If I Never Knew You by CarleeAK
Summary: While visiting a hospital’s pediatric wing, Lance meets a volunteer who knocks him off his feet (literally!) and makes him think about life and love. And everything might be perfect...except for the secret she's keeping. *Graphic added to first chapter*
Rating: PG-13
Categories: Short Stories
Characters: Lance Bass
Genres: Drama, Romance, Comedy
Warnings: sexual situations
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 08/07/05
Updated: 08/10/05
Index
Chapter 1: Personal
Chapter 2: Perfect
Chapter 3: Discovery
Chapter 4: Goodbye
Chapter 1: Personal
Chapter One
September 2002
**********
Lance tried to concentrate on the contract in front of him, but it was next to impossible with Joey and Justin harassing each other over his head and the bus hitting a pothole every two seconds.
“Hey, Lance, you should’ve seen that chick turn Joey down last night. It was great. A total brush-off.”
“Justin, I did see it. I was at the club too, remember?”
Justin continued as if Lance hadn’t spoken. “Then, when he tried to score with the red-head-”
“I was THERE! Remember? You barged into my room last night and dragged me out?”
Justin scratched his head, trying to remember. “Hmm. Maybe I pre-partied a little too hard.”
“Ya think?” Joey asked as he tossed a bottle of water at Justin’s head. He caught it expertly, grinning.
“Hey, I got it from your room.” Justin shrugged. “You had enough in there…”
“Yeah, cause I knew you would be raiding it,” Joey answered as he grabbed a Pop Tart from JC’s closet, flipping it behind his back as he leaned against the kitchen counter. Lance didn’t understand how either of their reflexes could be this good after last night. Lord knew, they’d had more to drink than he had, and his eyes were hurting and his stomach was ready to throw up the coffee he’d gulped down this morning. But Joey sat there, devouring his blueberry Pop Tart, while Justin shoveled in spoonfuls of some sugar-smothered cereal.
“Oh, please. By the way, you missed Joey getting freaky with the stuffed bear that someone threw at his head as we were leaving. Course, that was all the action that Joey’s gotten in a long time…”
Giving up, Lance threw down his pen. “I didn’t miss anything, trust me. I was in the car when he did that.”
“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting that.” Lance rolled his eyes.
“Hey, you were the one getting off by watching it,” Joey smirked. Justin’s eyes widened and he grabbed an apple off the table in front of him. He threw it at Joey, aiming for his forehead, but as the bus pulled into a gas station his aim was thrown off and it smacked into Joey’s chest before falling to the floor and rolling under the cupboards. Joey picked it up off the floor and grabbed a knife. He flipped the knife expertly before cutting into the apple.
“You can’t deny it…” Joey sang around the chunk of apple as he shook his knife at Justin.
“Yes, I can. Lance, if you had been there, you would KNOW that…”
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” Lance groaned, rolling his eyes and sinking down into the kitchen table booth.
Justin and Joey both looked at him and grinned. “Someone’s been watching The Lion King again!” Joey shouted gleefully. Lance felt his face burn.
“He only does it after a REALLY rough night,” Justin laughed. “So THAT’S what you were watching when I came to wake you up this morning! I knew something was up when you turned off the TV as soon as I walked in!”
Chris chose this moment to climb onto the bus, and having missed the entire context of the conversation… “Lance! You were watching porn?!”
“No, I-” Lance sat up as Chris pretended to have a heart attack.
“Oh…my…gosh….Innocent little Mississippi boy…What would the fans say?” he croaked out each word as he fell onto the pathway floor, ‘dead.’
“I ain’t doing CPR!” Justin protested, holding up his hands.
“Oh, hell no! Not me,” Joey stated. “You’re the one who would get off on that boy on boy stuff anyway, Justin,” he smirked. Justin rolled his eyes and looked at Lance. Joey also turned towards the blonde boy.
“Don’t look at me,” Lance shook his head.
“You are the one who killed him,” Joey pointed out, grinning as Lance turned red again.
“I was NOT watching porn!” Lance protested.
Another person entered the bus. “Lance was watching porn?” Mike, one of their bodyguards, asked. Justin and Joey busted up again. Mike glanced at the floor. “Is that why Chris is dead?” He looked to Joey for answers as he stepped over the prone Chris.
“Yup. You have to do the CPR, by the way. We all called not-it.”
“It could have been his old age,” Justin added thoughtfully, glancing down at the popstar on the floor. Chris opened one eye and glared at him.
“Well,” he huffed, hopping up and brushing off his clothes. “It’s nice to know who your REAL friends are.”
So said, he jumped on the big bodyguard’s back. “Mike, you would have done CPR, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question as Chris hung onto Mike’s neck and peeked around.
Mike gave him a look before throwing him off his back and onto the couch. “Hey, I’ll save you from teenies, and your own stupidity, but CPR? Uh-uh.”
A sleepy, yawning JC walked out of his bedroom in the back of the bus. He blinked as he took in the scene before him, all four of his bandmates and a bodyguard on his bus. “Why do I feel like I just stepped back in time and landed on our first tour bus?”
“No, that would require turning you back into Caesar, Joey into the Italian Stallion, we’d have to buy Chris’ braids back from e-bay, and give Justin a bottle of bleach,” Lance said sarcastically.
“Hey, don’t forget yourself. You’d have to become the original Eminem again!” Joey rolled his eyes, still crunching on his apple.
“Yeah!” Justin added. “Talk about a bottle of bleach…”
“Hey, C, I know you would do CPR on me if I ever keeled over!” Chris shouted as he jumped from the couch onto the passing JC’s back.
“I know you’re old, but isn’t it still just a LITTLE early for that?” JC asked, as he tried to pry Chris’ arms from the death grip around his neck.
“Yeah, you’re only four years younger than me! Remember that, Caesar!”
JC rolled his eyes. “Details.”
“Hey, look, it’s the anal control freak complaining about details!” Joey announced.
Shoving Joey out of his way, JC grabbed the empty Pop Tart box and shook it. Then, he glared at Joey, looking pointedly at the crumbs that still littered the front of his shirt.
“Hey, C, guess what! Lance was watching porn!” Chris told him as he rummaged through the fridge before grabbing a bottle of orange juice.
“Really, Lance? Who would’ve thought?” he muttered, grinning as Lance turned red. Again.
Lance finally gave up. He could never win when they all ganged up on him. “Hey, I got it from Joey’s collection. He was so busy getting it on with the bear, he didn’t notice me taking it from his room.”
Justin hooted as Joey choked on a piece of apple. “Yeah, Mississippi Boy!” he shouted as he high-fived Lance.
“Joey was having sex with a bear?” JC asked, confused. Entering a room when his bandmates were in the middle of a conversation always left him with a whirlwind feeling.
“Yeah. You should have seen Justin getting off from watching him,” Lance added, nodding seriously. He gave JC a look that clearly said, ‘you know how they are.’
“Wait…” JC said suspiciously. Justin tried to reach over and smack the back of Lance’s head, but the blonde ducked the blow as he laughed.
“Just kidding, C. None of that was true…well…the bear part was true. But I was NOT watching porn. Unless the Lion King could be considered porn.”
Johnny Wright entered the bus with a disgusted look on his face. “You know Lance, we really don’t need stuff like that to get into the media. I think you should just keep kinky details like that to yourself from now on.”
Joey and Justin cracked up laughing and Lance buried his face in his hands.
**********
“Cassie!”
“Just a second, Jenna!”
“Cassie, can you help me?”
“Marie, give me two seconds, and I’ll be right there.”
“Cassie, can you-”
“Shannon! I know you’re somewhere in the hallway! Get in here!” Cassie interrupted yet another request for help, calling for her co-volunteer who had disappeared on an excursion to the Pepsi machine.
“How’d you know?” Shannon mumbled as she walked slowly into the arts and crafts room, glancing over her shoulder about fifty times before she reached the first table where six-year-old Marie was raising her hand and anxiously jumping in her seat.
“I heard your shoes coming, but you never showed. That, and the fact that it doesn’t take five minutes to grab a Pepsi. What were you doing, anyway?” Cassie asked. She leaned over five-year-old Jack’s shoulder as she helped him glue the picture of Michael Jordan onto his collage.
Shannon ignored the question as she pulled the piece of yarn that was buried in glue away from Marie’s incredibly sticky fingers.
“I know what she was doing,” eleven-year-old Seth informed them, grinning widely. He had just come back from the bathroom, so he probably DID know, and being the little informant that he was…
“Oh? Do tell,” Cassie urged, smiling as she walked over to see how his collage was coming.
He was about to blurt it out when Shannon smacked a hand over his mouth. Pushing her hand away, he made a face as he tried to rub the remnants of Elmer’s glue off his cheek.
“Next you’ll be eating the glue!” Shannon warned. Seth made a face at her, but went back to his collage and ignored Cassie, whose curiosity was growing by leaps and bounds.
“This is getting good,” she laughed. “What could possibly make YOU of all people turn red?”
“Hey, guys, *NSYNC just pulled up!” Zack informed them as he breezed into the room, throwing his jacket into a corner chair.
“Really?” Cassie asked as the third volunteer for the children’s wing of St. Joseph’s Cancer Hospital got right down to work, trying to take the extra sea of glue off the back of a magazine cut out that four-year-old Austin was about to put onto his collage. She cast a sly grin at Shannon, who was quickly turning the exact shade of her hair.
Cassie jumped back quickly as Jenna, Marie, and five other little girls stampeded to the wall of windows in the hallway. They gazed down at the parking lot, searching for the boyband. “I didn’t know they were coming today,” she complained as she picked Marie’s collage up from the floor where it had fallen in the surge to see *NSYNC. When no one answered, she turned around to find that twenty-five-year-old Shannon had joined the little girls in the hallway, stargazing out the window. She turned to Zack for her answer.
“That would be because you missed the last staff meeting,” Zack said, reaching around her to grab the glitter from the supply table.
Cassie had to think for a moment, trying to remember when the last staff meeting had been. It clicked for her suddenly. Two weeks ago. When she’d had her own doctor’s appointment.
“Where were you anyway? You never miss a meeting.”
“Oh, I had to go to Portland to visit some family.”
“Yeah, I know how that works.” Zack looked down at his already glued and glittered hands before making his request. “Would you mind grabbing the hospital camera from the nurses’ station? I was supposed to but I forgot to pick it up on my way in, and I don’t feel real comfy grabbing it right now.”
Cassie had to smile. “You did that on purpose, so don’t EVEN try to pull some B.S. innocent act. You just want me take the pictures so you can be in all of them. As usual!” she said pointedly as she left the room in search of the camera. The crowd of teenies was still avidly watching out the window, waiting for a glimpse.
“I hate to be the one to say this, guys, but maybe…you missed them.”
