by Jamie Canosa
She discussed everything from opening scenes, to plot holes, character backgrounds, to story arcs, stopping after each portion to give us a chance to work them out for our individual projects as she made rounds answering questions. I kept my head down and started plotting out a new idea I’d had rolling around my brain for some time, while Kiernan watched me with poorly concealed amusement.
When the workshop wrapped up a solid three hours later, the instructor offered to stick around and answer any other questions people had. Left to my own devices, I would have taken the million questions I had on the tip of my tongue to the grave before risking looking like an idiot in front of an actual author. But Kiernan insisted I get in line to talk with her. Given that we were there on his dollar and he’d just spent three hours of his Saturday afternoon listening to someone talk about something he had absolutely no interest in for me, I couldn’t exactly refuse.
I was third in line, listening to the conversation taking place in front of me—making mental notes on how not to sound foolish—when I glanced over at Kiernan just in time to see him collapse. His body hit the tiled floor with a loud slap that drew the attention of almost everyone in the room. And if that hadn’t done it, the ear-splitting scream that tore from me when he began convulsing finished the job.
“Kiernan!” Dropping to my knees, I reached for his flailing hand as others crowded around us.
“Don’t touch him!”
“Back up!”
“Watch his head!”
Voices chorused all around me.
I was pulled away as someone slipped a couch cushion beneath his head. I heard someone else call 9-1-1, and everything felt as though it were moving in slow motion as the seizure came to an end and Kiernan lay there, limp and unconscious.
The hands restraining me let go and I flew to his side. “Kiernan? Kiernan, wake up. Look at me. Kiernan. Please. Kiernan?”
Oh, God, what was happening to him? I clutched his hand with all my strength, terrified someone would try to pull me away again.
Time seemed to catch up with itself and catapult forward as a siren wailed outside and a uniformed man and woman rushed in, wheeling a stretcher between them. Most everything after that was a blur.
I vaguely remember watching them load him into the back of the ambulance. I remember getting in after him and sitting on a bench that ran against the side wall, watching as they poked and prodded him, jotting down numbers on a clipboard and reading them off into some kind of handheld radio. Rapid fire questions were shot my way. None of which I could answer besides his name and address.
His cellphone was passed off to me when it fell from his pocket and I, at least, had the presence of mind to look up his home number and call his mom, though I can’t recall anything that was said between us.
My whole body was shaking by the time they unloaded the stretcher from the back of the ambulance and I followed him through the emergency room doors. A nurse directed me toward the waiting room and I nearly panicked when I lost sight of Kiernan.
Mrs. Parks was already there, arguing with a woman behind the desk. I started toward her when my legs gave out. Prepared for the impact of the hard floor, I was startled when two strong arms scooped me up and placed me back on my feet.
“Whoa there. You alright?” Caulder steadied my shoulders until he was sure I could hold myself up again.
“I-I don’t know what happened. We were talking and one m-minute he w-was fine and the n-next . . . H-he just . . . I don’t kn-know what happened.”
“Shh. It’s okay.” His hand traveled lightly up and down my back pulling me closer to his side, as though he were afraid I may drop again. “Dammit.” Caulder shook his head angrily. “I told him. I told him to tell you before something like this happened.”
“Tell me what?” I stared up at Caulder’s profile, at his clenched jaw. “You knew this was going to happen?”
He shook his head again before finally looking at me. “Take a walk with me. We need to talk. This shit has gone on long enough.”
Threading his fingers through mine, Caulder marched me over to his mother. “I’m taking Jade for a walk. And I’m telling her. Everything.”
Mrs. Parks’ red rimmed eyes dropped to me with such a sadness in them that it broke my heart. She smiled tightly at her son and nodded.
The next thing I knew we were out in the parking lot and he was holding open the back door to his car for me. “I thought we were walking?”
“Too damn cold. Get in. We can sit and talk here.” Caulder climbed in beside me and leaned over the seat to put the key in the ignition and flip on the heater. When toasty air started to fill the space, he dropped back into the seat and resumed not looking at me.
I fought for patience while a range of emotions flickered over his face, finally landing on anger. “Dammit. It should be Kiernan telling you this. You deserve that much from him, but enough is enough.” Finally his eyes met mine, and the pain in them matched my own. “I don’t want to be the one to do this, but you need to know. Jade . . . Kiernan’s sick.”
I stared back at him at a bit of a loss. We were sitting outside an emergency room after Kiernan had been brought there in the back of an ambulance. In my opinion, ‘sick’ was a bit of an understatement.
Caulder seemed to understand my confusion. “I’m not talking flu sick. He’s . . .” His chest expanded on a deep breath and then seemed to deflate entirely. “He’s terminal.”
The word struck like a hot needle to my mind. Painful, sharp, and unexpected. “What?”
“He has a brain tumor. They found it a little over a year ago. It’s cancerous.”
“I don’t . . . Can’t . . .” My brain was misfiring on all levels, incapable of stringing together a competent thought. “Can’t they just cut it out?”
“They tried. They tried everything. For months it was endless tests and procedures. They finally decided it was inoperable.”
It was like his words were slowly unlocking a vault of information I was desperately trying to hold closed because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to hear this. It couldn’t . . . couldn’t be true.
“Are—?” Tears clogged my throat making it painful to speak. My heart and body were working together to keep me from asking what I already knew. “Are you saying—?” A sob erupted and I choked it back. “Kiernan’s going to die?”
Seventeen
Caulder’s face screwed up and he nodded forcefully as his eyes welled up with tears of his own.
“No.” Blinking furiously, I bit back the pain, stomping it into submission.
“It’s okay, Jade.”
“No. No, it’s not.” I scrubbed harshly at the few tears that dared escape. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t because that would mean I believed him and it couldn’t be true.
“Stop.” He gently pulled my hands away from my face. “It’s okay to cry.”
I shook my head, adamantly refusing to believe this.
“He is dying, Jade.” Caulder looked me right in the eye as he slaughtered my heart, ripping it open from the inside out. “Kiernan is going to die. Sooner rather than later. You can deny it all you want, but it’s going to happen. You need to be prepared for that.”
He watched me closely as I sat there still as a statue, terrified to move, terrified to feel, because I knew that if I did, it would kill me.
“Jade? I just told you that someone you love is going to die. It’s okay to feel that. It’s okay to cry, scream, curse Heaven. Do whatever you need to. Trust me, I’ve done it all.”
The pressure in my chest grew until I was afraid it may explode. That’s when I realized I was holding my breath. My lungs screamed for relief, but still I couldn’t release it, afraid that if I did, everything else would go with it. Slowly, I allowed the words to sink in. One at a time, I opened my heart to them.
I felt my heart break and couldn’t believe that I’d survived. That I was still capable of feeling anything at all. To literally feel your heart crack wide ope
n and live . . . I almost wished I hadn’t. The pain was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. And with it came the tears. Hot and fast they washed down my cheeks to a broken chorus of guttural sobs I couldn’t control.
At some point, Caulder wrapped me up in his arms and pulled me against his chest. I buried my face there, fisting his shirt, and felt him shudder beneath me. I don’t know how long we sat there, holding on to one another, sharing our pain. It felt like an eternity. Caulder never once hushed me. Never tried to tell me it would be alright. Never tried to move us along so he could get back inside, though I knew he must have been anxious to check on his brother. He just held me tight, like he was trying to hold me together, and let me cry for as long as I needed.
When the tears finally wound down, I stayed right where I was. The urge to give into utter exhaustion overwhelmed me. I wasn’t ready to face this new reality yet. This horribly, unfair, devastating new reality. But I needed to see Kiernan. I needed to know he was okay. At least for now. That we still had time.
Caulder cleared his throat and shifted beneath me. “You ready?”
I nodded, my throat too raw to speak.
“Alright.” He released me and I patted my face dry before letting myself out of the car.
There were people scattered across the lot. Some limping their way inside. Others leaving with big smiles and bunches of balloons. Cars whizzed by on the road to unknown destinations. Across the street people came and went from the many shops and eateries. All of them completely oblivious to the fact that my entire world had come crumbling down around me.
“Jade?” I turned to find Caulder stopped just outside of the car, pain written in the scrunch of his brow. “Kiernan’s scared. I know he doesn’t look like he is, or act like he is, but he’s my brother and I’m telling you, he is. And I think what terrifies him most is hurting you. He’s going to need us to be strong for him. Do you understand?”
Strong. Not something I normally considered myself. But for Kiernan, I could do it. For Kiernan, I could do anything. Letting the emotional shields slide back into place, I nodded. Which, for some reason, made Caulder look even more pained.
“I just want him to find peace, Jade, and he won’t be able to do that if he doesn’t think you’ll be okay. If he thinks he’s making you suffer.”
“I understand.” Swallowing the last of my tears, I turned back toward the building, prepared to put on the show of my life when a warm hand wrapped around my wrist.
“Wait.” Caulder was closer, standing over me with the most torn look on his face. “I . . . I want you know it’s okay to hurt, though. Just not in front of Kiernan. Being strong for someone when you’re falling apart inside is one of the hardest things there is. Believe me, I know. It’s not fair to put this on you, and I’m sorry. If you ever need to talk, or cry, or wail on something with a baseball bat, come find me. Any time. Call me in the middle of the night when it really hits you, because it will. I’ll be there for you. I promise. We’ll get through this together, okay?”
Sucking in a deep breath and then releasing it slowly between my lips, I nodded again. Caulder gave my hand a quick squeeze before letting go, and followed me back inside the waiting room to where their mother was sitting with her head in her hands.
“Oh, Jade, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Parks took my hands in hers and pulled me down beside her. “I should have—”
“It’s okay. I understand. Really, I do.” I had to bite the inside of my cheek to fight back the tears welling in response to hers. “Have they said anything yet?”
“Nothing yet. Just that we have to wait. You’d think I’d get a little preferential treatment around here.” She grumbled loud enough for the woman behind the desk to hear, sinking back into her seat on an aggravated huff.
“Mom’s a nurse here,” Caulder clarified. “She works in the ICU.”
