Ruin

by Rachel Van Dyken

  I held my breath as doctors rushed onto the field. I prayed. I prayed hard that Wes would move, that I would see his fingers drum onto the grass or that he would jump into the air and start laughing like it was some giant joke. I didn’t realize I was crying until Lisa handed me a tissue from her purse.

  “He’s okay, right?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “Right? He’s just tired? Or dehydrated?”

  “Sure.” Lisa gripped my hand in hers.

  The sound of an ambulance almost killed me.

  I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t just stand there and wait. I ran. I ran as fast as I could and jumped over the barrier so I was on the field with Gabe. He intercepted me in his arms as I ran for Wes. And then another set of arms braced me.

  I turned and cried.

  I cried into Randy Michels’s chest like he was my dad, like he was my lifeline. I clung onto him with everything I had. The funny part? He held me right back as if I was his lifeline too.

  “He’ll be okay,” Randy whispered. “He’s a fighter, okay? He’s a fighter, don’t you forget it!” He nodded as his Adam’s apple bobbed against my face. “He’s not like his brother, God rest his soul. Wes is strong. He’s like his mom.” Randy sighed. “Come on, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  I gripped Randy’s hand on one side of me and Gabe’s on the other as cameras went off.

  Wanting to yell, I kept my head down as we made our way off the field, amidst the flashes of cameras and yelling from the fans. They wanted to know what was wrong. They wanted to know all the things I wanted to know. I just didn’t have the answers.

  My body went into a state of shock on the way to the hospital I couldn’t stop shaking. I was pissed that it seemed that Gabe knew what was going on but I didn’t. Even Randy seemed like he had expected Wes to pass out. What kind of father expects his son to pass out on the field?

  “Come on.” Gabe tucked me under his arm, and we made our way to the private wing of the University Hospital.

  “Is he stable?” Randy asked once we reached the room the nurse had directed us toward. The nurse paused and lowered her clipboard.

  Her eyes flickered to mine before returning to Randy’s.

  “Family,” he said. “They’re family.”

  “Right.” Her eyes flickered between us before she answered. “He’s stable but had a very dangerous reaction with his last group of medications. As you know they’re trial basis only, there was no way for us to know he would have that type of reaction. Luckily, he was in a public place, so the minute he blacked out he was able to get help. Had he been in his room or even—”

  “That’s enough,” Randy interrupted with a wave of his hand. “We’d like to see him now.”

  “But—”

  “Now,” Randy said smoothly. “He needs his family.”

  “Yes, sir.” She ducked out of the way and walked briskly down the hall, her clipboard tucked firmly under her arm.

  I hated that his name was already on the door. I hated that I was in a hospital. Pausing in the middle of the doorway, I asked in a small voice, “What don’t I know?”

  Randy swallowed and looked to Gabe.

  Why the hell would he look at Gabe?

  With a curse, Gabe licked his lips and nodded into the room. “Let him tell you. I refuse to be the guy to bring that kind of news.”

  “That kind of news,” I repeated over and over again in my head. What did that even mean? My heart clenched. My stomach felt like it was in a billion knots, yet I walked farther into the room.

  Wes was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor, but other than that he looked normal, healthy even.

  His eyes flickered open. He groaned and asked, “Did we win?”

  “By a lot, man.” Gabe laughed. “Though we could have done without the theatrics.”

  “Theatrics?” he asked, his voice kind of slurring. “Holy shit! Kiersten! Where is she? I have to tell her. I have to…” His voice died off when I stepped out from behind Gabe. Tears streamed down my face, most likely ruining the paint. I watched his face fall.

  “Give us a minute,” he whispered.

  His dad nodded at me, then kissed Wes on the forehead and walked out with Gabe, leaving us in a crazy, tense silence.

  “So,” I said in a shaky voice. “It’s after Homecoming.”

  Wes didn’t reply.

  I didn’t care. I was just glad he was breathing. I moved to the side of his bed and sat, folding my hands in my lap. “You promised you’d tell me everything. No more lies, no more omissions.”

