There were many times Wade nearly stopped helping me.
I glanced at him.
He looked away.
Do not make him innocent. He will try to make himself guilty enough that you do not have to divide your anger. Do not let him. He argued with me more than anyone has ever argued with me except you.
A laugh caught painfully in my throat.
Wade muttered, “That sounds like him.”
I kept reading.
But he kept the promise.
There was a blot beneath the word promise.
Ink, perhaps. Or water.
I made him swear that you would not learn I was sick or dead while your treatment remained uncertain. Not from him. Not from a hospital. Not from anyone he could stop.
I raised my eyes slowly.
Wade’s face had become unreadable.
“That’s why you kept checking on me.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t being kind.”
“I was trying to be.”
