Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander Page A

said. I groaned, knowing where he was going with this. “I’m just saying, if you hadn’t interrupted us, Mom might have had her chance.”
    “Oh, God, don’t remind me.” I put my hand to my forehead as my mother laughed. Debbie had been my best friend in high school, until I’d found out she had the hots for my brother. “I’m permanently scarred by that, you know.” I turned toward my mother, who was still chuckling. “I thought you wanted us to be all celibate and stuff? You’re supposed to have my back on this.”
    Her expression melted from amused to sick, and her pallor changed from pale pink to yellow. She put a hand to her mouth, and rushed for the downstairs bathroom door.
    “What—look what you did, Edie.” Jake instantly blamed me. Old habits die hard.
    “I didn’t do anything.” I slowly stood. The sounds of my mother hurling in the other room began.
    Jake glanced back toward the bathroom, fearfully. He lived a rough life now, but I’m not sure if anything could prepare him for this. “If you didn’t stress her out so much, she’d have been fine,” he lashed out.
    “Me? Stress her out? The daughter with a real career? Who do you think she stays up at night crying over? Me, or you?” I stood up, ready to take it up with him once and for all. But he looked as scared as I knew I felt about Mom. The anger washed out of me. I was a nurse; when people were throwing up, I knew what to do. I turned and went into the bathroom with my mother and closed the door.
    *   *   *
    Here I was again, being the good kid, in a bathroom too small for two people at once. I couldn’t even kneel beside her, so I just sat on the patch of countertop by the sink and reached down to stroke the back of her head.
    Being the good kid never brings any rewards. A good life is its own reward, people tell you, and you in turn try to tell yourself that, but when you’re the good kid and someone else is the black sheep, and they get all the extra attention and energy—it’s hard not to be jealous of them.
    I waited until she was done, and we were both quiet. I took a washcloth from the cabinet over the toilet, got it wet with the faucet wedged beside my ass, and wrung it out to hand down to her.
    She took it and ran it across her face. “I hate being like this.”
    “I hate it too. The cancer,” I clarified, after a second’s extra thought. “I could stay in here with you puking all night. Not that I’d look forward to it, or anything.”
    She laughed and coughed, and handed the washcloth back up to me.
    “Isn’t there anything they can do?” My voice was smaller out loud than I thought it’d be, in my mind. Now that we were alone in here, no Peter, no Jake, I wanted my mommy to tell me everything was going to be all right. Even if it wasn’t.
    “I’m sorry to do this to you, Edie.” She gave me a bittersweet smile.
    “It’s not your fault or anything. I just want to be sure—”
    “I’m sure.” She looked around at our bathroom’s close walls. “I’m tired of being like this.”
    “The whole thing is so unfair.” She was supposed to be the one protecting a sick me. This role reversal felt wrong. “In my head, it only happens to grandparents. Not parents, you know?” She gave me a pointed look. “I’m not going to have a kid just because you have cancer, Mom. Sheesh. You’ll get one someday. You just have to survive this is all.”
    She gave me a weak smile. “I’ll try,” she said. For the first time, I realized I was being unfair. Telling people to survive terminal illnesses was kind of a dick move. Like telling addicts to just quit their habits already.
    “You just … do what you have to do,” I said, leaving things open-ended. She would do what she had to do, and I’d keep searching for something that could heal her. Really heal her, all the way.
    She sat on the bathroom floor now, her back against the wall, and reached up to put her hand on my knee. “You don’t even have