She got eight evil glares for her common sense. Shannon gave her a look that said her bubble was on the verge of bursting...and whoever was dumb enough to be the one to burst it…
“Well, they are on their way up here, are they not? So how ‘bout you all run back into the room and when they arrive, you can reasonably pull off pretending that you’re not drooling all over their shoes.”
Shannon glared at Cassie as she ushered the girls back in. “Justin DOES have like 140 pairs of shoes or something, so he won’t really notice if I drool on them, will he?” Shannon asked Cassie, feigning seriousness.
“If he has THAT many shoes, something is seriously wrong.”
“Spoilsport.” Shannon stuck her tongue out at Cassie before running in to stop one of the little boys from putting glue in Marie’s hair.
As Cassie rounded the corner, someone came barreling around the corner so fast, he knocked them both down.
Dazed, Cassie could only stare into the face of an incredibly handsome guy who was…yup, he was lying on top of her. With a leg under one or both of hers. One hand underneath her from his attempt to break their fall.
Well, I suppose this is every teenage girl’s fantasy view, she thought. It took less than a second for Lance’s face to turn red and for her to realize she’d said it aloud. Her eyes widened in horror, and she would have slapped her hand over her mouth to keep any other embarrassing thoughts from voicing themselves, but one hand was stuck underneath her, and the other was wedged between their bodies. She wiggled her fingers, trying to get it unstuck, and when Lance made a funny growling sound, she realized exactly WHERE between their bodies her hands were located.
“Ohmigod,” she breathed out, so embarrassed she couldn’t even form complete thoughts anymore. She tried to squirm out from under him, but he put an immediate stop to that idea with a simple, incredibly green and penetrating glance. He used his free hand to lever himself off her chest and slowly untangled his legs from hers.
”Wow, Lance goes from treating the Lion King as porn to knocking girls down in hospitals in order to cop a feel.”
The voice above her head enlightened her to their audience’s presence. Tilting her head backwards, she saw the other four guys of *NSYNC and a few very large men standing casually to the side, watching the spectacle. As soon as she possibly could, she moved her body a little bit in order to get both her hands free, not caring anymore what she might accidentally brush, and covered her eyes. Maybe, if she just blocked them out a little, they would go *poof* and disappear…
“You know, Justin, judging from where her hand just was, maybe SHE was the one doing the groping,” Joey observed in his dry, sarcastic voice.
Oh, God, could this be any more embarrassing? Cassie had never known why someone would actually wish for the ground to open up beneath them and suck them under, but it suddenly all became a whole hell of a lot more understandable. She might be accident-prone at times, but it had never gotten her into as an embarrassing situation as this.
She uncovered her eyes to see a ring of the five guys looking down at her, like a scene out of a movie. Lance proved his southern gentleman rep by extending a hand to help her up. Being pulled upright so quickly, made her realize he was surprisingly strong. Gee, you couldn’t have sensed that from the nicely muscled chest lying on top of yours ten seconds ago? Cassie would have glared at her sarcastic inner voice, but didn’t want the guys to think she was any weirder than they already did.
“Are you okay?” Lance asked as he bent his head down towards hers. Eyes widening, she realized how close his pulling her up had placed them. She took an awkward, hurried step back, bumping into”her head whirled around”JC as she tried to put some distance between herself and the guy whose body heat she could STILL feel.
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine…sorry…about…that…” Her thoughts were STILL having trouble completing themselves!
“No, it was my fault. I was in a hurry because we were a little late and I wasn’t watching where I was going. You sure you’re fine?” Lance was looking at her with some awesome green eyes, filled with concern.
“Perfectly fine,” she reassured. The other four guys of *NSYNC had again taken up their audience stance off to the side. “I have to go…get…something…” She felt like Winnie the Pooh as she stood there, trying to remember where the heck she had been going in the first place. “Oh, yes…I have to go get a camera.”
Feeling like the world’s biggest dork for being so excited that her bad memory hadn’t failed her, she gave them a weak grin before taking off around the corner and almost running the rest of the way to the nurse’s station.
“So, Cassie, you seem to be taken with the idea of a hallway demolition derby race…” Lynn, one of the day nurses, teased.
“Oh, my God! Could I have been a bigger klutz?” Cassie laughed as she reached under the counter to grab the Children’s Wing camera.
“I see that Zack got you to take the pictures yet again?” Katie, another nurse, asked as she wheeled one of the teenage patients, Alexis, who had opted out of collage making (as had the other ten kids in the wing over the age of twelve) down to the arts and crafts room.
Cassie shrugged; she was used to being conned into doing SOMETHING by Zack or Shannon. They had realized she was a pushover as soon as they had all started working together, and Cassie had become accepting of her position. “You know Zack. He’s all about getting his picture taken with boybands,” Cassie confided as she walked down the hall with Katie and Alexis.
“I HEARD that!” Cassie winced as Zack yelled at her from the crafts room. She walked in and could only stare in shock. Five of the teenagers were already there, having developed a sudden interest in making a collage. Alexis immediately zoomed herself over to where her friend Tatiana was cutting up a Seventeen magazine and laughing with Joey.
Wandering over their way, Cassie had to stifle a laugh when she saw that Joey was encouraging Tatiana to cut out body parts of the *NSYNC members. She didn’t even want to know what they would be doing with the parts when they were done. There was DEFINITELY something wrong with that boy.
Picking up an open tube of glitter from an empty table that had undoubtedly been left by one of the kids who knew that Cassie would always be there to clean up after them, she turned around to look for the cap and to put it away. Of course, she turned right into Lance.
As the shower of gold glitter that had all but erupted out of the tube finished falling to the floor, and decorating their clothes on its way, Cassie groaned. “I am so sorry.”
Lance sighed. “This is definitely not our day,” he replied, suddenly finding it hard not to grin.
“At least those jeans now match the rest of your shiny wardrobe. They were way too normal for your usual style anyway.”
Cassie’s eyes widened and she slapped her non-camera-holding hand over her mouth as soon as she said it. Which meant that it was her glitter-tube-holding hand. And as if her day was not embarrassing enough already, the glitter tube went flying through the air, making a neat little landing nearby in JC’s hair. Cassie kind of thought it looked like pixie dust as the glitter settled in both JC’s hair and Jenna’s head scarf. A few speckles fell onto Jenna’s collage, which JC was helping her with.
They both looked up at Cassie, and Jenna gave Cassie her best saucy-five-year-old glare. “Cassie!” the little girl whined.
“Hey, you look like Tinkerbelle. I kind of like it,” Cassie offered. Jenna stuck her tongue out at Cassie, which left Cassie with nothing to do but stick her own tongue out in retaliation. After which, she remembered that one of the nation’s hottest popstars was standing next to her.
Cassie offered Lance her same weak, floor-open-beneath-me-now smiles and turned back towards JC and Jenna. “Say cheese,” she commanded as she lifted the camera to her eye and snapped a picture of the two pixie dusted people. Amazingly, both of their grump expressions disappeared just in time. As Cassie lowered the camera, they both gave her one last nasty glare before JC picked the collage up, blew the glitter off (right onto Cassie) and got back to work.
Facing Lance again, she apologized, “I’m really sorry about getting glitter all over you.”
“I thought you said it made my clothes match the rest of my wardrobe,” Lance teased. If Cassie hadn’t already been completely red, her face would have flamed at her remembered big mouth.
“Sorry about that. I don’t usually say things without thinking.”
“Well, even thinking it can be dangerous for you.”
Cassie groaned inwardly at her earlier slip. “Sorry about the hallway thing too.”
“Oh, you mean groping me while I was in a vulnerable position?”
Her jaw dropped. “ME?! Groping you?”
“What, are you implying that I was groping YOU?” Lance offered her his Mississippi grin, and her next line of defense flew out of her head.
Think, think, think. What had she been about to say…
“Good, I’m glad you agree with me,” Lance finished, nodding as he slipped past her, smiling as he headed towards a little boy who was trying to fit as many Michael Jordan pictures onto his paper as possible.
Cassie was left gaping after him. Right now, she wished more than anything that she was the type of person who could always say what they wanted to say when they needed to say it. Instead, she was like Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, always able to think of exactly was she had wanted to say a few hours too late. Of course, she also spent those few hours replaying the scene over and over again until she came up with the perfect retort.
Shaking her head, she walked over to help Marie with something, only to be pushed away, as the girl was waiting for Justin to notice that she needed help. Rolling her eyes, she made a non-obvious path towards Justin to alert him to the fact that he was needed elsewhere, somewhere other than “helping” Shannon with something.
Two hours later, the younger kids were off to get their bedtime snack while the older kids pulled out some video games. Cassie was exhausted as she carried Jenna, who had fallen asleep at one of the tables, back to the room she shared with Marie. Jenna had just started a new round of radiation, a higher dosage, and she tired more quickly than anyone had been expecting.
“Need some help?”
Cassie turned around. Lance took the opportunity to lift the sleeping child into his own arms. “Lead the way.”
Since she had just left the crafts room and Jenna seemed to be gaining twenty pounds with each step, Cassie didn’t try to pretend that she could do it herself. Having been at the hospital for over seven hours already and spending the last two hours running around the crafts room cleaning up the many messes that everyone seemed bent on creating, she could barely carry herself. She did prefer to just show Lance where to carry Jenna, who actually weighed less than forty-five pounds.
Turning back the covers, Cassie waited for Lance to lay the little girl down before removing her shoes and pulling the blankets up to the little girl’s chin. Having spent enough nights with the kids in the Children’s Wing, she knew that Jenna liked to be tucked in with the covers right to her chin. Her shoulders had to be covered, but the blankets couldn’t go ALL the way to her chin or she couldn’t sleep. And the scarf on her head had to be pulled on tight. Even though Jenna was asleep and wouldn’t notice, Cassie continued the ritual.
Lance stood off to the side, not wanting to interfere in what was obviously important to Cassie. Watching as she smoothed the girl’s scarf past where her hairline should have been and kissed her good night on the forehead, Lance felt an odd tug at his heart. It was so rare for him to see someone who cared more about tucking a sleeping child in than in flirting with a member of *NSYNC, and it made him appreciate the scene before him all the more.
Following Cassie out of the room, they stopped in the hallway outside her door. Cassie pulled it closed almost all the way, making sure the nightlight was on before turning out the lights inside the hospital room. Neither Jenna nor Marie could sleep without the nightlight, and Marie would be sure to freak out in a few minutes if she found the room completely dark.
“How long have you been volunteering here?” Lance asked, causing Cassie to almost jump out of her skin. She had forgotten he was there.
“A little over two years. I started the summer before my freshman year of college at UW. I wasn’t able to come in very often when I had classes; I’m taking this year off, which leaves a lot more time to spend here.” Cassie wandered into one of the lounges and collapsed into a padded rocking chair, deciding to take a much-needed five minute break before helping to get everyone settled for bed.
