mom. I tried to put myself in her shoes. She and her parents were close, closer than I'd ever been to my own mom and dad. They'd gone through a little bit of a rough patch when she'd skipped out of going to State in the fall but they'd ultimately supported her decision, even more so when she shared just how fucked up her twin sister had behaved towards her. Toward us.

  I knew she was reeling from the cancer diagnosis. And I knew that she didn't want to leave her mom. I totally understood that. I didn't want her to leave, would never ask her to, given the circumstances. But I also didn't want her making rash decisions about us, either.

  I looped the park another time, my heart pounding, my mouth dry. I slowed to a walk and wiped the sweat off my brow. I stopped at the water fountain outside of the bathroom building and took a long drink. The water was lukewarm but I sucked it down, anyway. I swallowed one last mouthful and wiped the drops of water dripping from my chin.