  With a shudder I looked into his eyes. They pooled with tears as he blinked a few times and then closed them. “I’m sick.”

  “Figured that.” I bit my lip. “How sick?”

  “People always ask that, you know?” He chuckled. “How sick are you? On a scale of one to ten, will you die? Are you nauseated? Rate the nausea.” He laughed again. “Lamb… the wolf is really sick.”

  “As in the wolf got shot and it’s only a flesh wound?” I asked hopefully.

  “Monty Python.” He actually laughed. “Classic, and to answer your question, probably more than a flesh wound.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip to keep from crying, but the tears came anyway. Didn’t he know? I was his. He was mine. How could God do this to me? How could he take the one thing I could count on? I kept rubbing my hands together — most likely rubbing them raw until Wes grabbed them and pulled me down to his side, caressing my face with his fingers.

  “I have cancer.”

  The ground fell out beneath me.

  Drowning.

  I was drowning like I’d always feared — only this time it wasn’t in water, it was in air. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. That one word: cancer. The word every person feared. That word had the power to destroy a person, only cancer never destroyed in an instant. It was always slow. It always tortured. My heart felt like it stopped beating. I tried to suck in a breath but nothing would come.

  “Hey, hey.” Wes grasped my head against his chest and sighed. “You’re fine. It’s fine. It’s just a shock. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

  Apparently my body needed permission from him to do something that simple — to breathe. I took in a few soothing breaths and then asked the inevitable.

  “Will you get better?”

  “I want to,” Wes said against my hair. And then I gasped. Everything made sense. His obsession with my hair, all his cryptic talk about not being here or about giving me as much time as he had.

  I fell into a sob over his chest. I couldn’t control myself. “No, No, No.” I slammed my fist into the mattress as he held me tight. “You have more time than that, Wes. Damn it! You have more time! Promise me! Promise me this isn’t goodbye! Promise me, Wes, Promise!”

  Arms came around me, they weren’t Wes’s. I collapsed onto the floor in those arms.

  I noticed tattoos first — Gabe. It was Gabe.

  “Hold it together,” he whispered in my ear. “And let him talk. I’ll be ready to take you home in a few, okay?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t going home. I wasn’t freaking leaving Wes’s side. But I nodded anyway.

  Gabe released me and stepped back out of the room.

  “You can’t die,” I said in a shaky voice.

  Wes smiled. “I don’t want to.”

  “Why did you collapse?”

  He patted the mattress and I sat again, trying to keep myself from going into hysterics.

  “My dad’s rich, what can I say? It’s my last week of experimental drugs before I go in for surgery.”

  My head jerked up. “Surgery?”

  “Yeah, to remove the tumor.”

  “Well, where is it?” This was good, right? If they removed it, the cancer would be gone!

  “Wrapped around my heart.”

  “Oh, God.” I closed my eyes as more tears rolled down my cheeks, “Do they, um…” I sniffled. “Do they think they can get it a
ll?”

  Wes leaned forward and wiped some of the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Aw little lamb, don’t cry.” He held my hand and squeezed it. How could he have a tumor when he looked fine? “I’m about fifty-fifty at this point. They don’t know if they can get it all, but because it’s so close to my heart, they get too close and they could kill me. They don’t get it all and I die anyway.”

  I couldn’t trust myself to speak so I just stared into his crystal blue eyes and prayed the nightmare would vanish.

  “Will you…” Wes licked his lips and fidgeted with my hands. “Will you stay with me?”

  “Nightmares?” I tried to joke, but the tears kept streaming.

  “Yeah,” he choked. “Nightmares. I kind of need a knight in shining armor to chase them away.”

  “I’ll fight them,” I whispered. “I’ll protect you, slay the dragon, and wait for you in the castle.”

  “Promise?” He smiled, his eyes full of tears.

  “With my whole heart.”

  “I love your heart.” He sighed against my head.

  “Hearts and hair, huh?” I placed my hand over his chest.

  “Hearts and hair,” he repeated. “Just do me a favor.”

  “Anything,” I whispered.

  “No matter what happens over the next few days, promise me you’ll finish the list.”

  “Wes—”

  “Promise me,” he said sternly.

  I closed my eyes as warm tears began to fall all over again. “I promise.”

  “Good.” He exhaled. “Good.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  I held her tight all night. Later on when Gabe came in I told him I was keeping her. With a smirk he told me he’d return with some fresh clothes. A year ago I wouldn’t have picked him out of a crowd — now it felt like he was my best friend. And I owed it all to the girl sleeping in my arms.

  Weston

  I didn’t have any nightmares, and by five in the morning, when the nurse checked on me again. I felt back to my old self.

  Except for the fact that they moved the surgery forward. It was going to happen in less than five days. Which meant my time with Kiersten was now severely limited. In six days I could be dead, and if I wasn’t dead I’d either be in a coma or be sent home to die. I told Gabe I’d fight and I wanted to, but it was hard to be optimistic, so damn hard.

  I prayed over and over again that God would spare me, not because I cared that much about my own life — but because I cared about hers.

  Sleep wasn’t happening, so by the time Gabe stopped by with a duffel bag I was wide-eyed and ready for coffee — anything but those damn pills they kept forcing down me.

  “Sleeping still?” Gabe whispered when he walked in.

  “Like the dead.”

  “Not funny, man.” Gabe’s voice hitched as he took a seat and put his head in his hands. “So not funny.”

  “Too soon?” I laughed.

  “I can’t…” Gabe licked his lips and looked at me. “There are others more deserving of cancer, you know? That’s what gets me. Why does God allow people like you—? People who have such a bright future — why do you get cancer when mass murderers live their lives in jail getting to watch free HBO? I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know, man.” I sighed. “I can’t explain it. I guess that’s just what happens when we live. Nobody is promised anything. That’s why life’s so precious.”

  “It should have been me,” Gabe whispered so I almost couldn’t hear him.

  “Gabe?”

  “What?” He snorted. “Do you even realize that type of life I’ve led? The drugs? Sex? Girls? Stealing to get high? Shit, man, it should have been me. I would…” He choked on his words and looked away. ”I would take your place. I just want you to know. If God told me that was my penance for living the shitty life I’ve lived, I’d take your place. I asked Him, hell, I begged last night, and you know what? Nothing. Silence.”

  “So live a better life,” I snapped. “Do better. Be Better. Don’t let my life be wasted. If I need to be sacrificed in order for you to get that, then that’s fine. Just don’t let it destroy you, let it renew you.”

  Gabe sniffed. I could tell he was minutes away from losing it. Hell, I’d been that way all night. It hurt like hell to keep the tears in, to stay strong when the love of my life was lying against me crying in her sleep.

  “How’s my favorite patient?” The nurse walked into the room and grabbed the clipboard. “You ready for your MRI?”

  No. Hell, no. I didn’t want to know the truth. So I’d asked them not to tell me. If I was going to die I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to go into surgery with the mindset of defeat.

  “Sure, let me just wake Sleeping Beauty.”

  Gabe jumped to his feet. “I’ll just be outside. I’m sure she’ll be hungry.”

  “Gabe,” I called after him.

  He turned. “Yeah?”

  “I do have one favor to ask.”

  “Anything.”

  “I need you to do something for my girl.” I smiled and licked my lips. “She’s going to be pissed, but promise me you’ll do it.”

  Gabe laughed. “I like the idea already.”

  “I’ll text you the details later. I have it set up for tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sounds good.” Gabe waved and walked off as I leaned down and kissed Kiersten’s lips.

  “Mmm,” she moaned.

  I kissed her lips again. Her eyes fluttered open. “Tell me it was a bad dream, Wes.”

  “Not a bad dream, just not my favorite.” I brushed the hair from her face and closed my eyes as it ran through my fingers. “Now, as much as I love having you plastered against me, that nice nurse standing over there needs to take me for my MRI.”

