Unbearable (Undescribable) (16 page)

“You didn’t wake me.”

He walks over and sits down on the bed beside me.
He reaches up and runs his hand through my tangled hair.

I take in a deep breath before I fill him in on my
plans for the day. “Slade, I have something I have to do today.”

“Just stay home today and relax. Lay in bed and try
to get some sleep,” he says softly.

“You want me to lay in bed all day?” I ask him,
dumfounded.

“You need your rest. You’re not getting any, Angel.”

Crap. I hope I didn’t keep him up last night as
well. I push myself toward him and run my palms over his chest. “Why are you
getting ready so early on a Sunday?”

“I have some business I need to take care of.” He
cups my face in his hand.

“Stay with me?” Can’t he see how much I need him?

He shakes his head, pulling my hands off of him. “I
can’t, Angel. I have to go to the office to get some files that I had forgot
yesterday, then I have to go over to my parents’ to discuss a case with my
father.”

I take in a deep breath, ready to get this over
with. “Slade, I need to go talk to—”

“You don’t need to do anything,” he says slowly as
if speaking to a child, eyes searching mine. “You don’t have to make any
decisions about your mom’s house or your dad’s house right now.”

What would make him think that’s what I need to
take care of today? I’m going to put that off as long as I can. “But that’s not—”

He places his finger over my lips. “Angel, I keep
telling you not to worry about it. When you’re ready to deal with that, we will
talk about it.” He leans down and kisses me softly on the forehead before he
goes to get dressed.

I lie back down as I feel the tears threatening my
eyes. I don’t know what to do. He obviously does not want to hear about my
plans for the day. So, once more, I will just keep my mouth shut, keep everything
inside.

Slade walks out of the closet, now dressed in a
pair of jeans and a clean white t-shirt. I close my eyes, thinking about how we
are drifting apart. I know a relationship is not supposed to be based solely on
sex, but we aren’t having it at all and that’s a problem for me, especially
since I’m living with the biggest horn dog in town.

“I love you,” he says, getting my attention.

“I love you too.” I lean up and kiss him before he
heads to work.

I finally get out of bed and don’t waste a second
getting ready. I throw on a pair of white jean shorts with a gray t-shirt and a
pair of white Nike Shox. I grab the keys to Nadia and make my way toward St.
Charles.

It doesn’t take more than twenty minutes to get
there, but twenty minutes is a long time when your mind is trying to prepare
itself for the worst. I can’t keep my leg from bouncing up and down. I don’t
know if it’s my nerves or the coffee that I downed.

I pull up to Tate’s house and take a deep breath.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I hop out of the truck, walk up to his door,
and knock. I keep telling myself that I need to do this, that I need to know,
but I’m starting to rethink the situation.

I tap my foot a few times while I wait for him to
come to the door. “I can do this,” I whisper to myself. Crossing my arms over
my chest nervously, I start to bite on my lower lip. I’m about to turn around and
run back to Nadia when Tate opens the door.

He is standing before me in a pair of tight black
boxer briefs and nothing else. I turn my head as fast as I can, not wanting to
stare at his muscular abs and chest, that I now know are also covered in
tattoos. Slade is very built, but Tate is like body builder huge. He has tribal
work all over his chest and down his left side, along with both arms. There is
a saying written on his right side, but I’m not going to stare long enough to
read it.

“Sorry, Sam.” His deep voice sounds rough, like I
woke him. “I didn’t think that you would be here this early. Please, come on
in.” He steps aside as I enter, looking down at the floor.

This was a bad idea,
I now find myself
chanting.

I should have just waited for Slade to get home so
he could come with me. “Just give me a few minutes,” he says as I sit down on
his couch, looking at anything but him.

I sit, twiddling my thumbs, and hear him speaking
to someone. I can’t make out what he is saying since he has lowered his voice.
Then I hear a woman. I instantly feel uncomfortable, I didn’t think about the
fact that he may not be alone.

“I can wait,” I hear her tell to him.

“I’ll call you later,” is his only response.

“Tate,” she whines.

“I said I will call you later,” he says with more
force.