Lance tried sitting in one of the kindergarten-sized plastic chairs in front of Cassie, before grimacing and moving onto a loveseat next to her chair. “Why?”
“Why what? The break or being here?”
“Why do you volunteer here? And for so long? You are a volunteer, right?” Lance asked. He had noticed earlier that the people in scrubs were either nurses or a rare doctor who came in at night to double-check on one of his patients. Cassie, Shannon, and Zack were all dressed in casual, okay-kids-throw-paint-on-me clothes.
“Yup, it’s voluntary. I could have gotten a nursing degree by now, I suppose. But I don’t want to deal with all the needles and medical stuff. I just like being with the kids, keeping them busy during the long days, cheering them up at nights. Especially kids like Jenna, whose family lives too far away for them to come see her everyday, and who can’t afford to come live in Seattle while she goes through radiation treatment.”
“The little girl,” Lance asked as he motioned towards the room they had just left, “That’s Jenna?”
“Yeah. She just started a new six-week round of radiation, but she doesn’t seem to be taking to it too well.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Lance was genuinely interested. Usually, their charity events seemed to jumble together, but something about this visit was different. Cassie was making it personal for him.
“She has a brain tumor. They’re trying to shrink it, make it small enough to remove. Her last treatments didn’t work, so they had to shave her entire head, trying to get at it from a different angle. But after showing pictures of Alicia Keys at the Grammy’s to her, Jenna actually likes wearing scarves. Anytime I find a new picture of Alicia wearing a different scarf I bring it in for her.”
“I had noticed that her collage was made up entirely of pictures of Alicia Keys. I guess I missed the scarf reference though.”
Cassie waved it off. “Most people would have. We’re trying to get them to make collages of something that would remind them of beating their cancer. Not being brought down by having no hair is Jenna’s way. You might have seen Jack’s Michael Jordan collage. Whenever he gets really sick, he imagines MJ playing basketball with the cancer cells. No one can beat MJ, of course.”
Lance grinned. It was such a cute, yet powerful mental image; he could see how it would help a little boy cope with his chemo or radiation treatments. “Of course,” he agreed, leaning back and sinking comfortably into the sofa. “So, do you always work yourself into exhaustion.”
Cassie looked at him, startled. She had thought that she’d just looked slightly tired. “Just a bit of a long day. A long week actually…maybe even a month. My mom always warns me about burning myself out, and tells me that I need to take a break every once in awhile.”
“Judging from the way you collapsed into that chair just now, I’d say that your mother had a point.”
“I know. It just seems like every time I decide to spend less time here, or to take a week off, a new little kid comes in, who just began chemo and can’t even hold himself up when he’s sick all over the place. Or one of the kids we sent away in remission a few months ago relapses and ends up back here again. They’re always so much more bitter, having gone back to their life as a normal kid, only to have it taken back, like a cruel joke.” Cassie shrugged. “I just can’t seem to leave.”
Lance could see down the hallway, where the rest of the guys were shrugging into their jackets and giving last hugs to the little kids who were starting to wander past the lounge, on their way to bed. But he didn’t want this to end. Somehow, in just one conversation, Cassie had managed to get to him. He wasn’t quite ready to let that go. And the next thing he knew, he heard himself asking, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
*********
That night, Lance sat at the table in Justin’s hotel room, still thinking over the day.
“You okay, man?” Justin asked. Lance looked up, startled out of his thoughts. He smiled. It was a rare day indeed that Justin turned serious.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking about the hospital.” Justin nodded, but Lance could tell that the visit hadn’t become as personal for Justin as it had for himself.
“Okay. Well, you just keep thinking. Your brain could definitely use the exercise.” Justin ducked the flying missile”an ad tripod from the table”before continuing, “You need anything…well, I’ll be in Joey’s room; he asked me to pick up some beer when I stopped at the drug store earlier. Of course…it could be the cellular static, and what Joey really wanted was another bear.”
Justin and Lance both laughed over their bus conversation from this morning. As Justin was leaving, Lance called out to him.
“Actually, I need a favor…”
Chapter 2: Perfect
Chapter TwoThis was a whole lot harder than Cassie had expected. She’d never thought of the dating scene as something that required a lot of effort. But, having avoided for the last four or five years, she was now seeing that small talk was really not her thing.
“So…” Cassie began, as they sat down to grab lunch in a small café on the waterfront in downtown Seattle. Lance had agreed meet at her favorite place for lunch. The waiter came and took their orders, leaving a blank space in the conversation. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Do you really watch the Lion King as porn?”
Lane had just taken a sip of water, and it sprayed out of his mouth as he started to choke. Cassie watched as he gulped down his entire glass of water, trying to stop coughing. She was reaching out to grab her glass of water to offer to him, when her hand hit the edge of it, and it went pouring across the table, onto his lap.
“Ohmigosh! I am SO sorry,” Cassie breathed out as she rushed to his side of the table with her napkin to help with the damage control. Lance had pushed his chair back instinctively as the water had poured onto his lap, and Cassie now kneeled, trying to blot it up.
“SO sorry,” Cassie repeated. “I’m so clumsy sometimes, but it’s worse around you. Everything I do is wrong.”
Lance scratched his chin. “Well, now, if I was a complete jerk and an ass, I would say that what you’re doing is just about right.”
It took her way too many seconds to realize that she was blotting his lap. His lap. It took a few more seconds for her brain to let the rest of her body know that and rush back to her own chair, her face buried in her hands, too embarrassed to look up at him.
Lance finished cleaning the water himself, trying not to laugh. “So, do you normally try to grope guys in public, or am I just lucky?”
“Jshcky,” Cassie mumbled out from behind her hands. She could tell that even her ears were red. It was one thing that she hated about being fair-skinned: the entire world knew when you were embarrassed.
“What?” Lance asked, as he adjusted his chair, smiling across the table.
“I SAID, you’re just lucky!” Cassie exclaimed, causing heads to turn towards her. She ignored them, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at them and tell them to mind their own business.
Lance gave a little chuckle. Normally, Cassie wouldn’t think that someone laughing at her was at all sexy. Somehow, Lance pulled it off. Damn, what that man’s deep laugh was doing to her…
“Well, was that a no?” Cassie asked, still struggling for any kind of conversation with him, trying to bring it back to her original question.
“That, my dear, was a Hell, no!” Lance answered, laughing.
“So your friends just randomly say stuff like that?”
“Oh, well…no, I had been watching the Lion King yesterday morning…it was just something dumb from then, and the guys have a long running contest to see which of them can embarrass me the most…I think Joey is winning by a long shot, Justin coming in second.”
“And JC and Chris?”
“Well, JC’s always kind of out of it…he can never keep up with anyone. Chris is lost in his own world most of the time, too busy being Chris to worry about embarrassing anyone else, although they’ve both tried to get back into the game at some point over the last few years.”
“You’re serious? You’re friends have turned embarrassing you into a contest? And it’s lasted for YEARS!?” Cassie was more than a little surprised. Yesterday had been bad enough; she didn’t know if she’d have been able to handle a contest over her embarrassing moments. A contest that lasted years!
“Yeah, well, it’s not so bad anymore. I’m not nearly so easily embarrassed as I was seven years ago. And I’ve learned not to fight it when both Joey and Justin are ganging up on me.”
Cassie could only shake her head. Now THAT took some toleration! “And I thought I needed patience after working in the Children’s Wing for the last two years.”
As the waiter placed their soup in front of them, Cassie breathed in deeply. “Mmmmm, THE best clam chowder in Seattle, right here!”
“I take it you come here a lot?” Lance asked, smiling at someone taking so much pleasure in their food.
“Every chance I can,” Cassie confirmed, sprinkling crackers and digging in.
Lance nodded, understanding. “I have a place like this back in Mississippi; they make the best seafood gumbo.” He rubbed his tummy, sighing, before picking up his spoon.
“So do you guys do that kind of thing a lot?” Cassie asked as she finished scraping out the last little bit of chowder.
“What kind of thing?”
“You know. Showing up at hospitals to help little kids make collages.”
Lance smiled. “Not so much anymore. Now it’s mostly about raising money for the charity, and not so much the charity.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. We do charity events every year, mostly children’s charity events, but it’s getting rarer for us to ever see or interact with the children that we’re raising the money for. That’s what I really liked about yesterday. It wasn’t just another charity event. It was Jenna, and Alexis, and Jack. It was more about kids than about charity. And you did that.”
Cassie looked at him and laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“No, I’m serious. When you started talking about Jenna and the kids and why you’re there…it made it real for me. I admit, that I’m the most serious and business minded one of the guys, and that for me, I don’t often see past that. But you made me see past that. You made me see differently about something I’ve been doing for years.”
Managing a weak smile, Cassie racked her brain. Somehow, this didn’t seem like light, first date conversation that she’d seen in movies. This was just a little bit deeper than that. And it was something that she didn’t know how to deal with.
“I’m sorry. I can tell that made you uncomfortable.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” Cassie shrugged, unconvincingly.
Lance shook his head. “Nope. Never let it be said that I made a lady uncomfortable. You went to the University of Washington. Does that mean you’re from Seattle?”
Cassie smiled. Did Lance realize that this made him a gentleman? By definition of Blast From the Past, of course, but still! Wow. She’d never actually met guys who were perceptive enough to tell when they’d made someone uncomfortable, and smart enough to change the subject if they did.
“Cassie?”
Snapping out of her daydream, Cassie gave a nervous smile. “I’m sorry. I have the worst habit of daydreaming. You were saying?” Somehow, she didn’t think that daydreaming on a date made the best impression.
“I was just asking if you’re from Seattle.”
“Oh. Yeah, born and raised. What about you?”
“A Mississippi boy, born and raised,” Lance admitted proudly as their sandwiches were brought out.
“How’d you end up with the guys?” Cassie asked, interested in how one went about becoming a member of a boy band. And thankfully, the rest of their lunch went as smoothly, and as small talkish.
“How did you start your volunteering at the hospital? Why there?” Lance asked as they left the restaurant and started walking down the street. Cassie was supremely glad that the water on his leather pants was already dry…or else it just didn’t show on the leather. She fought down the urge to walk behind him as she struggled to stay current with the conversation.
“If I was going to volunteer somewhere, it may as well have been the hospital,” Cassie replied, trying to shrug it off.
“What do you mean, if you were going to?”
“Oh, you know,” Cassie said, not wanting to get into the issue. She didn’t mind talking about volunteering at the hospital; it was something that she loved to do. But why she’d started was not something she cared to discuss with people outside her family. “My family’s rich. My mother’s on the board of just about every Seattle charity. It was just expected that I would get into the charity scene too. I wasn’t doing anything the summer after high school, so I just decided to volunteer there.”
