NEVER GOODBYE (An Albany Boys Novel) (23 page)

              He knows. I don’t know how he knows, but he does and he hates me.

              I take deep breaths and push past the tears that want to come. I don’t deserve the pity they may provide. I hear the bags hit the bench before he brushes past me and into my room, waiting for me to follow; waiting for me to explain my betrayal, my secret.

              Like a child called for her punishment I drag myself down the hall, past my brother’s closed door, and into my room where Vaun is going through my box of quotes with a new light into their meaning. I would mind if it were any other person on this earth, but not Vaun. My last secret has been exposed and no other meets its magnitude.

              The door closes with a soft click and I back up against it and wait.

              It feels like he’s going through every single quote, every single thought, every single raw emotion I’ve had since Mom and Dad’s accident. I don’t move the entire time he processes and then he speaks.

              “Are you dying?” his voice is hollow and I almost sob, but cover my mouth.

              He still doesn’t look my way, he’s staring at a piece of paper or his hand or the floor or … I don’t know. I can’t see his eyes and I want to. I need to, but I’m too scared to move or tell him for the fear of him leaving me here.

              “Are. You. Dying?”

              I swallow the hard lump from my throat and take a deep breath. “The doctors say my chances are slim of surviving the treatment.”

              He nods and then his whole body is nodding. No. He’s shaking, he’s crying. I shove the fear aside and run to his feet, my knees burning against the carpet. I don’t care about anything other than Vaun who drops the ripped paper to the floor and covers his face, not wanting me to see him.

              I wrap my arms around him and try to absorb his pain and he lets me. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me to the bed with him and holds me so tight it’s almost painful. His wet cheek is against my neck, against my cheek and then he’s kissing me more desperate than the day in the rain. It’s so raw and beautiful and I want more. I want him to make love to me again. I want him to wipe the memory of yesterday’s treatment, of today, of his pain away and I want it for him too. My knuckles graze his hot skin as I pull his tee up but he stiffens and leaps from the bed, thrusting his hands through his hair. His breathing is ragged, then again, so is mine.

              The vast difference between having him in my arms and then not is unpleasant. It’s almost painful, in fact.

              “Fu―ck!” Vaun roars, hitting the kitty poster. I flinch and my hand shoots to my mouth, muffling a squeal. I’m up off the bed and I have his fist in my hand as he stares at the damage in the wall. I don’t care about the wall, why does he care about the wall?

              “Sorry, Blue.” And then he’s running from my room. I’m calling out to him, crying, but he runs right out of my house to his truck, out of my sight and maybe out of my life.

              I could get in my car and chase him; I could beg for forgiveness. I could promise him the world I want to give him. I could do all of these things, but I won’t because he deserves more than all of that. This is what he needs and has needed since he first saw me on that stage. Vaun Campbell would be better off without me and that’s how I’m going to leave it.

              I turn away from the emptiness I feel without Vaun. I have no one else to blame but myself and return to the crime scene of my room. It doesn’t look like my room; it’s a stranger’s room. All but that one wall. The wall Vaun and I put posters on. The hole is nothing compared the emptiness he’s left behind. Then there’s the heart of the wall, Vaun’s two quotes pinned side by side. I scream until my sob breaks through and hit play on the stereo in the corner of my room, spin the volume so it’s so loud that the bass to
Radioactive
is distorted. I grab my box of quotes and throw them at our wall. They flutter like large confetti to the ground and behind furniture. I rake the posters from the wall and tear them up with a growl that’s almost feral until I’ve run out of energy, out of fight and crumble to the floor howling amongst the wreckage that is my life.

              Arms wrap around me from behind, making me gasp. I don’t want Benny to see me like this. He’s been exposed to too much in his innocent life. Then I can smell him and I know it’s not Benny.

              “I’m so sorry, Blue.” he croaks in my ear past the music, Lying behind me so his body is flush, like we’re spooning before sleep. Only we aren’t ready to sleep, we’re not ready for anything other than accepting what I’ve done to us both and relishing in this embrace for what it is.