I sit in silence for another minute before a blonde
walks into the living room wearing a short mini dress and carrying her heels in
one hand. Her bleached blonde hair is a ratted mess, and her makeup is smeared
across her face. She doesn’t even bother making eye contact with me as she lets
herself out the front door, closing it behind her.

Tate walks in wearing a fitted t-shirt and a pair
of sweatpants.

“Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no, I apologize,” I say in a rush. “I didn’t
mean to come so early. I just couldn’t wait any longer,” I finish as he sits
down across from me.

“I understand,” he says, eyes boring into mine, and
then he lets out a long sigh.

“What did you need to tell me Tate?” I don’t want
this reunion to be any longer than it has to be. And from the situation I just witnessed,
I have a feeling he is a tad like Slade used to be and another woman may show
up any minute for her turn.

 He sets down a couple of pictures in front of me.
I pick up the top one, looking it over. It’s of Tate and my mother at what
looks like a hospital. She is sitting in a wheelchair.

“When were these taken?” She looks so frail in her light
blue hospital gown, and she’s not wearing a wig, showing the loss of her hair.

“These were taken the day that she called you.”

I look up at him, frowning. “Where is she at?”

“She was at the hospital.” He lets out a breath.

“Start making sense, Tate,” I say rather annoyed.
“You wanted to tell me something. Spit it out, all of it,” I demand.

“Same old Sam, aren’t you?” He smiles a half smile
and it reminds me of when he was a little boy. That same little boy that played
Barbie’s with me. Well, I played with my Barbie’s, he played with his GI Joes.

“I was with her the day she called you, wanting to
see you. She was ecstatic when you said you would come. She asked me to take
her home the following morning. She didn’t want you to see her at the hospital.
She wanted to tell you in her own way, not have you come to the cancer ward
spitting out questions.”

That makes sense. I would have freaked if she had
told me to come to a hospital room and not our house.

“I was supposed to come back and get her the next
day to return her to the hospital, but she called that morning saying she had
talked to Slade and you wanted to stay with her.” He takes a deep breath as his
eyes roam my face before he continues. “She had decided Slade was right, and
she wanted to spend whatever little time she had left with you.”

“Wait. So you’re saying if she had gone back into
the hospital, she may have lived longer?” I question in horror.

“No,” he states emphatically. “She had already
lived longer than what she was told.” We sit in an uncomfortable silence for a
few minutes before he speaks again. “Can I tell you something, Sam?” he asks.

“Isn’t that why I’m here? For you to tell me
things?”

“She first called my mother when she and Greg were
getting together. They kept in touch often. I moved here about six years ago,
but I go home and see my mother every now and then. One day Marie called when I
was visiting my mother in Alaska. She was hysterical and my mom couldn’t
understand what she was saying. When I got on the phone and finally calmed her
down, she said that she had just finished having lunch with Jack.” He closes
his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. “And she had received a phone call
from her doctor. They wanted her to come in right away. So Jack had gone with
her to the doctor when she was informed that she had breast cancer.”

I feel the familiar sensation of my throat closing up;
it’s been doing that a lot. I can’t seem to keep my sadness at bay.

“She didn’t want you to know. You were getting
ready to start your senior year of high school. She wanted you to enjoy it, not
worry about the outcome of her situation. Your mom was leaving Greg and Jack
had told her he was going to move back in with you guys.”

My eyes widen at the thought of that. They hated
each other.

“They both decided not to tell you. They wanted you
to have a great senior year and go to the college of your choice.”

“If he would have moved back in, I would have known
something was up. They couldn’t stand one another.”

“Sam, they were very much in love. Jack still loved
her more than anything.” He looks down to the floor before bringing his gaze back
up to me. “I had talked to him several times.” He gets a small grin on his
face.

“You did?” I question. “Why didn’t you call to talk
to me? I don’t mean tell me everything, but just call to talk?” I mean, we were
once best friends.

“They didn’t want it to stir up questions. Which it
would have.”

I nod in understanding. “Anyway, when Jack passed,”
he sighs out, looking down to the floor again. “It took everything from your
mother. She went crazy, said you were out of control, and didn’t want to come
home.”

