by Xavier Neal
There’s a short pause. The sound of stillness slips around my neck like a noose nestling itself for the inevitable sting of death. “We do not discuss matters like this over the phone. Please come at-”
“I’m on my way.” I end the call and swallow the sob struggling to break free.
No matter what happens, no matter what they have to say or how bad it may be I will be there for him. I will be there to hold his hand and remind him he is not alone. That he is never alone. I’m going to be by his side the same way he would be by mine. The same way neither of us could be for the person who did everything possible to make us possible.
Bailey
With my head tilted up at the sky, I ask, “Why’s it suddenly so dark?” Another star seems to disappear from the sky. “Why is it getting darker?”
Emma casually states, “Your brain is starting to swell.”
Positive I misheard her, I look back down to where she’s splashing her feet in the creek. “What did you say?”
“Your brain,” she lifts her fingers to her head, “is starting to swell.”
My mouth bobs in dismay.
“Unless you wanna get crushed by the pending doom and drown at the hand of this creek, it’s time to pick a cave.” She waves her hand towards the other side of the creek that seems to be rising. “Pick one. Face the right demon, the creek, aka the excess fluid, will drain.”
“And if I face the wrong one?”
She tips a finger to her chin and hums, “I’m thinking...lung failure.” Emma lifts her finger in the air before confirming. “Yup. Lung failure.”
A wave of exhaustion attempts to distract me from continuing to move. “Any clues on which cave I should go through? After all, you’re supposed to guide me back to Kenny. Do that.”
Emma’s head cocks to the side. “Say please.”
“Please.”
She extends her hand for me to take. The moment my hand is in hers, she yanks me through the water that’s now chest level, and rushes me towards the opening on the left.
“You need a real job!” Kimberly screams at me in the doorway of our garage.
Thankful my back is to her, I roll my eyes, have a swig of my beer, and return to sanding the custom bookshelf I’ve been working on. She throws this fit what feels like every Thursday after she comes from dinner with her sister. She shouts. She screams. She calls me good for nothing and then storms off like a child convinced the world does actually revolve around her. In a twisted way I’ve began to look forward to these nights. It allows me to spend the remainder of them focused on whatever project I’m working on and crash on the couch downstairs guilt free.
“Are you even listening to me?!”
I humor her by retorting, “I have a real job, Kim.”
“Building custom furniture for rich people like their custom slave is not a real job!”
“You know this is just something I do part time.”
Being a full time manager at Harry’s Hardware store isn’t at all where I saw myself ending up after college. Then again, I never imagined I would be married to a woman I didn’t love, pining after a woman I’ll probably never have, dreading every morning I have to open my eyes to this alternate reality I’ve fallen into.
“Manager at a hardware store barely counts as a real job,” she whines.
“It pays the bills.” Something she doesn’t. Hell, some weeks she spends more than I could make from one job alone. At this point I build custom furniture for the extra cash as much as that’s where my passion is.
“Why aren’t you in corporate?”
“I don’t wanna be in corporate. You know that.”
“What about what I want?”
And so the tangent begins…
“What about what’s best for this family?”
I slam my tool down and sharply turn to face her. “What fucking family, Kim?!”
“The one we’re trying to make!”
“I’m not trying to make one!” Her face looks stunned. “This isn’t new information to you. Don’t waste my time pretending that it is.”
“But I thought-”
“I’ve told you repeatedly that the first time you got pregnant was a mistake. You knew it was a mistake. A mistake I was willing to stand up and be a man about. A mistake I married you because of. A mistake, I would’ve loved regardless of whatever happened between the two of us.”
For a moment her face softens.
And it’s the truth. I didn’t want a kid with her. I didn’t want a kid with some chick I had been drunkenly sleeping with for a couple months. I wasn’t ready to be a father yet. I damn sure didn’t want to be a father if it didn’t involve the only woman I had been expecting it to. All that bullshit aside, I would’ve loved it endlessly. Gave it everything I had and all the love my own father was too much of a cold bastard to ever offer. The whole reason we even got married to begin with was because her father reminded me of my own with his threat to disown her for being an unwed mother. Considering my own father had disowned me just a few months before I pitied her. Figured I should help someone else in a way no one ever helped me. In a way I could never help myself. While my father disowned me simply for choosing to attend my mother’s wedding, claiming to me I was dead to him and would actually be if I ever stepped foot near him again, Kim’s father was just pissed his youngest daughter managed to get knocked up before he was ready. To me it was just a piece of paper to protect her. A façade to shelter our unborn child under.
“But it didn’t happen,” I gently remind her of the miscarriage, careful not to place the blame on either of us. “And I don’t want it to happen.” At least not with her.
