The month of August had gone by in a blur. Days between Sunday and Thursday came and went, much as they had been before that day I ran into Brooklyn at the hospital. It was almost like hitting a reset button. I went to painting classes that Aunt Mel taught. We took Nikki to chemotherapy on Friday's, and on the weekends, I sat on the beach and worked on my book.
"So, you know my friend Raquel, right?" Nikki asked as she bit into a carrot. A gust of wind blew by us, sending sand swirling in every direction, including onto our paisley beach blanket.
"Is she the one that has like four pet snakes?" I replied with an eyebrow raise.
Nikki pressed her lips together. "I'm pretty sure she's down to three. I think one of them escaped."
I felt my skin crawl as I imagined lifting up the toilet seat and seeing a thick, spotted snake curled up in the water, like in those videos people post online about finding wild animals in their house.
"Anyway, that's not the point," Nikki continued and waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly. "The point is, Raquel invited us to Oakridge farms for some Rosé festival thing, and you're coming."
I bit at my cuticles. Nikki had taken me for a gel manicure a few weeks ago, and I had been good about keeping my longstanding nervous habit to a minimum, but the purple nail polish was starting to chip around the edges.
"I don't know Nikki." I replied with a shrug. "They're your friends, not my friends."
Nikki rolled her eyes. "They can be your friends. You just need to give them a chance."
"Okay, okay, I get it." I interjected. I started drawing circles in the sand with a twig that had been laying beside our blanket. "But It's fine. Really, I'm fine."
Nikki slung her arm around me. "I know you're fine. But I want you to be happy. There's a difference, you know."
I glanced out at the ocean in front of us, calm and glistening with rays of the afternoon sun. The salty air filled my lungs, and I felt a strange relief wash over me. I couldn't help but smile faintly to myself, because as much as I hated to admit it, everyone was right about one thing: salt water truly was the cure to everything. I had done enough crying, letting all my sadness and anger and frustration melt away with my tears, and now the spray of the ocean cleared my head. It was as if I was being rejuvenated here.
"Speaking of being fine..." I quickly pivoted before my emotions took over. "You aren't nervous about your doctor's appointment Thursday? It's not a normal chemo treatment."
"Nice subject change," Nikki said with a grin. "But no, I'm not. Over the past few months I've learned to just let go of what I can't control, and I just have to accept that whatever happens, happens. Right?"
I sighed heavily. Nikki wasn't the only one who had learned a thing or two about letting go. I was definitely trying. But sometimes when it was quiet, and I would close my eyes, I could still hear Brooklyn's laugh in my head, and still smell his warm scent in the air around me.
I had learned how to let go, but there were little things that I kept, just like his sweatshirts in the back of my closet, that I wasn't quite ready to let go of.
The hospital smelled more like ammonium and rubber than usual as Nikki, Aunt Mel and I made our way through the squeaky hallways. Nikki's oncologist, Dr. Yang, was a younger doctor that was always in immaculately pressed blouses and had her black hair pulled back into the tightest ponytails. She sat at her desk with her hands folded in front of her, and a stack of folders and files piled neatly next to her hands.
"Thank you for all coming today on short notice," Dr. Yang began, her voice as crisp as her blouse. I lowered myself into the chair beside Aunt Mel, who absentmindedly observed all of Dr. Leung's diplomas and awards that had been framed on her office walls.
"I wanted to go over Nikki's progress with all of you," Dr. Yang said as she pulled out a folder from the pile. She laid a black and white image in front of them.
"As you can see here, these are some of Nikki's initial MRIs when she was first diagnosed." Dr. Yang used a pen to point at certain areas of the image. "She had quite a few tumors on the lymph nodes under her arms, as well as on her neck."
I saw Nikki's face twist into a sneer as she rubbed at her neck.
Dr. Leung pulled a second image out of a different folder.
"Now, this is Nikki's MRI from last week." She continued to point with her pen. "There are fewer masses under her arms here, and the ones that remain in her neck have shrunk in size on average half a centimeter."
My jaw dropped open so wide, I thought it had unhinged itself from my skull. Aunt Mel exhaled a heavy breath beside me.
"Oh my god, I thought you were going to tell me I was dying!" Nikki yelled and threw her hands up in the air. I tried to stifle a laugh.
"You're in partial remission," Dr. Yang continued, her tone all business. "What that means is you're not what we consider having no evidence of disease, but the evidence of said disease has decreased dramatically."
"So what does this mean for her treatment?" Aunt Mel asked.
"We can begin to wean Nikki off of her treatment, but we will need to continue to monitor her should the cancer begin to grow again. We felt her combination of medications and chemotherapy was quite successful."
I felt Aunt Mel squeeze my hand, and the dark cloud that had loomed in the back of my head for months had dissipated. All the storms and hurricanes that seemed to plague me had begun to pass. There was nothing left but the sun, bright and warm and everything that I thought I had lost.
As the three of us made our way back through the hospital, Nikki wrapped her arms around both of us.
"I'm so glad you have you here," she said with a grin. "Both of you."
Aunt Mel smiled, and even though there was still blue paint on her neck and hairline, she looked different too. Almost a bit brighter, as if the sun had leant her some of its light. As we rounded a corner towards the exit, someone in a white jacket collided with her, spilling her stale coffee all over the front of her beige sundress.
"Oh my goodness, I am so sorry," the man in the white jacket said, handing her a pocket square from his blue button up shirt. He looked to be in his 40s, with hair neatly styled back and faintly peppered gray. He tucked a clipboard under his arm, and I could barely make out the name on his ID tag, but Dr. in bold letters was hard to miss.
"Oh don't worry, this coffee was no good anyway," Aunt Mel blotted at her dress, still smiling that same smile that gave her eyes a bit of glow.
"Can I at least buy you another one?" he asked.
I felt Nikki nudging me with her elbow. "Take your time, we'll be outside," she called and pulled me away quickly, before my mother had a chance to say otherwise. We laughed and cackled as we made our way outside to the courtyard. After catching my breath, I felt an odd pang in my chest, and I couldn't help but think about Brooklyn and the day we first met. Was he off in another hospital rehab, running away from doctors and spilling coffee all over someone else?
I looked back inside through the windows, where my mother was still chatting with the doctor. She laughed at something he said, and I instantly let go of all the negativity. She deserved to move forward too, just like Nikki and I were.
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