Bad Days

by A. S. Kelly

  I signal for her to come around the counter and she stands up with a smile, puts on a clean apron and joins me.

  “What can I do?”

  Live for me, Alex, that’s what you can do.

  That’s what I’d like to say but obviously I have to keep my fears of losing her to myself. I have to give her a calm, tranquil life. With me.

  We work side by side for a half an hour, laughing, joking around and teasing each other just like we did as kids when we were eight, ten, even fifteen years old.

  I start breathing normally, and she seems to get back to a more normal color, and I have to say a little bit of pink in the cheeks looks good on her.

  I drink a slug of beer while on my break and she enjoys a diet coke.

  “What is happening here? Alex, what are you doing behind the counter?” Rain says, as she comes rushing back. She’s being harsh with Alex.

  “Rain, calm down, she was just giving me a hand…” I try to justify her action, because really, she’s doing very little, pouring a few beers that’s all, for goodness’ sake, I never would have asked her to do too much.

  “Alex…” Rain’s look is hard and full of apprehension. Alex lowers her gaze, before taking off the apron and going around to the other side of the counter.

  “You know that you can’t—”

  “Don’t do this here,” she whispers and although the music is going, I can hear her words.

  She forces a smile at me once again and goes away with Rain. I look at Liam for clarification but he remains in silence next to the bar counter and I search his eyes, trying to understand something, but his face is full of tension and there is a vein pulsing on his forehead that does not bode well.

  He shakes his head and walks away quickly, avoiding looking at me. And that’s when Aaron comes in, taking off his cap and dripping with rain. He comes towards the bar counter and motions for me to follow him into the back room.

  I am still confused and alarmed by all this silence and I follow him without adding anything until we reach the back room and Aaron closes the door behind us.

  “There is no good way to tell you this, brother, and I don’t like being the one to do so, but you’ve done more for me and my sister than anyone else and now I want to be by your side, in this moment.” He takes a deep breath and rubs his eyes nervously.

  I don’t say a thing, with my heart in my throat, ready to fall and hurt myself because I know that’s how it’s going to be.

  “Things are not going well, Jason.”

  Aaron uses my complete name and that’s how I know that we’re talking about something serious, painful and that will come down on me without pity.

  I sit on a case of beer because I already know that my legs won’t hold out under the weight of my body and that the fall will be without warning, fast and unavoidable.

  And Aaron tells me about Alex and what her real condition looks like in this moment. He explains about the reason why she’s come back here and the imminent operation with its risks. And with the certainty that I might lose her again now that I’ve found her, my vision goes cloudy and my stomach reacts violently. I kneel down and vomit. With my hands on the floor, I cry like a baby.

  It’s not a discreet affair.

  It’s not a repressed cry of anger.

  It’s a desperate one, one that closes an entire life of suffering within it, but in my case, it shows the lacerating pain that makes my body tremble and the fear suffocate my heart as I come to understand I could lose the woman I love.

  I crash onto the ground, held by Aaron’s arms that hold me like only a brother could, a brother who cries with you.

  The pain strikes me and goes straight to my heart. My life crumbles before my eyes and I already know that no one will be able to pick up the fragments and put them back together.

  —

  ALEX

  “You should not have done that, Rain! Not in front of him!”

  I am so angry that I could almost slap her and that’s certainly not my way of reacting.

  “Calm yourself…don’t get upset…”

  “You shoulda thought of that before you opened your mouth!”

  I’m shaking and I can feel my heart beat right in my temples. I can count the beats distinctly and know that they’re already too high.

  “Sit down, I’ll bring you some tea and you can calm down.”

  “I don’t want to calm down and I don’t want any of your damned tea! All I want…I just…” I’m not able to finish because Rain has burst out sobbing in front of me and as much as she enraged me, I can’t stand seeing her like this.

  I huff out slowly and sit at the table. I inhale and exhale deeply, hoping to calm my nerves and my heart, which is accelerating dangerously.

  “I’m sorry,” I say gasping. “I didn’t want to attack you.”

  Rain sits next to me and squeezes me tightly, so tightly that I can’t breathe.

  “You know that you can’t let yourself get stressed like this, Alex. In, in a week…”

  She can’t say it.

  In a week, I’ll have an operation. I got the confirmation just today after the latest results.

  Truth be told, I’m not going crazy about it, the problem rather is everyone else around me. Rain is in full panic, my father is in pieces and my mother will be here in two days to encourage me. Pretty soon, everyone, including Jason, is going to know. Jason, who I’ve just started spending some time with and finally I felt like maybe I had a chance at being happy with him.

  I understand that this operation does not necessarily signify the end of all of this, but on the other hand many people in my condition have successfully undergone this operation and are living better for it. But each case is unique and only God in heaven knows how things will end.

  “Everything will be fine, Rain,” I calm her, pushing her away from me so I can look her in the eyes. “It has to work out,” I conclude in a whisper, trying to convince myself that my life will continue and that I still have the chance to live out my days in his arms.

