More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
That 81 and 51 suddenly became a lot harder for me to stomach.
it’s the second page nd i’m starting to cry…
She’d had that 21 on her forehead for as long as he could remember, and he’d practically driven himself crazy trying to figure out how to change it. When she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer at age 20, he’d realized there was no way he could have. Cancer was so rare for someone her age that he wouldn’t have ever thought to suggest having her checked for it, and even if he somehow had, and even if he’d managed to get the exact type of cancer correct, no one would’ve taken him seriously.
What could I have done? I’d spent the years leading up to her death trying my best. I’d told her to be safe every day when she’d left for work. If she’d gotten sick, I’d helped my dad nurse her back to health. I’d spent sixth and seventh grade having panic attacks in the night because I’d been so worried about her. And in the end, all I’d have had to do was convince her to stay home on one particular evening.
It was no wonder Robbie was an Atheist; the idea that something intelligent enough to design thinking, feeling, living creatures would then assign them unchangeable expiration dates was horrifying.
It’d be nice to have some evidence that we control our own destinies, I think.
“Right.” One corner of her lips quirked upward into a smirk. “I hear they nearly hit you with their cars.” “Ouch.” I pressed a hand to my chest, and she laughed at me. Then we shared a smile.
But I glanced to her forehead and swore I saw 16, and then she’d turned away.
I was suddenly doing something I told myself I’d never do. I was caring.
“She was probably straight, right?” I asked Robbie, half-kidding. He smacked me on the arm in response and rolled his eyes at me.
Life would go on with or without Chloe Stephens, after all. It waited for no one. It never had.
I knew he loved me, but I also knew he didn’t like being a single dad.
“Harper, people are not milk cartons,” Dad sighed out. “You don’t pick and choose the ones you think will last the longest without going sour. If it feels right, you just go with it until it doesn’t feel right anymore. And sometimes when something goes wrong, it hurts. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it in the first place.”
“She could be a serial killer. Or the bait for a serial killer.” “Then I will miss you dearly. Goodbye, Harper.”
“Alright. Ice cream it is. But only ‘cause I brought money and you’re pretty.” My lips parted in surprise as she veered left and let Baxter tug her along down the sidewalk. She glanced back at me and winked, then called back, “Are you coming, or do you have a boyfriend you should be with right now?”
a thin handmade bracelet encircled her wrist, repeatedly bearing, in order, the six colors of the rainbow.
I laughed and joked, “Can you sew that inspirational quote onto a pillow for me so I can look at it every day before I wake up?” She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh and then tossed her balled up napkin at me with a pouty, “Don’t make fun of me.” I grinned a grin I couldn’t make go away, and for another moment,
Maybe, just like there wasn’t a way to stop the numbers, there also wasn’t a way for me to come to my senses and leave Chloe alone.
But this was real life. And in real life, I was the love interest.
I shifted my phone to my other ear as she bit down on another carrot. Then, before I could stop myself, I declared, “You’re gay.” The crunching stopped. There was a short pause. And then, “Was that a question?” “I’m sorry.” “For… pointing out the obvious?” “I don’t think it was obvious,” I half-lied. “Sure it was. I’ve always wanted to live in San Francisco, and I wore a rainbow bracelet the other day.” “The true reason you moved here comes out,” I joked, trying to ease some of the tension. She ran with it, mercifully. “Ah, yes. I definitely got my parents to pack up and relocate just so I
...more
This is the present for us, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a present in the future. And in that future present, this is the past. The past can’t change, so everything’s already set in stone.
Fate knows the future, so Fate knows its past, which is our present.”
Chloe’s father answered the door with a knowing look in his eyes and spent a lot more time introducing himself to me than to Robbie. Robbie was an afterthought. Robbie wasn’t the person Chloe’d come home raving about, and the knowledge that came with Kent Stephens’s excited greeting and eager shake of my hand made my heart thud harder in my chest.
“Shh. He’ll hear.” She was right, and her smirk told me she knew it. My heart rate picked up as she leaned in close to my ear. Her breath tickled my cheek as she whispered, “I suck at laser tag, but this is a lot of fun. Next time we should lose the boy.”
I pressed my palms into my eye sockets and bit back a frustrated scream. “She’ll be fine,” I forced myself to say. “She’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine.” It was easier to repeat a lie than to face how stupid it’d been to speak to Chloe in the first place, but I still didn’t believe it for a second.
Chloe didn’t know anyone in San Francisco. She had no friends. And she didn’t deserve to die feeling alone in a new city. I couldn’t fall in love with her, I knew, but trying to help her was the only real option I had. I couldn’t just ignore her now, and if I couldn’t keep her alive, I could at least be there for her when she died.
The last months of her life being happy ones were more important than anything I’d go through while helping make them happy. That was the right thing to do, even if it would be hard.
maybe, by some miracle, I’d do something to keep her aliv...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
That meant that Chloe didn’t have twelve months to live. She didn’t even have six. She was going to be dead by the end of the summer.
