“Yeah!” his brother joined in. “When are we going to Disney World? I wanna ride on the big kid rides!”

Hunter and I laughed as the boys upped the pressure to go Disney World. The night passed in much the same vein. It was amazing how much better I felt than I had a week before. I didn’t know what the future held, but for now, everything was perfect.

Chapter Eleven

SECRETS

The next morning we ate breakfast together. After, I did some drawing while Hunter worked on the dining room. It felt good to be doing something positive after I had been barely able to get out of bed the previous week. Waking up then had been agony. Now, I was looking forward to what I was going to do with my day.

Before I knew it, the sound of little feet scurrying through the house came from downstairs, followed by my aunt calling for the boys to stop running. I looked at the clock. It was already three-fifteen. The kids had just gotten home from school.

I put some last touches on a sketch I’d been doing of a real life Bernie working as a ski-rescue dog and headed downstairs to the living room. When I got there, I found the boys already horsing around with Hunter as he “taught them some wrestling moves” while a couple of the kittens alternately watched and scurried out of the way. Aunt Caroline was slicing apples in the kitchen for an afterschool snack.

“Don’t be too rough with him, you two,” I said with a smirk. They could combine all their muscle any way they wanted, there was no way they were moving Hunter an inch.

That didn’t stop it from being fun to try, though. Hunter was on all fours, with Joel on his back and Billy trying to take out one of his arms. The boys squealed with delight when Hunter stood up, Joel still on Hunter’s back with his arms around his neck and Billy being lifted off the ground as he clung to Hunter’s bicep.

“Megatron!” Billy yelled.

I wasn’t sure if Billy thought Hunter was Megatron or he was Megatron. Deciding Hunter had things under control either way, I went to the kitchen to see if I could help Aunt Caroline with the boys’ snacks. She had her nose in the pantry when I walked in.

“Hi Aunt Caroline,” I said cheerfully.

She poked her head over her shoulder. “Oh, hello dear. I didn’t hear you come in the kitchen. Have a good day? You hardly came down from your room.”

“Yeah, I got a lot of drawing done. Can I help you with the snacks?”

She straightened her back and turned to me. “That would be lovely,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to find the peanut butter. If you could find it and get some into a dish for the boys’ apple slices, that would be super. I’m going to go put in a load of laundry.”

She went to the laundry room and I resumed the search for the peanut butter. It ended up being behind some chicken noodle soup cans in the back of the pantry. I took it out, globbed some peanut butter into a dish with a spoon, and set that in the middle of the plate of apple slices.

Finally, I picked up the plate and brought it into the living room where the boys were still wrestling with Hunter. “Snack time,” I said brightly.

The boys scampered over, with Hunter close behind. Everyone took a slice and chowed down.

“I don’t remember the last time I had apple slices with peanut butter,” Hunter said. “Not sure I’ve ever had it, to be honest.”

“Really?” Joel said. “Our mom makes them for us all the time!”

Hunter shrugged and chewed his snack in silence.

A buzzing came from my back pocket. It took me a while to realize what it was. I was still getting used to having a phone again.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen. It was a Chicago area code—which I knew from growing up there—but I didn’t recognize the number. My lips pursed, I hit answer and put the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Is Hunter there?” the voice on the other line asked. It was a woman and she sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“Who is this?” I asked, putting the plate down on a coffee table. Hunter looked at me questioningly as I walked out of the room for some privacy, stopping at the foot of the stairs.

“He’s there, isn’t he? I knew it.”

That tone of voice was familiar. Finally I recognized it. “Is this Ada?”

There was a brief silence on the other line. I was right. “Yeah,” she said. “You need to put Hunter on the phone right now.”

Her tone was irritating. Who the hell did she think she was to call me and start giving me orders? “How did you get my number? Why are you calling?”

She sighed loudly, then continued in a condescending tone. “Hunter might die if he doesn’t get a test he skipped out on.”

My stomach dropped and I felt my pulse pounding in my ears. What the f**k? Was she lying? Why would she lie about something like this?

“. . . I’m trying to get him to take it. Are you f**king listening? Is he there?”

“What?” I asked, my voice shaky. “A test?”

“At the hospital, yes. I was there with him after he got knocked out. The doctor told him he had to take this test at the end of the week to make sure his MS didn’t start to get worse. They said worst-case scenario, he could die. Like maybe in a few months.”

“How do you know he didn’t take it?”

“Is he there or not?”

I closed my eyes. “Yes, he’s here.”

“Good, I knew he’d go chasing you after you ditched him again,” she said, speaking quickly. The pattern on the wallpaper was starting to look like it was moving, and my breath came in short bursts. “I was worried he would drop everything and go after you. Looks like I was right. I tried texting him but he didn’t respond. Classic Hunter, avoiding a test like this. He has multiple sclerosis by the way. I don’t know if he’s told you yet.”

I bit my lip, trying to steady myself. Ada’s petty insults weren’t worth getting upset over, but how could Hunter have hidden this from me? Why was he skipping out on this test? It sounded like it could be something serious. Despite her obnoxious tone, even Ada wouldn’t lie about something like this.

“I also tried calling him and left messages, because, you know, I really wanted to talk to him and was worried that he had just disappeared. Well, that and I’m not an emo, callous bitch.”

That was enough. Maybe Ada really did care about Hunter’s well-being but I didn’t deserve her bullshit. I opened my mouth to say something back, but closed it and took a deep breath to steady myself. Arguing with Ada wasn’t worth my breath.

“He did tell me he has MS,” I said, my voice steady. “Is there anything else I should ask him about, or will he know what I mean when I ask him about the test?”

“Put him on the phone.”

I shook my head even though she wasn’t there. “If he wants to talk to you, he has his own phone.”

She let out a frustrated sigh. “I need to talk to Hunter. Don’t be jealous that I’m the only one who can convince him to stop being a f**king baby.”

Ada could insult me all she wanted, but hearing her talk about Hunter like that, when he was the one who had to deal with so much, made me furious.

“I’d reach through this phone and slap you right now, but that would be child abuse. Anything else?”