  And as I think it and start to really believe it, I look up and I see him, standing next to the bar counter with Aaron. The second I see his blank shark eyes I understand there’s no need to tell him anything: someone has already done it for me.

  I’ve already seen this expression, I know what he’s feeling, I understand that he’s scared to death and that he’s holding in the anger for my benefit and I pray that in a week I’ll be back here to hold his hand, to reassure him and let him know I’ll be fine.

  To tell him that I’ve always loved him and that nothing will change in this life that I would like to share with him.

  Jason looks at me with tear-filled eyes, biting down hard on his lip to hold back the tears I can see flooding his eyes. I incline my head slightly and respond with a smile, as sincere as possible because I don’t want these days to be lived out in fear and anxiety at the thought that everything could end before it begins.

  Jason inhales deeply and turns towards us. Rain dries her eyes and quickly makes room for him, moving towards the window, pretending to be interested in something outside but really, she’s just trying to stop the tears.

  “Hey there,” he says in a shaky voice. “I was just thinking the guys could do without me tonight. What do you say we go out, me and you alone?”

  “Like, a date?”

  “Yeah, like a date.” He smiles. “It’s time for me to behave like a serious boyfriend, don’t you think?” He continues smiling even more and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as handsome as this, with his eyes shining and with a smile on his face.

  “You insist with this story…” I tease him.

  I know he’s being serious and that’s what frightens me. I’m not scared of being alone with him, and I’m not too scared of facing everything that I’ve never done with a boy before. Actually, I feel like I’m ready for it, ready to live it all, everything, every moment, every breath. I am ready to be with him even if that means only f
or a week. I’m ready to accept it all, including his love.

  I’m ready to love and be loved.

  And it’s pretty selfish on my part, because in the worst case scenario, I’ll go on and he’ll be the one left here alone, forced to start over and forget and not know how to love someone else someday.

  Because for me, illness or not, things don’t change much.

  I have always loved Jason, my childhood buddy, in fun times and as a shoulder to cry on.

  Jason, the boy I love and the man I adore in this moment, as he smiles at me and extends his hand, inviting me to stand up and follow him and enter his life again, but this time from the front door.

  21

  JASON

  “Here we are,” I say, parking the car and turning off the engine.

  “We’re going to the movies?” she asks me, looking out the window.

  “I thought we should do a few things we never have done before and a good place to start is by going to the movies, yes. Is that alright with you?”

  “Sure it is, but we’ve been to the movies lots of times, Jason.”

  “That’s true….but never together…together.”

  “Together…together?” She tilts her head to look at me, studying my expression.

  “You know…as a couple.”

  “Here we go again,” she says, flashing me a smile and opening the door.

  I jump out of the car to beat her to it. “Wait, let me.”

  Yeah, okay? I’m that kind of guy who opens the door for his girlfriend.

  “Thanks.” She smiles again and I can feel my heart in my chest.

  I take her hand in mine and squeeze it and we walk to the entrance of the Savoy on O’Connell Street without ever letting go. I’m going to hold her hand forever if that means a week or my whole life.

  I’ll never let her go.

  “What do you think about this one?” I say, pointing to a romantic movie called, Love Rosie.

  “A love movie, Jason?” Again she looks at me suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

  Yeah, a love movie, what the hell is the problem?

  “Um-hmm,” I say, pulling her toward the ticket booth.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What is the problem? Can’t I like romantic movies?”

  I hate them, they make me diabetic. But what can I do? For this woman…anything.

  I grab the tickets, pick up some popcorn and candies, throw in some chocolates for good measure and two diet cokes. We enter the cinema and take our seats with so much food that we’ll never have to eat again.

  “I’ve read the book…it’s a pretty romantic story, you know. It talks about two friends who grew up together, did everything together and who loved each other their whole lives, but life and fear of being separated did just that.”

  Awesome, good strategy Jason. Nailed it on the head.

  “Like us,” I say, squeezing her hand.

  She nods and looks at the screen, taken in by the images, the dialogue and very probably the lead actor, who captures her attention from the first scene.

  From good to better.

  She watches the screen and I watch her, her movements, her expressions and her breathing. Yes, I am checking to make sure her breathing is regular and even looking towards her chest, to make sure it’s going up and down as it should.

  I wonder to myself if it’ll always be like this.

  Whether every night, I’ll lie awake watching her sleep. If every time we’re together I’ll be staring and counting. If every time I hug her, will I wonder if it’s for the last time? If I’ll have to worry about her heart every moment of my damned life.

  “Don’t you like the movie?” she whispers, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “I prefer watching you,” I confess, and she goes red and turns right back to watching the film.

  That was the longest damned film of my life, I swear. I held my breath for ninety minutes. I didn’t follow along with the plot at all, I admit, but I think she enjoyed it and was moved by it because I saw her dry her eyes more than once.