  “Oh.” Kiersten jumped to her feet a little unsteady at first and then shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I probably look like a mess anyways. I should go get a shower.”

  “Gabe has stuff for you.” I nodded to the door. “My dad has a suite in his own private part of the hospital. You and Gabe can sleep there and take showers, alright? I’m assuming you want to be here and—”

  “I’m not leaving your side,” she vowed.

  That was what I’d been afraid of. I would be the one leaving and she — she would stay.

  “Alright.” I yawned and gave her a wink. “I’ll be done in a bit and then we can talk all about how I’m the worst boyfriend in the world for missing the Homecoming party.”

  She smiled at that and walked out of the room.

  “Beautiful girlfriend.”

  I looked at the nurse, not caring that she was probably going to think I was crazy and said, “I would make her my wife if I could.”

  The nurse smiled and patted my arm. “Don’t give up yet. Sometimes when we think God has written The End, what he really means is The Beginning.”

  ****

  The MRI scared the hell out of me. I always hated them but wasn’t given much of a choice in this instance. Instead of concentrating on not moving — I thought about Kiersten. I imagined what she would look like when she was thirty. Would her smile still be the same? Would her belly be swollen with a child? Damn, but I wanted the child to be mine. I bit down hard on my lip. I had to stay still, my fists wanted to clench. I wanted to yell. My visions went on fast forward to Kiersten as an old woman sitting on the porch holding her husband’s hand. I wasn’t sure why I was torturing myself. Hell, I’d known her for three months, but it wasn’t that instant love thing that had been a part of all my teenage and college years. I knew it was real. Maybe that was God’s final gift to me — true love.

  Before I knew it, the MRI was over and my face was wet with tears. The minute I could move I wiped the wetness from my face so nobody would notice. The last time I cried was when Tye died. Funny, how death really brings it out in people. Three months ago I was ready. Three months ago I had accepted my fate. But n
ow? Now I wanted more than anything to be a part of Kiersten’s story, not just a chapter, but the entire damn book. I just wasn’t sure what the plan was. All I knew is it was out of my control. Maybe that was the scariest thing. In life we always have some measure of control whether it be over our emotions or choices, but when it comes to cancer? The only thing you can control is how you respond to it.

  “How are you feeling?” that same nurse asked. She had bright blond hair, almost translucent. Her skin was a pale white, but she didn’t look washed out. She was really pretty, though I couldn’t tell how old she was. Maybe thirty? Forty? I must have looked confused, because she put her warm hand to my forehead. “Are you feeling ill?”

  “No, sorry.” I laughed. “I just, I know this sounds strange, but I can’t tell how old you are.”

  Her smile brightened. “We’re as old as we feel, right?”

  “Right.” And I felt hella old. Especially after that morning’s round of medications. At least I didn’t have to swallow anything anymore. Nah, they just pumped all those fun drugs directly into my veins. Lucky me.

  “Weston.” Her voice was crisp. “It’s going to be okay.” She grabbed my hand and patted it.

  I looked at her name tag, Angela. It fit. She seemed more angel than nurse anyway.

  “Thanks, Angela.”

  She looked at me in confusion.

  I pointed to the name tag.

  She laughed. “Brilliant college boys.”

  “What can I say?” I grinned as she helped me back to my bed.

  Forty-one or forty-five. I was going to stick with that. She was probably the same age as my mom would have been before her untimely death. She’d had blond hair too. It was probably why I was acting like a lunatic. I wondered if the drugs did that to me, made me more emotional than normal.

  “Sleep,” Angela ordered upon returning me to my room. “And I’ll be sure to wake you when your future wife arrives.” She winked.

  I couldn’t trust myself to talk. Although I appreciated the nurse’s optimism, it fell on deaf ears. I was already starting to feel the cold seep into my limbs — as if death was coming for me and there was nothing I could do but wait for its all-consuming presence.