by A. S. Kelly
And my heart just stops.
••••••
“Honey, I’m home.”
I hear my father’s voice calling me. I open my eyes and try to focus on him.
“Dad…”
“Everything’s fine, don’t worry.”
“What…”
“It’s nothing, dear. You’re still here,” he says with a voice broken with tears. “Just a false alarm. I heard a booming sound from downstairs and I ran up here, you fainted. I panicked and called an ambulance. I was afraid…” He leaves the phrase unfinished but I know full well where he was going with it.
“I’m still here with you, Dad,” I assure him, offering him my hand.
“Rain is outside. She’s worried and would like to see you.”
“Let her in.”
“Okay, five minutes. Don’t wear yourself out. The doctors are going to keep you overnight in observation. They said it could be an emotional trauma.”
I nod, holding back the emotions.
“Hey,” Rain says moving towards my bed in tears.
“Everything’s fine,” I tell her reassuringly.
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault. You told me you didn’t feel like it.”
“No, Rain, that isn’t what was responsible for this,” I say, not sure that I want to explain it to her.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, really. It was just a little episode, my dad should not have overreacted like he did.”
“He said you fainted and he was worried because you fell to the ground and he didn’t know if you had hit your head…”
“Everything’s fine. I’ll be home tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says, kissing my forehead. “I’ll let you rest now. Liam is waiting for me outside, he sends his regards. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I nod and let her leave. I need to get my thoughts together here.
I remember I was on the computer, I was looking at Aaron’s pictures…and then I saw that one of…of Jason and a girl at the pub.
I feel my heart accelerating again but before I can call someone the nurse is already there.
“Everything is fine, dear, it’s just a bit of arrhythmia. You have to try to stay as calm as possible.”
I shut my eyes tight to keep back the tears but they come out anyway and I cannot control them. I don’t want to cry or to console myself, nor do I want to share how I’m feeling with anyone else.
My love for him.
It’s not an illness, it’s not being overexcited about something, it’s none of those things.
What I feel for him is out of control. It’s too intense and potentially destructive. I have to keep him away from me. I cannot allow him back into my life.
I have to stop loving him right now.
Five years could be enough.
Five years to forget and he’s still there, still present.
Five years to put this love behind me, a love that can only hurt me.
Is it possible to die from love?
Probably not for normal people, but for me—yes.
I could die for love.
I could die for him.
12
JASON
“Hey, weren’t you guys going out tonight?” I ask.
Liam and Rain walk into the pub and sit down at the bar.
“What’s up, why the long faces?”
They exchange a glance as if they have no idea how to respond.
“Is everything alright, you guys? Rain, are you okay?”
“Yes, Jay, I’m fine”
“Well then, what’s the problem?”
“It’s Alex.”
My heart falls to the floor.
“She is…she is…”
“She’s in the hospital, she’s fine.”
Christ, I can keep living.
“What happened, why…”
“She lost consciousness and hit her head falling. Her dad got scared and called the ambulance. They’re going to keep her in for observation overnight.”
I let myself fall onto the stool and rest my elbows on the counter and my head against closed fists. My thoughts crowd my head and run at an impressive speed I am unable to control.
Alex is in the hospital and I’m here…doing what? Why aren’t I there with her?
“Where?” I ask without lifting my head. “Which ward is she in?”
••••••
I open the door without making any noise. Her father lets me in. He’s real happy to see me.
I move a plastic chair in the corner of the room to her bedside and I sit down next to her.
I can do it. I have to.
This time, I won’t run away.
I’ll never run away again.
Her face is pale but calm. I look at her and she’s so thin and weary that it takes all my strength not to grab her and squeeze her to let her know that I’m here for her this time.
I caress her hand and she does not react at all. And so I take her hand in mine and bring it to my lips. I touch it delicately as I keep in my emotions, all of them that I’ve held in all these years so as not to show anyone my weakness.
She is my only weakness.
It would have been so easy to forget her if her face wasn’t always right in front of me like a blurry, aged image you just can’t help looking at.
It would have been so easy if the memory of her eyes imploring me to get out of her life would stop tormenting me every minute of my stupid fucking life.
It would be so easy to forget her if I wasn’t so desperately in love with her.
“Mmm.”
“Shhh,” I whisper, getting closer and kissing her forehead.
“Rest. Everything is fine.”
She slowly opens her eyes and seems scared and I don’t want to make her anxious. So I let her hand go and distance myself, hoping I haven’t caused any damage.
“Jay…” she whispers in a thin voice.
“Hey there.” I smile. “When did you start calling me Jay?”
My name is Jason but I haven’t used it in years. By now everyone calls me Jay.
