Angel (13 page)

I felt it, too. The significance of the sun setting outside his window. The end of what would be his last Christmas. And it cut deep. My soul felt brittle. Worn too thin and on the verge of shattering. But I didn’t have that luxury.
Kiernan needed me. He needed me to be strong for him. To lend him my strength when he lacked his own. So, I slapped on another layer of duct tape and crazy glue, and held it together.

“Hey.” The door swung open wider on my knock and I watched Kiernan scramble to shove
a notebook under his comforter as I stepped into the room. “It’s just me.”

“Oh . . . Um . . . Hey. I was just . . .” He swiped at the tears trickling down his cheeks and I ignored the ones still gleaming in his eyes.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” Not talking was better than listening to him lie to me. He was hurting. He knew it and I knew it. We both knew why. And we both knew there was nothing either of us could do about it. So what else was there to talk about, anyway?

I sat on his mattress beside him and waited. He struggled against it, but there was no stopping the tears in his eyes from falling. And when he surrendered, I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and I held him. I held onto him while he cried. While he got it all out. And I took it all in.

I took his heartbreak, his rage, his terror of the unknown. I let it sink inside of me, beneath the armor and the walls. I let it eat at me. Strangle me. Tear me apart.

Because it was better me, than him.

I could take it.

The sun sank and darkness filled the room long before Kiernan finished. Wiping the tears on his sleeve, he twisted to stare out his blackened window.

“You can’t tell her not to have hope, Cal.”

I wasn’t surprised that we were pretending the previous hour never happened. I
was
surprised that this
was how we were going to do it. “I wasn’t telling her not to have hope. I was warning her not to get her hopes
up
.”

“Why shouldn’t she?” Kiernan shifted to face me again, and though still red and puffy, the sadness in his eyes had been replaced with something else. Anger. “You saw her mom. She’s doing really well. Things are good for her.
Finally.
She should enjoy that. She deserves to.”

“I’m not arguing that. But what if you’re wrong? What if everything comes crashing down? There’s nothing worse than false hope.”

“Yes. There is.
No
hope. I’ve seen that look in her eyes before, the hopelessness. I won’t let you put it back there. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“And what if it’s not?”

“It
is
.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“
It is!
It has to be.” Because he wouldn’t be around to pick up the pieces if things fell apart again. “You don’t care about her. You don’t care about anyone. All you care about is getting to play the damn hero. You
enjoy
watching everyone else’s lives turn to shit just so you can swoop in and save the goddamn day. She doesn’t need you. Stay the hell away from her.”

I was on my feet, backing toward the door with Kiernan right in my face. The moment I cleared the threshold, he slammed it hard enough to knock the picture of the two of us hanging on the wall to the floor. The frame cracked, but I couldn’t have cared less.

Across the hall, I sat on my bed, fisting the sheets and counted to ten. And then twenty. And then . . . I’d reached a hundred before there was a knock at the door. I didn’t have to open it to know who it was. Or what he wanted. Kiernan had come to apologize. Just like he always did. That was how this went.

His mood shifts were becoming more and more common. Whether a direct side effect of the tumor pressing on the personality center of his brain or a culmination of the constant stress he was under finally breaking free, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that he’d lash out at the safest thing he could, which happened to be me more times than not. And then he’d apologize for it.

That last bit was unnecessary. If anyone was overdue a meltdown or two, it was Kiernan. I was a big boy.

I could take it.

Seventeen

He hit the ground like a ton of bricks. One minute we were laughing about our serious need to practice some of the new games we’d gotten for Christmas, and the next he was twitching and jerking on the living room floor.

“Kiernan!” I dropped down beside him and had to forcibly stop myself from reaching out. Any type of restraint during a seizure could seriously hurt him. “Mom!”

Violent muscle spasms wracked his body, jolting him clear off the floor. “
Mom!
”

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. “Cal? Oh, my God. I’m calling 9-1-1.”

She bolted for the kitchen, while Kiernan continued to convulse, spittle flying from his mouth. All of the color drained from his face. His lips turned an unnatural shade of purple. And his eyes . . . they rolled back into his head until all I could see were two white, veined orbs.

“Kiernan? Kiernan, dammit, you fight! You hear me? Don’t you dare give up on
me. Kiernan!”

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Please.

Please, no.

Not now.

Not yet.

