Tattoos and TaTas (Chocoholics #2.5) (9 page)

I jogged next to her bed and never let go of her hand the entire way. I knew she was freaking out and I didn’t know what the hell to do other than make sure she understood that I’d always be here for her.

“You’re not going to leave, right?” Claire asked when we got into the brightly lit OR and they transferred her to another bed.

I squeezed her hand tighter as one of the nurses handed me a pair of scrubs and a hospital mask. “I’m
never
going to leave you. I’m going to be here the entire time. It’s just you and me, Claire, you and me.”

She nodded her head as the nurses started putting up sheets around her body so we couldn’t see what was going on below her chest.

“You and me,” she agreed.

“You can do this. You’ve totally got this. It’s going to be over soon and Gavin is going to be here and he’s going to be healthy and perfect and we’re going to start teaching him how to swear before he shits his pants for the first time.”

Claire laughed and I quickly threw on the scrubs over my clothes and took my seat next to Claire’s bed.

Right at that moment, I knew that I would do anything for my best friend. I would hold her hand when she was in pain, scream at my catatonic fiancé when he saw her vagina and sit by her side when she became a mom. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her and I knew that’s how it would always be.

“I HAVE LAURIE
running things at the bakery for the next six weeks and you don’t have any weddings or big events coming up, so I think she can handle it. Jenny is going to take over ordering baking supplies and she’s going to help Laurie and your two part-time girls do all the baking,” I explain, going down the list of items I put in my notepad app on my phone. “If any big orders come in, we can always get some more help in, but I think we’ll be fine. We’ll have to put the Friday Freebie cupcake sale on hold for the time being, but I don’t think too many people will mind.”

Claire grabs my cell phone out of my hand and I finally look up at her. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I still had my phone in my hand to give me something else to stare at, something to keep myself occupied so I don’t have to see what is happening to her. I’m a shitty friend and an even shittier person because I can’t bear to look at my best friend and see what the chemo has done to her hair. Every time she runs her fingers through her hair or brushes up against the back of the couch, more strands come out, but she just shrugs her shoulders like it’s no big deal. One round of chemo almost three weeks ago and she’s already losing her hair. She still has five more rounds to go and I’m scared to death she’s just going to keep fading away until there’s nothing left of her.

“I’ve hired some extra help at my store so I’ll be able to pop over to your side as much as I want,” I continue. “We were supposed to do that interview with the local television station next week, but I called them and told them to postpone it. I’ll keep a file with all your invoices and bring them over when you need to sign something so you won’t need to—”

“Will you shut up already?” Claire interrupts. “Stop talking about work when we both know there’s something a little more important we need to discuss.”

I shake my head and grab my phone back from her. “No, it’s fine. We don’t need to talk about it. You don’t need to think about it. We can just talk about fun things like work and how Jenny has decided to start breeding ferrets now that the kids are in college and she’s bored.”

“As disturbing as that is, I don’t want to talk about the damn ferrets,” Claire tells me. “Wait, she was serious about breeding ferrets?”

I nod my head. “You don’t even want to know where she got that idea. There’s something called Fur Fest that she and Drew want to attend and she thinks she needs to breed something exotic and furry in order to fit in. I Googled Fur Fest. I can never get back those five minutes. So anyway, things are running smoothly at the shop and I don’t foresee any issues with—”

Claire reaches over and presses her hand over my mouth.

“Stop. Talking. About. Work. I had a double mastectomy four weeks ago and a round of chemo that is kicking my ass and I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen you during all of this. I get it; it’s scary. What I don’t get is why you won’t even fucking
talk
about it with me.”

I move my face away from her hand and get up from the couch to pace around the room. I can’t sit still for this. I need to keep moving or I’m going to completely break down and that’s not what she needs right now.

“You need to accept the fact that this is happening. It’s real. You can’t keep pretending like everything is okay,” she tells me softly.

I stop pacing and make myself look in her general direction. It hurts too much to look right at her—my best friend, so small and tired and run down, sitting on the couch with blankets tucked around her as her beautiful brown hair is quickly disappearing. “I’m trying, Claire. I don’t want to talk about it all the time and keep reminding you about what’s happening.”

Claire throws her hands up in the air in irritation. “You don’t think I’m reminded of this fucking disease every damn time I take a breath or look in the mirror? Every time I open my eyes, every time I MOVE it’s there, trying to bring me down. It’s all I fucking think about and you pretending like it’s not real is what’s really killing me.”

Her words cut right through me and I can’t help but gasp.

“Jesus Christ, you just compared me to…”

“CANCER! Fucking say it, Liz. I compared you to cancer. I have cancer. You can’t even fucking say it!” Claire screams.

“NO! I can’t fucking say it because you’re right! I don’t want it to be real. I don’t want this to be happening right now. I don’t want you to be sick. I can’t stand the fact that there is absolutely NOTHING I can do to make this better!” I shout back.

She flings the blankets off of her and gets up from the couch, stalking over to me.

