Page 71 of A Wish for Us

I was a selfish prick. Always had been. But this time I wasn’t going anywhere, and it wasn’t just for me. Bonnie needed me too. I knew she did. I heard it in her voice and I saw it in her face.

I banged harder. “Lewis!”

I was running on no sleep. Easton hadn’t come home last night either. He hadn’t said a thing about Bonnie all this time. But his warning not to hurt her weeks and weeks ago now made sense. I assumed he’d gone to their home to be with her. And that just made me so jealous I couldn’t see straight.

I should be there with her too.

Ihadto be. The claws digging into my heart told me so.

I wouldn’t let her go through this alone. Because she had to get through it. There was no other choice.

“LEWIS!” I kicked the door in anger.

“That won’t get me to appear any sooner, Mr. Dean.” I spun around and saw Lewis approaching, carrying his briefcase.

“I need to speak with you.” I moved aside as he opened the door to his office. I pushed past him and went inside. Lewis came in afterward, closing the door shut as I paced along his office floor. He sat on the edge of his desk,putting his briefcase down beside him. “You have to put me and Bonnie back together.”

Lewis raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure it’ll work, Cromwell.”

“Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t give me your professor shit about it.” I stopped in front of him. The anger that was pulsing through me, the desperation, faded. “She’s sick.” Lewis didn’t say anything. Sympathy filled his face.Knowingsympathy. “You knew,” I said through gritted teeth. He nodded. “How long?”

“I found out just a couple of weeks ago.”

I sank down to the guest seat at his desk. “That’s why she stopped working with me?”

“That’s up to Bonnie to tell you, Cromwell.”

The blood drained from my face. “Because I was giving her shit. Not helping with the composition… Because she knew she was running out of time, and I…I…” I shook my head and pressed my palms into my eyes. “No,” I said with a hiss.

Lewis moved to the coffee machine in the corner. “You want one?” he offered. I stared at him, almost saying no. But then I realized I had nowhere to go. I had no one else to talk to.

“Yes. Black, no sugar.”

Lewis busied himself with the coffee, and I looked at all his pictures and paintings. I stared at the one above his desk. The colors, like synesthesia. “She loved the exhibit,” I said.

Lewis turned to me and smiled. “Did she?”

“She’s fascinated by it all.” I thought of her sitting with me on the stool, singing her song as I played her guitar. “She just loves music, full stop. Wants to be so good at it that it’s all she thinks about.”

“And you?” he asked, putting my coffee before me. He took his own and sat down behind his desk.

I stared at the picture that always pulled my attention. The one of Lewis at the Royal Albert Hall. “I never realized how much I loved it too.” I shook my head. “No, I did. That’s a lie.” But I wasn’t going to say anything else on it. I wasn’t ready to think of the reason I’d stopped playing yet. On top of Bonnie, it was all too bloody much.

Lewis sat forward, arms on his desk. “Forgive me for prying, but it seems you and Ms. Farraday have grown closer of late.”

I stared down at the blackness of my coffee. “Yeah.”

Lewis sighed. “I’m sorry, Cromwell. It’s got to be hard. To grow closer, and then…this…”

“Not as hard as it is for her.”

“No,” Lewis said. “You’re right.”

“She wants to pass this class so bad.” I looked at him. “She wants to complete the composition for the end of the year so much.”

Lewis nodded. The realization of her situation hit me so hard it almost winded me. “She won’t get to do it, will she?” My throat closed until I felt like I was being choked. I stared down at my hands. “I looked it up. Everyone says don’t google things, but I couldn’t help it.” I swallowed back the lump. “She’ll struggle to walk until she’s bedridden. Her hands and feet will become painful to use, filling with fluid.” I rubbed my chest, my voice growing more and more hoarse the more I spoke. “She’ll struggle to breathe, her lungs growing weaker. Her kidneys and liver will start to fail.” I squeezed my eyes shut, my nose flaring as I tried to keep my shit together. I tried to imagine Bonnie like that. I tried to imagine her in hospital, confined to a bed, her spirit strong but her body failing her day by day, and I couldn’t fucking cope.

“And you want to help her?”