Read Online Today & Tomorrow by Susan Fanetti - Free Book Online

there’s a medic-alert card. I have that card because I’m very sick. It has my father as my contact. You should check it.”
     
    With a Malibu beat, the cop was probably used to rich kids trying to get over, so she sighed heavily and went over to the pile of wallets they’d collected. She found Analisa’s and took out her medic-alert card.
     
    And then she stared over at them, her mouth open. She wasn’t too jaded to be starstruck by the notion of meeting Analisa’s father, three-time Sexiest Man Alive.
     
    Fifteen minutes later, Donovan Winter, with his trusty mountain, Ed, was standing in the front lot of the bar, signing autographs, agreeing to cover the damages, and arranging for everyone to be released from their zip ties and sent home.
     
    When they were free of their plastic restraints, Donovan pulled Analisa to his side. The look he gave Nolan was full of blame and disappointment. “You can say goodbye here, Nolan. I’ll get her home.”
     
    “Daddy, wait.”
     
    Her father turned the same look on her. “No. You don’t get to talk right now. What the two of you did tonight…my God. Analie, you’re hurt! Other people were hurt! After the day you had? What the hell were you thinking?”
     
    Forgetting Donovan’s anger, Nolan turned to Analisa. “What kind of day did you have?”
     
    “None of your business,” her father answered for her. He tried to pull her away.
     
    But she refused to budge. “Had my regularly-scheduled look at my innards. It’s gotten frisky, so I’ve got a revised prognosis. It wants me dead by Christmas. Cool, huh?”
     
    She called her cancer “It.” The capital letter was audible. Like a name.
     
    Nolan reached for and caught her hand. “What? Shit. Ani, no.” She wasn’t sick. She didn’t look or act sick at all. It made no fucking sense. Christmas was only three months away. How could this beautiful, vibrant girl be dying so quickly?
     
    “Yep. Oh well.”
     
    “I—”
     
    Her father cut him off and pulled them apart, his face contorted by anger and sorrow. “Goodbye, Nolan. Whatever is happening with the two of you is over now. Enough is enough. My daughter needs to be home. With her family.” Donovan Winter pulled her toward his Range Rover, where Ed was waiting. Analisa looked over her shoulder and locked eyes with Nolan for as long as she could.
     
    Fuck.
     
    No. Fucking no. To all of it, just fucking no.
     

SIX
     
     
    Analisa tucked her windblown hair behind her ear and wrapped her mother’s big shawl more tightly around her shoulders. The October morning breeze had a bite to it, but the sky was clear and the day was bright.
     
    She liked the beach best on days like this. Too chilly and early for many people to be out, but still a visibly California day: blue skies, the sun making diamonds on the surface of the Pacific, the gentle sound of a light surf washing the sand. Their neighbor’s dog barking as he chased shorebirds.
     
    October. Fuck. In the back of her mind, It was playing the Final Jeopardy theme. Time was running out.
     
    She knew it was true. Her insides were starting to hurt, and she was losing energy. Not so much that anybody needed to know—in fact, most days, the change was so subtle she wondered if she weren’t feeling more than was there, now that her death sentence had moved up—but no. She did feel it. Or, rather, It. Creeping in, taking over, turning off switches.
     
    The cancer was in pretty much all her organs now. Not her brain, thank God, but that was probably only a matter of time. At the first sign that it had dug into her brain, she’d take matters into her own hands. She was willing to deal with a lot, but she wouldn’t tolerate losing her sense of self. She wanted to die as the person she was, not some stranger It had made her. She hadn’t told her father or anyone about that decision, but it was iron-clad.
     
    In the latest scans, Its newest incursion was light, more shadows than tumors, but