Chapter10
It was hard to watch Aaliyah laying there, the bottom half of her body unmoving and the feisty spark that used to light her eyes missing. He was sure he wasn’t helping her much. His moodiness overtook him every time he saw her, and he couldn’t keep it in check, but she didn’t even fight back anymore. Before, she used to at least tell him when he was being a huge ass; it was one of the things he liked the most about her. But now, when he said things, things that would normally cause her to erupt with frustrations, she just would turn her head toward the window and sigh.
Depression was settling on her hard, and he could see it as plainly as the hospital gown she lay in. It wasn’t as if he blamed her; depression was sitting on his chest hard as well as the days went on. It became nearly impossible to separate his life like he used to. Hospitals and pain were no longer sectioned off from the rest of his life. Everything around him was suffering, especially his game. But the media was eating him up, planting themselves like leeches outside of the hospital every day, just waiting to suck what little bit of life he had away from him. They loved his “hurt boyfriend” role he was playing, making people see what a genuine guy and heartbroken boyfriend he was.
But there was one place the media hadn’t found him yet, one place where he still had one small bit of privacy. His mother’s house.
The car rolled up to the driveway of the small cottage house, and he simultaneously felt tension and relief spread through his body. So many childhood memories overcame him as they always did when he would go visit his family: time spent playing with their basketball net in the driveway and chasing his brother around the yard playing cops and robbers. Just as quickly as he’d smile at one memory or another, eventually the memories of his brother starting to fall as they ran or his hands shaking as he shot hoops, the doctors, and the diagnosis would appear.
His brother’s life spent in bed, his body an unstable tomb in which he lay, dying daily as Huntington’s took over his body.
There was nothing Max could do other than sit and watch as his big brother slowly died. There was nothing he could say, no amount of money he could pay, to stop what was happening. But every week, he visited just the same because he loved the look on his brother’s face when he walked through the door. His eyes lit up like a celebrity had just entered the room, which he supposed he was, but the way his brother admired him so much always made him the most proud. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought of him as long as his brother was proud.
He hadn’t been to see his brother since Aaliyah’s accident. He spent every week with his heart being ripped apart as his brother struggled to move, and now he needed to do the same with Aaliyah. It was just too hard. But he missed him—missed the way Sammy smiled at him, missed the way it just felt to be around him.
“Hey, man.” He walked in as casual and cheerful as he always tried to be.
Max had paid for Sammy’s room to be turned into a makeshift hospital room. It was hard to be in there in general, even harder now that when he walked into the room, he saw Aaliyah’s face swim in front of him.
But Sammy turned to him as if nothing in the world was wrong and gave him his biggest smile.
“Well, look who turned up. Haven’t seen you in a while,” he chided. If anyone else listened to Sammy talk, they would probably have a hard time understanding him, his speech so broken up by the deterioration of his functions. But Max always understood him.
“Yeah, I have had a few things going on.”
Max sat down next to Sammy’s bed in the $1000 recliner and felt himself sink into the familiar fabric.
“I heard about your girlfriend. How bad is she?”
Max couldn’t meet his brother’s eye. He wanted to tell him that it was impossible to watch her suffer, that it made him angry and resentful, and that he was being a huge jerk to her because of it. That he wanted to get out of watching every important person in his life suffer. That if he could, he’d run away from it all. But that was the whole point of the contract to begin with, wasn’t it? So that he didn’t run away, so that he could stay living where he was and be near his brother who needed him.
“She’s not good. They don’t know if she’ll ever walk again.”
Sammy sat silently for a minute, and Max watched him from the corner of his eye. Sammy would never walk again either.
“She’s lucky she has you as her boyfriend. You’re the best person I know to be around when things go badly.”
Suddenly, Max felt the words rise up in him like lava, and he erupted with the truth to his brother. He told him everything—the contract so he could stay near Sammy, his and Aaliyah’s fighting, the way he couldn’t keep his hands off of her, and now her accident. He spilled everything until there was nothing left in him, and he took a shaky breath.
“I can’t leave her now. I’m stuck in this situation, and there’s no way out.”
It took a lot of effort, but he watched Sammy as he turned toward his brother and give him a smile that Max remembered so much from his childhood.
“You’re not stuck because of some contract. You’re stuck because you care about her.”
