Chapter Thirty-Five
Adam
Saturday
“Your hair needs cutting far too often,” Max teased playfully. “I’m sure you must be my best customer, and you don’t even pay me most of the time.”
“I’ll pay you today,” I insisted. “And, I always give you cash when I remember.”
“I know, I know.” He pulled back to take a look at what he’d done to me. “I’m just winding you up. There I think that looks okay, what do you think?”
I twisted my head from side to side. “Sure looks good. Thanks, buddy.” I turned the chair around to look at him. “Now you need to tell me what’s going on with you. You’ve had that funny look on your face all morning. It’s driving me crazy trying to figure out what it means.”
Instantly, Max rearranged his face, but I wasn’t about to be fooled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t had a funny look at all. I’ve just been focused on cutting your hair.” But his eyes were everywhere – he had a secret and I was going to find out what it was.
“Something is going on with you. Please, for the love of God put me out of my misery, take me away from my problems, and tell me what it is.”
“Okay.” He held up his hands in a defeated gesture. “I’ll tell you, I will. But first you need to tell me about all of your problems. I want to hear it, get it out of the way, then you can look forward to my sordid secret to help you get over it.”
“Ooh, it’s sordid?” I wiggled my eyebrows. “Well then, I’ll have to tell you.”
Unfortunately, that meant I was going to have to actually tell him all the things that I really didn’t want to discuss. I wasn’t in the mood at all, but I also knew that sharing it would help me to recover just a little bit. I just needed a moment to steel myself first.
“Well, just like all the problems in my life, it started with an argument with Brandon.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Of course, it did. The bane of your life.”
“Exactly. He was being a dick, saying all the stuff he usually says about me doing nothing with my life, nothing will ever change, all of that…”
“Sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, typical Brandon.”
At least Max understood, he was always on my side. Knowing that I always had him to defend me made me feel a little less alone in the world.
“Right, I know. So I tried not to react, but he was getting worse and worse and then I just exploded.” I shook my head, now feeling just that little bit regretful about the memory. I didn’t much like to think about it now, but that wasn’t because I felt like I was wrong. “I mean, yeah I definitely said some really shitty things to him, but it had been a long time coming.”
“What did you say?” Max looked wary as he asked me this.
“I said that I wouldn’t go to his funeral if he died. Erm, probably that he was dead to me, all kinds of stuff. But it doesn’t matter because I just won’t ever talk to him again.”
“Okay…” Max trailed off and he gave me an expectant look. “I’m assuming that there’s more to the story since you’ve got that look in your eye. You wouldn’t ever look that hurt about Brandon, I know you don’t care that much about him.”
I sighed loudly and hung my head low. “No, this is also about Lindsey because she was there when it happened.” Max pursed his lips as if he didn’t want to know what happened next. I didn’t really want to tell him, but I’d started now so I needed to continue. “She kinda stuck up for Brandon, saying that I shouldn’t have spoken to him like that, and that he was probably hurting about something else which was why he lashed out at me.”
“Do you think he was?” he asked curiously. “Hurting, I mean?”
“I dunno, who cares?” Max couldn’t do this to me as well, I’d go fucking insane. “Mom did suggest that he might be having some trouble with Helen, but that’s not my problem, who gives a shit?”
“I only ask because Lindsey might be right about that point. Maybe he’s bringing you down because misery loves company.”
“I don’t know.” I threw my hands up in the air in a defeated gesture. “And, I don’t care. I just want him out of my life for good.”
Max paused for a moment before he asked me the next question. I could almost see the cogs in his brain ticking as he tried to plan out how to word it. “And, what about Lindsey? What happened there? Do you never intend to see her again either?”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second while I tried to rid my brain of her face. I just didn’t want to think about her, I wanted to pretend that she didn’t even exist because then I could eventually get my life back on the track it was before she turned up.
“I don’t think I will see her again, Max. I can’t trust her after she took Brandon’s side.”
“That’s a real shame; you looked so happy at New Year’s. I’ve never seen you like that.”
Fuck, this was hard. Harder than I’d anticipated. I needed to change the subject and fast. “Tell me your gossip now. I’m sick of talking about my life.” But just as Max parted his lips to finally reveal all, my cell phone blasted out its annoying ring tone. “Oh, hold on.” I didn’t even look at the name on the screen, I just hit answer. “Hello?”
“Adam, it’s me.”
