‘I hurt you. I wanted you to hate me,’ Raegan murmured. ‘I needed you to hate me.’
I just didn’t understand.
‘Why?’
‘Bradley,’ she said, making me swallow past the lump that had formed in my throat. ‘I thought it'd be easier on you if you hated me. I couldn’t... when I came to Richmond it- it wasn’t meant to go that far,’ she explained, taking a deep breath. ‘I came to escape my shitty life back home. I didn’t mean for anyone to care about me. You weren’t supposed to-’
‘Yeah, well, I can’t help the way I feel about you,’ I snapped.
Did she think it was like a switch I could turn on an off? Or that she could just come into my life and expect me to feel nothing?
‘I wasn’t blaming you!’ Raegan exclaimed, taking a step towards me. ‘I’m blaming myself. I’m a fucking selfish person, Bradley – haven’t you worked that out by now?’
I blinked like an owl in surprise at her sudden attack on herself and automatically opened my mouth to disagree but she went on before I could get so much as a word out.
‘I should have left a long time about but I didn’t. I stuck around because... because I met you and the others and I was actually happy for once. And... all I did was hurt you in the end,’ she said, finishing in a whisper.
I wanted to tuck her under my arm and pull her in for a hug but I didn’t think she’d let me.
‘You shouldn’t have left,’ I disagreed quietly, closing the distance even more. ‘I could’ve helped you, I could’ve-’
There wasn’t much I could do but I would have tried all I could. I would have stayed by her side and been there for her at the very least. There was still time.
‘Anyway,’ Raegan said, forcing toughness in her voice once more. I frowned at her change of heart. ‘I know this is going to sound really fucked up but you’ve got to hear it.’
‘Think I’m used to fucked up by now,’ I muttered but inside I was slowly filling with dread again. What else could possibly go wrong? What more fucked up shit could happen than already had?
‘Honestly, there’s fucked up and then there’s this.’
‘Don’t keep me hanging.’
‘Okay,’ she said, taking another long breath. ‘After I got home, I had to do a load more tests, uh brain scans and whatnot at the hospital. They keep track of how bad it’s getting or if it’s regressing,’ she explained. ‘They take ages to get results back, though, sometimes like a week, I didn’t know why they were so backlogged but well, you’ll see.’
I nodded along, hoping that it was leading somewhere good but from what little she’d said before and from what I’d learned online, there hadn’t been much hope at all in her case. Terminal, wasn’t that what she’d said?
‘So then after like days and days of waiting they finally give me the results except it’s not right, or well, it was right, the first time wasn’t right-’ she broke off, shaking her head. ‘The scans were switched the first time,’ she said, pacing now. ‘And... and in the new ones – the ones that actually belonged to my brain - there was nothing, fucking nothing...’
‘Wait,’ I burst out, a sharp stab of adrenaline going through me as I finally put together what she was getting at. ‘Wait... are you telling me...’
‘I don’t have cancer,’ Raegan clarified, looking up at me as my eyes widened into saucers. ‘I don’t have it, I never had it. He was trying to score pain meds the whole damn time. He-’
A Month to Love (42)
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