Chapter 68
Time For Answers
I pull up in front of his aunt’s house and feel slightly nauseated when I see his car. I know I need to get answers, but I also know I may not like those answers. I’m glad to see he’s here, and not in Texas with his asshole dad. Adrian may be a heart-breaking piece of shit, but the idea of him taking any type of abuse from his dad hurts my heart a little more.
I knock on the front door, and it feels odd. I’ve been coming to this house for months, but I was always with Adrian. Now I feel like an unwanted guest.
A girl I’ve never met answers the door and my heart pauses for a few beats. She looks about my age and is very pretty with long dark hair, and curves everywhere.
“Can I help you?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.
I clear my throat. “Is Adrian here?”
She gives me a sad smile then opens the door further, gesturing for me to come in.
I nod once and step past her, having no clue what to say. As I turn the corner into the living room, I’m shocked at what I see. Adrian's aunt is lying in a hospital bed, against one wall. Adrian is sitting next to the bed holding her hand. She looks up and tries to smile, but all I can see are the tubes running from her arm to the IV bags hanging above her.
"What's wrong?" I croak out, past the sobs stuck in my throat.
Adrian stands and leans over, kissing her on the forehead. “I’ll be right back."
He directs the strange girl, which I’m now guessing is a nurse, to watch over Diane while he's away.
When we’re outside, I spin on my heels. "What is going on Adrian? What's wrong with her?"
Adrian is staring at the ground, grasping the back of his neck with one hand, the other stuffed in his pocket. When he answers, he doesn't look at me. "She has a brain tumor that's growing every day. She only has a couple weeks… if that."
I can't reconcile what I just saw, and what he's telling me, with the woman I’ve come to love over the past several months. I begin piecing everything together. Her headaches at Christmas, and several times I’ve known about since then. Adrian has been on her about talking to her doctor. She didn't make it to graduation, having told Adrian that she had a terrible migraine that day too. Adrian went and picked up the boys so that they could come, and none of them mentioned her being sick. I have a hard time believing that she became ill within a matter of weeks.
"When did you find out?" I ask.
Adrian releases the back of his neck then walks to the steps of the porch to sit. I follow behind him, sitting next to him.
"I've known she's been sick for a while but didn't know that it was a terminal tumor until a few weeks ago."
A few weeks ago. About the time he got that call and everything changed between us.
"You knew she'd been having headaches. I told her she needed to see someone about it, but I wasn't here all the time to see how bad she was getting, and to make sure she was seeing doctors. Apparently, she's known for a few months but wanted to wait until after my graduation because she knew that I’d rush here to take care of her. So, she spent the last few months getting everything in order," he laughs, but there's no humor. "She's been planning her own death, and arranging her own funeral all while getting everything in place so that the boys and I will have everything we need when she's gone."
I can't imagine the stress that Diane has been coping with, not only because of her own illness but mostly for her worry of what will happen to the boys. Holy shit, what will happen to the boys?
Before I can think through those options, Adrian goes on.
"The boys are racked with guilt, thinking they should have told me sooner how about how sick she was getting. But they're teenage boys, their lives revolve around them, they're not programmed to worry about people around them. I tried to tell them it wouldn't have mattered either way. The diagnosis was a death sentence from the beginning."
“Does Brandon know?" My stomach turns thinking about him sitting alone, in another country, surrounded by a bunch of men who have no idea how to support each other. My heart breaks a little more.
Adrian’s voice catches in his throat. "Yeah, he's on his way home. But it can sometimes take a couple of weeks from the approved leave until he actually arrives stateside.”