“I’d forgotten about it,” I admitted, sinking into an oversized leather armchair.
Kass joined me, sinking into its twin. Maybe ‘forgotten’ was the wrong word. I’d pushed this place out of my mind so I didn’t have to deal with the memories.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Kass asked gently.
“I don’t know what there is to say.” Would talking change anything? Nope. “Do you know anything about Huntington’s disease?” I half joked.
She shook her head. “And please tell me you haven’t Googled it,” she added.
I winced.
“Wrenn! God, stay off the freaking computer. Talk to Dalton. You have questions, ask him. God,” she said again, shaking her head. “Didn’t you learn that time you thought you had cancer because Dr. Google analyzed your symptoms?”
Obviously not.
I checked my phone. Twenty missed calls. I held it up so Kass could see. She groaned and shook her head. I knew what she was thinking: give the poor guy a break. Only, I wasn’t ready to. I didn’t trust myself to get through a sentence without bursting into tears. I needed time to digest all of this. I needed time to figure out what my next move was.
“I’m going for a walk,” I mumbled, standing up.
“Do you want me to come?” Kass asked.
I shook my head. I needed some space. I needed time alone to figure out my head. I leaned over and hugged her, knowing how lucky I was to have a friend like her.
***
About a five minute walk down the road and off a dirt track was the little swimming spot where we used to go. The white sandy stretch of beach was sheltered by huge oak trees which made it the perfect spot to relax.
I walked over and sat down on the broken tree that served as a seat. I ran my fingers over the engravings carved into the wood, one in particular catching my eye: Best summer ever, 2009.
I had been fourteen that summer. We had come down to the beach house for the entire summer vacation, and I had met a boy. It was that summer I had my first kiss. I smiled as I remembered telling Mom after it had happened. We’d sat up late drinking hot cocoa, talking about things, and somehow the conversation became about him.
I couldn’t even remember the boy’s name. Sam or Steve or something. I never saw or heard from him again, but it was the closeness I felt to Mom that I’d cherish forever.
Kicking off my shoes, I walked over to the edge of the shore and dipped my toes in the freezing water. I watched as the tiny waves lapped at my feet before being soaked up into the sand, then falling back into the sea.
My mind turned to Dalton. I thought about how special he made me feel. Nobody had made me feel that way in such a long time. It sucked this was happening, but it didn’t change the way I felt about him.
It didn’t change the fact that I was in love with him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
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Dalton
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I paced the bedroom with my hands on my head, waiting for her to call. Or text. Anything. God, I was such an idiot. Her finding this out was bad enough, but to not hear it from me? That was worse. So much worse.
“Fuck!” I kicked the wall, instantly regretting it as a large hole appeared, about the size of my shoe. I watched as little fragments of plaster fell away to the floor. See, this was why I’d avoided relationships. How could you plan your future when you might not have one?
We found out my dad had Huntington’s when I was four. The fact that he had it meant one of his parents would have also had it. His being adopted at age one meant the genetic risk was not identified until it was too late.
Dad was forty-two when he was diagnosed with the disease, and fifty-three when he died. His diagnosis was the reason they’d decided not to have any more children. His progression had been fast, much faster than usual, but the speed of progression was also a genetic factor. Did it mean I would develop symptoms earlier and faster? Possibly.
Basically, when it boiled down to it, if I did have the mutation, there was a fifty percent chance that I would display symptoms by the age of forty. A simple little test could potentially tell me with one hundred percent accuracy whether I had the disease or not. But was that something I wanted to know?
Until now, not knowing had been better than finding out I had it. Not knowing gave me hope. But now it wasn’t just me; I had to think of Wrenn. If she even still wanted to be with me.
I picked up my phone and dialed Mom, needing her advice. She had been trying to get me to have the test for years, without success. She would want to know why I’d suddenly changed my mind.
“Dalton.” She sounded surprised to hear from me.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to relieve some of the tension from the last few days. “How are you?”
“Good. Is something wrong? You sound upset.”