Face pale.
He had practiced looking devastated in the mirror.
Skyla dropped her keys.
“Archie?”
She rushed toward him.
All of her anger disappeared.
She dropped to her knees in front of him.
“What happened?”
He looked down.
“Did something happen to your mother?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
She grabbed his wrists.
“Then what?”
Archie swallowed.
“I got medical results today.”
Her fingers tightened.
“What results?”
“The headaches.”
“What headaches?”
“The ones I mentioned.”
He had mentioned headaches exactly twice.
Skyla’s face changed.
“I went for scans.”
She stared at him.
“What did they find?”
Now he crossed the point of no return.
“Cancer.”
The word left his mouth.
Skyla stopped breathing.
“What?”
“It’s rare.”
He looked away.
“Aggressive.”
Her hands went cold around his wrists.
He had spent hours reading medical journals so the lie would sound convincing.
He described a deeply located tumor.
Experimental immunotherapy.
Proton therapy.