I don’t know why that surprised me. Maybe it was the fancy house, or the nice clothes, but I’d pegged her as a lawyer, or the CEO of some big name company. For some reason, it never crossed my mind to ask Kiernan.
Either way, she was right. Working there definitely didn’t earn her any preferential treatment. It was over an hour before anyone came out to speak with us. When they finally did, it was a young doctor in green scrubs looking even more exhausted than I felt.
“He’s awake and coherent.” The doctor went on to explain some technical sounding things to Mrs. Parks’ which she seemed to understand, but all I heard was when he finished with. “He’s asking to see you.”
Caulder and his mother went in first. After all, they were family. Now that I knew he probably wasn’t going to die today, I let other thoughts consume me. Kiernan and I had a lot to discuss, but this wasn’t the place or time. It would come, I was sure, but for right that moment all I wanted was to see his face.
My back and shoulders ached with tension and I slumped wearily into a hard chair to wait. I was drifting somewhere on the edge of oblivion when Caulder returned.
“Hey. He wants to see you.” Bolting upright, I wiped away the stray tears that had leaked free in my moment of exhausted weakness as he took the seat beside me. “Are you going to be alright?”
“I’ll hold it together.”
“I know. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you.”
I forced a smile that probably ended up looking more like a grimace. “I’ll be fine.”
Caulder looked unconvinced at best. “I told him that you know. He wasn’t thrilled that I was the one to tell you, but he understands why I had to. He’s really sorry that he didn’t tell you sooner.”
“I’m not mad at him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I already told you what I’m worried about.”
“And I told you, I’m fine. What room is he in?”
Caulder led me quietly down a long narrow corridor lined with doors to the one at the very end. Excitement and nerves got the better of me and I lunged for the handle, but he brought me up short. Knocking softly, we waited until Mrs. Parks emerged, red faced and puffy eyed.
“Oh, honey.” She pulled me into her arms and held me so tight I could scarcely breathe. It took a moment for the weirdness to fade away and then I hugged her back just as hard. I let her arms give me the strength I so desperately needed to do what came next. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”
She pulled back with fresh tears streaming down her face and the best I could do was shake my head, unable to fight through the lump blocking my throat.
“Alright, enough, Mom. You don’t want to turn her into a blubbering mess before she even gets through the door,” Caulder teased lightly, wrapping an arm around his mother’s shoulders to support her as she released me. “Let’s give them some time. Go ahead.” He nodded to the door and once again I reached for the handle.
This time I did so with less enthusiasm. What was I supposed to say to him? What wasn’t I supposed to say? I was going to screw this up in a big way. I just knew it.
Caulder seemed to understand my unspoken turmoil. His hand closed over my shoulder as his mother shuffled back towards the waiting room. “It’s just Kiernan. And he just wants to see his girlfriend. You’ll be fine, remember?”
I nodded and before the ounce of courage he’d given me could dissipate, I opened the door and stepped inside. Kiernan sat up in the hospital bed, wearing a long sleeved tee and sweats that his mother must have given him.
“Hey, you.” He smiled, but still looked as apprehensive as I felt.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” I inched slowly into the room.
Kiernan sighed. “Not great. Can we skip the whole awkward, ‘I don’t know what to say’ part?”
“I don’t know what to say.” It was the truth.
“That’s okay. Let’s start with you coming more than a foot inside the room.” Kiernan scooted over and patted the mattress beside him. “Get over here.”
My lip was raw from how hard I was chewing it as I crossed t
he small, sterile space. “Is that allowed?”
“It’s my bed.” He shrugged. “We’re paying enough for it.”
This time his smile was genuine and it eased some of my anxiety. Feeling the warmth of his body beside me as I scrambled up onto the bed went a long way toward easing the rest.
“Sooo.” He reclined on the pillows propped behind us and rolled his head to look at me.
“So.” I copied his movements, putting us face-to-face, and his warm minty breath washed over me, overwhelming my senses. This was Kiernan. He was here. Right beside me. Close enough to touch, to smell. And he was alive. There was an IV stuck in one arm, but otherwise he looked totally normal. No tubes, no machines. He didn't look like a dying person.
“We should probably talk, huh?”
“Kiernan, we really don’t have to—”
“Yes. We really do.”
His gaze drifted around the room. When it returned to me, his eyes were filled with that all too familiar sadness he always seemed to get when he looked at me. Now, I understood it.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jade. I should have told you. Right from the beginning, I should have been honest with you. I just didn’t want you to look at me differently, and now . . . Now your heart’s involved and all I’m going to do is hurt you. It would have been better if I’d just left you alone.”
“No. Kiernan, that’s not true.” He shot me a no bullshit look and I screwed on a small smile. “Okay, yeah, you sort of scared the crap out of me back there. And I’m terrified of what’s going to happen, but . . . Don’t you have any idea how much you’ve done for me?” He stared back at me in disbelief, so I plowed ahead. “I was afraid of my own shadow when I met you. I hated myself. Everything about me. And I believed that everyone else hated me too. That they should. I believed all those things my mother and Doug always said about me.”