Chloe’s life became more than just an extension of my own. I buried myself in it with an enthusiasm I’d only had once before: four years ago.
I was twelve. I was twelve and Mom was coming downstairs, dressed up for dinner with a friend. And while Dad was telling her how beautiful she looked, a feeling so powerfully foreboding settled within me that I felt paralyzed with fear. I watched her and Dad laugh together as he twirled her around, watching her dress spin, and then I blurted out, “I don’t feel good.” They both turned toward me, and I tipped forward abruptly, and, barely managing to stay on my feet, vomited. They rushed to me, one on either side of me, and Mom held back my hair as Dad helped me stay on my feet. “Honey, let’s
...more
“I have this theory,” Chloe began. “You have a lot of theories.” She ignored me and continued, “-that if I hit on you relentlessly enough, you’ll crack eventually. See, when guys do it, it’s creepy and gross, but I’m female and adorable and you actually like hanging out with me, so it’s okay.”
“Are you serious? And you try to act like you don’t like me,” Chloe marveled, her mouth wide open. “You wanted to see where I go for fun and which places I like around here,” I insisted. “This is it.” “And it’s a romantic dating spot your parents used to use. How convenient,” she drawled,
I felt Chloe shift closer to me. She leaned over and surprised me by kissing me gently on the cheek, and then rested her head on my shoulder. It felt natural, and I didn’t stop her. I didn’t want to.
“A seventeen-year-old socially awkward virgin with a job at a fast food place. And I’m refusing to date you. You sure hit the jackpot,” I joked.
“You’re so deep!” she sighed out, pretending to swoon.
“Don’t get popcorn all over my bed, loser.” “Don’t stare at me when your favorite movie’s on, Romeo,” she bit back, unfazed. “So desperate. God.”
My gaze drifted down to where our hands were nearly touching, and I shifted mine to bring it closer to hers. Heart thudding hard in my chest, I reached out with my pinky to brush it up against hers. She reacted by pushing hers back against mine and then linking our pinkies together, and I heard her swallow another handful of popcorn.
“Life’s all about mistakes. And it’s way too short to just wait around instead of cutting through the bullshit.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, offering me a small smile. “It’s okay to let people in sometimes.” “You promise?” I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t fair.” “I promise.” “I-” I paused, hesitating again. She was so earnest: so sincere. She had no idea she wasn’t telling the truth, and as I studied her, I couldn’t help but think, “What on earth is going to happen to you?”
“Doesn’t that get exhausting?” she marveled. “Looking at every single person like some sort of risk calculation? Comparing potential enjoyment as a result of being friends versus potential pain as a result of losing the friendship? Or of losing them?”
Have you ever considered the fact that maybe the goal of life isn’t to get through it as painlessly as possible?”
“That was a fantastic metaphor. I came up with that literally just now; wasn’t that awesome?”
“I’ll see you around, then,” I said. She nodded. “Not going anywhere.” “I remember,” I assured her. “Just… be careful. No skydiving before I see you again, okay?”
She leaned in before I could react and kissed me on the cheek, then took a couple steps back, grinning,
“It hasn’t been easy with just the two of us, Harper. But we’d watch our shows and movies together and had nightly dinners and I always knew what was going on with you and what you were going through, even if I didn’t understand it all. I always felt close to you. And now, out of nowhere, there’s this wall up I can’t get past and I can’t figure out why. I feel like I’ve done something wrong.”
I just haven’t known you for more than a month and I guess I already don’t shut up about you.”
My hand, almost unconsciously, stretched out toward the center of the seat, occasionally making contact with Chloe’s fingertips. Her doing. She’d made it clear the other night that as long as I was the one doing the rejecting, I wasn’t allowed to also do the flirting. I supposed that was fair. I couldn’t have it both ways. I took my forehead off of the window and looked over at her. Her gaze was on the view of the body of water just a football field’s distance from us, and when she used the hand that wasn’t playing with mine to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, I could see her smiling.
I squeezed Chloe’s hand so tightly I was surprised she wasn’t in pain. “You’re amazing,” she insisted, lips so close to my ear I could feel them brushing against it. I wasn’t sure if my lightheadedness could be attributed to that or to my impending doom. “I’ll buy you an ice cream cone when we get back to the bottom, alright? Can you at least do chocolate sprinkles?” “Negative.” “My god.” “I know.”
“Well, at any rate, I’m glad Chloe has you. You have a mother’s approval.” I raised a hand to my head to scratch it, but that was only so I could use my palm to hide the eye Hayley could see. I was, very suddenly, a little teary-eyed. “Thanks,” I mumbled, hoping I didn’t sound choked up and that my voice wasn’t shaky. “I haven’t heard that one in a while.”
I didn’t realize until she spoke that I’d been covering the number on her forehead with my palm.