Vaun, the beautiful boy he is, came back to make sure I’m okay to find me anything but. He loves me ― even though he probably wishes he doesn’t, holding me until I come out of the darkness of my broken dreams.

              I have no idea how long we lie like this, the stereo blaring the song
Demons
now. My tears have dried up and I’m too scared to move in case Vaun stops stroking my hand. I’m scared that he’ll get up now that I have calmed down and he’ll leave knowing I offer nothing but pain if the doctors are right. I know he would be better off without me, but I don’t want to give him up.

I don’t want to fight without him.

“Vaun. I’m sorry.”

He stops stroking. This is it. He’s going to leave. “I wish you told me, though, I can see you tried. I remember you were going to tell me twice before and I assume that’s what you were going to do tonight.”

I nod in silence.

“You had treatment yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

He squeezes me tighter. “First time?”

I don’t want to think about it, but he needs answers and I’ll give him whatever he wants. “Yeah.”

“Rough, huh? I wish I was there for you.”

I nod, because I wish he was too and, yet, I’m glad he didn’t see me like that.

“Why were you at NMC? The oncology unit in Kansas is the best.”

“I did go to Kansas. I just got sicker than I could handle, so Dad and April had to take me to Northwest Medical Center. They gave me some fluids and a drug that stops the nausea.”

Vaun pulls from me. I knew it was coming and I deserved it.

He obviously thinks differently and scoops me from the floor. I wrap my arms around his neck and almost shed a fresh load of tears over the joy that he has chosen, for now, to stick around.

We sit on the bed, eyes locked as he asks honest questions and I give him brutally honest answers. Yes I’m dying, yes I’m fighting, yes my odds are worse than fair, I say. And when my throat is so sore from screaming, crying and talking he asks me the most important question of all.

“Blue. I faced a lot with my mom and I really don’t know how, but I survived it. I’m just so scared my heart isn’t strong enough for this; that I’ll let you down. I’m scared you will give in to the fight and I’m left saying goodbye to the last person I will love in my entire life.” He takes a large, steadying breath and I almost cry at the intensity in his eyes.
“Will you fight? I need to know you’ll fight, Blue. That you’ll fight so damn hard so we never say goodbye.”

“Baby, I promise with all my heart, with both our hearts, I will give it my all until I can’t give any more. Heaven and earth can meet wherever it likes, but we aren’t going to be separated until you decide. I love you, Vaun, I will love you more than you can ever imagine.”

His hands are on my cheeks and he’s staring into me, into my very soul, so I can feel his next words, “I will never give you up.
I
will fight when you can’t fight anymore because I’m never giving you up. God and heaven can’t have you because you’re mine, because I loved you first.”

“You win,” I whisper just before his lips meet mine.

***

Dinner is late and although the boys wanted nothing but steaks and pizza on the grill, we need salad for balance. Despite their arguments I make a coleslaw and garden salad. Given how much they complain I’m glad to see that they eat the lot. I’m still afraid of throwing up, the medication is helping, but I don’t think I will ever forget what it felt like to throw up until you were choking on your own stomach. The fear has my appetite doing a vanishing act but I eat because the memory of having nothing in my gut is worse. That and I don’t want to worry the boys.

It was the best dinner I’ve had in this new house. Not because of the food, but the fun and the life it brought. Sitting at the old, wooden table outside with the scent of scorched meat in the air, we laugh and tell stories right through dinner until my first yawn. As soon as it escapes my body, both sets of eyes are on me and I feel the concern that must have been not too far from the surface.

It’s like raining on a sunny day, actually, no. I like rain, especially on a sunny day. This is just glum and there’s no going back from it as Benny refuses to look at me and Vaun can’t look away, as though I might disappear if he does.

“I’m fine. I’m just tired.” Glancing at my watch I frown because it’s only just after nine.
Fine
. “Okay, so I concede that I’m not feeling the best, but please stop it. I need you both to treat me normally. Benny, you are my little brother and having the big C doesn’t change that. I will annoy you and be overbearing and love you until it’s embarrassing and then love you some more. That’s a sister’s job. It’s my job and that will
never, ever
change.” Tears are starting to well in me and I don’t give a crap as I get up and grab Benny and squeezing him tightly until the dam breaks when he squeezes back.

