DON’T STOP (Lila and Darrell) novel Chapter 116

Back in his Heart 116

Daily

I noticed it in the mall things first

The way he paused sometimes in the middle of sentences like he had lost the theard of something. The way for his temple when he thought I wasn’t looking. The way he smiled just a half secol too qoy was okay, like the smile was something he kept ready and warting specifically for that question

I knew that smile I had worn it myself for three years.

Something was wrong

I tried to ask him directly twice. Both times he looked at me with that warm, steady expression and said he was changed the subject so smoothly that I almost believed him. Almost. But I knew Norman knew the differer fine and performing fine, and what I was watching every day was a performance.

The knowing sat in my chest like something cold

I stopped sleeping well. I would lie in the dark beside him and listen to him breathe and run through every possib a place I refused to name out loud because naming made trea head and arrive at the same place each time not ready for it to be real. Not again. Not after everything.

I would roll over. Roll back. Stare at the ceiling.

One night it got to be too much.

I had been lying there for two hours, turning from one side to the other, when he stirred beside me.

“What is it?” His voice was low and warm with sleep.

“I can’t sleep,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment.

Then the tears came without warning – not the quiet kind, not the controlled kind, but the kind that had been building for weeks and had simply run out of places to hide. I pressed my hand over my mouth, and it didn’t help.

“Hey.” He was already moving, turning toward me, pulling me into him. His arms came around me, and I went without resistance, face pressed into his chest, crying in a way I hadn’t let myself cry since the night we had finally told each everything.

He held me and said nothing for a while. Just held me.

Then quietly, he said, “Why won’t you open up to me? I’ve been watching you carry something for weeks. I’ve been for you to tell me.” His arms tightened slightly. “Talk to me, Daisy. Please.”

I pulled back and looked at him in the dark.

“You first,” I whispered.

He was very still.

The silence stretched between us, and in it I heard everything he hadn’t been saying for weeks He exhaled slowly.

“I went to the hospital,” he said. “A few weeks ago. Routine check.” A pause. “It’s back, Daisy.”

The words landed in the dark room like something dropped from a great height.

“The cancer,” he said. Because I hadn’t spoken and he needed me to know he had said what I thought he had said. “They found it again. And this time-” his voice was very steady, the way it got when he was holding something enormous carefully. “This time they are not sure.”

I stared at him.

“They want me to start chemotherapy immediately,” he said. “I’ve already had the first session.”

“You already-” my voice broke. “Norman. You already started and you didn’t tell me?*

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

“You didn’t want to-” I pressed my hand to my mouth. The tears were coming again, and I let them. “You promised promised me you would never hide anything like this again. You promised me.”

“I know.” His voice cracked on it. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I pulled him into my arms this time. Held him the way he always held me tight and certain and without any

Back in his Heart 115

letting go. He pressed bio facc inte my shoulder, and for a long time we just stayed like that in the dark, holding each other, Crying quietly together

+wasn’t going to lose him.

I refused.

The months that followed rearranged everything.

Chemotherapy twice a week. I drove him every time, sat in the waiting room every time, and drove him home every time. His appetite changed. His energy changed. He started wearing caps – soff ones, fitted ones, whatever was comfortable – and he wore them without complaint and looked at me each time like he was checking whether I minded, and I made sure he always saw that I didn’t.

I loved him with his caps. I loved him through all of it.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify