“Oh really?” he asked a little playfully. “Like where exactly?”
I pulled down the collar of the T-shirt that I was wearing and exposing my shoulder closest to him. “Right here, I do believe.” I pointed to it with a smile.
He laughed and playfully nipped at the love mark he had left. However, he quickly stopped laughing and touched my neck gently. He traced over it softly, going back and forth on the sensitive skin.
“What about this?” he asked hesitantly.
I stared at him speechless. We hadn’t played the game in a while . . . the scar game.
I let out a sigh as I touched his hand that was tracing the scar. I knew exactly which scar he was talking about. When my hair was up, it was very noticeable. It was about six inches long, and the bright white color stuck out boldly against my skin. To make matters worse, it wrapped around the side of my neck and stopped right when it got to my jugular. It looked almost like a quarter of a necklace around my neck.
I sighed loudly; it was the most memorable of all of my physical scars.
“You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering,” Aiden said with his hand still on the scar.
I smiled at him and shook my head. “No, I want to tell you. I-It’s just kind of, no not kind of, it’s a really painful story.”
“It was the day before my fifteenth birthday. You remember that I told you my birthday were always really shitty, right? Well, I wasn’t lying. They were really shitty to me. I truly was not looking forward to it. Not to mention, it was my first birthday since Kelsey had left me. I was super depressed . . . and I-I . . . I just didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to die. I wanted everything to stop.” I paused and let some tears escape my eyes.
“So, that night I decided that was it. That was going to be the night. The night to end it all. I was just . . . done. So, I got a rope and tied it at the top of my closet. I tried to hang myself.”
I heard Aiden gasp, and I closed my eyes tightly.
“Obviously, I wasn’t successful. I didn’t tie the rope right, so when I kicked the chair out from underneath me, the rope came undone and the friction burned me really, really badly instead of just hanging me or breaking my neck.” I shrugged at the story, once again only giving the half-truth explanation. “That’s what the scar is from, it’s from the rope burning me from when I tried to kill myself at fifteen.”
I was such a fuck-up that I couldn’t even kill myself correctly.
“Y-you tried to kill yourself?” he said slowly, as if he was trying to wrap his head around my confession.
“Yeah, I told you I’m real fucked up. I-If you don’t want to be with me anymore, I’d understand,” I told him, feeling my heart speed up in terror.
It’d break me completely, but it’d be what was best for him.
“W-What?!” he asked incredulously. “Aubry, that would never make me not want to be with you. If anything, it makes me admire you even more,” he said and looked me directly in the eyes. “You felt so hopeless that you wanted to kill yourself and when it didn’t work, instead of trying again, you got up and kept living. Aubry, that’s amazing. You’re amazing.”
He kissed the scar on my neck softly and pulled me closer to him, wrapping me in a warm embrace. “I wish that I could have protected you . . . from all of it,” he said as I settled into his arms.
“Me too, Aiden . . . me too,” I whispered back solemnly.
Chapter Forty
Keep Fighting
Aubry
“Hey sleepyhead, it’s time to wake up!” I heard from beside me.
“No. I don’t wanna,” I whined.
“Aubry, come on. It’s already twelve in the afternoon!” Aiden said, making my eyes shoot open.
“Twelve in the afternoon? Why didn’t you wake me up earlier!?” I yelled, throwing my pillow at him.
He chuckled at me. “Because you didn’t go to sleep until super late! You needed some rest!” he answered while kissing my temple smoothly. “Besides, we aren’t even training today, remember? I’m going over to Tommy’s to play COD. That’s actually why I woke you. I’m about to leave. Are you sure that you don’t want to go? The guys are fine with you coming.”
“Aiden,” I said incredulously. “Go have some guy time! Remember? Space. Besides, I can hang out with Bri and Cece.”
“Actually . . . my mom and them went shopping. They would have taken you too, but they thought you were going with me,” he said, looking around. “So, it’s just Pawpaw here and he’s sick. So, like I said before, come with me!”
“Aiden . . . you need to go hangout with your friends. We’ve spent every single day for the past God-knows-how-long together. Go out and have fun with your friends! Besides, someone needs to stay with Robert and make sure he’s okay!” I said with a smile.
I got up out of bed and threw my arms around his neck. “Have fun playing whatever the hell COD is!” I said, pecking his lips lightly.
“Have fun with the crazy old man! You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone!” Aiden said, walking out of our room as he laughed loudly.
I took a shower and quickly changed my clothes. I didn’t really know what was wrong with Robert, but I hadn’t seen him in what seemed like ages, so I definitely wanted to see him.
I made him some chicken noodle soup and grabbed the chess set before I knocked on his door.
“Come in.” I heard faintly on the other side.
“Hey, I made you some soup, and I thought maybe we could have a rematch or two?” I said, smiling at him.
He looked weak, to say the least. He was pale and frail-looking with dark circles around his eyes.
“Oooh that sounds like the most fun I’ve had in at least a month!” Robert said in a laugh but ended up coughing halfway through.
“What . . . What do you have?” I asked cautiously as I set up the chessboard next to him on the bed.
“Pneumonia. Dana said that if I’m not better by tonight, then she’s taking me to the hospital. However, I am fine,” he said, waving it off.
I shook my head at the old man, but I didn’t say anything about it. I was the last person to judge someone for refusing to go to the hospital.
“Alright, ready to go down?” I asked while smiling at him.
“In your dreams,” he wheezed out.
***
We had played three games. I won the first, he won the second, and I won the third. We were on the last leg of our last game. I could tell he was getting very tired, although, he wouldn’t admit it.
“Aubry . . . Is there something wrong?” he asked, suddenly making me cock my head at him.
“What?”
“You just seem . . . distracted,” Robert said, shrugging.
“Robert . . . Have you ever done something to someone, someone you love? Something so horrible that you know they would never forgive you?” I asked him, refusing to look up.
He looked at me for few moments then sighed. “When I was twenty-five years old, I was overseas in the army. I was married and already had a kid on the way. Well, anyways, I was out one night at a bar, drinking. I knew I shouldn’t have even been there, but it was the army, and that’s what we did.” He shook his head and caught his breath.
“I got drunk, and I mean drunk. So drunk, in fact, that I couldn’t remember anything that happened. The next morning, I woke up naked in the bed of some girl who I couldn’t even remember her name. The only thing that I did know was that we had sex.” He paused and coughed.
“Anyways, I left and never told a single person what happened that. It was just a secret between me and God. When I got home from deployment, I thought that I could just block it out like nothing had ever happened. We had two more kids, and everything was fine until one day it wasn’t anymore.” He paused to cough again.
“Finally, I told her the truth. I had to; the guilt was making me crazy, so I told my wife what happened several years before. Obviously, she flipped out. She was so mad.” He laughed at the memory and shoo
k his head. “She threw all of my stuff out on the lawn and said that she’d mail me the divorce papers. We spent six months apart. I was broken, she was broken. Everything was broken. I broke everything . . .”
He paused and caught his breath.
“One day, though, she looked at me and told me, ‘I hate what you did, but I don’t hate you. I’ve tried and tried, and I could never hate you.’ That was the start of the second beginning.” He paused to cough again.
“Love is a lot of things. Love is messy. Love hurts. Love is illogical . . . but love also heals.” He sighed and grabbed my hand gently. “Aubry, I don’t know what you did, but I see the way Aiden looks at you. It’s the same way my wife looked at me and I at her. He loves you. Maybe, he’ll be pissed at first. Maybe, he’ll even say that he hates you. Maybe, he’ll break up with you and leave you in the dust, but I think he’ll always find his way back to you. That’s what love is. It conquers all.”
“B-But what if what I did is way worse than what you did?” I asked slowly.
