The Story of Us

by AuthorStephanieHenry

  “This,” he says, making the same gesture, “is a date. This,” he says, holding out a small box, “is a gift.”

  I smile as I take the box from him and begin to open it. When I open it, my smile is gone. I’m actually sort of… terrified… at what I see. I freeze, unable to move or say a word. I just look at him for some kind of an explanation.

  “Okay,” he says calmly, “I can tell by your hesitation what you’re thinking. It’s not an engagement ring, princess. I’m not down on one knee or anything. Just hear me ou-”

  “Oh, thank God,” I interrupt, exhaling the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

  He laughs, “I’m a little offended,” he tells me, placing his hand over his heart. “But seriously, it’s a promise ring… if you’ll have it? It goes on your right hand, not the left.”

  I relax and then smile up at him. “I love it.”

  “But in all seriousness, would you have really said no if it was an engagement ring?”

  I shrug my shoulder. “I guess you’ll never know,” I tell him, smiling. I am thankful it’s not an engagement ring though. I know that I love him. I know it beyond doubt now. But marriage? I don’t think either of us are ready for that. I slide the ring on my right ring finger and it fits perfectly. “How did you know my ring size?”

  “Hailey,” he simply says.

  “I love that girl,” I declare as I hold my hand up in front of my face to inspect the beautiful ring.

  It’s old-fashioned, yet timeless in its elegance; white gold, encrusted with diamonds all around it. Looking at it, I can picture myself engaged. Although it scares me, I can imagine marrying Craig. Someday.

  We’ve finished our sandwiches, so I stand up and hold my hand out for him. He grabs a hold of mine in return without question. I lead him over to the corner of the rooftop where the blankets are. We sit down together and he offers me a blanket to wrap myself up in. But instead, I straddle him, hold his face in my hands, and kiss him fiercely. I can’t believe he was worried about me being cold. Snow starts to fall quickly down on the rooftop, but neither of us seem particularly concerned about it. I feel his hot breath all over my skin and it’s enough to warm me, despite the frigid weather.

  The snow does end up being a concern the next day though, as classes get canceled for the day. We wake up to the screaming of excited students in the halls. I just squeeze Craig tighter, and he brushes the hair from my face and kisses my forehead, before we both drift off back to sleep. We stay in his room, under the blankets, all day. His roommate is in and out, but we’re not doing much of anything inappropriate anyways. Mostly, we just cuddle under the blankets and watch movies. It’s one of my most favorite days that I can remember.

  Chapter 18

  March and April fly by. Before we know it, the cold weather turns bearable, then rainy, and then nice enough to go outside without a jacket on. May arrives, and with it comes finals.

  “Yes! Finally!” Drew says as we’re all sitting in the cafeteria talking about the end of our freshman year.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I say sullenly. I feel Craig’s hand squeeze mine under the table. He’s trying to reassure me that everything will be alright when we get back home, but I’m not convinced that my parents won’t hold me prisoner again.

  “Actually,” Hailey says, “I’ve been wanting to ask you guys something. All of you,” she says, referring to Drew, Craig, and myself. “My father is taking the family on a trip over the summer. It’s like a six-week long Europe thing. He wanted me to go with them, but six weeks is just too long. I couldn’t be away from Drew for that long.” Craig makes a gagging motion, but Hailey ignores it and continues, “So if we want, we’ll have a big house to ourselves, for six whole weeks.”

  I interrupt her before she can finish. “Are you inviting us up to Michigan?”

  “Well, yeah. If you guys would want to go.”

  I have to say, I’m beyond excited. Although if I’m being honest, part of me is a little upset that she’s finally inviting me out there and it’s not to meet her family. I mean, I grew up at her house. Her house was more my house than my actual house was. And since she found out about her dad and her brothers and sisters in Michigan, she hasn’t asked me to meet them, not even once. But I shake it off, for now. The thought had crossed my mind before, to ask Hailey if we could go on a road trip to Michigan this summer. But this is even better. I realize she could have easily just kept it limited to Drew and herself, so I’m grateful that she’s including me and Craig. Six weeks at a lake house with my favorite people. I smile widely. Maybe freshman year coming to an end won’t be so bad after all.

  “I don’t know…” Craig says, trailing off in thought.

  My heart sinks. I know what he’s thinking. Lexie. She has a hard enough time with him leaving for school. Six weeks away for the summer would break her heart. “Why not split it up?” I offer as an alternative, hoping it’ll be a compromise that Lexie would be alright with. “We could go with Hailey and Drew for just three weeks, but then give them the other three weeks to themselves.”

  I can tell by his face that he’ll give into this. And he does.

  Three weeks after our last final, and after spending some quality time with family, we head out for a road trip to Michigan. Even though Craig promises to call Lexie every day, I make the same promise as well, since at this point I’m convinced she’ll miss me just as much as she’ll miss Craig. Okay, maybe not quite as much, but I know she’ll still miss me a lot, seeing as how I’ve spent more time with Craig’s family than my own in the last three weeks. I forgot how little my parents pay attention to me when they actually have a full work load.

  We all load into Hailey’s car. Craig and I will take a flight back in mid-July but for the trip up, it makes sense to carpool. The car ride doesn’t bother me at all, but I can tell Craig is starting to get antsy after the first six hours or so. We’re all glad when we finally arrive.

  “Wow, Hailey. This place is awesome,” I marvel at her.

  We all gather our things and place them inside, in the front entrance of the mansion that they pass for a house. I mean, I live in a big house and this house is a mansion to me. I can imagine how intimidating it must have been for Drew, coming here to meet Hailey’s father for the first time. Hailey shows us to our rooms and we unpack for a while. I feel Craig’s arms encircle me from behind as I’m placing the last of my clothes in a once-empty drawer.

  “This is going to be a great three weeks, here with you,” he whispers just before kissing below my ear.

  And it is.

  Two and a half weeks fly by so fast, I feel like we’ve just unpacked and now it’s almost time to start packing our things back up. Playing house here was the best time I’ve had out of any summer so far. Every day we’d go down to the lake behind the house to bask in the sun and play in the water. Every night, we’d take turns cooking dinner for one another. We’d have some drinks, watch some movies. Or we’d go out – to the arcade, to the traveling carnival they set up for eight days, to the mall, to the little touristy shops on the streets. None of us seemed to care what we did, as long as we did it together. And the nights were even better. Every night Craig would put his arms around me in bed and hold on so tightly, as if he couldn’t get close enough, as if he thought I’d disappear at any second. I got so used to hearing his heart beat under my ear at night that it became my lullaby, luring me to sleep. It was perfect.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Four days before our scheduled flight back home, I hear Craig’s phone ringing in the middle of the night. He doesn’t wake up, despite my pushing against him with the little energy I have in a half-sleep state. So I reach over him and grab his phone myself. I read ‘Lex’ on the screen, and even though it’s not my phone to answer, I instinctively answer it anyway.

  “Lexie?” I ask, still half-asleep.

  “No. Valerie? It’s Kathy. Honey, can you wake Craig up?”

  Instantly, I know something is wr
ong. It’s the middle of the night. Craig’s mom is calling from Lexie’s phone. Everything about this screams unusual.

  I look over at Craig and realize I don’t have to wake him up, he’s woken up on his own when he heard me talking. “It’s your mom,” I tell him.

  He sits up and takes the phone from me. “Ma, what’s wrong?” he asks in a scratchy, concerned, voice. He knows something’s wrong too. That’s the thing about three A.M. phone calls – you feel the unease in your chest before you ever even pick up the phone.

  “Why?” Pause. “How did that happen?” Pause. “Is she okay?” Pause.

  With every pause my heart beats faster and faster. I want to scream ‘tell me what’s going on!’ but I wait patiently instead.

  “How do they not know that?” Pause. “I’m coming.” Pause. “I don’t care. I’m on my way.”

  And just like that, the conversation is over. He tosses his phone, jumps out of bed and starts rummaging through drawers for his clothes.

  “What happened?” I ask him, but I get no answer in response. “Craig, talk to me. What happened?” I ask again, getting out of bed myself.

  “Lexie’s in the hospital,” he answers blankly.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “She had a seizure.”

  A seizure. I process what that means. I’ve heard of people having seizures before. They’ve been okay. Nothing necessarily life-threatening. Although, it’s usually a sign of something else, something that stems deeper. “Has she ever had a seizure before?”

  “What?” he asks, as if he forgot I was even in the room talking to him. “No. No, she’s never had a seizure before.”

  “What did your mom say? Is she going to be okay?”

  “They don’t know.”

  They don’t know?! How can they not know? Suddenly, I realize I’m asking the same questions he had just asked his mom on the phone moments ago.

  “I’m coming with you,” I tell him. I jump on the phone and start talking to the airline about switching our flight. I explain that it’s a family emergency and we need to leave now, but it does no good. “There’s no flights scheduled out until seven,” I tell him after hanging up the phone.

  “Four hours away,” he mumbles. “I need to be there with her.”

  “I know. But it’ll take us longer to drive. We have to wait and catch the flight.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” he says through gritted teeth, which hits me like a knife in my chest. “You talked me into coming and I knew I should have been home with Lexie. I was gone for months at school. I was supposed to spend the summer with her. I should be there with her.”

  “I didn’t talk you into coming,” I manage to say through the pain in my chest.

  “Whatever. You don’t need to come. Stay here with Drew and Hailey. I’m going to the airport to wait.”

  “Craig…” I trail off. He doesn’t answer me. I take a deep breath and try again. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. I’m coming with you.” I scurry around trying to pack up clothes as fast as I can, but I see Craig walk out of the bedroom, so I drop everything and just run after him. Hailey can bring my stuff back with her when she comes home.

  “I said you don’t need to come, Valerie. Coming here was so important to you, you should just stay.”

  I can feel my heart breaking as tears run down my face. “I know you’re scared, but don’t be an ass. Just let me come with you,” I plead.

  Although his eyes are hardened and his stare is as cold as ice, he has a moment where he looks torn. “Fine. Do what you want.”

  So I jump into the car with him, despite the fact that I’m still in my pajamas.

  He doesn’t say a word to me the whole time he drives to the airport in Hailey’s car. He doesn’t talk to me at all the whole time we wait at the airport.

  Once we’re seated in the plane and it elevates its nose upward, I look over at him and he looks away. This, out of everything, sets me over the edge. Maybe it’s because I know he can’t walk away, confined here on the airplane, or maybe it’s simply because I’ve had enough, but I finally let him have it. “I love her too. I love Lexie too and I’m scared too,” I drill into him as I start to cry. He pretends not to listen, but I continue anyway. “We’re supposed to be able to lean on each other at times like this. How strong can our relationship be if you simply shut me out when you’re scared? Let me help you. Please?”

  Without turning his head to look at me, he finds my hand with his and grabs on, squeezing it once and then resting it in mine. And that’s enough for me. That’s all the comfort I need right now. That one gesture is enough to tell me that we’ll be okay.

  When we land, Craig finds us a taxi to take us to the hospital while I call his mom. They were able to get in to see her, but she was sleeping. The taxi ride, like every trying thing we’ve done from the moment we got the call up until this point, is eerily quiet. I know Craig is lost in his own thoughts. I don’t know if those thoughts are eating him alive or if he’s just taking time to sort them out. But either way, I don’t dare break him from it. I know that he needs his space right now.

  When we get there, I ask the first doctor I find how Lexie Morgan is doing. Surprisingly, he recognizes the name.

  “Autistic sixteen year old, suffered a seizure in the middle of the night?” he asks. I nod my head for him to go on. “They’re still doing tests but she’s stable.”

