Chapter 43
Chapter 41: Sedona’s Friends From Her Past
Sedona’s POV
On a Thursday morning in the third week of aggressive treatment, when I had not yet gotten used to the side effects of being exposed to chemicals daily, I was lying in my hospital bed
during an infusion when there was a knock on the door.
I was feeling particularly destroyed that day, and not in the mood to see anyone. The combination of both therapy and undergoing chemotherapy was doing something to me that felt less like fighting and more like being dismantled and hoping something better got
assembled back together in the aftermath.
My mother had gone to get coffee, Cameron was on an urgent work call outside that he couldn’t reschedule and I had told him to go because he had been hovering around, trying to make sure I was comfortable and I needed a few minutes to myself., and I was staring at the ceiling making deals with whoever might be listening about what I’d agree to in exchange for
not vomiting for the next four hours.
“Come in,” I said, mostly because whoever it was would come in anyway. Atleast this way I would have the illusion of being the one who granted them permission.
The door opened.
For a moment I just stared, uncertain if the anti-nausea medication was causing hallucinations, because there was no way that I was actually seeing who was standing right
in front of me.
Rachel.
Rachel Park, who I’d left without a word five years ago, who’d been my closest friend for fifteen years before I’d destroyed our friendship by running from a wedding and taking my explanations with me, and leaving her to deal with the aftermath of being my bridesmaid, being in a wedding that got abandoned and forced to answer questions from the screaming public while being blindsided by it as well.
But it was definitely her. She was standing in my hospital room door in a yellow coat with her
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dark hair shorter than I remembered, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Like she was both hesitant and uncertain if I would be welcoming to her.
I burst into tears.
I didn’t cry with the style of a sophisticated lady in public, whose appearance mattered more,
but heavy deep, tears ruining the little makeup my mum had touched on my face saying I
looked too pale. My crying took my nurse unawares as she looked up from her station in
alarm, thinking something was actually wrong with me.
“Oh, Sedona.” Rachel crossed the room in three steps and had her arms around me before I
could say another word, careful of the IV lines, her chin on my head. “You absolute i***t. You
complete and total disaster of a person p>
“I know,” I managed to speak in between sobs, as she wiped my tears from my face although
more kept spilling. “Rachel, I’m so sorry, I left without telling you, or giving you a heads-up
about it. I was so scared and I shouldn’t have p>
“I know why you left. Cameron told me. All of it.” She pulled back to look at me, her own eyes
bright with unshed tears as she was batting them frequently with the ainm of someone who
didn’t want to ruin her mascara.
“I was devastated when you disappeared without a trace. You have no idea. I thought
something terrible had happened to you, and then I thought you were just done with me, and
then I didn’t know what to think. I’ve been thinking about what I’d say to you for five years p>
“I deserve that. Whatever you want to say. I broke off our friendship and made you feel you
were the one who had done something wrong p>
“What I want to say,” Rachel said, “is that you are my best friend. You have been my best
friend since we were eight years old and you told Tommy Crawford that if he threw one more
paper ball at me in class you’d put his lunchbox on the roof. You are stubborn and reckless
and occasionally a complete catastrophe which is still something I try to wrap my head
around because only you get into situations that are even baffling but… BUT nothing that
happened five years ago changed any of that.” She took my face in her hands, the same
gesture my mother had used, and I was undone by the familiarity of it. “Nothing changes
this. You hear me p>
“I hear you,” I whispered nodding my head as I suppressed the urge to cry, although thus time
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She hugged me again, tightly, and I held on with everything I had left, which wasn’t much but
was apparently enough for her.
“You look terrible, by the way,” she said into my shoulder. “I’m not going to pretend you don’t p>
“I know p>
“You also look like yourself, which I wasn’t sure you would.” She pulled back and wiped her
face with the back of her hand. “Cameron said you looked lost when he found you. And that
he had no idea if you were ever going to find yourself. He said it was like you’d been slowly
disappearing for years p>
I thought about that. About the woman I’d been in Logan’s house-quiet and careful and
small, making herself convenient, taking up less space with every passing month, until I was
gone.
“I was,” I said, refusing to dwell on my terrible past. “I think I was p>
“Well.” Rachel settled into the chair beside my bed with the ease of someone claiming
territory she intended to occupy indefinitely as she got comfortable crossing her foot over
the other as she placed her hands on her laps.
“You’re not lost anymore. You’re right here, and I’m going to sit in this chair and annoy you
through this entire infusion, you will gain enough strength to actively chase after me with a
chair and you’re going to tell me everything. Every single thing. And I’m going to listen and
then we’re going to figure out what comes next. Yes p>
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