It Hasn't Been Long Enough

Pete and Callie had been officially going out for two weeks now. Callie, for the first time in a long time, was actually happy. She finally had the man she loved back in her life. Patrick was doing well. The chemotherapy appeared to be doing its job, but he wasn’t in the clear yet. He still had to undergo chemo for a little while longer, until all of the cancer cells were gone.

“So, where’s Pete at?” Emma asked Callie as they sat in the cafeteria eating lunch during Callie’s break. This had become a regular occurrence, as Emma and Callie had become very good friends during the last few weeks.

“I don’t know,” Callie admitted. “He kind of disappears a lot. I have no idea where he goes.”

“You might want to ask Patrick. He might know,” Emma suggested.

“Maybe,” Callie said. “So, how’s the planning for the wedding going?”

“It’s going. I mean Patrick and I had planned on having the wedding at the end of this year, but I don’t know now that he’s going through chemo and everything. We might have to postpone it or something.”

“Well the doctors say that the chemo’s working, so maybe he’ll be fine by the end of this year. When did you have it set for anyway?”

“We had planned on it to be November 19th,” Emma responded. “Now, I’m thinking maybe we should have a spring wedding instead, but I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Patrick about it yet.”

“Patrick’s not going to care when your wedding is. All he wants is to marry you. I’m pretty sure he’d marry you right now in the hospital if he thought you’d go through with it.”

Emma smiled at her. “I think he would, too, but that’s not what I want.”

“Come on, let’s go check on your fiancé, huh?” Callie said picking up her tray and walking to put it away.

Five minutes later, Emma and Callie walked through the door to Patrick’s room to see Andy and Joe standing in there talking to each other.

“Hey, where’s Pete?” Callie asked the boys.

“I have no idea,” Patrick said from his hospital bed.

Callie looked over at Joe and Andy, both of whom who were shaking their heads. “I haven’t seen him all day,” Andy said.

“Hmmm…” Callie said. “Where could that boy be?”

Three hours later, Callie had finished her shift and was about to go home for the night. She hadn’t seen Pete all day, which surprised her since he was usually in Patrick’s room a lot. As she made it to the first floor and was about to walk out the door, all of a sudden a girl stopped her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But are you Callie?”

“Yeah,” Callie said slowly. “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Gloria Redding,” the girl introduced herself as she extended her hand. “Do you have time to talk for a few minutes? It’s about Pete.”

“Sure,” Callie said as she led the girl to a set of chairs that were currently unoccupied. “Is everything okay with Pete?” she asked worried.

“Yes and no,” Gloria said.

“What do you mean?” Callie asked.

“Well, let me introduce myself first. I’m Pete’s ex-girlfriend. He broke up with me a couple of weeks ago.”

Callie finally recognized her as the one who had been making out with Pete when she had went to talk to him a couple of weeks earlier. “Listen, I’m sorry that he broke up with you,” Callie began.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I know that Pete is in love with you. I knew that he has been in love with you. And when he told me he wanted to break up, I knew it was to be with you. I’m not mad at you or him. I understand,” Gloria said laughing.

“You do?” Callie asked skeptically.

“Yeah, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“So, what’s wrong?”

“I know you and Pete broke up before because he was using drugs,” Gloria said.

“That’s not the only reason, but yes, that was part of it,” Callie admitted.

“I’m here to warn you,” Gloria told her.

“Warn me about what?”

“Pete’s still into drugs,” Gloria stated.

“What? You must be mistaken. He’s not into drugs anymore.”

“I’m sorry to tell you that he is. I found out a little while ago. He made me swear not to tell anyone, but I knew I had to tell you. I was hoping that you can help him get away from them. I tried, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“How did you find out?” Callie asked.

“I walked in on him one day. And then he started disappearing and not telling me where he was, and I knew it was because of the drugs,” Gloria explained. “I don’t think anyone else knows, not Patrick or Joe or Andy.”

Callie thought to herself. Could he really be back into drugs? He knew that was the reason that they broke up in the first place. He had told her he loved her, so why would he continue doing drugs? Maybe Gloria was lying? But that would explain why Pete had been disappearing all the time and not telling her where he was going. Callie didn’t know what to think.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said to Gloria.

“I really do hope that you can help him,” Gloria said. “Oh, and can you not tell him I told you? He told me not to tell anyone, and…”

“I won’t tell him,” Callie interrupted with a smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem, and good luck,” Gloria said as she got up to leave.

Callie walked to her car, trying to figure out the best way to confront Pete about his drug use. She figured the only way was to just be upfront about it. She decided the next time she saw him, she would ask him about it.