“Listen, I’ve got somewhere I need to be, but do you think I could come back and visit? Since you’re stuck in here anyway.”
“Like I’m going to say no.” She laughed. “I like you, Caleb. You’re the first person here who hasn’t talked to me like I’m five. Everyone forgets I’m practically a teenager. I’m not dumb. You get that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Can I ask you something before you go?” She blushed, turning suddenly shy.
“Of course.”
“Do you think maybe you could teach me to skateboard? When I’m better?”
The request hit me harder than I expected. Not the words themselves, but the hope behind them. When I’m better. She was already looking past this room, past the transplant, past the fear. She was planning a future.
“It would be my absolute pleasure.” I wanted to give her something to hold on to. Something beyond illness and pain and the endless, grinding uncertainty of treatment.
But as the words left my mouth, I realized she’d given me something too. A reason to come back to this hospital that had nothing to do with my own ghosts.
“Just one more thing,” she insisted. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
I choked on a surprised laugh. “I know a girl. She’s a friend.”
“Does she like your hair that long? It kinda looks like you could use a trim.”
“Trust me, Abby.” I stood, still grinning. “She likes it just fine.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caleb
American Thanksgiving wasn’t a thing for most Canadians, but it had always been a thing for us.
My dad had grown up in New York before moving north to be with my mom. He’d left behind most of his American habits without complaint, but Thanksgiving was the one tradition he refused to let go.
Every year, late November, he cooked a turkey the size of a small child and made the rest of us gather around a table and say what we were grateful for.
It was corny. It was also my favorite family tradition.
This year, dinner was at Eric and Jamie’s. Their house wasn’t really big enough to fit the chaos, but Jamie—seven months pregnant and still refusing to let anyone help her—had insisted on hosting.
My aunt Solange had come from Montreal to stay with my parents for the week, which meant she’d be there too, probably taking over Jamie’s kitchen whether Jamie liked it or not.
For once, the whole family would be there. And I couldn’t wait. I’d been so wrapped up in Zadie and volunteering and figuring out my life that I hadn’t spent much time with any of them since I’d moved back.
Pushing my board harder, I carved through the quiet streets of Copper Ridge. The late November air was cold, biting at my ears and my knuckles, but the exertion felt good. My bones and muscles protested only slightly, my lungs and heart working hard to keep me moving.
My mind drifted back to the hospital. To Abby.
It was hard to think of that sweet kid facing the same thing I’d been through. Her transplant would be different because medicine had come such a long way, but the risks in recovery were the same. The same possibility it wouldn’t work. The same chance that, like me, it would save her life but leave her permanently altered.
But I preferred damaged and living over the alternative. And I had faith in Abby’s bright future.
When I reached Eric’s street, I kicked up the board and walked the last block, letting my body cool and my breathing settle.
Their house sat at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Warm light poured from every window, and I could smell the turkey from the driveway. Eric’s SUV was parked out front, Tante Sol’s rental beside it.
Only two vehicles. Where was the rest of my family?
I knocked once and the door swung open.