“Now or ever?”
In a colder tone than intended, I state, “Ever.”
“Ever with me? Or ever period?”
My arms fold across my chest. “Does it matter?”
“It does,” she quietly clarifies. “Because if you don’t ever want a family with anyone, I know it’s not just me that’s the problem. But if you want a family someday, if you actually want to be married to someone and have kids with them then that tells me that I need to use the number of the divorce lawyer my sister gave me today.”
Rather than tell her something she doesn’t want to hear, something I don’t even want to admit out loud, I calmly state, “If you want a divorce, I will sign the papers.”
Kim’s body stumbles back in shock. “You’re not even gonna fight for me? For us?”
I shake my head. “No.”
Her hand begins to shake as it travels up to catch her gasp.
“Kim, you’re miserable with me. You don’t deserve that. You deserve to be happy and giving you a divorce will definitely increase those chances. You’ll never be happy with me. So, no, I won’t fight for you to stay when I know it would be better for you to go. I care enough about you to let you go, rather than selfishly ask you to stay.”
She sniffles. “Why do you never say you love me?”
My attention falls to the ground.
“Not even the day we got married-”
“We barely knew each other-”
“And not once since.” The words drag my eyes back to hers. “Over a year we’ve been married and never have you said I love you. Why?”
I swallow the urge to lie. “Because I don’t.”
Another look of disbelief crosses her expression.
“I’ve loved one woman my entire life. And I mean only one,” I declare with enough pain in my voice it strains my vocal chords. “I’ve loved the same person since I was barely 15. She smiled and my entire world at that point was consumed by her. I woke up in the morning because I knew she was in my life. Because I knew I’d hear from her or possibly see her. I was afraid to go to bed at night because I was terrified that between the moment I closed my eyes and opened them again she’d fade from existence. She’s more than just a person to me. She’s a literal piece that’s missing. I am incomplete without her. And that sounds pathetic. It sounds….
obsessive, but there’s no other way to describe it. I literally walk around with a void in my soul without her. A never ending pain that’s barely ever dulled. I’ve spent years trying to move past her, move on from her, to relinquish all beliefs and ideas of her yet every day is the same. I wake up to thoughts of her. Memories mocking me. Every woman I’ve ever dated, ever slept with was nothing more than a placeholder in hopes that one day, one magical, glorious fucking day, that I’m allowed to be with the one person, I don’t just want…but the one person I need.”
The tears falling from her eyes tempt mine to mimic the action. There’s a long lull filled with her sniffles and my heartbeat thrumming in my ears. Finally, she speaks softly, “I’m not sure if I should be disgusted or feel sorry for you.”
I swallow the sob suffocating my throat. “I envy you, Kim. After this is over, you’ll hate me. You’ll curse me. You’ll hurt but you’ll eventually heal. Move forward. Fall in love again, this time with someone who is actually capable of loving you back. You’ll find a peace I never will, stuck in this purgatory of heartache. For the rest of my life I’ll be in permanent pain, incapable of ever being with the one I love and incapable of moving forward.”
“You called me that night,” Emma says, leaning against the cave wall across from me. “I came over and for the first time ever, I watched you cry. I watched you…mourn for a lost love.”
I keep my eyes screwed shut, tears pooling on my cheeks.
“I made you a promise that night,” she quietly recalls. “I swore I’d do everything I could to get you back to her.”
All of a sudden there’s warmth on my face. My eyes pop open and I lift them towards the warm sunlight leaking through the center of the cave. The glow engulfs me, instilling the first relief I’ve felt since this nightmare started.
“I may just be a figment of your imagination, but you should know, the real Emma meant it then,” she whispers. “And this one means it now…”
Kennedy
“It’s a surprise to us too,” Dr. Phillips, says a small stunned look on his face. “The swelling seems to have subsided, quicker than we were expecting. I’ve never actually seen anything like it.”
There’s a small urge to smile. It’s probably crazy to think, but I like to believe Bailey’s still fighting to get back to us.
“His kidneys are also improving,” he informs trying to shake away the disbelief. “The antibiotics we gave him for the infection we found seem to be doing a tremendous job.” More to himself than us, he mutters in amazement, “Better than they ever have before…”
“That’s good, right?” Thomas speaks up from beside me. “That means he’s probably going to wake up soon?”
The doctor shakes his head. “It’s not that simple I’m afraid.”
Thomas starts to snap, but I quickly reach out and give his hand a comforting squeeze.
“You’ll be allowed in to his room shortly. At this time I think it would be best for only immediate family. Mother and father. Wife and child.”
I nod my compliance.