“And as for you,” I say to Vaun over Benny’s shoulder as he slackens his hold. “You need to promise me that you won’t looks at me like I’m about to break.”

“Pass.”

What?!
“This isn’t something you can pass on, Vaun. We don’t get a pass here.”

Benny gets up, grabs his plate and heads for the kitchen, leaving Vaun and I to talk. He might only be ten, but he is older than that where it counts.

“Blue, there are going to be plenty of times in this journey where I am going to use a pass and you aren’t going to like it. I will do anything for you, but as much as it hurts to say this for both of us, some things are just out of my hands. I need this pass because I love you and it hurts to watch you suffer,” he grabs my hands, “I need this pass because no matter how much I try to stay tough and strong for you, I’m not always going to be able to hold back my pain.”

“Shit.” I leap into his arms and we nearly topple off the bench seat. I love Vaun and I’m really, really, freaking amazed at how much I don’t deserve him and yet here he is, loving me just the same. “I love you so much. I don’t want you to go through this.”

“I don’t want you to either. But God, I guess, is testing us.”

I pull from his chest and rest my hands on it as I gaze into his eyes that are literally sparkling from the fairy lights around the deck. “Do you believe in him?”

He frowns for a second. “Who? God?”

“Yeah. Do you believe there’s a God?”

He takes a long breath and looks like he’s just pondering this for the first time. Though, I know from experience, when you’re faced with tragedy you question it. Vaun has faced one of the worst kinds of tragedy; he would have pondered the existence of God many times and probably still prays just in case.

“I don’t know, Blue. I thought so once. Mom took me to church like a good Catholic boy every Sunday. I went through the Sunday religious classes with all the kids and took it for granted that he existed and was looking out for those who did good and believed. Then Mom got cancer and I hated him.  I hated him so much and I told him so. I went to his house where we cherished him and prayed and I told him I hated him.”

My heart is aching picturing him in pain crying out to God for help. His hatred was just that, a cry out. God didn’t hear him that day. Nor did he hear me when I did the same thing after Mom was left in a coma.

Vaun continues and I try to remain strong for him, “I went from hating him to hating everyone. Then I just realized that if the God I was taught about really existed, he wouldn’t have taken her from me like that, leaving me alone. I guess I say his name out of old habit now.”

I hold back the tears and the shudder even though I feel the breach. I reach out and stroke his cheek so that he realizes that this is a memory, not the present. “For the first time, Vaun, I don’t feel alone. For the first time, I believe.”

His eyes flutter as he grasps what I’m saying, what I myself am only just realizing. “Vaun, God didn’t leave us alone, he led us to one another. He has to exist. He gave me a chance with you and that’s why I think I’m going to make it after all. I know it in here,” I say, patting my chest and believing every word. “I will live because we need each other, because we love each other so much it will kill two to take one and that’s too much loss.”

“I hope you’re right, Blue. I hope you’re right.”

“I know I am. For the first time, I
know
.”

Benny walks out holding the pie in one hand and three forks in the other and a can of whipped cream under his arm. “I don’t know what you know,” he says, “But I know it’s time for pie.”

Vaun and I laugh and he grips my hand as he says, “I know it’s always time for pie.”

We have almost polished off the entire Apple pie when Benny looks up at me. Swallowing his mouthful, he asks, “Why do they call it the big C?”

I glance at Vaun over Benny’s shoulder before putting my fork down, sitting back and looking into my little brother’s eyes. I smile reassuringly and hope he feels it. “Well, it’s what they call the disease I have because some people are scared of saying it or hearing it.”

“Like Voldemort in Harry Potter?” I can see Vaun grin behind Benny and my smile grows despite my brother’s concern.

“Exactly like that. They are scared that just saying the word or his name will bring about danger for themselves, I guess.”

“That’s dumb!”

Vaun chuckles, “I agree, bro.” Benny glances over his shoulder to Vaun who winks.