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“Arie, we got your results back yesterday. I’m going to need to refer you to a specialist to confirm, but…”

I feel like I’m going to throw up. For the third time today. “What? Just tell me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.” I smile and shrug, like he’s about to tell me I just have a stomachache.

“Your test results indicate that you have a mass in your pancreas. It’s most likely contained at this point. But the preliminary exam seems to indicate that the tumor is malignant.”

Cancer. He won’t say it. But it’s there, on the tip of his tongue. I can almost see the word hanging in the air between us.

My head starts to swim, and I think there is a very good chance I am going to pass out. I lower myself onto the cool tile floor to sit with Chloe. There’s a very real chance I’ll fall right on top of her from the chair if I’m not sitting right next to her. I focus on her voice.

“Da,” she says. She holds up a piece of a wooden puzzle, as if to show it to the doctor. “Da,” she repeats. “Ta.”

I swallow hard before I speak. “How? Are you sure? What does that mean? What can we do? How much will...”

I know I’m asking more questions than he can answer but I’m afraid if I stop talking, I might replace the words with sobbing. He bends down awkwardly and puts a hand on my shoulder, an action I don’t find remotely comforting.

“Arie, this is why I need to send you to a pancreatic oncologist. You need to have the results confirmed by someone who knows this disease inside and out. I am not that person. I’ve already set an appointment up for you with the best doctor at Sloane-Kettering. You’re seeing her tomorrow.”

I shake my head. “No, I can’t tomorrow. I have to work. I need someone to watch Chloe. Maybe next week. But I can’t go tomorrow.”

He squeezes my knee. “Arie. You can’t wait a week. You have to go tomorrow.”

“What? Why? What are you trying to tell me? How long do I have?”

Dr. Arnold looks down at his feet. “I can’t tell you that with any certainty, Arie. I’m not an oncologist.”

“Bullshit. You’re still a doctor. Tell me how long I have.”

He glances over at Chloe and takes a long, slow breath. “I can absolutely not make estimates in your case. But in the average case of pancreatic cancer, once discovered, the patient survives three to six months with treatment. Could be months. Could be years. There’s no way to know for sure.”

Chloe grabs my finger and shakes it in the air like a toy. I drink in the small sounds she’s making, trying to make a memory of her.

A deep pain grows in my throat. Its taste is acrid and salty all at once. The taste of anger and sadness, and the horror of realizing that if I’m gone now, there’s no way she’ll ever remember me.

Pierce

New York City, 2016

It’s my seventy-seventh morning waking up in my childhood bedroom, and while the pain is getting more bearable. But the indignity being back in my parents’ house is harder to take. I ease up out of my bed, and try to stifle a groan as my leg refuses to straighten, a common occurrence when I get up in the morning. After the raid in the weapons factory that night, I know I’m lucky to have a leg at all. Bullets from an assault rifle tore through my calf muscle, my knee, and my tibia, leaving it with multiple fractures that had be surgically repaired in Germany. Rods, screws, and all manner of other medical devices now fill my leg, and the odds of me ever walking without a limp again are slim-to-none.

One thing I will definitely never be doing again is running missions with the SEALs.

I was given an honorable discharge, a Purple Heart for getting wounded in action, and a pat on the shoulder by the President. Now, I’m back in Manhattan, trying to recuperate — to “focus on healing,” as my mother says. But all I’ve been able to do is wander around the house, missing my teammates. I feel lost, even more lost than I did when I left for training. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I went from having no purpose, to having the greatest purpose in the world, back to having no purpose again. And I hate the feeling of being useless. My father assures me that as soon as I am able, there is a position waiting for me at CSL. Yet, I can’t help but feel like it’s not enough. Like I was meant to be more. To do more.

I look up at the paint on the ceiling. It’s blue like the sky, but it’s chipping now. I’ve looked at it every day for two months, and it’s starting to drive me insane. I close my eyes and inch myself out of bed, walking slow. I moved off of my cane last week, but on some mornings, I still feel like I need it. The pain grinds in my leg, but I grit my teeth and suck it up. That’s the only thing I can do.

I walk down the spiral staircase, something that takes me a lot longer than it used to, and make my way to the kitchen, where I find Logan making an omelet in his boxers. He’s home on leave, and decided to stay at the house since I’m here. It feels like we’re both teenagers again, and for a m

oment, I forget that we’re not.

“Why are you up so early, Lo?” I ask as I hoist myself up onto a bar stool.

He turns with a yawn, then slides the omelet over to me and sets about making himself another one. “You know how it is. Nothing wakes you up earlier than a night of irresponsible partying and promiscuous sex.”

I roll my eyes. My brother is the last person in the world who would ever be irresponsible or promiscuous. That was always my job. “What were you really doing?”

He flips the new omelet in the air and catches it in the pan perfectly. “Blind date. It was a bust. You should have come with me. She had a friend that was… interesting. I really wish you’d come out with me occasionally, Pierce. It wouldn’t kill you to get out of the house.”

I know he’s right, but the truth is, I have almost no interest in going out and partying, even the lame way Logan does it. And it has nothing to do with my leg, or the fact I’ve lost my ability to relate to the average person. It’s because the idea of dating just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Not since Arie. Not since the way I treated her.