Perfect Strangers

45

She clears her throat. “He grew up in San Francisco. Got a scholarship to the Art Institute in Chicago, then continued his education at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris.”

So he’s an American, like me. Why are my hands shaking? “What else?”

“Do you want to know how much he’s got in his bank account? Because I was surprised how loaded he is, considering the whole starving artist stereotype—”

“Kelly! No, I don’t want to know how much money he has! I want to know whatever it is you’re stalling to get to!”

After a beat, she answers. “He’s got ALS.”

I frown, searching my memory for any clues about what ALS is, but come up empty. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

I can tell by the tone in her voice that it’s bad, but I don’t know exactly how bad until she adds, “You know, the thing the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking died of.”

I picture the shrunken and twisted figure of a man in a motorized wheelchair. A man completely paralyzed, who cannot speak, move, or do anything independently. A man trapped in a useless body, but with the full capacity of his brilliant brain.

A man entombed in his own flesh.

I gasp in horror, then clap my hand over my mouth.

“I’m sorry, babe. I know that’s a lot. Especially after…after everything you’ve already been through.”

“Are you sure?” I whisper.

“Unfortunately, yes. When Mike didn’t find anything in James’s credit or criminal records, he decided to look into his medical history in case he had herpes or something worse he might be trying to hide from you. He was diagnosed last year. Apparently, he’s been involved in several clinical trials.”

Oh sweet Jesus, that’s why he had to go to Germany. “What’s the prognosis for this disease? Is the progression slow? Is there a cure?”

Kelly’s voice grows quiet, but her words kick me right in the gut. “There’s no cure. It’s always terminal. Most people die within three to four years of being diagnosed.”

It makes sense now. It all makes perfect, awful sense.

James’s elusiveness. His melancholy. How he said he doesn’t have time for small talk, and that sometimes ignorance is the wiser choice. His strange intensity. His portraits of people in pain.

His obsession with death.

It all meshes seamlessly like the pieces of a puzzle fitting together, until I can see the complete picture revealed in its awful truth:

James is dying.

I think I might throw up.

My voice shaking, I plead, “What do I do?”

Kelly’s answer is instant and firm. “Break it off.”

“What? God, I can’t be that ruthless!”

“He already gave you an out. You wouldn’t have to explain yourself. Just don’t call him again. Walk away and save yourself a lot of heartbreak.” Her voice gentles. “Haven’t you already had enough?”

That idea feels completely wrong. I shake my head, insisting, “No, I need to talk to him about this.”

“You can’t talk to him about it, babe! What would you say? ‘I had my friend in the FBI take a peek at your entire life history because I thought you might be a psycho?’ How do you think he’d feel about that? Violated much?”

I stand and start to pace the length of the room, chewing on my thumbnail and trying to think, but my thoughts are so scattered it’s impossible.

It was wrong of me to ask Mike to look into James. No matter my reasons, it was wrong, and I can see that now. I’ve violated his privacy. If I wasn’t cool with the way things were between us—with the no-questions policy that I set up—I should’ve said so, not gone behind his back to get answers.

Answers to questions I had no right asking in the first place. Simply because we’re having s*x doesn’t mean I deserve to know all his secrets.

He doesn’t owe me that.

He doesn’t owe me anything at all.

I collapse into an overstuffed armchair near the window and rest my head back, closing my eyes. “Yes, he’ll probably feel violated, but I have to tell him anyway.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“It’s the right thing to do, Kell. I won’t mention the FBI because that makes the whole thing sound ten times worse. I’ll just say I ran a background check on him because I’m a single woman trying to protect herself. Women do that with new men they’re dating all the time.”

Kelly’s tone is dry. “Sure. Great idea. Except if the man has half a brain, he’ll know you can’t just dial up someone’s legally protected medical history on the internet to find out they’re in clinical trials.”

“I could be a hacker.”

She snorts. “You, a hacker? You’re barely computer literate! You don’t even use a computer to write your manuscripts!”

“He doesn’t know that!”

“If he’s seen the bio on your website, he does.”

I groan. The bio. That stupid bio my publisher insisted had to be included on my author website, along with a picture of me sitting at my desk at home…writing longhand on a yellow legal pad like someone’s secretary from the fifties.

It’s cool to go old school, the caption under the photo reads, because I am a gigantic i***t.

“It’s possible he’s seen that,” I admit grudgingly. “He told me he asked the building manager here about me. I don’t know how much information he got, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out who I am and look me up.”

“So there you go.”