Lacey

My ‘go out and have fun’ night came to a grinding halt after Adonis walked out. Aiden and Reece ushered me out of the house.

I sat in the back seat of Aiden’s car feeling emotionally raw. Even though Adonis walking out on me was for the best, it didn’t ease the ache in my chest or the heartbreak I felt. My tears had dried up, but my eyes were still puffy and red.

“I can’t believe he did that,” Reece muttered. She was sitting in the passenger seat with her arms crossed. Her lips pressed in a thinned line. She was furious with him. In her eyes, he’d hurt her friend. It didn’t matter whether he had a good reason.

“Some guys just aren’t worth it,” Aiden said, sounding preoccupied with his own thoughts.

It didn’t surprise me when I felt the usual ache in my headache. With everything that happened and the stress of all of it had taken its toll on me. When I got home, I was ready to take my medication and sleep.

“You going to be okay?” Aiden stopped his car in my driveway.

I gave him a weak smile and nodded my head.

“I’ll walk you.” Reece got out of the car. We walked to my front door.

“You okay?” She watched me with concerned as we entered my house. I could tell she knew I wasn’t okay, and she didn’t want to leave me in my emotional state.

“I’ll be fine, I’m just going to take my medication and go to sleep,” I said, and she gave me a hug.

The house was quiet when I entered it. I heard Aiden’s car pull out from the driveway. He was on his way to drop off Reece. I went into the kitchen and drank my medication for the migraine that was about to hit me.

I wanted to suppress the memories from tonight, but the moment Adonis had told Reece he was out was engrained in my memory. As long as I lived, I would never forget the way he looked at me, or the sound of his voice when he said the words.

I let out a deep breath, trying to ease the pressure of my emotions.

Upstairs in my room I didn’t change I just kicked my shoes off and slumped onto my bed.

The migraine pounded in my mind. The pills kicked in and I drifted off to sleep with thoughts of Adonis on my mind.

For the next few days, I pushed my heartbreak aside and tried to spend quality time with everyone. I went shopping one day with my mom. It was like a mom and daughter day. We had lunch and shopped for some new clothes. As much as I wanted to pretend everything was okay, I wasn’t and no amount of activity could make me forget that.

Aiden decided I needed to go fishing. He skipped his classes one day so he could take me fishing for the day. Fishing had to be the most boring thing to do, ever. I nearly threw up when he shoved a wriggling worm on a hook. I hated it, but being able to spend the morning in his company had made it worth the trip. He had kept me in fits of laughter for most of the afternoon.

Reece organized a sleepover, and we spent the night watching movies and eating junk food. Just like we would have done before. We talked about many things the only subjects off limits were obviously Adonis and my tumor. I was trying to have a normal life concentrating on things that made me happy instead of the surgery or what the outcome would be.

Every person close to me was rallying around me, trying to pack in as much living in my short time as possible. But now and then, when I experienced a side effect like dizziness and tingling in my arms, it brought back the hard reality of my situation. It was a reminder of the clock ticking, my time was running out. The side effects were happening more regularly.

Four days after I last saw Adonis at the party, he was still on my mind. It was like I was missing a piece of myself and I couldn’t get it back.

But I couldn’t change anything. I had to deal with it. I kept remind myself that I was doing it to protect him. It didn’t make my decision any easier.

I was standing in the kitchen talking to Alex, holding a cup of coffee in my hands. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him about Adonis, but I didn’t. Nothing good would come of it. 

“You’ve been very busy lately.” Alex stood across from me. He was busy making some coffee.

“Yeah.” I sipped my coffee. It had been a hectic four days.

“What have you got planned today?” He stirred sugar into coffee.

“Reece and I are going to the beach today,” I said.

I wasn’t big on the beach. I hated the fine sand that stuck to your skin. Reece would probably tan in her bikini. I was going to the beach because I loved to watch the sea. There was something so calming about watching the crashing waves.

My hand tingled, and I set my cup down on the counter. I flexed my hand.

“You okay?” My brother’s features portrayed his concern as I shook my hand.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I told him. What I didn’t tell him was that I’d woken up with a slight headache and I wasn’t feeling well. Maybe I’d been overdoing it in the past few days and this was my body’s way of telling me to slow down.