“I think it means more to you than that.”
Lance had somehow gotten a hold of her hand while she’d been explaining. He held it as they walked. Cassie had just noticed the simple gesture, and was now having difficulty catching her breath. He was making lazy designs on the back of her hand with his thumb. “What does?” Cassie asked, so distracted she’d forgotten what she’d been saying.
“Working at the hospital,” Lance answered, making her feel like an idiot because she couldn’t keep her thoughts from wandering for even a few minutes.
“Of course it does,” she replied, able to follow that much of the conversation.
Lance grinned. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?” Cassie wasn’t sure where a date proceeded after the meal part.
“You’re the one who knows Seattle. What’s your favorite thing to do?”
Cassie immediately thought of the docks, but she didn’t thank that was a date-appropriate activity. “Umm, I don’t really have anything favorite I guess.” She shrugged.
“You’re definitely lying to me!” Lance laughed. “You just got the dreamy look on your face that says you’re remembering your favorite thing!”
“Oh.” Cassie started turning red, embarrassed at having been caught lying so easily.
“Seriously, what’s your favorite thing to do, what do you love the most about living in Seattle?”
“Ummm…the docks.”
“The what? The docks?”
“See! That’s why I told you I didn’t have anything! It’s weird!”
“No, no.” Even though he was only slightly smiling, Cassie could tell his eyes were laughing…Was that strange? Being able to tell when a guy was laughing even if he wasn’t? “To the docks we go. Where you can explain why you like it so much.”
With Cassie leading the way to the public docks, they began to meander their way along the waterfront.
“This is your favorite part about living in Seattle?” Lance asked as they reached the wooden docks and began walking along them, past the rows and rows of boats, every size and shape. The ocean-smell was even stronger here: salt-water and something a little fishy.
“Yup,” Cassie answered, deciding to be proud of such an unusual favorite. Lance certainly didn’t seem to mind; he’d agreed to come down here, after all.
They wandered down the row of boats, looking at all of the names, trying to figure out what the owners had been thinking for some of them.
Cassie stopped in front of an empty space. “This is where the PB Bunny usually is. I guess Jackson’s out somewhere right now. He usually does manage to score on the weekends.”
“You know the guy who owns this boat? And I certainly hope you mean score in a purely innocent fashion.”
Cassie shook her head. “Nope. I walked by here once when Jackson was bringing down some food and drinks, preparing for his weekend getaway. Asked him what the name of his boat meant. I thought it was a peanut-butter bunny.”
Lance, finally seeing the significance of the name, started laughing. “Peanut butter?”
“I was seventeen!” Cassie defended, laughing with him. “I only realized it meant Playboy after he asked me to step off into the sunset for the weekend.”
Lance stopped laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You were seventeen!”
Cassie shrugged. “Jackson’s a jerk. Not a big surprise there. When I told him my last name was Spencer, he backed off pretty quickly…not too many who are people willing to piss off Andrew Spencer. And anybody who has enough money in Seattle to own a boat called the Playboy Bunny knows who my dad is.”
“Right now, I’m really glad that your dad’s name means something in this town,” Lance said, nodding.
“Oooh, you have to see this one over here,” Cassie said excitedly, when she saw that The Magellan was in.
That was when Cassie remembered the one thing she hated about the wooden docks. Raised planks of wood and her clumsy self…they just did NOT mix! As she tripped over the stupid thing, she fell against Lance, who being unprepared for the impact, promptly fell backwards into the water behind him. Cassie stared in horror as his arms flailed in a last attempt for balance as he was falling in. It was actually kind of funny, if she’d been in any sort of humorous mood-he looked like a cartoon character when they realized that they had just run over the cliff’s edge, and looking down, recognized that they were about to fall…
He came up sputtering. She was still standing there in shock, one hand over her mouth. Slowly moving forward, she crouched down, her eyes still wide, her hand still over her mouth. Taking it away, she rushed out, “Ohmigod. I just know those were some ridiculously expensive leather pants.”
“Cassie…” Lance growled as he pushed his hair out of his face and moved back towards the dock.
“And leather looks soooo good on you too,” Cassie added mournfully, still not fully comprehending that she had just pushed Lance into the cold waters of the northwest pacific. She turned thoughtful. “Hmmm…it might look even better wet, come to think of it.”
“Really, you think so?” Lance asked sarcastically as he held onto the edge of the dock, no longer having to tread water.
Cassie realized she had been thinking aloud again, and closed her eyes slowly. She opened them to find Lance still slightly growling at her. “Oops.” She turned red.
“That’s great…now will you help me out. Please!” He held up one of his hands, his other braced against he dock.
Cassie fell for the oldest trick in the book. Feeling so bad, she automatically held her hand out to help Lance. So done, he pulled her right in.
She came up gasping for air. “Oh, you did NOT just do that!” she shrieked. “No, no, no!”
Lance started laughing. “Oh. Yes, yes I did!”
Cassie grabbed onto him. “Lance! It’s cold!”
“Really, I hadn’t noticed!” He easily lifted himself out of the water, away from her hands, sitting on the edge, his legs still in the water. Standing up, he asked, “Now, do you want help?”
She started laughing. “No, I just want to stay right here. It’s so pleasantly warm, AFTER ALL!” She held her hand up, fighting down the urge to pull him back in. Not that she would have had a chance, she realized, as he easily pulled her out. Hmm…maybe she had lost TOO much weight, she thought, if even when she tried to jerk him down, he still lifted her out without effort.
They stood there on the dock, and Cassie was glad that the September afternoon was warm and sunny, even if the water was not.
“You know, if I believed in omens, I’d say that this was a really bad sign for us,” Lance admitted wringing out the bottom of his t-shirt.
“Really? WHICH PART!?” Cassie replied, still unbelieving that so much could go wrong in the same guy’s presence in only two days. Lance only laughed.
“Seeing as how this can be such a dangerous pastime, WHY do you spend so much time down here?”
“For the boats that aren’t here?”
“Huh? Sorry, you kind of lost me there. You come to see the boats that aren’t here? Like the Playboy?” Lance shook the water out of his hair as he waited for explanation.
Cassie gave him Jenna’s you’re-an-idiot-glare. “You see that boat WAY out there?”
Lance stared at the little black speck distant on the horizon…he nodded.
“That’s why. That’s my dream.”
“Your dream? What is? Being on a boat?” At Cassie’s nod, Lance continued, “Why?”
Cassie thought about it for a moment, as she squeezed the extra water out of her shoulder-length hair. “My sister, Jo Beth, is really into old time Jazz. She has a Billie Holiday song, called Sailboat in the Moonlight. It’s so romantic, and dreamy. It’s like, when you’re out on the boat, there’s no reality. Just dreams. It’s like an escape. I would love to go on a boat trip, to just sail away from the here and now, have no worries. Just exist, out on the water, in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why don’t you?” Lance asked as he stared at the distant boat that Cassie was so fascinated with. “Maybe we could rent one for the rest of the day…”
She turned around a little sheepishly. The most embarrassing part of her dream: that it would never be possible. “I get seasick. Really bad. Really easily.”
Lance tilted his head back and laughed. Cassie watched his Adam’s apple moving up and down, his wet t-shirt plastered to the chest she had felt all too closely yesterday, and the way the leather pants really did look better on him wet. Oh, wow…sexy and a half!
**********
Cassie took her shoes off at the front door of her family’s condominium where Lance’s taxi had just dropped her off at, trying to sneak in quietly. If her parents saw her sopping wet, they would go ballistic. Though they tried not to be overprotective, tried to let her lead a normal life, they still had their she’s-a-porcelain-doll moments.
After she got out of the shower and threw her salt-water soaked clothes into the washer, she wandered down the hall to her sister’s room. Peeking in the doorway, she saw Jo Beth stretched out on her bed, reading one of her romance novels, Louis Armstrong coming from the CD player. Cassie rolled her eyes as she went in and jumped onto the bed. Settling her legs over her sister’s, she tightened her bathrobe and leaned back against the wall.
“I just had the best time!”
Jo Beth hadn’t looked up the entire time, and she gave only a noncommittal murmur now. “Mmhmmm.”
“He was so amazing. I was an idiot, but he didn’t seem to mind.” Cassie stared off dreamily.
“Mmhmmm.”
“He’s different. Somehow.”
“Mmhmmm.”
“He’s so famous, but he seems really down to earth.”
“Mmhmmm.”
“And he actually listens!” Cassie cried as she swatted Jo Beth with a pillow.
“Mmhmmm.”
“Jo Beth!!”
“What?!” she cried, finally looking up from her book and turning her head to see her sister. “I’m reading here!”
“And I’m trying to tell you about my date with Lance!”
“Date? Lance who?” Jo Beth asked as she turned back to her book.
“Lance Bass. Remember? I told you last night. But, you were reading then too, of course, so it’s no wonder that you’ve forgotten.”
“You went on a date with Lance Bass?” Finally, something that got Jo Beth’s attention!
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Cassie yelled, exasperated. Even after being sisters for the last sixteen years, she still didn’t understand how Jo Beth could read so much and ignore so many people so easily.
“Why? Why would you ever go on a date? You avoided the dating scene in college. Why him, and why of all times, now?”
“I don’t know! We were at the hospital, and I talked with him. He was so different…he didn’t space out while I talked about the hospital, he actually listened. He actually cared. And then he asked me if I would go out with him today. It was so out-of-the-blue, and I said yes.”
“Cassie! You can’t do this to him, when you know that you won’t be around to follow it through!”
“Do you think I don’t know that? That I don’t feel bad enough? C’mon Jo Beth, you know me better than that!”
“So what happens now?” Jo Beth asked, sighing, as she turned back to her book.
“Well, they pull out tomorrow at like six in the morning. There’s nothing to happen. He’s leaving.”
**********
Of course, the doorbell ringing at nine o’clock that night WOULD prove her a liar!
Cassie was sitting in the living room, watching Pretty Woman and eating Chinese food with her mother and Jo Beth, a Saturday evening tradition in the Spencer household. Her eight-year-old brother came tearing out of his room and dashed to the front door, screaming that he’d get it.
The three women looked at each other confused. The downstairs doorman hadn’t called in to say that any visitors were on their way up.
“Wait, Michael-” Cassie called out, but it was too late and half of a second later, he was swinging the door open, revealing…Lance Bass on her doorstep. He smiled down at the little boy.
“Who are you?” Michael asked, forgetting all manners that their mother had taught him over his short lifespan, staring at the guy who looked slightly familiar to him.
“I’m Lance, a friend of Cassie’s. Who are you?”
“I’m her brother,” he replied, proudly.
“So, that would make you…Michael, right?”
Michael nodded, thrilled that someone he finally recognized from TV would know who he was.
“Nothing?” Jo Beth asked dryly as their mother paused the movie.