  He redirects us to Craig’s parents sitting in the waiting room. When we approach them, Kathy stands up, rushes over, and hugs me desperately. I see Rick get up and stand beside her, so I reach out for his hand and he squeezes mine in return. Craig walks away from all of us. I see him reach the end of the hall and punch the vending machine so hard, I’m sure he broke the glass case. I move to go after him, but Kathy stops me.

  “Just give him a few minutes. Trust me,” she says.

  So I do.

  Kathy, Rick, and I take a seat in the waiting area. I ask them a million questions and then feel bad for asking them so much. If they’re annoyed, they don’t show it though.

  Basically, from the information I’ve gathered, Lexie called out to her mom in the middle of the night. By the time Kathy ran in, Lexie had started seizing. Kathy called for Rick to call 9-1-1 and then she just tried to comfort Lexie through the seizure. When the ambulance came, Lexie’s seizure was over but she still wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t move. They rushed her to the hospital and started doing tests immediately. They know that Lexie is stable, but they’re still trying to get more answers as to why this happened so they can prevent it from happening again.

  Craig makes his way back over to us, but instead of sitting down, he takes my hand, motioning for me to stand up and follow him. I do.

  He leads me down a hallway, turns a corner, and leads me down another one. This section of the hospital is emptier. My heart is racing. Is he going to ask me to leave? Is he still upset with me? Is he going to blame me again for him not being there?

  He grabs me and pulls me close to him. It takes me by surprise but I don’t question it. I embrace him easily, all of his coldness from earlier forgotten.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper to him.

  He doesn’t have to say it because I’ve already forgiven him and I think he knows it, but he says the words anyway. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know. It’s alright,” I assure him.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” he says in a cracking voice, holding me tighter.

  Hours later, we’re sitting with his parents, none of us talking much, when a doctor comes over. We all stand immediately.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan?” he asks.

  “Yes, how is she? Do they know more of what’s going on yet?” Rick asks.

  He nods his head yes. And with that, he has our full attention.

  “I’m Dr. Gillderhughe, the neurologist working on Lexie’s case. Lexie had a Tonic-clonic seizure. In short, some of the brain abnormalities
that are associated with Autism may contribute to seizures. These abnormalities can cause changes in brain activity by disrupting neurons in the brain. We hooked Lexie up to an electroencephalogram, which is a noninvasive process that involves placing electrodes on her head in order to monitor activity in her brain. As many as one-third of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder also have Epilepsy. And, ultimately, it is our conclusion that Lexie is one of those individuals. The good news, however, is that Epilepsy, like Autism, exists on a spectrum – that is, the severity varies widely among those affected. Lexie is very low on the spectrum. I’m going to prescribe an antiepileptic drug…”

  “Can we see her?” Craig asks, interrupting him.

  “Well, yes, but I still need to go over some stuff with your parents.”

  “It’s okay,” Kathy says. “Go ahead Craig. She’d want to see you.”

  Craig grabs my hand and leads me along with him while his parents continue to talk to the doctor. When we get to Lexie’s hospital room, I stop.

  “You go,” I tell him.

  “She’ll want to see you too,” he states with a soft smile.

  God it’s good to see him smile.

  We walk into the room and Lexie’s face brightens instantly. She doesn’t even seem sick, just tired really. She’s still the same old Lexie.

  “I don’t like the cords,” she says, talking about the IV, “But they have My Little Pony on the TV and I like that.”

  “Lex, you gave us such a scare,” Craig tells her, fighting back tears of relief at the sight of her.

  “Sorry.”

  He laughs, “It’s okay.”

  She talks to us for a while before Kathy and Rick come in. Then it’s all of us, just hanging out like nothing’s happened. I hear my phone and when I take it out to look at it, I realize I have quite a few texts from Hailey. Shit. She doesn’t even know we’re no longer in Michigan. She probably just thinks we took her car for a joyride. I excuse myself out of the room to call her back and explain everything, making sure to apologize for her car being at the Michigan airport. She completely understands because she’s Hailey and she’s the best.