Dr. Phillips gives me a final look before exiting back the direction he came.
Thomas flops back down into the waiting room chair. “At least things aren’t getting worse.”
I sit back down and agree, “Not any more…”
Getting a phone call in the middle of the evening that his brain was swelling and they needed to take immediate action was terrifying. At that moment I was more terrified than I had ever been that this was going to be his final moment. The last chance I had to stare at his face with life in it. I called Thomas as soon as I could and he kept his word. He rushed up to sit with me, insisting Tami keep Em at their place until we had more information.
“I’ll call Tami once you get settled back in his room.” His arms fold themselves across his chest. “I’ll have her take Em to your parents or his parents in the morning if she needs a break.”
“I appreciate it,” I softly say. “I…I really hate her seeing her dad hooked up to all the machines and having to explain more or less that they’re keeping him alive.” Another wave of tears crashes into me. “I hate her seeing me like this almost as much.”
He gives me a comforting pat on the leg. “I don’t blame you. And Tami really doesn’t mind watching her. I think she likes getting to be aunt to someone since…well…you know.”
He tries to keep his face from saddening more.
“Hey,” I whisper. “It’s going to happen. You two are going to make the best parents in the entire world when it does.”
Fate’s crueler than I care to admit. Examples: Bailey and I finally get to be together only to be divided by the very person who has always kept us apart. Thomas and Tami endlessly trying to bring life into this world while Bailey and I accidentally stumbled into it our very first night together since I was in high school. God or whatever you want to call the entity that is now the vicious puppet master of our lives seems to find more enjoyment out of dangling the things we want right out of our grasps than allowing us to have them. If I have to force myself to look at the positive side of things, I guess I’m grateful Bailey’s bastard of a birth father is behind bars and Thomas has the option to adopt. They can more than afford to adopt basically a litter of children.
“You know Emma would’ve made a good aunt too,” Thomas attempts to change the subject.
“Yeah if I wanted my daughter constantly hyped on sugar and making wall murals in my living room with her finger paints.”
“Do you not?”
The joke gets me to smirk.
After a small pause, he tosses his arm over my shoulder and states, “I’m sorry she’s not the one here with you now.”
My head hits his shoulder in silent solidarity.
She was the one who brought us back together. I doubt she ever thought anything would tear us apart again.
I lean against the door frame to Emma’s childhood bedroom. My eyes instantly settle on Thomas who is sitting on the floor, back braced against the edge of her bed, knees pulled up to his chest, and hands fidgeting with a teddy bear.
“This was the first toy I ever gave Em,” he says, his voice muffled in misery. “I was three. It was her first birthday and I just wanted her to be happy. So I gave it to her. She took this damn thing everywhere until she was seven and someone told her only babies took their stuffed animals with them to school.”
“Marcus Smith,” I insert the name, joining in on the memory with him. “Kid was a complete asshole. It was the first day of school and he made it his mission to be as mean as he could to everyone. He picked on me for being completely new and having a Power Ranger lunchbox. Emma stood up for me. Telling him she’d use her ninja skills on him if he didn’t leave me alone. That’s when he spotted the bear in her backpack and went after her instead.”
Thomas’ hands continue to stroke the bear. “I remember walking the two of you back here. Playing with both of you all afternoon. Having Em beg for your mom to let you stay for dinner.” He finally looks up. “That’s the moment I knew I was in trouble. I no longer had one sister, but two.”
A smile threatens to ruin my melancholy mood.
“That night after we brushed our teeth and I went to say good night to her, she told me about the baby comment. I was so mad, but Em… Em handled it the way only she could. She told me it was okay to leave her bear at home because someone needed to protect her room if one of the monsters from the show tried to invade it. It was ludicrous yet her outrageous belief in a world built to protect each other from harm was something I admired. It made me wanna be a better big brother. Made me wanna protect her the way she thought that bear would protect her other toys.”
“And you did,” I quietly confirm.
He shakes his head quickly. “I didn’t. When Em needed me most, I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her…”
My heart plummets to my stomach during my journey to that side of the room. “This wasn’t your fault, Thomas.” Sliding down besid
e him, I reiterate, “It’s no one’s.”
Which feels like a harsh lie leaving my lips. We all feel like we’re to blame. Like we’ve all got a choke collar of culpability making it hard for us to take our next breath. When someone you love takes their own life, you feel it’s your fault. You feel you could’ve prevented if you paid more attention or spent more time with them. You start to shift the blame from them to yourself, absolutely certain if you just tweaked a missed phone call here and postponed lunch there, that you could save them. It’s hard to accept the reality that even if you had done those things there’s still a high probability it would’ve made no difference.