“Uhh…” Cassie stalled as she scrambled off their couch. She looked back and forth from Mrs. Spencer’s confused expression to Lance standing in the doorway. “Lance, this is my mom, Jo Beth, and Michael. And this is Lance,” she finished hurriedly as she slipped out the door and closed it behind her, not wanting to see her mom’s surprised and then questioning looks anymore.
“Bad timing?” Lance asked, his eyebrows raised as he looked at the door she had just pushed him out through.
“Oh, no…just…my mom asks a lot of questions,” she said.
“Yes, I can see how that would be a problem,” Lance agreed with mock severity.
“Never mind. What are you doing here…and how did you get in without the doormen buzzing us?”
“Oh, that,” Lance replied, waving his hand. “He had an eleven year old daughter, so I signed an autograph for him. He told me which apartment you guys were in, and I guess he just forgot to check and see if I was on the list or needed to be buzzed up.”
“Yeah, that would be Henry. And Lance, he has no daughter,” Cassie said, laughing.
“Ah. A closet fan.”
“Yup. I thought I heard him singing ‘If I wasn’t a celebrity’ the other day…”
“You know the song. Does that mean you’re a fan?”
“Ummm…well, not really. But I have heard some of your stuff,” Cassie assured him quickly.
“Don’t worry,” Lance said, smiling. “I’m not going to hate you forever if you aren’t.”
“Oh, well, now that’s a relief,” Cassie said, pretending to faint with relief. “Not to be rude, Lance, but what are you doing here?”
“Oh…well. I dunno.” He shrugged.
“You don’t know?”
“Nope. We leave in less than twelve hours. I should be back at the hotel, getting my last night of sleep in a real bed for a long time. I just wanted to see what you were doing. If you wanted to do anything.”
“Oh. Well, actually. I’m watching a movie with my mom and sister.”
“Oh,” Lance nodded, in that I-was-just-shot-down-but-I’m-really-not-embarrassed…really kind of way.
“No! It’s just that this is tradition. Pretty Woman and Chinese food every Saturday night for as long as I can remember. It might seem kind of weird to watch the same movie every week, but it’s just something that we do.”
“Oh. Okay then. Well, I leave in the morning…so…Canicallyou?”
“What?” Cassie asked, trying to unjumble his rush of words. He was like Devon Sawa in Now and Then. Only she hadn’t heard the word “kiss” anywhere in his jumble…more’s the pity.
“Can I call you after I leave Seattle. Just to talk to you?”
“Sure. I gave you my number last night, right?”
“Yeah.” Lance rocked back and forth on his heels. “Okay, I guess I’ll be going then.”
Cassie knew it was coming. She just knew it. Or maybe she just wished for it so hard that it happened. Either way, one second it looked like Lance was going to just turn around and walk away, and the next he was leaning down to her, she was closing her eyes.
Cassie could honestly say that she had never been kissed, not in the Drew Barrymore fashion (well, if she was really being honest, the only time she’d ever been kissed at all had been at her ninth grade formal”all wet and sloppy)…although she would never say it because it was just a little too embarrassing to admit that when she was twenty-years-old.
But from here on out, THAT WOULD BE A LIE! The floor shifted, the world tilted, the heaven’s sang…it was like every stupid cliché she could think of from Jo Beth’s romance novels.
And it had to happen when the doctor’s were giving her maybe two months left to live. If that.
As Lance began to walk away again, she saw it leaving, what she had felt, with the only guy she had ever felt it with. “Lance, wait!”
He was already at the elevator and turned after pressing the down button. “Yeah?”
“Well, uh…” Cassie licked her lips, and cleared a throat gone suddenly dry. “Well, I mean, it might be just Jo Beth, our mom, and me that have watched the movie, but it’s always been a standing invitation to our dad and Michael. And we always have tons of extra food. If you wanna watch a chick flick with us.”
She knew that her offer was lame, when he had probably had something like clubbing in mind…which was why she almost dropped dead in shock when Lance walked away from the elevator and asked, “Any extra egg rolls?”
Cassie nodded, her eyes almost falling out of her head.
“Well, I have always liked Julia Roberts…”
Chapter 3: Discovery
Chapter ThreeOctober 2002
**********
Cassie was reading a story to Jenna when Alicia Keys showed up. The little girl was having one her bad days…one of the worst, in fact since she’d started radiation, and couldn’t get up the energy to get out of bed.
They heard Shannon starting to screech out in the hallway, and they both looked up, ready to go see what had happened when the singer knocked on Jenna’s open hospital room door. And there she was, dressed to kill in a pair of flared hip huggers with a braided brown belt, dark green heels, and a loose, flowing, gauzy, green shirt. And her braids were covered in a gold print scarf.
“Hi, are you Jenna Parker?”
Jenna stared at her idol, her mouth ready to catch flies. She nodded dumbly. “Uh huh.” Cassie imagined that she had the same look on her face and quickly snapped her jaw shut. Reaching over to the little girl, she closed her jaw too. Jenna came back to her senses long enough to stick her tongue out at Cassie.
Alicia smiled, that Alicia Keys smile, and Cassie almost died. Alicia Keys was standing there, in Jenna’s room. Wow. “Is it okay if I come in?” Jenna nodded.
As Alicia walked towards the bed, Cassie scrambled out of the chair, ready to hand it over to her. Alicia smiled. “That’s okay. I was wondering if I could sit here?” she asked, patting the end of Jenna’s bed. Jenna nodded again.
“So I guess you know who I am?” Alicia asked. Jenna nodded…again. “And you would be Cassie?”
Oh. My. God. Alicia Freaking KEYS knew her name!! This time, it was Cassie nodding.
Jenna finally managed to find her voice. “What are you doing here?” she whispered in a wonder-tinged voice, so excited Cassie was afraid she might begin to have trouble breathing.
“Well,” Alicia began, focusing all of her attention on Jenna. Which was a big deal, to have all of your idol’s attention. Cassie could tell that for the first time in her life, Jenna was turning just a little bit shy. And Cassie had thought THAT day would never come! It looked like she might lose the power of speech all over again. “A little birdie told me that you liked my scarves.” She brought her handbag up onto the bed.
“I thought that while I was in Seattle for a radio interview and a photo shoot today, I might stop by and give a couple of them to you.” She started pulling handfuls of scarves out of the bag, the brightly colored fabric escaping from her fist in wisps.
Jenna protested, “But if you give them to me, then you can’t wear them!” She tried to shove the scarves back into the bag, but Alicia grabbed her hands.
“Well, that’s the really cool part. Before I came to Seattle, I went out and got doubles of all my favorites. That way, we can both wear the same one!”
Cassie stared at the two, trying not to cry. But damn, Lance was amazing. She didn’t know how he had gotten Alicia Keys to show up at a Seattle hospital, but whatever he had done, Cassie loved him for it. Oh, wow. She loved him.
Thankfully, Marie interrupted these scary thoughts, running in like a freight train and screeching to a halt at the foot of Jenna’s bed. “ALICIA KEYS!”
Although her excited shout had almost scared Cassie out of her skin, Alicia took it in stride, grinning at the pig-tailed Marie. “And who might you be?”
Cassie’s head almost shook off in her warning to Alicia, but it was too late. The little girl had already started talking. And once someone got Marie talking…
“I’m Marie Louisa Scarlett Emmeline Melissa McKenzie. This is my room too, and that’s my side of the room, near the window, cause I like to look out the window when I wake up. My best friend is Justin Timberlake, did you know that? Well, he is, cause he said so when I asked him when he was here last month. Did you know that he came to visit me? Well, he did. I’m six. I’m exactly seven months and thirteen days older than Jenna. Did you know those were my lucky numbers? Well, they are. My momma said so. She said that’s why she had to give me such a long name, cause I was gonna be a lucky person, and I needed good lucky numbers, and a long, lucky name. I looked it up in one of my momma’s newspapers once, but the newspaper was wrong, cause it said my lucky number was twenty-six, and I know that’s not right, cause my momma doesn’t lie, but I looked up Jenna’s lucky number for her, cause she can’t read yet, but I can, and it said her lucky number was twenty-one, and I asked my momma, and she said it was, so we know that’s what Jenna’s lucky number really is. But Jenna doesn’t have a lucky name like I do. Her name is only Jenna Parker.”
…it was only a matter of time before Jenna and Marie got into a talking argument, pretty much seeing which one could outtalk the other. Cassie tried to keep her groan quiet as she sunk down into her chair. Alicia Keys looked at her, her expression one of laughter, seeming to ask, Is this kid for real?
Cassie shook her head as it fell forward before looking back at Alicia and returning a look of her own, one that said, Just you wait…
“That’s not true!” Jenna screeched as she sat up in bed, finally talking to Alicia. “I do too have a long name. My name is Jenna Elizabeth Parker, but my mom said I could add some names to it, so I could have a lucky name like Marie, and I even got to CHOOSE mine! So now it’s Jenna Elizabeth Cassandra Alicia Ariel Lilo Parker! And that’s one name longer than Marie’s, so that means I’m luckier than her. And Justin might be her best friend, but you’re mine, and I like you better than Justin anyway. And I can too read! Even ask Cassie! She’s helping me, since I can’t go to school yet. But I can read some words, and I even read a Little Critter book the other day. Do you like Little Critter? I do, and since you’re my best friend, you do too.”
“Well, Cassie’s helping me read Harry Potter, and he can do magic, and my momma says it’s good that I can read Harry Potter, only that what he says about…div…divnation! isn’t true, that’s it’s real, so I know it’s real, cause my momma said so, and she never lies. Did you know that? Well, she doesn’t…”
**********
As soon as Cassie left the hospital (ten minutes after Alicia had escaped the talking war), she called Lance.
“Hello?”
“OH MY GOD! What did you do? Alicia Keys was just at the hospital! ALICIA FREAKING KEYS! How did you do that?”
“Cassie?”
“No, the other person who’s been calling you everyday at almost the same time for the past three weeks!”
“Sorry, it was hard to tell it was you over the SCREECHING!”
“I’m sorry I was screeching. But Alicia Keys?!” Cassie was so busy talking and screeching to Lance that she walked into a parked truck, with a loud oomph! Was she the only one that ever did that? she wondered as she rubbed her hip and continued on her way to the bus stop.
“Cassie, you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I just got hit by a truck.”
“Hit by a truck. Uh huh.” Cassie could almost see Lance nodding over the wireless line. “You walked into another car, didn’t you?”
“Ehhh, shut up. Get back to the Alicia Keys thing!”
“Oh, I didn’t really do that. I just asked Justin if he would call her up for me and find out when she would next be in Seattle, and if she felt like making a hospital visit while she was there.”