  We leave the building and breath in the usual cold, rainy, night air. Alex hugs herself in her coat and I hold her to me, rubbing her arm gently to warm her up.

  She looks at me and smiles but isn’t able to hold eye contact for more than three seconds.

  I have to force all my muscles and all of my senses to play it cool, to observe us from a distance and not push too much because I realize doing so could be potentially dangerous.

  But I’m afraid that being next to her isn’t enough to let her know how I feel. Those emotions are chomping at the bit to make their way out into the sunlight, to give her all that I have, every part of my body and heart, which have never belonged to anyone else.

  Because I know and have known forever. Long before I ruined everything.

  No other girl has ever been anything like her for me, and I’ve never felt this way with anyone else.

  When we were children, I was happy to be beside her, to be her friend, to spend all my free time with her, and I thought it was enough for both of us. I don’t know why I didn’t try to move things along sooner, I thought things were working for us the way they were, after all, I had everything she had to offer me.

  And yet, that day, I decided to take that step, knowing that she might interpret the gesture as being a way out of my pain. But that’s not how it was, honestly.

  It’s just before I was able to be satisfied with what I had and to mask my real feelings and intentions. I didn’t want to ruin something perfect, that thing that we had.

  The desperation of that day did have the better of me, that is true. I felt vulnerable and more sensitive than usual and that is the reason it happened, because my shield was down and my love for her was able to seep through the cracks and went straight to her lips.

  It would have happened in any event sooner or later, because I could not have hidden my feelings of wanting to be with her, really be with her, and that the intimacy we had would go beyond friendship and joking around. I couldn’t have held out much longer, couldn’t have spent another night wondering what her lips tasted like.

  I would have done it, I just chose the wrong moment. Not that now is a better choice, but I’m a man now, good Lord, a man who takes on his responsibility and takes care of his woman, in good and bad and I realize a lot of bad days are forecast.

  But I’ll be there.

  In the worst of days, I’ll be with her.

  —

  ALEX

  I am very anxious. I have to really concentrate on my breathing to calm down after being winded, even if I recognize that this is different. For the first time, this accelerated heartbeat does not imply danger for me.

  We went to the movies, as we have done as kids in the past a million times. We’ve seen every kind of movie together, and I know for a fact that Jason isn’t into romantic movies, and yet, he took me to see Love, Rosie, which was made into a film from one of my favorite books and I have to say it could not have been a better choice.

  It is about two friends that lose each other continually, and love each other from a distance and despite everything: the silence, life going on, they find a way to make it work and I hope that Jason and I will be able to have a similar ending to our story.

  After the movie, we went to Whelan’s, a place where they play live music every night. Seems like Jason can’t stay away from music even for one night, but I like it, it’s who he is and I wouldn’t change it.

  We order something to drink and some chips and enjoy the night. We talk, laugh and hold hands. He hasn’t let go of my hand for a second since we left the cinema.

  It’s strange, but lovely and absolutely what normal couples should be doing in this new relationship that he decided to create.

  He smiles at me with his whole face, showing off those adorable dimples I can’t resist. I’ve been staring. To tell the truth, I’ve been ogling every part of him: every little line on his face, every change of expr
ession, every detail—even the most insignificant because I don’t want to miss anything.

  I am not able to resist it any longer, avoiding this physical contact between us, the desire to pass my time together with him, without fear or hesitation, without thinking that my life could end any second.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I ask him point-blank and his hand raised with his drink remains frozen in the air. He sets it down on the table and looks at me seriously and gives me a nod.

  “Why didn’t all this happen before?”

  He takes both of my hands in his and forces a smile.

  “To be honest, Alex, I have no idea. I think we were both afraid of ruining what we had.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh, before letting myself go in the moment and speaking freely. “And what did you do after? After you brought me to the hospital, after you ran away?” I ask with a shaky voice, waiting for his answer.

  “You really want to talk about this, Alex?”

  I nod.

  “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I left the hospital and went to the first pub I found. I drank enough to forget my name but not yours. Hell no. I couldn’t forget your name even if they brainwashed me or cancelled my memory like they did in that movie with Jim Carrey. Then, I busted open some guy’s head and went to jail. Aaron got me out. I’m not proud of what I did, but I was beyond reason. I was…I was completely broken and I didn’t care what happened.”

  His story leaves me speechless. I lower my gaze immediately before seeing what I fully expect: the terror and panic he felt in that moment could all be waiting for him right around the bend, ready for an encore.

  “When I finally got back to feeling like me again, I went to the hospital, but it was too late. You didn’t want me anymore,” he concludes in a solemn tone and I can feel warm tears falling from my eyes.

  Because of you… I never stray too far from the sidewalk… Because of you… I learned to play on the safe side so I don’t get hurt.

  “And despite that, your refusal…I never stopped loving you. Not for a second. I never thought for a moment that I could love someone else, to let them in my life, anyone who wasn’t you.”