Out of Reach
by Missy Johnson.
Out now at all major online retailers. See below for an excerpt.
Synopsis:
My best friend was dying and I was in love with his girl.
Andy and I had been best friends since we were eight-years old.
Watching him slowly fade away, ever closer to his final breath, made
me so incredibly angry. I knew there was nothing I could do to change it--I had given in to despair, but Andy had not. He had one last hand to play.
He wasn't going to simply sit back and wait for Death to claim him--not Andy. He was going to live life until he couldn't hold his eyes open any longer.
Andy didn't want to die in some sterile hospital and asked me to take him and Emily to the beach. It would be our last road trip together.
Emily. Emily was a problem for me.
I harbored a secret that would have torn our friendship apart. I was in love with Andy's girl, and had been since she'd walked into our sixth grade class, so many years ago.
So what kind of person am I? My best friend is dying, and it's awful--but my heart still aches for his girl. I hate myself for thinking beyond Andy's death and whether there could ever be a future for Emily and I, but I can't help it.
I'm in love with her.
Excerpt
“Are you warm enough?” I tugged at the blankets covering Andy. I was cold. I wasn’t sure how he couldn’t be. He rolled his eyes and pushed the blankets back down.
“I’m fine, Em. Stop stressing,” he said. He reached up and traced along the side of my cheek. “You’re the one who’s cold. You’re shivering. Maybe you need some Andy loving to warm you up,” he teased. I leaned down to kiss him, forcing myself to smile at his joke.
“No,” I said, putting my hands up to stop him as he tried to push one of the blankets onto me. “Just do what you’re told for once,” I muttered, kissing him on the nose.
“Right, because you always do what I tell you to do,” he laughed.
“That’s different,” I replied smugly, folding his hand into mine. “You’re skin and bones. It’s not like you could stop me.”
“Harsh,” he said, a faint smile on his lips. “Em? Thanks for this. What you and Seth are doing for me means a lot.”
“I know it does.” My voice dropped. The tightness in my chest became more apparent. It was always there; a gnawing feeling, like I was just waiting for something bad to happen. And I guess I was.
I remember the day of his diagnosis like it was yesterday. I remember sitting in that surgery with him and Deb as the doctor explained how the melanoma they’d found between his little toe had spread to his pancreas. The prognosis wasn’t good, but it could have been worse. There was hope.
Until there wasn’t.
Terminal. Even hearing that word, I still clung to hope that a miracle would happen, and somehow the cancer would shrink. I’d lost my parents; surely life couldn’t be this cruel, could it? I felt awful even thinking about myself. I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt. He’d fought so hard for so long, and to be told there was nothing more they could do…how do you process that?
“Em,” Andy said, “Good thoughts, remember?”
I smiled, blinking back tears as I reached inside my jacket pocket and touched the small leather binder. Good thoughts. When it was obvious I wasn’t coping, I’d began writing down a list of memories, forcing myself to only focus on the good. It had been Andy’s idea, a way for me to remember time we’d had together. The time we had left. It was my way of staying strong for him, because the last thing he needed was for me to be a broken mess.
“Good thoughts,” I mumbled, squeezing his hand.