Page 46 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

Scarlett was wearing her oversized sunglasses, so it was impossible to see her reaction, but Chrissie could guess how panicked her friend was right now. When trapped in a corner, Scarlett was the type to lash out as hard as she could. Kat wasn’t the only one with a mean-girl streak in her.

“When, Scarlett?”

“I was working my way up to it, I swear. I just needed the right time—”

Chrissie flung up her hand. “Bullshit.” The word snapped out of her like the crack of a whip. “The right time was the minute you got the diagnosis—no, the minute you started feeling under the weather. And you know it.”

A feeling unlike anything she’d ever experienced before came over her. With as much radiation and chemotherapy as Scarlett hadbeen subjected to as a child, they’d always known that another bout of cancer was a real possibility, but Chrissie had assumed it was a possibility they shared.

That was the whole point of them. Everything they did was supposed to be together. It wasn’t just the two of them against cancer. It was the two of them against theworld.

“Do you still want to touch them?” Scarlett asked as she allowed the towel to slip down her chest to reveal the two pert globes. “The swimsuit inserts are surprisingly realistic. I probably went a little too big, but at this point, I figured, why the hell not?”

Chrissie burst into tears. She wished she could concentrate her anger and use that as a shield, or at least ride the wave of her fury long enough to get a few answers, but this was who she was.

When anger came for her, she cried. And when her best friend of twenty-seven years had been diagnosed with cancer and undergone a double mastectomy all by herself, she cried even harder.

She couldn’t contain an audible sob at that last thought, all the interactions of the past week pinging her like a hailstorm. It was all so obvious now—the oversized clothes and the way Scarlett refused to sleep one minute longer than she had to, the water she’d ordered at a swanky cocktail bar.

I should have noticed earlier. I should have made her tell me the truth.

“Chrissie, please don’t cry.” Scarlett was on her knees by Chrissie’s side in an instant.

Somewhere in the back of Chrissie’s mind, she knew this was backwards, and that she was the one who was supposed to be comforting Scarlett, but the hot tears kept scoring her cheeks.

“I’m a monster for waiting this long to tell you. A horrible friend. I just didn’t want to worry you or add to your burdens more than I already have.”

“My burdens?” Chrissie echoed. Nothing Scarlett was saying wasmaking her feel any better about this. “You mean Kat? That’s what this whole thing is about?”

“That’s what everything between us is about, and you know it. Since the day she was born, she’s been a wedge between us.” Scarlett hesitated in a way that made Chrissie’s entire body grow cold. Or maybe that was just the sun slipping behind a cloud and taking the warm temperature with it. “It was always my intention to tell you as soon as the trip got underway, but then we were having such a good time and you started inviting stray teenagers to join us, so—”

Chrissie stood up so abruptly that her head spun. Scarlett tried to rise with her, but Chrissie pushed her down with a hand on her shoulder. The ease with which she was able to do this—Scarlett’s body weakened by her cancer and surgery and god-knew-what-other treatments she was currently undergoing—should have made her feel ashamed of herself, and she did, but more than that, she wasfurious.

Trust Scarlett Sanderson to make a diagnosis of cancer about more than just the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells. With her, it was a production worthy of the Broadway stage—and Chrissie was once again relegated to the audience.

“I’m going to join River for that walk,” she announced.

“Chrissie, don’t. I’m sorry, okay? I should have told you about this a long time ago. I just hoped… I thought… Oh, hell. You already know what I hoped and thought. You always have.”

“Don’t you dare. You’re not turning this around and putting the burden of discovery on me. This is about you and the fact that you think my life is too small to handle any of the things you deal with on a daily basis. Poor little Chrissie Thomas, stuck in Medford raising a child all on her own. She’d never understand what it’s like to travel the world and fall in love a dozen different times. She’s too busy being a drudge to help me in my hour of need.”

Her voice shook with each additional word—not because of heranger, but because of the truth that lay underneath. In all honesty, Chrissie’s lifewassmall. In the past sixteen years, it had shrunk to the size of exactly two people and one cat, and most days, even that was more than she could handle.

But she wasn’t weak. And she didn’t deserve to be treated like an afterthought in a big, glamorous life she’d only ever applauded and supported from afar.

“I’m going to the drugstore,” Chrissie announced suddenly.

“The drugstore?”

“Yes. I’m going to see if they have any of those tiny emergency bottles of vodka, and I’m going to drink them in the parking lot until I can breathe again. Do you need anything while I’m there?”

Scarlett’s only response to this was a long, hard stare that Chrissie had no difficulty in interpreting.

“I’m not asking because I’m a pushover. I’m asking because taking care of other people is what you’re supposed to do in situations like these.” Chrissie’s legs were starting to grow numb, but they held her up just fine. They always had. When everyone around her got sick and struggled and fell, she was the one who kept putting one foot in front of the other. “It’s who I am, Scarlett. It’s who I’vealwaysbeen. You’re just too busy thinking of yourself to see it.”

Chapter SixteenPortland, OR

2009