“Still…you’re amazing, Lance, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know I’m amazing,” Lance replied smugly. Cassie could hear Joey dying of laughter in the background and she couldn’t help grinning.
“I take it Joey disagrees?”
“Well, yeah, that too. But also, Justin dyed his eyebrows red. It’s providing endless amusement for us all.”
“He dyed his eyebrows red?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure if he meant too, or if Joey put red Kool-aid on them while he was sleeping and when it got wet it stayed dyed that way.”
“Kool-aid…right.”
“Trust me. Joey’s evil with that stuff. He once dyed my hair to match my eyes.”
Cassie sat on the bus stop bench, and stared off dreamily. “You know, that’s actually something that I wouldn’t mind seeing.”
“Well, I go on vacation in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll just have to wander back that way and show you.”
“Heh heh,” Cassie laughed nervously. “You’re on vacay in a couple of weeks?”
“Yeah, we have two weeks off while Justin does some major promotions for his album. Hey, is it okay if I head up to Seattle?”
“Uh,” Cassie stalled, unsure what to say. “Of course. That’d be great. Just call first. Oh, my bus is here. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Sure. Bye.”
As Cassie climbed onto the bus, she was lost for a few moments, wishing that it was possible for Lance to come visit her during his vacation. Unfortunately for them, by then she would be long gone from Seattle.
**********
She’d always felt connected to Jenna. Cassie sat next to the sleeping child’s bed, just watching her breathe in and out. It was such a reassuring thing, in reality. She’d spent too many nights watching children fight for every breath, as they neared the end of their short lives. Held too many hands as parents watched their child take a last, ventilator-assisted breath.
Cassie sat next to Jenna’s bed for some time, just thinking: about life, death, Lance, the hospital. Lance.
For the first time, she was struggling against her acceptance of fate. She’d lived with her own tumor since she was seven. It was why she’d always felt closer to Jenna; they had the same type of low-grade astrocytoma, the same diagnosis, the same ticking time bombs in their brains. Maybe, if they could shrink hers enough to remove it, it wouldn’t become a high-grade astrocytoma like hers had, and Jenna would be luckier than her, live past the age of twenty.
There it was again! Never had she felt “unlucky.” She’d been living with her tumor for thirteen years, gone through radiation when she was seven, and again when she was sixteen, both treatments neither ridding her of the tumor or shrinking it, but attacking it enough that it went into a dormant state. When she thought about it, life had actually been very kind to her; she had a terrific, supporting family. She’d gotten through high school and two years of college before the tumor had started growing again, uncontrollably this time. Always knowing that her time was borrowed, she’d focused on just living.
And if she was feeling sappy, she could even say that she’d finally had her first love. Even if that first love wouldn’t understand why she had to cut him out of her life, without any warning or explanation.
Tomorrow morning, they left for Hawaii: Cassie, Jo Beth, Michael, and their parents. It may have been morbid, choosing your place to die, but her family had been understanding. They had their beach house rented and ready to move into for the next month or two. The doctors weren’t sure how long she had left. They’d guesstimated six weeks. Most likely less.
Cassie had never had any regrets about dying. And then Lance had literally stormed into her life, turning it upside down and stealing her heart. A heart that didn’t have time to love Lance the way she wanted to. The way she wanted to live long enough to love him.
She’d always known that it was most likely she’d not live long enough to get married, have a job, have children. She’d avoided any kind of relationships with guys for that reason, knowing that anything permanent just wasn’t possible for her. She didn’t want to leave some guy grieving for her after she was gone. It was what she’d avoided at all costs. Seeing so many kids die in the hospital and the people that got left behind, Cassie had tried to keep her own circle of “survivors” small; she herself had mourned when one of the kids didn’t make it. The last thing she had wanted was to leave people like that.
That was why she was leaving without telling Lance. Let him think what he wanted, get angry at her, hate her. It was better than being sad for her after she had died.
She sighed as she stood up and stretched. She’d been at the hospital for over an hour, sitting next to Jenna’s bed. She kissed her on the forehead, saying goodbye. Placing Mariah Carey’s single, Through the Rain, on the girl’s bedside table, she sent up a silent prayer that Jenna would get to experience everything that Cassie didn’t have time for.
*********
Lance threw his cell phone against the wall. Or, as his aim sucked, at the door. Justin dodged it as he stepped onto Lance’s bus.
“So, the phone…evil reincarnated?” he asked casually, going for the fridge, first thing. As was his habit, whether he was on his bus or one of his bandmates.
“I can’t get a hold of her! I’ve called her house and no one answers. I’ve left so many messages, I think their stupid answering machine might be reaching maximum soon. And her cell phone has been disconnected. If I had heard that goddamned, stupid recorded message one more time…” Lance was literally seething. It had been three weeks now, since Cassie and her family had up and disappeared.
“Did you try calling the hospital? See if she’d gone into work?” Justin suggested as he popped the tab of a soda and tried to gauge Lance’s frustration level. Cassie had been a sensitive subject for the last two weeks, since Lance had first figured out that she was avoiding him.
He was treated to one of Lance’s do-I-look-like-an-idiot stares. Justin shrugged. It had been worth a try. Lance had been in a funk for awhile, and nothing the guys did was working. As Lance’s frustration level had grown, the guys became even less inclined to talk to him, say what had been on all of their minds after the first couple of days. That maybe Cassie didn’t want to be found by him. That she had ditched him and been too chicken to actually come out and say it.
“I’m starting to get worried, Justin. What if something happened to her?”
“Like what? Their whole family was murdered, and that someone cut off Cassie’s cell phone, and that they disconnected their home phone literally overnight?”
In return for his sarcasm, he received one of Lance’s darkest looks. And the group had been receiving them a lot lately. Justin could tell that Lance was reaching the end of his rope. He wanted to wring the bitch’s neck, as did all the guys, for putting Lance through this.
“Lance…Maybe it’s time to face the fact that Cassie doesn’t want to talk to you. Maybe she doesn’t want you to find her.”
“Shut up, Justin.”
Justin was growing angrier himself. Why couldn’t his friend see what this girl was doing to him? “Lance, it’s been three weeks. Face it! She doesn’t want to talk to you. You’ve been ditched by her!”
“Get out, Justin.”
At the very real rage just below Lance’s almost-composed surface, Justin took a deep breath, calming himself before trying, very cautiously, one last time. “Lance, I’m just saying-”
“Get. Out.”
Shaking his head, Justin left the bus, hurling his soda can into the nearby trash barrel. They were at a loss as to how to help Lance. And Lance wasn’t ready to face the fact that he had been dumped by the girl.
**********
The next day, the group broke for a two week break and Lance was on a plane to Seattle first thing that afternoon.
He had an angry cabbie drive him all over the freaking city that night, from the airport to a hotel where he dropped off his bags, to Cassie’s locked and empty house, to the hospital, where he finally paid the driver an outrageous amount and ran inside, the rain pounding down on him.
As he stepped off the elevator, he was greeted by a wheelchair race, the teenage girl Alexis and the little boy Jack. He jumped to the side, just in time to avoid being pinned against the closing elevator doors.
“I won, I won!” Jack cheered as he grooved his bone-thin body in his child’s size wheelchair.
“Yeah, whatever. Next time, you’re mine!” Alexis threatened, laughing as she slowly wheeled over and purposefully pinned Lance against the wall.
“So, a popstar graces our presence. Again. What’s up?”
“Hmm.” Lance slowly stepped to the side, giving the girl a you-really-don’t-want-to-start-with-me look. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen Cassie recently?”
“Naw. She’s taking a vacation. Has been for awhile now.” Quickly losing interest in the pop singer who apparently had no exciting reasons for being there, she turned and started to wheel away.
“Wait! Do you have any idea how I could reach her while she’s on her vacation? Do you know where she went?”
“Nope,” Alexis tossed over her shoulder. Apparently, she decided to take pity on him, though, because she added, “You could try asking Jenna though.”
Lance wandered through the halls of the Children’s Wing, trying to remember the way to Jenna’s room, from when he’d last been here with Cassie.
He found what he thought might be her room and peeked in. Yup. The girl was inside, wearing Alicia Keys’ Grammy’s scarf.
Knocking on the door, he asked, “Hey, Jenna. Do you remember me?”
The little girl clapped her hands excitedly, looking away from the Toon Disney channel on the television mounted on the opposite wall. “I know you! You’re Lance, and you’re Cassie’s friend.”
“Hey, you do remember me. It’s always fun to be memorable.” He smiled as he walked in and took a seat in the chair next to her bed.
“And you remember me!” she exclaimed. “You know what? Alicia Keys knew who I was too. And she’s my best friend. She even said so.”
“Really? Is that where you got the scarf from?”
“Uh huh. And she even gave me more too, but this is my favorite.”
They were interrupted as another little girl stampeded into the room. Lance racked his brain, finally remembering her as Marie, but found that his good memory didn’t matter in this case.
“Oh. It’s just you. I thought it was Justin.” So said, she flipped her hair over her shoulders and marched herself back out, to wherever she had come from.
“Don’t mind her. She’s just mad cause her best friend, Justin, hasn’t come back to see her.” Lance made a mental note to let Justin know that he had a fan waiting for a letter or something.
“How come you came back, anyway, and how come you didn’t bring Justin?” Jenna asked as she picked up the TV remote and turned it down.
“Well, I decided to come visit Cassie, only I can’t seem to find her. Someone thought you might be able to help me with that.”
“Oh.” Jenna picked up the edge of her scarf and started playing with it. Lance could tell that before they’d shaved her head, twirling her hair around her finger was one of her nervous habits. “Nope. Haven’t seen her.”
“Yeah. I gathered that much. No one’s seen her. I was just hoping maybe you’d heard from her.”
“Nope. She turned off her phone.”
“I found that out already,” Lance said dryly. “So, nothing? No letters or her calling you?” He found it hard to believe that Cassie would cut off one of her favorite little kids in the same way that she had dropped him.
“Uh…”
“Jenna?” Lance looked at her with raised eyebrows, hoping against hope that she would tell him where Cassie was. “Please? I need to talk to her.”
“She made me promise not to say a word.” She made a zipping motion across her mouth, and then added a gesture of turning a key and throwing it over her shoulder, before crossing her little arms over her chest.
“Please, Jenna. I REALLY need to talk to her.”
The little girl’s eyes started darting all over the place, and her head kept twitching to her left side, along with her shoulder. Lance half stood, afraid she was having some kind a seizure.
“Jenna? You okay? Do you want me to get a nurse?”
She shook her head vigorously, dispelling all ideas that something was medically wrong. Had the girl just decided to go a little crazy?
Her head started jerking again and she made sounds behind her locked lips.
“Jenna, I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say!” Lance exclaimed, frustrated with this game already.
“Jeepers, you’re dense!” she shouted, startling Lance. She uncrossed one of her arms and pointed to her bedside table behind Lance’s chair.