“Kiernan!” The force of holding back the hysterics building up inside of me was tearing up my throat like jagged glass, causing an ache to rival the one in my chest. “Kiernan, please. Hold on. Just hold on. The ambulance is coming. Please. It’s almost over. Just hang on. It’s almost over.”

‘Almost’ turned out to be nearly seven minutes long. Seven minutes that felt like seven lifetimes. And when it was over . . . When he lay there limp, unconscious, and wrung-out, I thought . . . I was so sure . . .

“Pease. Please, no. Not yet.” The broken plea fell from my trembling lips. “Not yet, dammit!
Not yet!
”

I wasn’t ready. This couldn’t be it. I couldn’t even remember what the last thing I’d said to him was.

My hands fisted in my hair, tugging painfully at the roots. “Kiernan. You can’t go. Not like this. You can’t—”

I saw it. The gentle rise and fall of his chest.

An animalistic sound I didn’t even realize I was capable of making filled the room as I fell forward. On hands and knees, I crawled to my brother and brushed my fingers over the pulse point in his neck. Faint and thready, but it was there.

“He’s alive.” I meant to shout the words. Scream them to the Heavens. But after traversing the tattered wreckage of my throat, they came out as little more than a whisper.

Mom heard them, anyway. She flew past me to gather his head in her lap as I sank to my rear and watched them. Watched as her lips moved over quiet words of comfort. Watched her shaky fingers comb through his unruly hair. Watched her cradle her baby in her arms. All the while, telling myself over and over again that he was alive.

My little brother was still alive.

For now.

Despite their noisy sirens and flashy lights, EMTs don’t actually move all that fast. Busy gathering equipment and organizing paperwork, I couldn’t help thinking if it was their kid laid out on the floor, there might have been a little more pep in their step. Mom didn’t exactly make things easier, refusing to release Kiernan. I had to literally hold her back while they hefted him onto the stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. But when Mom climbed in after them, I had no doubt they wouldn’t be wasting any time getting to the hospital.

The mobile side-show screamed to life and I was at once grateful we didn’t have any nearby neighbors. My heart told me to get in my car and follow them. Not to let that ambulance out of my sight for a moment. But my head reminded me I had one other stop to make along the way.

Gravel pinged against the undercarriage as my tire peeled out and I punched Jade’s number into my cell.

“Cal?” She was scared. I hadn’t even opened my mouth, yet, and she was already frightened.

“Jade, are you at home?” I needed to get to her. To be with her. I couldn’t think about anything else.

“Yeah. Wh—?”             

“I’m coming to get you. Meet me outside.”

“What happened?”

That was something I would have rather left unsaid until I could do it in person, but I’d already stirred the pot just by calling her. I couldn’t leave her hanging until I got there. “Kiernan had another seizure. They took him to the hospital.”

Neither of us were strangers to Kiernan’s seizures. We’d both witnessed them before, but this one just
felt
different. Maybe it was brotherly intuition. Maybe I’d been subconsciously picking up on changes in him for a while and part of me had been expecting this. I don’t know. Maybe it was the universe, trying to warn me about what was coming next. As though that could possibly make up for any of this.

“Angel?” I don’t know
how
I knew. I simply
knew
. “It’s bad.”

***

I drove like a raging lunatic the whole way to the hospital. I probably should have stopped. Or, at the very least, slowed down. Hell, I should have let Jade drive. She didn’t even have her license, but she couldn’t have put us in any more danger than I had.

It didn’t seem to bother her. There was no backseat driving, no grabbing for the handle bar. In fact, she leaned forward in her seat the entire way, straining against her seatbelt as though that would somehow get us there faster.

By some miracle, we made it to the hospital in one piece. Jade was prepared to continue the mad dash straight through the front doors, but I shackled her wrist before she could escape the car.

“Angel . . . You heard me, right? This morning when he . . .” Memories of that god-awful scene would continue to haunt me for the rest of my life. “It’s bad, Jade.”

“He’s had seizures before. I saw him have one and it looked really bad, but he was—”

“This is different. This time . . .” This time I knew what was coming. I’d always imagined that losing Kiernan would be the greatest pain I’d
ever have to suffer, but now I
knew
it. If only for a fraction of a second, I’d endured it. Felt the loss of a future that was never meant to be. Cheering him on as he crossed that stage on graduation day, having him stand beside me at my wedding, spoiling my nieces and nephews. Games, vacations, family barbeques. Things that were doomed to failure. Nonsense notions that led to nothing but disappointment and bitterness.

