Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 56

Not Giving Up Now-2

Clam

“So basically, if I survive the treatment itself, I have maybe a forty percent chance of getting actual time back.”

“Roughly, yes.”

More silence. Then: “I want to try it.

My chest tightened when I heard this as I felt relief and hope and guilt for feeling the first two as I tried to caution her. “Sedona-”

“I’m not ready to die, Cameron. I know you think I’m doing this because I’m guilty and you are guilty about that, but no. It’s not because of you, I want to do this. I know the odds are bad. I know there’s a good chance this doesn’t work or makes things worse. But I can’t just… ie here and wait for it to happen. I need to fight. Even if there is a chance that I might survive, I need to take it”

She looked at me, and her eyes were clearer than they’d been in weeks, clear of the haziness from the drugs as she held eye contact with me as she added.

“I promised you in Chicago that I wouldn’t give up, when I wanted to. I meant it then and I mean it now. I want to try the treatment, no matter how painful it is. I am already in pain right now, it can’t get worse than

this.”

“Even knowing what it’ll do to you? Even knowing you’ll be so sick and there’s a real chance you won’t survive it?”

“Even then.” She squeezed my hand weakly as she tried to manage a watery smile for me before continuing.

“I survived Logan. I survived leaving Nick.

I survived three weeks of chemotherapy that felt like dying but I held on. I can survive this too.”

I wanted to argue with her. Wanted to tell her she didn’t have to be brave, didn’t have to keep fighting just because that’s what everyone expected. But looking at her face-thin and pale and determined-l recognized the expression. I’d seen it a thousand times when we were kids, whenever she’d set her mind to something and refused to be deterred.

This was Sedona choosing her own path. Finally. The guilt that had settled in my chest immediately dissolved like steam as I realized that she was getting her spirit back. She was genuinely doing this for herself and for not us.

After years of being controlled by family expectations and then by Logan’s desires and then by cancer itself, she was making a choice that was entirely hers. And I couldn’t be more proud of her as I nodded my head agreeing with her decision as I exhaled, the lead in my best getting easier to breathe.

“Okay,” I said. “Then we try the treatment. And whatever happens, I’ll be right here. All of us will be.”

She smiled, and it reached her eyes for the first time since the collapse. “Thank you. For finding me in Chicago. For bringing me home. For not giving up on me even when I’d given up on myself.”

“I would never give up on you. You’re my sister. My annoying, stubborn, reckless sister who I love more

1/2

Not Giving Uptow-?

Clam

than anything.” My voice caught slightly. “And you’re going to beat this. Twenty percent is enough. You’re going to be one of the lucky ones.”

“I hope so,” she said quietly. “Because 1 have so much I still want to do. I still have a lot of things that I want to accomplish finally have something to look forward to, after this cancer is done and over with. I can’t afford to back out now. There is so much that I need to make up for.”

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