“It’s the side effects.” He frowned. “Maybe you should see the doctor.”

I was already shaking my head. It was a side effect of the brain tumor and I wasn’t in the mood for another lecture from the doctor on the reasons I shouldn’t delay the surgery.

There were a few moments of silence as I tried to get the feeling back in my hand.

“He asks about you all the time.”

He was talking about Adonis. It was so unexpected it took me by surprise. I didn’t know what to say to that.

“I just wanted you to know.” My brother shrugged.

“Thanks,” I said, still taken aback by the information. Did it make me feel better? Maybe just a little.

There had been so many times I’d sat on my bed with my phone in my hands, trying not to give into the urge to call him just to hear his voice. I don’t know how I stopped myself.

Each day without him made it harder to keep away from him.

The tingling feel disappeared from my hand. I rubbed my hands together before I picked up my cup and took another sip. The coffee eased my unsettled stomach.

I’d hoped that I would start feeling better, but I could feel that it wasn’t getting worse. I rubbed my forehead slightly as I contemplated whether to cancel on Reece.

“You don’t look well.” My brother was watching me closely.

My vision of him blurred. I closed my eyes tightly before trying to reopen them, but it was still blurry.

“Lacey,” my brother’s voice echoed. It felt like it was so far away. “Maybe you need to sit...”

My blurred world tilted, and I tried to reach for the counter to grab hold of it, but I missed it. I felt myself fall. The pain of the fall never came, and I felt arms catch me in time.

“Lacey, can you hear me?” Alex’s worried voice reached into the darkness of my disorientated mind. He lay me down on something soft.

“Mom!” Alex yelled. Panic setting into his voice.

I wanted to reach out and assure him I was okay, but when I tried to talk my lips wouldn’t move. My body refused to obey my instructions. I tried to hold on when I heard the rising panic in Alex’s voice as he continued to call for mom but when the darkness came, I couldn’t escape it.

**********

When I came around, I felt disorientated. My throat was dry, and I tried to swallow. My head was pounding. 

“Thank god! How are you feeling?” my brother asked.

I opened my eyes slowly. My brother kneeled beside me and my mom stood next to him. She looked like she’d been crying. I was lying on the sofa in the living room. What had happened?

My head was pounding. It felt like I had an army marching through my head. I groaned slightly, trying to shift slowly, but any movement seemed to increase the pounding in my head.

“We were so worried.” My mom’s eyes glistened with tears. I looked to brother, who gave me a relieved smile.

“You scared the shit out of us.” The tension was laced in his voice.

I was still trying to figure out what happened before. I remembered talking to him. Then the tingling in my arm and then the dizziness. The last thing I could remember was my blurred vision and being unable to move my body.

I looked down to my hand as I wiggled my fingers and felt relief flood through me. I could move my hands. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt a warm hand cover mine and I looked up to my brother as the first tear slid down my face.

“It’s okay.” He tightened his hand over mine. I tried to swallow the emotion that was trying to break free, so I nodded. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. “The ambulance is on its way.”

I nodded as another tear slid down my face. He brushed the tears away as he held my hand.

When the sirens of an ambulance drew closer, my brother released my hand as he stood.

“I’ll go get them,” my brother said before he left, leaving me alone with my mother.

“It’s okay, baby. Everything will be okay.” My mom kneeled beside me. She kissed my forehead gently, and I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment.

Moms were special people that could soothe even the deepest wounds. As I child, when I scrapped my knee or hurt myself, my mother was the one who I sought for to kiss it better. But this time a simple kiss wouldn’t heal me now.

Minutes later, my brother rushed back into the room with paramedics right behind him.

Alex gave them a brief rundown of what had happened.

My mother shifted to allow the paramedics better access to me.

“I’m Ian.” The one paramedic introduced as he surveyed me. He had a kind face as he smiled.

“Lacey,” I said.

“Can you remember what happened?” He took some stuff out of his paramedic bag.

“My vision blurred and... I felt dizzy,” I said, trying not to panic at the memories of not be able to control my body.

“Okay.” He checked my blood pressure. “Have you been ill recently?”

“She has a tumor,” my brother said.

The paramedic stopped momentarily as he reformulated his questioning to consider my
condition.