I nod as tears run down my cheeks.

“She was terrified. The chemo treatments weren’t
working. She was feeling sicker and Greg was making things worse. I personally
think it was the stress from Jack passing.” He runs a hand over his short dark
hair. “She called my mother the day you graduated and bawled her eyes out. She
said you were leaving the next day.” He stops and looks up at me and I can see
the pain in his dark blue eyes. “I booked the next flight out. By the time I
got there, you had already left for Texas. We argued, I told her you needed to
know, that you had just lost a father and you didn’t need to lose your mother
as well.”

A sob bubbles up my chest and I place my hand over
my mouth. “I was so stupid. I was so mad that she didn’t come to my graduation,
I was so selfish,” I mumble to myself.

“No you weren’t, Sam. You were just a confused kid
who had lost a father and didn’t know what to do,” he reassures me. But I
wasn’t a kid. I was just a selfish adult. “She begged me not to tell you, she
was just like you. She was a fighter. She fought to live, every day. She fought
for you. I ended up moving to Tulsa to help take care of her. She was in and
out of the hospital a lot, but she got to the point where she would ask me
questions about you. I started asking around and it wasn’t hard to find out
what you were up to, between the Internet and friends. She asked me to take her
to your college graduation, and I thought she was going to confront you.” He
looks down, shaking his head. “She said she couldn’t. She saw how happy you
were with Jax, and didn’t want you to feel like you had to take care of her.
She just wanted you to be happy.” His eyes move to the pictures I hold in my
hand. “She kept those two pictures of you in her hospital room. Every time I
would visit her, she was holding one of them, smiling.”

I let the tears flow out of my eyes. How stupid
could I have been to think that she hated me?

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I whisper. “Why
would you just agree to spy on me without confronting me?” I close my eyes
shaking my head. “You know I would have went to see her.” I open them and stare
into his hard eyes.

“That’s why I couldn’t.” He bends over placing his
elbows on his knees. “You were always so stubborn. You lived life by your own rules.
It was your mother’s life and that was her one rule. Not to tell you. I wanted
to, believe me.” He sighs leaning back in his chair. “It wasn’t like I followed
you around, I’m not a PI or anything.” He chuckles. “I found out when your
college graduation was and I took her. I found out that you moved here to St.
Louis, and she was so excited because it was close to me. She wanted to know
everything about you. I have a friend who goes into Larry’s often. He called me
the night that you worked your first shift.” He shrugs, like that’s enough
reason. He takes a deep breath, looking into my eyes. “I wanted to stop you
from going out with Slade, when I first heard you two were together. I thought
that you had traded one heartbreak for another. I know girls that have had…past
experiences with him. I didn’t want you to get hurt. But it wasn’t my place to
tell you how to live.”

I nod as I look down at my fingers laced together.
“I don’t want to upset you, Sam.” I look up at him. “I just needed you to
understand. Marie called me crying the next morning, when she said she was
going to stay home with you. Said she had made a mistake, that you thought she
hated you. That she couldn’t turn back time and change it, but she would stay
home and let you take care of her. She wanted to give you every second she had
left. No one could have known she wasn’t going to make it much longer.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat as tears trail
down my face. “The neighbor called me as I was packing my bags, and said that
she had passed.” I blink letting the fresh tears fall.

He nods his head slowly. “Yeah, I showed up right
after he had talked to you. I wanted to stay and explain then, but I figured
you would need some time to process what was happening. I…” He pauses as I
stare at him, still silently crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the lies. Sorry
that you didn’t get the time you wanted with her. She loved you, and in her own
way, she was accepting her fate, coming to terms with the fact that she
couldn’t fight the inevitable. She was tired of fighting a battle she knew she
wouldn’t win,” he whispers as his eyes fall to look at the pictures sitting on
the coffee table. “She spoke of Jack all the time. When he discovered she had
cancer, he didn’t waste a second getting everything set up for her. The best doctors
money could buy, setting her up an account. She was so excited that he was
moving in with her and then when he passed…. I think when he died it broke a
piece of her. She wanted to die as well.”