He paused for a second and looked at me thoughtfully. “Love knows no bounds.”
“What if he doesn’t come back to me?” I asked, feeling my heart ache at the prospect.
“Then he doesn’t love you the way I think he does. And if that is the case, then you forgive yourself and move on. Aubry, you remind me a lot of my wife, Cecelia. She’s who Cece was named after, in case you were wondering. She was a strong woman, a fighter. She could handle anything that life threw at her. She was the scariest, and most beautiful and wonderful person that I’ve ever met. If you’re anything like her, which I know you are, then you’ll be okay. No matter what happens, you just have to keep fighting. You have to forgive yourself, though. I know that won’t be easy, even if Aiden or anyone else forgives you, but you don’t forgive yourself, then it’ll be a futile effort and you will destroy yourself trying to make it up.”
He smiled at me with glee.
“Oh, and by the way, checkmate!” he said, laughing.
His laughed instantly turned into a major coughing fit, though. So bad that I didn’t think he was going to make it. He was wheezing , throwing up, and a few times there was even blood speckles in his cough. After he finally stopped coughing, he was exhausted, so he fell asleep instantly. While he was asleep, I took the moment to call Dana.
“Dana . . . I think Pawpaw needs to go to the hospital,” I said bluntly when she picked up the phone.
“Okay, we’re on our way home, now. What happened?” she asked cautiously.
I explained to her about the coughing fit, and about how he was slowly just getting worse and worse with each moment I spent with him.
“I’m so sorry Dana,” I said into the phone. Maybe if I wouldn’t have bothered him, he’d still be okay.
“Aubry, he was already sick. It’s not your fault. I should have taken him to the hospital days ago. He was just being so stubborn. We’ll be home soon.”
I got off the phone with Dana and immediately called Aiden to tell him what happened. He was home in literally five minutes once we hung up.
“Is he okay?” he asked me as he cracked his bedroom door open just a tad.
“He’s okay, he’s just sleeping now. He’s going to be okay.”
I hope, I thought.
“That must have been so scary for you. I’m so sorry that I left you here by yourself,” Aiden said, putting his arm around me comfortingly.
“Don’t be silly Aiden, I’m fine. I basically forced you to go, anyways. Dana said she was going to take him tonight, regardless,” I said waving it off.
Dana walked in quickly after that, and Aiden helped put Pawpaw in the car. He looked a lot paler and more fragile than before.
I was so worried, but I knew that he ready to go if it was his time. I could tell by the way he spoke about his deceased wife that he missed her.
We were all outside standing by the car as Dana made sure she had everything.
“Okay I’ll be back when I can,” Dana told us all.
She was already looking tired and drained. She needed someone with her for this.
“Aiden, why don’t you go with your mom?” I suggested softly to him. “She really needs someone right now. That’s her father, Aid. Go be there for your mom.”
He looked at his mom and then to me with a small smile. “I have no idea what I did to deserve you,” he whispered into my ear and kissed my forehead. “Mom, I’m going to come with you,” he said as he ushered her into the passenger side.
“You really don’t have to, Aid,” Dana said calmly.
“I know, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not coming,” Aiden said before going back inside for his things.
She gestured at all of us to gather around her rolled down window. “I’ll call y’all when I find something out,” she said and hugged her daughters through the window.
“Thank you Aubry,” she whispered when I leaned down to her and kissed my head.
I nodded.
Aiden came back outside with his shoes, jacket, and a charger. He came and hugged me and kissed my lips.
“I’ll call you,” he said, handing me the cordless house phone. “And you call me if you have a nightmare,” he told me firmly while hugging me a tad tighter and then let go.
“Be good for Bri and Aubry, Cece. I Love y’all!” Dana called out before rolling up her window. You couldn’t miss the worry on her face.
It’s going to be okay . . . I hope.