“Dad?” He was worried. I could hear it pouring out of his mouth. “What’s going on? Has something happened?” A million and one scenarios flooded my mind, none of them good. There had to be some reason that my father would randomly call me, especially sounding like the world had come to an end.
“It’s your mother.”
As soon as he said those words the world fell out from underneath my feet. I felt myself stagger and almost fall to the ground. Mom, my wonderful mother, the only person in my family who truly gave anything of a shit about me. Something had happened to her and I didn’t know what. The image of her at my home only a short time ago not quite looking herself made me feel sick to my stomach. She was ill – this was really bad.
“Son, I think you need to get yourself to the hospital, right away.”
My cell phone fell to the ground with a clatter and my legs jellified. I was so dizzy that I couldn’t see anything – all I could hear was my thumping heart pumping ice cold blood around my body. Somewhere in the distance, I wasn’t quite sure where, I could hear Max’s voice, but I couldn’t pick out the words.
Oh God, Mom. What have we done to you? I thought desperately to myself. I didn’t mean for things to get so bad, I will even make up with Brandon for you…anything…
“Adam?” As Max touched me I leapt about ten feet in the air. I stared at his face but I could barely recognise him. He looked like a stranger to me. “We really do need to get to the hospital now. Your mother has the MRSA virus and…it’s bad.” His words were to shock me, to get me moving, but they felt distant and disconnected from me. I could barely feel them at all. “We need to go now, okay? So I’m going to call us a cab and get over there.”
“M…mom,” was all I could whisper back. “What am I going to do?”
While I couldn’t register much, I could see the sympathy in my best friend’s face. He could see me falling apart, and he knew it was for a good reason. He didn’t need to explain it to me, I could just sense it deep in my chest. My beautiful mother was about to be ripped from this planet, leaving me with no one.
“You don’t do anything right now aside from wait.” Max gently sat me down in the nearest chair. “Just let me sort this out, okay? You just stay here.”
I leaned my head forward and placed it between my legs while I waited for vomit to spill past my lips, but I could only gag on the horrible taste of bile. It was as if that shocking phone call that seemed to come from nowhere had knocked everything from my body, leaving me completely empty.
Hollow and numb, how I would be forever more without Mom in my life.
***
My footsteps were too loud as we walked through the hospital building, I could hear each and every one. If it wasn’t for Max walking next to me, supporting me, maybe I would’ve turned on my heels and ran the other way. I couldn’t hack this. I couldn’t walk towards my mother to see her desperately ill, it just wasn’t right. This wasn’t something I was supposed to deal with for many, many years. I couldn’t quite understand why I was here.
“Son.” All of a sudden my father’s arms were around me, as if they’d come from nowhere. “I’m sorry, Son.” His voice was thick with emotion. His eyes shining with tears. “It isn’t good. She isn’t going to survive this.” He gulped loudly, and as he did I tried to work out why I didn’t feel anything but shock. “You need to go and say your goodbye now, while she’s still here.”
As if to force me to go in before I did something I regretted, he turned me around and pushed me into the room by my shoulders. There I found myself looking at an image from a horror movie, from my own personal nightmare. My mom hooked up to endless machines, with wires coming everywhere from her, looking much frailer than I’d ever seen her before, even more so than the last time I saw her.
The virus had ravaged her body, had done terrible things to her. I knew it wasn’t fair, but still I couldn’t cry.
“Mom,” I whispered as I dragged myself closer to her. “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She twitched her fingers, indicating that I should touch her. I grabbed onto her hand at her request, but felt the sheer cold coming from her. She was like an ice cube. “Oh, Mom, this isn’t right.”
“Adam.” The seriousness of her tone halted me. The word was ragged, like it hurt her to speak, which meant whatever she was about to say was crucial. “I love you, so very much, I do. We all do. I know it might not always seem that way but it is.” For the first time in my life, I didn’t have it in me to argue with her. “All I’ve ever wanted was for my boys to get along, and I had a plan to make it happen, not that you would have liked it.” She let out a breath from her nose, almost like a laugh. “But now I won’t have the time to act on it, I didn’t know I had this virus then.”
“Nor did I,” I insisted. “Or I would have done something.”
“So I’m just going to ask you instead, like I have done the others. Please, find a way to make it right with your family. Please. Even if it hurts, even if it isn’t always right, please just try.”
I couldn’t deny her that, it was her dying wish. I nodded slowly as a tear finally burst out of my eye. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea my world was about to end. “I will, Mom. I promise you. I will.”