“No,” Max argued. “If I leave now, I look like an ass, and I’ll be an ass. She has so few people to count on.”
“Pictures don’t lie. I saw your pictures with her and the way you looked at her. I also saw the way you talked about her before all of this happened. You’re a basketball player, not an actor. You’re not stuck in a contract; you’re stuck because you like her. You care about her, and it hurts you to watch her hurting.”
For a guy who had never been able to have a relationship, who had spent much of his adult life confined to the house because he could hardly move, he was smarter than Max ever could be.
“So, what do I do? I can’t fix her just like I can’t fix you. I’m useless.” Max could feel emotion starting to fill his chest, and he tried his best to keep it down, to stay strong.
“You can’t fix everything. No matter how many baskets you make or how much money you’re paid, there’s somethings in life you just can’t fix. So just be there for her. Like you are for me. That’s enough.”
Max thought about the way he was with Sammy compared to how he was with Aaliyah. No wonder she was so miserable around him; he’d been a selfish jerk. Sammy was right: he did care about her and was feeling more sorry for himself that he had to watch another person he cared about suffer rather than trying to make her feel better. He stayed a little longer talking to Sammy until he could see his visit was wearing him down, and he promised to visit soon. When he got into his car, he didn’t go home as he planned, instead he told his driver to take him right to the hospital. He needed to start making things right, and he needed to do it immediately.
Eli was already visiting by the time Max got there with flowers. When he walked through the door, he saw Aaliyah’s eyes land on him, and for the first time in a long time, there was light with a small excitement in them. He realized how much he’d missed seeing that.
“Can I come in?”
He watched as she pushed herself up a little straighter in the bed and tried to smooth herself out.
“Yeah, of course.” She smiled at him
He came in and handed her the flowers. It was the first time he’d actually gotten her flowers, a brightly-colored bouquet full of wild flowers.
“These are amazing; thank you.”
It was amazing how with just a small change in him, he was watching her change, open up, and be the girl he’d first met.
“I think I’ll just head out,” Eli offered. By the look he was giving Max, he could see something had changed too, although Max was sure he didn’t know exactly what it was.
Eli grabbed his coat and gave Max a slight warning look. He knew how close the two had gotten, how much he cared like a father would for a daughter, and Max didn’t blame him one bit for being skeptical of him in the moment. Max wished he could convey the change he felt in himself, how Sammy had made him see something that Max might never have seen on his own. But there was no way to tell him that, to show him all of that right there in the hospital room, so Eli would just have to trust him in the moment.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, kiddo,” he said and patted Aaliyah on the foot.
Her foot twitched.
It was small, almost imperceptible, but it was there, and all three of them saw it.
“Do that again,” Eli commanded her.
Max saw her hesitate, afraid that maybe she couldn’t do it again, and her eyes, wide with fear and possibilities, turned to him. Something skipped in his heart when she looked at him that way, as if just by being there with her, he might be able to make her strong again. So he grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“Go ahead. Try again.”
Aaliyah took a breath, and he saw her face turn from fear to pure determination. He saw the little fighter he’d gone to dinner with that first night. He saw a glimpse into how she lived her life even before she knew him. How she fought hard for everything she had, and it may not be much, just like a small twitch of her foot may not be much, but it was something for her to keep working for.
It felt as if everything stopped all around them. They didn’t hear the monitors beeping or the shuffle of the nurse’s feet down the hall. Suddenly, it was as if the whole world was centered on Aaliyah and her foot. She stared down at it as if having a silent conversation and then took a deep breath.
Suddenly, her foot twitched.
Max let out the breath he’d been holding and jumped up with excitement. Eli raced out of the room, calling for a doctor, and Max looked down at Aaliyah who had tears streaming down her cheeks. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, tasting her tears, before he made his way to her lips.
He knew that he had missed her since her accident, but as soon as his lips touched hers, he realized how much he’d been craving them. The feel of her lips, the taste of her, he didn’t want to pull away ever, and he had no idea how he’d gone so long keeping his distance from her. When the doctors came in, he had to pull away, but he looked at her and saw that she’d been feeling the same thing he was. That her body needed him.
The rest of the day was a flurry of tests and doctors and nurses, and Max stayed the entire time, until Aaliyah was exhausted and drifted off to sleep. Never once did he let go of her hand.