***
Aiden
“He has viral pneumonia. Since it’s a virus, antibiotics won’t help. I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot we can do for him other than treat his symptoms. This is the worst case I’ve seen in a very long time. He’s elderly, Dana,” Dr. Reed said to me and my mother as we looked at my sleeping grandpa.
“B-But is he going to be okay, Nathaniel?” my mom asked desperately.
“Dana.” He took a deep breath and looked at us. “I honestly don’t know. He’s eighty years old, that’s pretty old to be fighting a sickness like this. He will have to remain in the hospital. There will also be a lung doctor here tomorrow to go over the full workup, but-but it doesn’t look too good. I’m so sorry, Dana,” Dr. Reed said solemnly.
My mom immediately burst into tears. I hated seeing my mom cry, and it pained me even more knowing that there was nothing I could do about it other than hug her tightly. There was nothing we could do besides simply hope that he could fight through his sickness.
Pawpaw was dying. My chest ached harshly, but I had to stay strong for mom. I hugged her tightly and soothed her as best as I could.
Inside, however, I was falling apart.
He couldn’t die . . . please.
Mom and I stayed the night at the hospital. I talked to Aubry shortly before I dozed off; I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what the doctor had said over the phone, though. I couldn’t even process it in person, so I didn’t want to inform her of the bad news over the phone.
The lung doctor came to talk to us the next morning. The outlook wasn’t good. He said that this particular case was very aggressive as it was practically eating his lungs alive. They said that they were going to do everything within their power to fight it, but the majority of the fight was up to him and his body.
Pawpaw was a very strong man. He could beat it. He could keep fighting it.
After Pawpaw woke up for a little bit, he was very mad that he was in the hospital, I went home to tell everyone the news. I surely didn’t want to be the one to break it to everyone, but I couldn’t put that upon my mother. She was taking it very hard; her dad had always been her hero.
When I got home, I went directly to my room and closed the door. I just needed some time before I told my sisters. I had no clue how I was going to be the one to break the news to them; I couldn’t.
“Aiden?” I heard a small voice in front of me. “Are you okay?”
Aubry was sitting on the bed, reading the Pride and Prejudice book that I had I got
ten her for Christmas. She looked very beautiful with her hair in a messy bun and she was dressed in one of my own black T-shirts and some simple cotton shorts. I loved coming home with her simply just being there, especially after everything that had just happened.
I moved closer to her and engulfed her in a hug, not saying anything. I just needed her in that moment. She must have sensed that and clung to me tightly.
After a few moments of holding me, she looked up in concern. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I explained everything that the doctors told me. By the time I was done, I couldn’t do it anymore . . . I couldn’t hold it together, and I started to cry. I knew that it wasn’t very manly, but I also didn’t care.
My Pawpaw was dying.
“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Aubry said, lifting my chin up to look into her eyes. There were unshed tears lining them.
As I looked at her for a second, I could almost believe her. Unfortunately, I then remembered everything that had happened.
“It’s not okay, Aubry. Pawpaw is probably going to die. It’s not okay!” I said, feeling like I needed to punch something. “He was . . . is the last man I have left; the last father figure that I have left in my life.”
I could feel the gigantic hole in my chest getting bigger. I didn’t think that I could survive another death. I hadn’t even gotten over my father dying almost two years prior. I didn’t think that I had even processed my uncle Johnny’s death right after.
I breathed deeply for a few moments, trying to regain control of my emotions.
“After dad died, I had Uncle Johnny who became my father figure. Even after dad left when I was young, Johnny was there for me. He had always treated me like I was his son. It made Dad’s death a little bit more bearable.”
I clenched my fists at the following events that happened.
“But then just a few months after my dad died, when we weren’t even partially okay with his death yet, Uncle Johnny died. He had a car wreck and died. It was another heart-wrenching blow to all of us, it was like losing my dad a second time. Johnny helped all of us grow up, he loved us, taught us all life lessons, and just like that, he was gone.”
Fighting For Life Page 48