Looking over the small surface, Lance saw only a glass of water, a Lilo & Stitch watch, and a Lilo & Stitch postcard.
“You want some water?”
“Jeez, what the heck does Cassie see in you anyway?!” Jenna shouted. Lance was again taken aback. What the hell?
At long last, Jenna picked up the brightly colored postcard and threw it at Lance. He made attempts to grab it out of the air, but ended up looking like an idiot when it escaped every endeavor and fluttered to the floor.
Picking it up, he turned it over and spotted Cassie’s handwriting. Reading quickly, he looked up at Jenna.
“What the heck is Cassie doing in Hawaii?”
“Finally! Jeez, no wonder you became a singer! You must have dropped out of high school, huh?”
Lance decided to ignore these slurs coming from a five-year-old, and waited expectantly.
“Do I have to explain EVERYTHING?!” Apparently, she decided to take Lance’s glare for a yes, and continued, “She’s there cause she can’t make it through the rain.”
“Come again? What are you talking about.”
Lance knew he would definitely not be leaving an impression of intelligence, as Jenna looked at him like he was younger than her. “Hello? Mariah Carey’s new single? Duh! I thought you were supposed to be into music.”
Lance gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the fact that this slip of a girl was making him feel like an idiot. “And that has what to do with Cassie?”
“Her tumor came back. She went to Hawaii cause they couldn’t fix it, and cause she wasn’t gonna make it through the rain, and she wanted to be in Hawaii when she died.”
Chapter 4: Goodbye
Chapter FourNovember 2002, Anini Beach, Hawaii; Kauai Island
*********
Lance stepped into the small, air-conditioned Lihue airport, lowering his sunglasses only slightly and looking around. He didn’t know what he was expecting; but aside from a few people waiting for family or friends who had come in on the same inter-island carrier, the 8-gate airport was almost deserted. He sighed.
Of course, Cassie would pick one of the more remote islands, he thought, grumbling to himself as he went searching for the baggage claim. If one was looking to get away from the rest of the world, this was definitely the place to do it. He watched the trickle of bags coming out onto the conveyer belt, waiting for his own, hastily-packed duffel bag.
Once having grabbed his bag, he had to cross the street in order to get to the car-rental agencies. “So, how long will you need the car?” the bubble-gum popping college-aged student behind the counter asked him. Lance shrugged. It was a rather morbid thought: needing the car until Cassie died, trying to put a time limit on that.
“A month,” he said. Taking a deep breath, Lance tried not to complete the thought that Cassie would be dead by then. It was something he just wasn’t ready to start dealing with.
“What if…” Lance swallowed hard. He could do this. He wanted to do this, to be here with Cassie. “What if I return it before then?”
“Then we’ll refund your credit card,” the girl, whose name tag read Leiloni, replied, handing his Visa back to him. “If you wait a few minutes, one of the lot attendants will bring your car around to the front.”
“Thanks,” Lance said as he left the airport. He nodded to the guy with dreadlocks who pulled the red convertible up to the sidewalk and gave him a tip before throwing his bag in the back and taking off.
By the time he reached the north shore of the island, it was dark out. He’d had to pullover halfway there and put the top up when it had started raining. He’d stopped to get a drink at a McDonalds on the road, and been mobbed by a ten-year-old’s birthday party. When he finally reached Anini, he’d gone to the wrong beach house. After pounding on the door for five minutes and having it answered by a lady in a VERY skimpy negligee, he’d discovered that he’d just disrupted a honeymooning couple in the middle of a strawberries-and-champagne moment. All in all, he was not in his best mood when he finally pulled up in front of the right cottage’s garage.
At least he hoped it was the right cottage. He triple-checked the address Cassie had given Jenna before making his way up the steps. Now that he was at the right place, and he’d gotten rid of some of his anger by banging on the wrong door, he was more than a little nervous.
In fact, he was a lot nervous. She’d gone pretty far out of her way in order to disappear. Now that he had found her, he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. A flight across the Pacific, and another across the island chain; he’d spent most of the time angry at her, rather than trying to figure out what to say when he finally reached her.
Before he could lose the little nerve he had left, he rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, he heard little feet running to the door. It swung open to reveal her little brother, Michael. He gave Lance a gap-toothed grin. “Hey, it’s you! You here to see Cassie?”
“Uh…yeah. Is she here?” Lance asked. He peered around the open doorway, searching the background for her.
“Yup. She’s out sitting on the beach. You can go through the house if you want,” the little boy offered.
Lance nodded. “Thanks.”
Following Michael’s pointed arm, he looked across the spacious rental to the sliding-glass patio doors. Crossing quickly, he glanced around but didn’t see anyone else. “Where is everyone?” he asked as he reached the back door. He could make out a lone figure sitting on the sand in front of the water.
“Mom and Dad went out to dinner and Jo Beth is in her room reading a book. She didn’t want to play video games with me,” Michael added, giving Lance the girls-are-weird look that all boys have learned by the age of five. “Do you wanna play?”
“Sorry, kid. I really have to talk to your sister.” Yet he still couldn’t force himself to open the door and walk out there.
“That’s okay. Cassie never wants to play either. I’m getting a lot better at Zelda though, since it only takes one player.” He looked quite proud of his accomplishment, and Lance ruffled his hair before making himself open the patio door.
Once he was down the steps and on his way across the sand, it didn’t seem so hard. Seeing Cassie sitting alone in the sand, just staring out at the water, reminded him of why he had come all the way out here to be with her in the first place, when she had made it quite obvious that she didn’t want to see him.
He was almost right behind her and unable to figure out why she had yet to hear him when she spoke up. “I should have known that little twerp wouldn’t keep her mouth shut.”
“Which little twerp is that?” Lance asked, coming to a stop at her back and staring out at the water, trying to see what was so fascinating that she would want to be out here alone on the beach.
“The only person whom I gave our address to.”
“She actually kept her mouth shut, literally, quite well. Zipped, locked, key thrown away, the whole nine yards.”
They were silent for a few minutes, neither quite sure what to say, before she asked, “What are you doing here, Lance?”
“Well, gee, Hawaii just seemed like a good place to take my vacation.”
Cassie stood up angrily, turning around to face him. “Couldn’t you just have taken the hint?”
“What? That you didn’t want to talk to me or see me?”
“Yes!”
“Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth?” he replied, finally remembering why he had been so angry at her in the first place.
“Because!”
“Because? Because what? Because you liked the idea that you knew something I didn’t? Because when you were talking to me, you could pretend that you weren’t sick? Is that why I was so appealing to you?”
“NO!” Cassie exclaimed, horrified that he would think her possible of using him in such an artificial way. “Because I didn’t want every phone conversation to start out with ‘Oh, good, you’re not dead yet.’ Because I wanted what time I did have with you to be just that: time with you. Not time before I died. Because I love you! And I don’t want to die, knowing that I’ve left you here on earth, grieving for me! I’ve seen too much death and mourning. I didn’t want that for you. I wanted you to remember…I wanted you to remember being down on the docks. I wanted to remember you as having gotten Alicia Keys to come visit a sick little girl who idolized her. I wanted to remember our phone conversations.”
She had calmed down by this point, and was crying now. “I don’t want you to remember how I look while I’m all sick and dying. I don’t want you to remember me from when I’m all doped up on pain medication. I didn’t want that, Lance. But you’re here. Why are you here? Why didn’t you just stay away when you couldn’t get a hold of me?”
Tears were streaming down her face. Lance slowly pulled her into his arms. “Because I love you, Cassie. Because I want all the time that we have. Not just the time you decide to give us. And if that means following you halfway across the Pacific Ocean, even if you don’t want me here, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Cassie wound her arms around his waist as she looked up at him. “I didn’t want you here. I never thought you would manage to get the address from Jenna, but since you did…I missed you Lance.”
Brushing a soft kiss across her lips, Lance smiled. “I missed you too.”
They stood that way for a long time. Just glad to be together again. Not worrying about what tomorrow or the day after might bring.
*********
“Watch, there’s another one!” Cassie said excitedly. She continued, awed, “They’re so beautiful.”
Lance tightened his arms around her waist as they sat on their beach blanket, gazing out at the moonlight-reflected water. For some reason, he always seemed to miss the dolphins when they jumped out of the water…he supposed that could have something to do with the fact that he was too busy looking at Cassie; watching her finding happiness in a couple of dolphins.
Cassie leaned even further back against his chest. She tilted her head back to look up at him, finding him watching her. “You’re not even trying to see them!” she accused.
Laughing, Lance shook his head. “Nope.”
Cassie smiled back. He really was amazing, she thought, as she looked around at the romantic, dinner-on-the-beach picnic he’d prepared for them. They’d eaten peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches (that Lance had slaved to make: Cassie found it incredibly adorable), chocolate chip cookies (made by Michael and Lance earlier that day while she’d been napping), and he’d brought sparkling cider and two wine glasses. They’d finished a few minutes ago and were now relaxing: watching the water, watching a ship meandering its way past in the distance, watching for the occasional surfacing dolphin.
It had been four days since he’d shown up in Hawaii. Four of the most unforgettable days in her life. Talking on the phone with him was one thing, she’d realized. Spending the day with him, being with him, was something else entirely.
Lance was all about the little things, she’d noticed after their first day of strolling along the narrow streets of Anini. She supposed that being all about the details was what made him such a good business manager.
He seemed able to remember everything she’d ever told him. That first day, he’d stopped at a florist place and bought her a red baby carnation. She’d confessed during one of their phone conversations that she wasn’t a big fan of roses, that she preferred carnations. And he’d remembered, cutting the stem and placing it behind her ear as they finished their walk about town.
He’d also remembered her telling him about Jo Beth’s dream of cruising in a red convertible, and on the second day had taken her out for a drive down the highway during the sunrise. Cassie, of course, had refused to get out of bed when Jo Beth had woken her up to see if she wanted to come along. But she’d fallen back to sleep with sweet dreams of the most amazing guy.
Then, he’d even dyed his hair a lime Kool-aid green for her. Cassie had almost fallen off their couch when Lance walked out of the kitchen with bright green hair, Jo Beth holding a towel and grinning evilly behind him. It seemed the only time she removed her nose from her books was when she was helping Lance with something.
And baking chocolate chip cookies with Michael? How sweet was that!? Cassie had confided in him that she was more than a little worried about her brother; he seemed to get pushed aside with what was happening to Cassie. Jo Beth was old enough to understand that Cassie was dying and nothing could stop that, but she knew Michael wouldn’t, and she was scared about what he would do when she was gone. She hadn’t known what to say to the little boy, but Lance had been an incredible help; he’d told Michael that Cassie was going to go away soon, that she was gonna be an angel, and that even if Michael couldn’t see her or hear her anymore, she would always be with him. Cassie had cried as she stood in the kitchen doorway, listening to them.
