THIEF: Part 4 by Kimberly Malone Read Free Book Online

die?
                  I take a deep breath as we shake Dr. Brody’s hand, grab our coats, and head for the parking deck. Stop , I tell myself. Don’t think like that.It doesn’t help anything, and it’s all actually pretty unlikely.
                  Then, I recite my research to myself, all the tidbits I read online after breakfast, while Alex was showering. Most people my age, when the illness is found early, reach recovery…only a small percentage need lifelong dialysis or transplants…your lungs are fine, your kidney function’s almost totally normal….
                  “Positive thinking, right?” Alex reminds me.I snap out of my own thoughts and nod, shivering as he takes my hand in his.All around us, through the narrow openings of the deck, I can see snow beginning to fall.
     
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    “You look beautiful, Aunt Jane.”
                  Fiona hands me a tissue as Jane steps out of the bathroom in her suite.Her dress, flowing and bright white, looks like fancy curtains blowing in the breeze as she does a little spin, feigning modesty.“The real stars here are your dresses, if you ask me,” she says, fixing one of my cap sleeves.
                  My dress, cerulean blue and identical to Fiona’s, has an Old Hollywood feeling to it, combined with “classic Broadway,” as Aunt Jane calls it.I try to notice that Fiona’s dress fits her perfectly—her hourglass figure, athletic but curvy—while mine, already taken in twice in the last two months, keeps slipping out of place.My elbows look a little bony, and my collarbone seems too rigid for the billowing fabrics everyone else has on.
                  Still , I remind myself, you’re here . That’s all that matters. I might not look healthy yet, but I am.The medication’s over, and its effects—according to Dr. Brody, at least—will wear off soon.My thinning hair will come back, the nausea’s already stopped, and my appetite’s back with a vengeance.When I look at myself in the mirror after Fiona finishes my makeup, I don’t look that sick at all.Frail, maybe, or outright scrawny, but not fresh off of chemo drugs, that’s for sure.
                  “All right,” Aunt Jane says solemnly, “moment of truth.”She takes a deep breath, then pulls out two pairs of shoes from one of the enormous trunks she brought with her to the hotel.“White and silver, or…white and gold?”
                  Fiona and I laugh, shaking our heads, and point to the silver pair.Jane happily slips them on, then flops onto the bed with us.
                  “Jane, your dress!” Fiona reminds her.She starts smoothing the train, frantic.
                  “Relax, sweetheart—that’s what steam…things are for.”She waves her hand vaguely at the corner, where a clothes steamer sits alone, ready and waiting.“I just want to take a minute to relax with you two.”Jane grabs our hands and squeezes, and for a second, I think I hear tears coming.She chokes them back, though.“I know a stepdaughter and niece aren’t the same as two daughters, but…well.You two are the closest things I’ve got, and honestly?Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
                  Fiona smiles, leaning into Jane’s one-armed hug, before I do the same.
                  “Still mad at me?” Jane whispers into my hair.I shake my head.I’ve nursed the hurt of her betrayal long enough.Actually, it was Alex who helped me do it.
                  “That was almost a decade ago,” he’d said, after my last round of medicine, when I told him I didn’t want to call Jane for a celebratory dinner.“She’s said she was sorry.”
                  “And you said you’d drop it.”
                  “I will, I will.”He turned on the wipers of my car, smearing sleet off the windshield as we drove home.I had a