“And you? When did you stop having people call you Jason?”
“Since you left,” I say without reflecting. “Because, Alex, when you went, Jason went with you.”
Maybe I’ve said too much and I’m an idiot. I had promised myself I wouldn’t say dumb shit that could upset her and here I am doing it. I’ll do just about anything to get closer to her.
“Don’t do it,” she says and I honestly don’t know what she’s referring to.
“What?” I ask getting closer to her.
“Don’t l-love me.”
My will and self control go down the toilet.
My whole world is in balance.
I find myself face to face with everything that scares me, going back on my decisions and cancelling every promise and intention I had.
Everything I’m desperately fleeing from is here, reflected in her eyes. And it is here, in front of the love of my life, that my world crumbles.
There they go, my walls come crashing down under the intensity of this sentiment that even fear cannot hold back.
“I’m already doing it.”
“Promise me. Promise that you don’t love me, Jason.”
Is this really what she’s asking me?
Oh, Alex, don’t you have any idea what’s going on in my heart right now?
“I don’t love you.” I smile at her.
“You have to swear it,” she says with a lip that trembles.
“I can’t,” I confess and then the first tear falls from her eye and her walls come down too.
—
ALEX
“And so?”
“And so nothing. That’s it.”
“He said he can’t promise you, and your conversation ended there?”
“After that, I fell asleep and when I woke up he was gone.”
“Oh, how romantic!” Rain brings her hands to her mouth and her ey
es get wet.
She’s terribly emotional and these things literally send her over the edge and since she’s been with Liam things have only gotten worse.
“There’s nothing more to it than that, Rain.”
“How can I believe it? How can you be this way about something like that?”
“You know I can’t think about these things…that I can’t consider him in that sense.”
“It seems like a regular declaration of love to me.”
I huff and settle into the couch, taking another sip of tea. I’ve been home for three days and Liam brought Rain over for a visit. He’s out chatting with my father to give us some girl time but I know she’s going to go blab everything to him as soon as she leaves here anyway.
“Alex,” Rain says, taking on a serious tone of voice. “Give yourself a chance. You guys were just kids, both of you scared. You were afraid of what you had just discovered, he was scared that after the death of his mother, he was risking losing you too. It’s understandable that you were both terrorized about what could happen. But now you’re adults and as far as I can remember Jay has never brought a girl home, or to the pub or shown any real interest in anyone. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“Oh yeah? Well then, who was that girl in the photo?”
“That’s Lynn.”
“Lynn?”
“One of the girls who works at the pub. Believe me there’s nothing going on between them.”
“And how would you know?”
“I just do, trust me. I know her, I know him and there’s nothing going on there.”
“But he’s…he’s hugging her!”
“So what? He hugs me too.”
“That’s different.”
“Not true. Jay is a dear friend, for me and for other people.”
“I don’t know…”
“So this is it, huh? This is what pushed you over the edge the other day. You were jealous and you made yourself sick.”
“Me? No!”
“Alex…”
“I was just stressed about all this ambiguity between us.”
“You should talk about it with him.”
“Not now, not today and not soon. I need some time to be in peace by myself.”
“With your books, I imagine.”
“Books are not risky.”
“Neither is Jay.”
“I’m not so sure,” I say.
“Alex…”
“Everything’s fine, Rain.”
Nothing is fine. Nothing in my life is going well.
I can’t love, I can’t love him.
I can’t consider a future, a family, my own life.
How could I?
How could I force someone to take care of me day and night, to stay by my side, just now that he’s started up with his music again and is so close to getting the band up and running again? Now that his life seems to have taken a turn for the better.
He took care of his mother and came out of it completely devastated. Years of watching over her, worrying about her taking her medicine and going with her to therapy. He’s missed school, and slept next to her in the last months of her life. He let everything else go to be with her and then put up with everything that came in the following years. Neil’s death, the problems with Rain…he’s a man on the verge and I am certainly not going to be the one to push him over.
I could never ask him to stay beside me, I could never hope…ever. I could never let myself be loved.
I wasn’t made for him.
I’m not the one he needs. He can’t save me.
He can’t live his life and mine.
13
JASON
“Okay, Patrick, I’ll stay here tonight.”
“Wasn’t this supposed to be your day off?”
I shrug.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you have a lovely lady waiting for you at home.”
“And you instead…”
I give him a sideway glance, pretending not to understand.
“What?” he asks innocently.
“Don’t you start up this too. Liam is already enough for me.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I know where you’re trying to go, but it’s not going to work with me.”
“You’re going into total paranoia. I didn’t say anything and you’ve betrayed your own feelings yourself.”