“You still don’t get it! This isn’t about YOU! You can’t fix it, you can’t make it better, you don’t know what to say, you don’t know what to do. YOU, YOU, YOU! This is happening to ME, Goddammit, and I just need my fucking friend! Why can’t you just be my friend? This is out of everyone’s control, especially yours. If you can’t deal with that then you need to get the fuck out of my house.”

We stand toe-to-toe, both of us wearing equal looks of anger. As much as I don’t have the right to be mad at her, I can’t help it. This was never supposed to happen. Our friendship was solid and I thought nothing could ever break it. She’s pissed at me for not being a good friend and I’m pissed at her for not understanding that I don’t know HOW to be a good friend if I’m not the one making things better. She knows I’m a control freak, how can she possibly expect me to not feel helpless about this?

“I’m sorry I’m not perfect!” I fire back. “My friend gets sick and I don’t know what the fuck to do, so sue me! I’m trying here and you’re not making it any easier. You want to talk, talk, talk about this horrible thing that’s happening and I can’t do that. I can’t just act like it’s the most natural thing in the world to talk about my best friend having breast cancer! I’m not a sappy, talk about my feelings kind of person and you should damn well know that by now. I got a fucking tattoo to show you I cared, I’m taking care of your shop so you can rest and I’m trying to take your mind off of things because I don’t know what else to do!”

Claire takes a step back and crosses her arms across her chest. “I never asked you to get a tattoo, nor did I ask you for help with the shop. All I needed was my best friend to tell me everything will be okay and you can’t even do that. I know it’s horseshit. I know we don’t know if everything will be okay, but I need YOU to believe that. How the hell am I supposed to believe it if you don’t? You can’t even LOOK at me!”

I realize I’ve been staring at a button on her shirt the entire time she spoke and quickly look up to meet her eyes. I don’t know what she sees on my face but it’s enough for her to shake her head at me.

“Just get out,” she tells me sadly.

I’m so pissed that she’s ordering me out of the house I don’t even think about the fact that this is the first real fight we’ve ever had in thirty years of friendship and I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to recover from it.

“Fine! I’m out of here!” I scream back.

I walk away from my best friend and let the front door slam behind me. I get to my car and let the anger flow through me as I pull out of the driveway and head home. My anger festers and builds until I get inside my house, throw my purse across the kitchen and head to my bedroom. It all disappears as soon as I flop down on my bed and realize what just happened. I curl my legs up to my chest and, for the first time since Claire told us what was going on, I let myself cry. I cry so hard and for so long that I can’t breathe. I keep right on sobbing when I feel the bed dip behind me and Jim curls up against me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close. He doesn’t say a word, he just lets me cry.

I can’t believe I screamed at my best friend. She’s got cancer, she’s sick and she’s scared and I stood in her living room and yelled at her. What kind of person does that? I should have just taken what she threw at me. She deserves to scream and yell and let it all out. She’s right, it’s not all about me. It was never about me, it was always about her. This is
her
battle and
her
illness and as much as I want to, I can’t fight it for her. I was supposed to be the one who always understood her, but at the first sign of trouble, I forgot everything about being a good friend and what she would need from me. I didn’t talk about what was going on with her because it was too hard for me, but it shouldn’t have mattered. What she’s going through is a thousand times worse than what I’m going through. I am a selfish person and I let Claire down.

I was so scared of losing my best friend to this disease that I never stopped to think that I might just loser her because of my own pig-headedness instead. She’s been there through all of my good times and I let her down during one of her worst times. I just want to go back to the good times. It was so much easier then.

Twenty-two years ago, in a balloon galaxy far, far away…

JIM AND I
planned getting pregnant, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when the stick turned pink. It wasn’t a huge secret because we’d been talking about it and trying our hardest to make it happen for months, but I still wanted to do something special to break the news to him. I hate surprises and being the center of attention, but Jim loves it so I really wanted to plan something special to tell him. I would have been perfectly fine just blurting it out over dinner and being done with it, but Jim is a romantic and he wouldn’t be too pleased with that.

I asked Jim to meet me at Seduction and Snacks one night under the guise of helping me with inventory. When he walked in, his face took on a look of confusion when he saw the entire place filled with balloons. Piles of green, purple, red, blue and orange balloons littered the floor and every available surface of the shop and hundreds more filled with helium covered every inch of the ceiling. I could have gone with pink and blue, but I didn’t want to make it too obvious.

Jim kicked balloons out of the way, making a path as he walked towards me. He opened his mouth to speak, but was immediately interrupted by Drew, who came running in from Claire’s side of the store.

“This is the best day EVER!” Drew shouted, holding the largest balloon I had ever seen in his hands.

Jim looked at me questioningly.

“Sorry, this was kind of his idea, so I told him he could help,” I explained.

I watched as Drew raced back and forth among the balloons like a two-year old on crack. “Tell him the best part! TELL HIM THE BEST PART!”

I grabbed my husband’s hands and squeezed them. “I have a surprise for you. Drew thought it should be something fun. So, if you want to know what your surprise is, you’ll need to pop the balloons until you find the one it’s hidden in.”

I managed to slide the positive pregnancy test into one of the balloons before we blew it up and it was somewhere in this room, although I’d lost track of it ever since Drew came barreling in here.