A Messy, Beautiful Life by Sara Jade Alan

Author:Sara Jade Alan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Entangled, Ember, Teen, Teen Romance, YA, YA Romance, young adult romance, John Green, Hopeful, playful, high school theater, improv, first love, cancer, comedy, surgery, death, dying, hope, love, contemporary, contemporary romance, friends to lovers, sick lit
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Teen)
Published: 2017-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

The sound of the apartment buzzer woke me. Mom moved first. “I’ll see who it is.”

Thank God, because there was zero possibility of me getting out of this bed. My friends were at the door, I was sure of it. My pulse quickened—I wasn’t ready, I didn’t have words, I couldn’t break more hearts right now.

Beep.

Click of the dead bolt.

Silence, waiting for the person, or persons, to get from the front entrance down the hall to our door.

I found a tissue and wiped my eyes and nose, tried to sit up in bed. It was something at least. It was effort.

Doorknob turns.

“Come on in.” Mom’s voice.

Whispers. Shuffling. Definitely more than one set of feet.

Our apartment is so small that it was only seconds before they were in Mom’s bedroom, surrounding me. I got this morbid image of me in a casket, them looming over me with the same expressions that were on their faces now.

I stared at them all, wishing I could pretend to be a corpse with the luxury of not having to speak.

Craig stood with his hands in his back pockets. “So, we’re assuming it’s bad. Cancer, then?”

I nodded.

Quinn made a choky gasp, kneeled by my bedside and grabbed my right hand, cupping it between both of hers. “We’re going to be by your side and do whatever we can,” Quinn said.

“Thanks, but there’s nothing you can do,” I mumbled.

Hana sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on my leg. “I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

Craig blew out a puff of air. “I’m sorry, too, sis. What’s the kick-cancer’s-ass plan?”

“Tell us everything,” Quinn said.

“There’s no plan, yet.” I somehow managed to ramble off all the horrible words and outcomes Dr. Nichols gave us this morning. “I have to weigh the choices between my life and my leg, so…I’m not real eager to talk about it.”

Quinn’s porcelain white skin went a shade paler, her softly arched eyebrows knitted, and her little heart lips nearly disappeared into her mouth.

Hana’s voice turned to gravel as she said, “Oh, Ellie,” and her beautiful brown eyes dimmed with heartbreak.

“That is the roughs.” Craig kicked off his shoes and came around the other side of the bed and scooted in until he was next to me, hugging me. Hana and Quinn climbed in, too, until we were in not so much of a sandwich hug, but a pile-of-mashed-potatoes-and-gravy hug.

Every part of me was embraced, making my treacherous body momentarily safe. And in that glimmer of a moment, even with cancer, even with the future so bleak, I had something powerful, something to be grateful for, something not everyone gets in a lifetime, hugging me close.

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