My knuckles cracked when they collided with the steering wheel, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as hearing Jade yelp beside me like a kicked puppy.

“I’m sorry. I’m . . .” I was such an idiot. She gaped at me across the car with wide, frightened eyes. I was screwing this up. Probably one of the most important things I’d do in my entire life, and I was already screwing it up. “You just . . . You need to be prepared because . . . I don’t know if he’s coming home this time.”

There, I’d said it. Put voice to my greatest fear. And hers.

Tears flooded Jade’s eyes, but she blinked them all away before a single one fell. “Cal?”

“Angel?” My entire body vibrated with raw need. I
needed
her. God, how I needed her.

“We can do this.” Her nose twitched as she sniffled back the last of her tears. Her tiny chin lifted a fraction of an inch and she looked me right in the eye. “We can do this. For Kiernan.”

Strength and courage poured off of her and I soaked it in. She was giving that to me. Giving me what I needed most, the ability to support the people I loved. And, right that moment, I loved her for it.

“You’re right. We can do this. We
have
to do this.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s inside. She rode in the ambulance with Kiernan.”

“Alright.” She gave a gentle tug and I released her so she could finally open her door. “Let’s go find out what’s going on, and take it from there. One step at a time, okay?”

“One step at a time.” Maybe I
could
do this, if I looked at it only one moment to the next. With Jade by my side, maybe I could do anything. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Mom looked like something right out of the Walking Dead. Her hair was a knotted nest of snares and tangles. Her makeup painted her face
in shades of blue and black and gray. It ran and smeared in random patterns until she looked like a walking, talking piece of abstract art.

“Mrs. Parks?” Jade approached with caution. She was timid and as fragile as the rest of us felt, but she took that first step. And it freed my feet from the cement shoes they’d been encased in, allowing me to do the same.

“Oh, Jade. Cal. You made it.”

“Where is he?” I took Mom’s arm and escorted her away from the desk, where a line was beginning to form, to find a place to sit.

“They’re looking at him now. They won’t tell me anything. They just keep saying—”

I knew what they kept saying. The same things they always said. “You know how this works, Mom. They do the same thing every time. No use making yourself crazy over it.”

Hollow words coming from the complete basket case I was. It was true, this was just like every other time. Except . . . it wasn’t. And I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

“Hey, Cal.” Jade glanced over my shoulder at something near the far wall. “Why don’t you get
us all some coffee, while your mom and I make a run to the bathroom?”

“I don’t think I—”

“If anyone comes with news, I’ll come get you right away.” I knew what Mom was afraid of, but I wasn’t about to let her pass up this opportunity. She was in desperate need of a moment to regroup. And, truthfully, so was I.

“See? It’s okay. Come on.” Jade took her arm and eased her from the chair like you would an elderly person. “Come with me. We’ll only be a minute.”

Mom looked like one, shuffling down the hall beside her. I watched them go. Angel never once let go of her arm.

Three paper cups sat on the floor by my feet, while I rubbed at the ache in the back of my neck. The coffee machine was out of milk, and creamer, and sugar, and pretty much everything else. I hoped Jade didn’t mind drinking it black.

Mom more closely resembled a human being when they returned from the ladies room. She even managed to force a smile onto her face as she accepted her cup. And then, we did the only thing we could do.

We waited.

***

My phone battery was nearly dead from how often I’d turned it on just to check the time before a doctor finally came to talk with us.

“Mrs. Parks?”

“Yes.” We all stood to greet the short, blonde woman in the white coat. “Yes, I’m Mrs. Parks. And this is my son. And my daughter.”

Jade gasped and I wanted to reach out and squeeze her. She was a part of our family.
Permanently
. I hoped like hell that she knew nothing could ever change that.

“Let’s have a seat, shall we?”

We sat and she talked. The longer she talked, the dizzier I felt. I don’t know when all the medical mumbo-jumbo stopped sounding like a foreign language and started to make sense, but it did. And I was right.

Things were worse.

Things were a
lot
worse.

At some point, I reached out and held on to Jade. I didn’t think about it, I just did it. She probably had no idea what we were talking
about, but I needed to hold on to something. And she was it.

“He’s been moved upstairs to a private room and he can have visitors, but I must insist on only one at a time.”

Jade stiffened beside me and I knew what she was thinking. I felt it growing inside of her. That vicious, twisted, pitiless thing called ‘hope’.