“Is your head sore?” He took my blood pressure.

“Yes,” I said. “It feels like I’m getting a migraine.”

He then looked to his partner, and his partner nodded.

“We are going to take you in,” Ian said. While I could still feel my heart beating faster than usual from the panic, he seemed so calm.

As they got me on the gurney and wheeled me out of the house, I heard the paramedic pull my brother aside.

“Call the specialist and let him know she’s being admitted,” he told my brother. And he told him which hospital they were taking me to.

A crowd had already gathered outside my house. I glanced at the crowd to see Adonis push through. He looked around frantically as he took in the scene. I swallowed hard when I saw the look in his eyes when his eyes landed on me being wheeled to the ambulance by the paramedics. He shot forward and ran towards me.

“What happened?” He was breathing hard when he got to me. He took my hand into his. I felt my heart inflate at the slight gesture.

“I collapsed,” I said, trying to keep my emotions from bubbling to the surface in full view of everyone from the neighborhood who was watching us with interest.

“We’re taking her to hospital to run some tests,” Ian told him as they adjusted the gurney to wheel it into the ambulance.

Adonis released my hand and took a step back. I held his gaze as the paramedics wheeled me into the ambulance the slight jolt made my head ache even more. I closed my eyes for a moment and I groaned.

“This injection is for pain.” He took a syringe out and filled it with some clear liquid.

I nodded, and he injected the liquid into my arm, I winced at the slight prick. Adonis who was standing outside the ambulance watching me. His bright eyes looked at me with the fear that we’d all been harboring from the time they had diagnosed me with the tumor.

“Are you in or out?” Ian asked Adonis when he wanted to close the doors to the ambulance.

There was no hesitation. “I’m in.” He scrambled into the ambulance and sat beside me.

Those words meant more than just about getting into the ambulance.

I saw a glimpse of my brother and my mom getting into my mom’s car before the door of the ambulance closed.

Adonis took my hand into his and pressed it against his lips. My eyes found his.  

There was a vastness between us created by the circumstances of my illness. Now that there was no time left, did the things that pulled us apart matter anymore? Even pushing him away now wouldn’t ease his suffering if I didn’t survive the surgery.

His fingers brushed my cheek as he stared down at me. I felt emotion clog my throat when I took the look in his eyes. He looked at me like I was the most precious thing in the world to him.

“I love you,” he said as he squeezed my hand in his.

“I love you too,” I breathed back. I had never stopped loving him. Just because I made a choice he couldn’t understand or agree with didn’t make me love him any less.

He pressed his lips gently to mine.

“Hey no making out in my ambulance,” Ian said.

Adonis shot him a glare, but I smiled at his attempt to lighten the emotional scene.

When we got to the hospital, they admitted me to a private room. The specialist was on his way. My mom went back home to get some clothes and toiletries for me.

I would have okay with the general ward with other people around, but Adonis insisted. His reasoning was he would get recognized, at least if we were in a private room he would be safer from fans. But I knew he wanted to make sure I had the best.

I lay in the hospital bed. Adonis stood beside me and held my hand. From the time he’d gotten into the ambulance with me, he’d stayed with me while the doctor’s had initially checked me out before admitting me. Alex had gone to get something to drink. That was his reason anyway, but I believed he wanted to give Adonis and I time alone to talk.

“You could have gone with him,” I said to Adonis, who was holding my hand. His eyes lifted to mine. There was a deep look in his eyes that spoke volumes.

“I’m never leaving you again,” he vowed. He was referring to the party when he’d chosen to walk away. Even though it had hurt, at least I had understood why he had made the choice.

Saying I was sorry just didn’t seem right. I didn’t regret my decision to have more time. There was no way for any of us to know that I wouldn’t have had weeks. I didn’t expect him to say sorry for not being able to accept my decision to delay the surgery. Hurting him hadn’t been the intention at all.

“When I saw the ambulance...” He stopped to let out a deep emotional breath. “I thought the worst.”

I held his hand tighter, I couldn’t shake the fear I had felt when I could not move my body.

“You’re all the matters,” he said, his eyes glistening as they caressed my face. “Whether it’s a few days or lifetime, I want it all.”