I Wanted You to Know by Laura Pearson

Author:Laura Pearson [Pearson, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

24

Jess ordered the drinks and pushed back through the crowd to where Gemma was waiting.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Gemma asked.

Jess didn’t tell her friend that she was feeling slightly woozy, that her vision was a bit blurred. She had been craving a night out since seeing Jake and this was the first day she’d felt well enough. They were in the bar where Gemma worked, and it was Jess’s birthday, and she wanted to pretend for one evening that she was an ordinary twenty-two-year-old girl. She rolled her eyes at Gemma and handed her friend one of the two brightly coloured cocktails she’d ordered.

‘What’s in it?’ Gemma asked.

‘I don’t know, you work here.’

‘They all look more or less the same. Listen, this is my last question. Are you definitely allowed to drink on chemo?’

‘Yes,’ Jess said. She was pretty sure she’d been told that one or two was okay. ‘Now stop trying to ruin everything. Can we just pretend I don’t have cancer for one night?’

She was talking loudly to be heard over the music, and when she said the word ‘cancer’, two girls standing nearby turned to look at her. Jess wanted to call them out on it, to say that cancer wasn’t catching, that they didn’t need to shuffle away from her, that she was sorry if her dying was putting a dampener on their evening. But she stopped herself. Took a sip of her drink. Tried to pretend that she wasn’t feeling tired. That her limbs weren’t aching.

After that, Gemma did what she’d asked and dropped the cancer talk. For about an hour or so, it felt like old times. They pointed out men they thought the other would like, they gossiped about people they’d gone to school with. Jess told Gemma what had happened with Dan, and Gemma put her hands over her face.

‘He’s my brother! God, I thought I’d nipped that in the bud years ago. Dan, for god’s sake?’

Jess laughed. ‘Well, nothing really happened in the end. It wasn’t my finest moment. I just felt like I wanted to do something for the fourteen-year-old inside me who really liked him and never got to kiss him.’

Gemma pulled a face, as if she couldn’t believe that anyone could find her brother attractive. And then Gemma’s face went in and out of focus, and Jess felt like she needed to sit down. She looked around for a table, but they were all occupied. Instinctively, she reached out a hand and took hold of Gemma’s arm.

‘Jess, are you okay?’ Gemma’s face was a picture of worry.

‘I’m not sure, I feel…’

Jess couldn’t think of the words she needed. They’d had three cocktails and she felt so tired and as if she wasn’t quite there. And then she fell.

It was as if she blinked, and when she opened her eyes she was in hospital and a doctor she didn’t know was looking down at her. Jess scanned the room. Gemma was there, and her mum.

‘Where’s Edie?’ she asked, panicked.

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