[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Twenty


Jaymie

Nick really did go take a nap after that. He laid on the bed, his limbs stretched all over the place, the sun setting in the window beyond. Now, with the tear tracks still drying on his face, he looked less like a god, and more like a little boy, scared of the future. I laid beside him until his breathing leveled out and he was definitely asleep before I rolled out of bed and started packing back up what little bit we’d unpacked since arriving. He hadn’t told me the official plans, but I figured we’d be going back to the States soon, probably in the morning. I was just tucking his headphones gently into his carry on bag, being careful to keep the cord from tangling, when there was a knock on the hotel room door.

When I opened the door, Brian was standing in the hallway. “Nick’s asleep,” I said quietly, glancing over my shoulder, not wanting to wake him up.

Brian took a deep breath, looking at me carefully from head to toe. “I just, uh, wanted to - you know - thank you. For telling me. About him. Sort of.” He looked sheepish. “It was really decent of you.”

“I just want him to be okay,” I answered.

Brian nodded. “I see that.”

“I care about him,” I added.

Brian nodded again. He took a deep breath, “Look, I know I’ve been an asshole about you two in the past, but it was never really you I was judging, just… what you two do, you know?”

I hovered somewhere between appreciation and annoyance.

“I’m sorry,” he said, seeing the look on my face. “I’m doing it again. It’s just hard because I want him to have the best of everything and I just -- Not that you aren’t -- I mean.” He stopped, his cheeks red. “Let’s start over?”

I nodded.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “And I hope that I get to know you better over the next couple weeks.”

“Next couple weeks?” I repeated, “Wait. Wait. What?”

“The tour. Over the next couple weeks on the tour,” Brian said, “You’re staying for the whole tour, aren’t you?” He looked confused, “Nick said y’all were gettin’ closer and all…”

“Didn’t he tell you about the astrocycoma?” I asked, dumbfounded.

Brian nodded.

“And y’all aren’t sending him back to get treatment?” I demanded, “How could you possibly think that it’s a good idea to let him do this?”

Brian took a deep breath. “Jaymie,” he said, “I’ve known Nick for over two thirds of his life. If Nick doesn’t want to do something -- he’s not going to do it. No matter how much you tell him he should, no matter how much you push him. In fact, the more you push him, the less likely he is to do it.” He glanced over my shoulder at Nick’s sleeping form, and added, in a hushed whisper, “Which is why, if you really want him to get the treatment, you’ll just let it go. He’s gonna make the right decision on his own, in his own time.”

“He doesn’t have time,” I hissed.

Brian’s eyes met mine. “It has to be his idea,” he whispered, “His choice.”

“What if he makes the wrong choice?”

Brian sighed.

“C’mon, I told you because I thought you’d be on my side in this. Don’t you get it? If he doesn’t get treated, he could die!”

Brian nodded. “But I know Nick too well to think for a second that he’ll listen to what he’s told.” He glanced at Nick on the bed again, who had shifted positions, stretching out his legs so his feet poked out from under the covers, hanging off the end of the bed. Brian beckoned me into the hallway. I followed, pulling the door almost to a close behind me. “Look, you have feelings for him, right?”

“Of course,” I answered.

“Like real ones. Not the superficial...whatever...y’all have had for years, right?”

“I love him, Brian,” I answered, point blank.

He leaned in, “Then listen close,” he said, “Because I’m about to become your Yoda.”





Nick

Jaymie was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching TV, when I woke up. She’d managed to figure out how to get the English subtitles going on and the screen flickered it’s way through a German-dubbed episode of Friends with the lines printed across the bottom of the screen. She was muttering the lines as she read them off the screen. I laid there in silence, watching her for a few minutes, unsure what to say. I hadn’t fully come to a resolution about whether I wanted to be angry about her telling Brian about my tumor or not. Part of me felt betrayed and really pissed off because of it, and the other part kinda understood that it wasn’t fair to me to expect her to be the only one in my life that knew and that I would’ve probably done the same thing if I’d been in her position. Part of me was just too emotionally exhausted from everything to even try to deal with any of it.

I sighed.

She heard my sigh and turned around to look at me. “You’re up,” she said, and she turned the TV off with a flick of her wrist. “Are you okay?”

The look in her eyes, I realized, was exactly the reason why I had been trying so damn hard to keep it all a secret. She was staring at me like maybe I’d break, like I was fragile or something. I hated it. I’d been avoiding this look since the doctor had told me about the stupid anaplastic astrocycoma to begin with. I wondered how many times that look would come my way now that she’d told Brian and he had, presumably, told the fellas by now?

“I’m okay,” I said. “Really. Don’t look at me like that. Please.”

“Sorry,” she said, looking away.

I felt bad. It was rough ‘cos the Look wasn’t something I wanted, but it wasn’t something that I was particularly offended by. I mean, it only meant the person cared, really, but… I dunno. It made me feel shitty. “I get it, but it’s not like I’m a baby or nothin’, yanno?” I said aloud, “Like I’m not weak.”

“I know you aren’t weak,” Jaymie said, “I think you’re brave as fuck.” She looked up, her eyes sincere.

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Brave.”

“Yes, brave,” she said, her voice carrying certain finality to it. She took a deep breath, then got up and climbed over onto my bed beside me. “Nick, I have a proposition.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Okay, so. I know you hate talking about this, and you know I want you to get treatment.” I started to interrupt her but she held up her hands, “Wait. Hear me out. If you promise to at least contemplate the treatment thing, I’ll shut up about it and unless you mention the tumor to me, I won’t say a word about it.” She drew a cross over her heart.

I hesitated, “Why?”

“Because. I just feel bad for stepping in where I didn’t really have the right to be telling your secret to anyone, and I don’t want this to drive a wedge between us, and I want you to know that I can be your safe place if you need it. I want you to want to tell me things, if you do indeed want to, and not to feel pressured into anything, in any direction. As far as our conversations are concerned, the astrocycoma won’t even exist. Okay? But only if you swear to me you’ll at least think about treatment options.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she said. She smiled, “Done deal.”

I instantly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, like the world was a hundred times less stressful than it’d been the last couple weeks. I felt suddenly almost buoyant from the relief of it… like things could go back to how they’d been two weeks ago, before Jaymie knew anything about the tumor.

But I didn’t want things to go completely back to the way they’d been before. After all, something had changed between Jaymie and I in the last two weeks, something that I’d never expected. Something… something like feelings and a real relationship or something had come out of the blue between us.

I liked that the L word had been said on the plane. I didn’t wanna go back. Not now.

There was a lot to explore still.

But suddenly I wasn’t sure what the hell to do with that, to show her that I wanted to continue forward, despite the two steps back that this proposition of her probably seemed to be making. I mean what exactly is it that regular boyfriends and girlfriends do (if that’s what we could be classified as, that is, I wasn’t sure)? Like Jaymie and I usually just resorted to having all kinds of wild, wild sex. But that didn’t really seem like it would tell her anything much other than that things were back to the way they’d always been.

And that wasn’t the message I needed to get across right now.

“We should go out to eat,” I suggested.

Jaymie looked surprised, “What?” she laughed.

“Go put on something nice,” I said. I got up and grabbed the local cuisine guide to find a nice place. Something that would be impressive, I thought. “I’m taking you out. Like on a date.”

Jaymie smiled.