And now, they were here, a romantic picnic on the beach in Hawaii.
Lance stood up, stepping off the blanket before reaching down for her hands. After helping her up, he leaned down to press play on the portable stereo he’d brought along. Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me started playing, quietly, romantically, as he lifted one of her hands to his shoulder, putting his around her waist, took her other hand in his, and began dancing.
Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us
With their lies
I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
So won't you try to come
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you
And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me
It was the perfect moment. There was a lazy breeze coming off the water, rippling it, making the moonlight dance on top of it, bringing in the saltwater smell of the ocean, mixed with the distinct smell of Hawaii’s lush forests. Her hair drifted in the breeze, along with the soft folds of her ankle-length cotton beach dress. Her left hand rested on his shoulder, her fingers curling in his white t-shirt. They were both barefoot, his khakis rolled up to mid-calf, the cool sand beneath their feet, the moon and the stars shining down from above. She kissed him, slowly, deeply. Cassie wanted to bottle this moment, keep it forever. Never let it go.
But unfortunately, her strength-or lack thereof-wouldn’t allow that. Her strength gone, Lance lowered her carefully back down to their blanket, lying down next to her, holding her hand between them. She rolled over onto her side, trying to memorize his features. She knew it wouldn’t be long now.
Even in the four days that Lance had been here, she’d gone from being able to walk around town for three hours to barely being able to stand for three minutes. She’d had to lean heavily on Lance in order to get down to the beach tonight. Though her parents and Lance had been encouraging her to get some more rest, she’d refused, knowing that she would be soon be unable to get out of bed. It was bad enough, being groggy for most of the day from the pain medication. She’d skipped her dose this evening, wanting one last, clear memory of Lance.
She was paying for that now, she realized. Her headache had been increasing steadily for the last hour, till it was impossible to ignore. The pain was coming in waves, and getting stronger. A tear slipped down her face, soaking into the blanket; she knew that this would be their last night together.
“Cassie? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Lance asked anxiously as his eyes followed the tear. He leaned up on his elbow, ready to take her back to the house if something was wrong.
Smiling reassuringly, Cassie shook her head slightly. “No, I’m fine.”
She watched him relax back onto the blanket. “Lance? Promise me something?”
“Promise you what?” he asked, brushing her hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear before running his hand through to the end of her hair, curling the ends over his fingers.
“Don’t forget me. I love you. Don’t forget that. But most of all, Lance, be happy. Promise me that you’ll be happy. For me. Don’t be sad for me. I don’t want that.”
She watched the tear roll down his own face as he nodded. “I promise.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. He pulled back and looked down at her. Her eyes had closed, and at first Lance thought she’d fallen asleep.
“Cassie? Wake up, we’ll get you back to the house. Cassie? Cassie!”
**********
Lance spent the next three days living in the chair next to her bed as Cassie drifted in and out of consciousness. A local doctor would make a house call at least once a day, make sure that Cassie was never in any pain.
She never fully came awake, but Lance could tell that she knew he was there. Every once in awhile she would send an unfocused smile in his direction, as he held her hand, reading to her, or singing, or telling her about what had happened that morning on Days of Our Lives. Anything to keep up the weak connection they still had.
Her family would check in on them, and Jo Beth spent some time sitting with him, reading for him when his voice would get too hoarse, or bringing him something from the kitchen. Michael sometimes came in and laid down next to his sister, just wanting to sleep with her. But Lance couldn’t bring himself to leave her side for any substantial length of time. He knew they felt he was hanging on too tightly, but he wasn’t ready to give up his hold on her, not just yet.
They’d had years to prepare for losing Cassie, months since her tumor had started its regrowth. He’d had less than a week, and he just wasn’t as ready as them. Jo Beth seemed to understand that there were times when he just couldn’t leave her alone, even if Cassie wasn’t awake to hear him reading to her; Jo Beth would come in sometimes and insist he go take an hour or two and sleep on the couch, get some rest, while she sat with Cassie.
Lance walked in on the third night after their picnic and found Jo Beth holding tightly to Cassie’s hand.
“Hey. Any change?” Lance asked as he sat on the other side of Cassie’s bed.
Jo Beth gave him one of the sad looks that the family had been giving him for some time. “Lance, she’ll never change for the better. She’s not going to miraculously awaken again.”
Lance nodded, slowly, biting his lip. “I know. It’s just…sometimes, it feels like she knows I’m here.”
“Yeah. I know that feeling.” Jo Beth looked down at her and her sister’s clasped hands. She gave it one last squeeze before she stood up and stretched.
“Are my parents still awake out there?”
“I don’t think so. The house was dark when I woke up. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”
Jo Beth just gave him one of “riiiiiight” looks. “You’re gonna have to let go sometime Lance. Not to sound all Top Gun on you, but you have to let her go.”
Lance sat in his usual chair, looking at Cassie. “I know.” He kissed her temple. “I will. Just…just not yet.”
Jo Beth sighed. “All right. I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Lance nodded. “Good night, Jo Beth.”
**********
Sometime during the night, while Lance drifted between sleep and consciousness, Cassie slipped into a comatose state. The doctor came in that morning and shook his head, letting them know they had almost no time left, while Cassie’s parents stood in the doorway, her dad’s arms around her mom, while her mom’s tears rolled down silently, leaving a ghost trail of moisture. Jo Beth leaned against the wall, holding Michael in front of her while the little boy looked confused.
They crowded around Cassie’s bed as the doctor left, saying goodbye to their daughter, their sister. Lance stood apart from the family moment, not wanting to intrude on something so private. As Mr. and Mrs. Spencer stepped back to the doorway, Jo Beth and Michael moved in. Michael looked at his oldest sister, still slightly confused as to why she wouldn’t wake up.
Then it was Lance’s turn and he froze. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t say goodbye to Cassie, not so soon. They’d had only had two months together. His eyes squeezed shut, trying to hold back the tears that he knew would fall if he was forced to say goodbye so soon. It wasn’t fair.
Somebody took his hand, and he opened his eyes to find Michael holding his hand, pulling him towards the bed. He started to shake his head, but from somewhere deep inside, he scrounged up the courage to sit in his usual chair. As he took Cassie’s hand, Jo Beth lead Michael to their watchful position against the wall, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer in the doorway.
“Hey, Cassie,” he whispered as he leaned in close to her ear. He knew that if he tried to talk any louder, tried to sound normal, he wouldn’t be able to finish. This wasn’t a time for normal; it almost felt like the whisper was all that the room of sadness would allow.
“I know…” His throat closed and he worked to swallow as the first tear hit the bed sheets. “I know we haven’t known each other all that long. I also know that I would have given the world to have more time with you in it.”
“But that’s not possible, is it, love?” He took a strand of her silky blonde hair and rubbed it between his fingers as more tears fell. “And you know what Cassie? I don’t even know if it would have made a difference. More time, less time. I still loved you. You still loved me. Time didn’t really matter. More time wouldn’t have changed how I felt about you. What I learned from you.”
“Did you know that, Cassie? That you taught me more about love, about life, in two short months than I’ve learned in twenty-three years? You taught me that love can catch you off guard, that it happens when you least expect it. I didn’t go into the hospital that day, thinking I would meet someone like you. Someone who put so much effort into the inevitable, put so much love, and still came away thinking the world was sunshine and roses. Well, maybe not roses. We’ll say carnations.” He gave a cautious smile, amazed that he even could when his eyes couldn’t stop watering long enough for him to bring Cassie into focus. He gouged them with his free hand, wanting a clear image, wanting something to remember forever. Wanting to remember Cassie.
“I made that promise on the beach, Cassie, and I mean to keep it. I won’t ever forget you, love. Never. But I’ll try to get through this with even an ounce of your strength. That’s what you were, Cass. Strength. Strength and hope. Not for yourself. You accepted that, with a courage I only wish I had right now. But you had hope for the world, Cassie. You didn’t let it bring you down. That’s what was so amazing about you. When I first met you at the hospital. Even talking about Jenna. There was a strength, a hope about you.”
“Maybe that’s when I fell in love with you, that first day. Or maybe down on the dock, after you pushed me into the water, and we were talking about boats and moonlight and dreams. All I know is that you taught me love.” He kissed her hair before resting his forehead against it, trying to will the tears not to fall, trying to be strong for Cassie, as strong as she was. “I love you Cassie.”
His shoulders started to shake, silently, as he made futile attempts to stop his tears. Then Jo Beth was behind him, hugging him, crying with him, and the rest of Cassie’s family moved in just as silently. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer sat on the other side of Cassie’s bed, Michael sat on the arm of Lance’s chair, resting his head next to Cassie’s stomach.
**********
She died two hours later and they flew her body back to Seattle, where the funeral was to be held and she would be buried. Justin, Joey, Chris, and JC flew in from Orlando to be with Lance.
They stood, surrounding him at the graveside surface. All of them wearing dark glasses. The only sign of life was the sun glinting off the moisture trails on Lance’s face.
He thought it was fitting that Cassie was being buried on a sunny day in Seattle, a city that knew only rain for the most part. Saying goodbye to a life that had known so much rain, and still brought sunshine into the world.
He would miss that sunshine; God, Cassie had been able to make him laugh, make him see the world in a new light. Whether she was walking into a parked truck or talking about Jenna and Alicia Keys, she’d had been full of sunshine: brightness and hope, neverending.
Shaking his head as the service ended, he walked forward until he reached her casket. He smiled as he placed a white carnation with blue edges on top and her family placed yellow and red carnations on it. He’d made sure that none of them had brought roses to the cemetery. That just wasn’t Cassie.
Before leaving with his bandmates for the airport, he stopped to talk to Jo Beth. She was watching them lower the casket.
“You know what I realized when I put that flower on there?”
“Hmm?”
Lance could tell she was struggling not to cry and he put an arm around her, offering her comfort as she took a deep, shuddering breath.
“That’s not Cassie. She’s not there, Jo Beth.”
“I know.”
“You know how I told Michael that she was going away to become an angel?”
“Mmhmmm.”
“I just said it to let him know that she would always be with him. But now…I can’t see Cassie settling for anything less.”
She shook her head, conveying her disbelief. “Now you’re just saying that for me in the same way you said it for Michael.”
Lance shook his head gently, smiling as he looked up at the sky. “Think about it, Jo Beth. I know you heard me when I was saying goodbye to her. She truly was strength and hope. She cared so much for the kids at the hospital. Seeing as how she tried so hard to be their guardian angel when she was alive, can you see her leaving them now? It just doesn’t work for me. She’s still here, with us. Giving us strength and hope, even when we can’t see her. Just know that she’s with you, Jo Beth. Remember that about her. Not the funeral, not the casket. Remember her.”