Caught in the whirlpool of memories and pain, I notice far too late how Nyla takes a step back.
‘Your sister?’ she breathes, horrified.
In her face I search for the reason for her dismay, but I don’t find one. ‘Yes, she had… she was sick…’
Nyla bites her lower lip. ‘I know.’
Everything inside me is spinning. What does she mean by that? How can it be that Nyla knows about Camee’s illness? And why does she also seem to know about this list?
What is happening right now?
I look at her intently. ‘How do you know Lilly?’
It’s a simple question, yet she suddenly draws in a sharp breath and as she exhales shakily, tears suddenly bead and roll down her cheeks…
Chapter Thirty-One
NYLA
He lost his sister.
That thought consumes me, fills me up, leaves hardly any room for anything else.
He lost her—and it destroyed him.
‘Were you her doctor?’ he asks.
Silently, I shake my head.
‘How did you know her then?’ His expression turns pleading now. ‘How do you know about her illness?’
He lost her—and since then he has been on the run.
Tears stream down my cheeks unchecked. ‘From the chemotherapy.’
Despite the veil of tears before my eyes, I see him gasp for air, clutch his chest, and stagger back against the wall.
‘We had it together… I mean, at the same time…’ I can’t say it out loud, but in his expression, I see that he understands anyway.
‘So that’s what you meant when you talked about your increased risk,’ he says tonelessly.
‘Yes.’ And I had the same illness as his sister, but I can’t bring myself to say that in this moment.
For a while he just looks at me, his face frozen in shock.
‘No, that can’t be true.’ His tone is as fragile as this moment, as I am, as we are, as everything that connects us. ‘But you beat the cancer, yes, you did, you’re healthy,’ he continues incoherently, and for the first time since he entered this room, he seems as if he can breathe again.
‘I’m in remission. Cancer-free for nine months,’ I reply, wishing that is all there is to say about it.
‘That’s good. Very good.’ He runs his hands through his hair, again and again and again. ‘Fantastic. We have to celebrate. Yes. Celebrate. We need wine.’
I know exactly what he’s doing right now, and I also know that it’s wrong.
I look at him intently. ‘You watched her die,’ I say, fully aware that it hurts him. But how could I pretend now that everything was perfectly fine? What he’s doing to himself. The many months he has already spent running from the painful memory, from the grief, from reality—this can’t go on.
His muscles tense. ‘No.’
‘You may not have been there in the very moment, but that doesn’t change anything.’