Page 42 of Finding a Melody

Really, the last half a year, I hadn’t told him all that much. He’d been having trouble dealing with his mother’s cancer and it was getting worse, so I kept the other details to myself. I didn’t want to overload him with too much when he was so close to losing his mother.

Micah was going to be pissed. As I steeled resolve to face him, I noted how he had changed. Not too much, but still noticeable. He hadn’t gotten much bigger, about my height, but he was leaner, shoulders a bit broader. Did he work out now? Micah’s thing was writing, and a little bit of drawing. I had a few of his drawings in my room.

But sports and fitness had never been his thing.

Did that change? I thought about our conversations and couldn’t remember hearing anything about it.

Then maybe it was just him growing? Did teenage boys just suddenly look stronger one day? I hiked up my bag and walked to him. As soon as I was close, he looked up, as if sensing me. His smile was all boyish as he pushed off the wall, scooping up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Do you have a ride?” I asked.

“Nope. Was supposed to take the bus. I let Mom know you were dropping me off.”

I groaned. “Please, tell me I’m not going to walk into her shoving sweets down my throat?”

He laughed. “I can’t say for sure.” Then he held out his phone and she had replied with a very long line of exclamation points with some tossed in emoji faces that clearly said she was excited.

“She hasn’t changed,” I said.

“She adores you.”

We laughed as we talked about his silly mom. The few times I had met her, she was an energetic mom, even if a bit clumsy. I only met her maybe three times from when she came to pick Micah up. She hadn’t been able to do it often, depending on how she was feeling. And then when we had video calls, she had a habit of trying to crash them to talk to me.

Once we were in the car and waiting through the traffic jam of the parking lot, I asked, “How is she doing?”

Micah tapped his knee as it began bouncing, eyes out the window. “She’s a lot better actually. She has an appointment early next week with a new specialist. They said she went into remission, but we’re getting a second opinion to check. Dad found some top-line specialists in New York. We want to be sure this time.”

“That’s great news,” I said, but his frown kept me from saying much more. “What is it?”

“I hope so. I’m just scared. My own anxiety.” He tried to shrug it off.

“Micah.”

“What if it isn’t in remission? The last time they told us that, it ended up being a lie.”

“Then she’ll keep battling cancer until it is. I don’t know your mom that well, but I do know she’s strong. She’s fought against cancer for so long and can still torture you with sweets and doing her motherly duty of embarrassing you.”

That got a smile out of him.

“Is that why you guys moved here, for your cancer treatments?”

“Yeah, that and my dad was offered a job at the New York office. It’s a drive to get there, but he says it’s worth it.”

I tapped at my steering wheel as we inched toward the exit. “Why not move to the city?”

Micah shuddered. “That sounds like a nightmare.”

I chuckled, agreeing with him. The city was fine to visit for maybe a weekend, but much more than that always felt overwhelming.

“We wanted Mom to have a peaceful place to live and she got all sneaky on me and decided here would be the ideal place so I wouldn’t be so lonely.”

That had me blushing. “Your mom is sneaky.”

We kept talking about his move, his parents, his classes, the people he’d met so far. It was like our distancing lately had become nothing and our conversations were effortless, granted, I still didn’t really talk to him about my recent events or about the guys. Not yet. I didn’t know why I was hesitating. If his mom was doing better, then that was good and no longer an excuse. Maybe I’d wait until after her appointment. Once they got verification, he’d be relieved and less apprehensive.

Yeah. I’d wait until then.

Micah actually lived in Higginham, except on the other side of town, in a nice two-story family home that sat back from the road with a tree line to separate them from their neighbors. The house was a nice size with a two-door garage and lots of yard to run around. The porch was big, though bare. I had a feeling if I gave Micah’s mom another week, they were going to have a really nice porch with flowers, seating, and windchimes. I could practically see it already.