“I can’t, don’t you understand that? I can’t do it. I wasn’t able to before and I won’t be able to now.”
“You’re a man now, not a scared little boy.”
“I can’t lose someone else in my life.”
“Jay, things happen and there’s nothing we can do about it. But I can promise you that it’s better to live your life rather than deny yourself because of fear.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“When I risked losing both of my girls, it was an immense, un-digestible pain. Every part of my body hurt, my bones, my lungs, my heart…but even if the pain was unbearable, I wouldn’t give up one second I spent with Erin. Ever. Even if it saved me from all of the pain in the world. Can you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
He knows very well what it means and how one person feels when he risks losing a woman he loves. Erin had problems with the pregnancy and the baby was born prematurely after an emergency C-section. Erin lost a lot of blood and was saved by a miracle.
Lily stayed in the hospital for two months before coming home and Patrick was just a hopeless mess but then things turned around. Erin and Lily came home with him to our crowded house and he is happier than I’ve ever seen him in his life.
Patrick became a man, a man who was capable of loving unconditionally and without compromise.
I shake my head and stand up, signaling the end of this conversation.
“Jay?”
“Go on home to your family, Patrick. Enjoy it,” I say without looking at him.
Patrick doesn’t answer me, he gets up and leaves, mumbling something unpleasant. Even if he’s taken huge steps in recent months, he hasn’t completely left his ‘asshole’ phase.
I huff and prepare myself for tonight. I have my head somewhere else completely and this is really the last thing I feel like doing but the alternative is sitting at home wondering what she’s doing.
After having visited her in the hospital, I’ve kept a bit of distance. I wanted to give her the space she needs to keep calm without worrying about my presence. Rain told me she’s well and that this was just one of her episodes, one like so many others, and that Alex has returned to work. But I’ve been afraid to call her, to hear her voice and the echo of those words.
How could she ask me something like that? How could she ask me to swear something similar?
Doesn’t she understand, doesn’t she get that it’s too late for me to turn back now? I can’t ask my heart to deny her, or force my mind to cancel her face from its memory. If I could have, I would have done it five years ago and anyway, it wouldn’t have done me any good.
I’m afraid to talk to her, to touch her, to hug her. I’m afraid to see her die in my arms. I can’t watch someone else die.
Should I continue on like this, pretending it’s nothing, considering her only to be a friend, an old friend that I’d like to have in my bed every night?
What the fuck does she take me for?
I must be out of my mind. How can I even think something like that?
And yet, I would, I’d like it so much, even if I could be contented with just kissing her again, to see what effect her the flavor of her lips has on me.
“What do you say, shall we open up?”
Liam calls my attention. I nod and he goes to open the doors of Only4you.
Life continues. Life doesn’t give a shit about me or my situation. Doesn’t give a damn if I’m not well, if I’m slowly dying in this agony made of sighs, kisses never given and caresses I’ll never give the woman I love.
; The woman I love, God bless her.
We’re not kids anymore, we’re no longer those friends who spent afternoons together. We are a man and a woman who need one another to breathe, to live.
I need her because she’s the only woman that I could die for and the only one I want by my side: even if it were only for a day or an hour, it’d be worth it.
Love is always worth the pain.
“Jay?” Rain’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and grounds me. “I wanted to ask you if tonight…you could stay out and not come home.”
“What? And where the hell should I go? And why should I…” but I don’t finish the phrase.
I know why she doesn’t want me at home.
It’s not her who doesn’t want me, it’s someone else.
And my heart stops beating.
She doesn’t want me.
“I wanted to stay a bit with Alex, she needs to be distracted.”
“And I am not the distraction that she needs.”
She smiles, embarrassed.
I can understand her. I can understand both of them.
“Don’t worry, let her stay the night. I’ll find a solution.”
“I’m sorry,” she says sadly, touching my arm.
“Don’t be sorry, Rain, I understand.”
“It’s just that, she’s scared.”
“She’s afraid that I’ll hurt her,” I say, clenching my fists and swallowing a piece of my heart.
“No, she’s not afraid you’ll hurt her. She’s not afraid of you but rather for you.”
I give her an inquisitive glance.
“Is it really possible that you still haven’t understood?” She smiles at me affectionately.
“Don’t you realize that she’s afraid that you will continue to suffer. She doesn’t want you to face this all over again, she doesn’t want to see you uncomfortable and having to condition your life to make allowances for her. She just wants you to be free, Jay.”
“What kind of bullshit is this?”
“You know, people think that I don’t understand…everything,” she says, blushing. “But sometimes I understand a lot more from a teardrop or a glance than from all the words in the world.”