Chapter Sixteen

"I sat with you in the massaging chairs," Rebecca whispered. Her mother had been horrified to see her get up and walk to the front door. She'd put on her slippers and quickly checked her appearance in the mirror… even though she knew her hair was not to be helped. After calming it with a brush she'd walked slowly, battling queasiness, out onto the porch.

Aaron's head snapped up as he nearly jumped in surprise. He turned around on the patio chairs, setting his book down without even marking his page. His smile stretched from ear to ear as he got up to help her to a chair.

"I sat with you in the massaging chairs," she told him again as she shivered in the cold. She swallowed the nausea and set down her huge hospital water bottle, wrapping her arms around her. "And I am not just going to go and show someone the massaging chairs, sit in them with that person, and forget about them for the rest of my life." She lowered her eyes. "As if I could forget about you for the rest of my life anyway."
Aaron reached for her head, but she pulled away. "Let me finish. I told you everything, Aaron, and I risked it all to be your friend. I let you kiss me, Aaron! You cannot imagine what I was going through when I heard that you'd betrayed me. You cannot imagine how many tears I cried. I'm not going to go and play the 'as if I didn't have enough to deal with' card with you, but I am not going to hide my anger, sadness, and disappointment in you."

He took a deep breath and captured her hand again. "Rebecca, you do not know how sorry I am."

"I think I do. Because you are no sorrier than I am about this. I trusted you, and now I feel like a fool, when I know the truth: you are the one that should be feeling like an idiot. But here I am, thinking that I should have been the one to know that all of this was going to happen."

"I love you."

Rebecca forgot her roiling stomach the second he spoke those three words. Tears came unbidden along with the shock as she brought her head up to look at him. He was not smiling, and this time she knew he was honest. She knew it was time to be honest herself. "And I love you."

Aaron gently kissed the palm of her hand and looked back up at her. "I know you think that all this time our friendship was fake, but by the time you'd told me about your leukemia, I was sold. Truth be told: I have never met anyone so kind, so faithful in the Lord, so beautiful inside and out… there are no words to describe you," Aaron said softly. "While you had every reason to be angry with the Lord, to be angry with life in general, instead you were thinking of others. You all but cut yourself off from the rest of the world so that no one but those closest to you would have to deal with any pain.

"I wanted to tell you about the Dare. In fact, I was about to throw it all away, should have made that decision the second I felt a real friendship growing. I was about to go talk to the juniors and tell them I couldn't do the Dare, and I was so close to telling you everything and coming clean. But, of course, I had to be an idiot, and I don't know what was going through my head. I also don't know how I will ever make it up to you."

Rebecca felt the hot tears running down her cheeks, and she didn't stop them. Neither did she look at Aaron when she said, "You don't have to make anything up to me. I have already forgiven you."

"Then let me come in and play a board game with you."