Chapter 13

Sean:

"You look-" I inhaled my words as she pursed her dried up, light pink ones. The small plastic cup of half filled apple juice, sat on the rotating table of her hospital bed, and her skin looked deadly pale in the light blue hospital gown.

Her hair were sprawled on the white pillow under her head and her blue eyes smiled at me, despite the pain I could see in them.

"Beautiful. I know." She chuckled as she seemed to get cozy in the warm blankets on her.

"Are you comfortable?" I questioned, fixing her pillow right.

"Yes." She smiled taking my hand in her cold one. I hissed at the sight of the gauge of the A.V line buried in the back of her right hand.

"Its normal to have an A.V. line pumped in you when you are in a hospital. They can save my life that way." She winked and I rolled my eyes.

"You annoy me."

"I was born with that certain gift. Ask mom and dad."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Sean." She squeezed my hand and I gave out a forced smile.

"I'm scared, Enie." I sat on my knees, on the floor.

"Why?" She furrowed her brows.

"Are you kidding me?" I gave her my confused look.

"Sean, Dr. Andrews said there is a chance of survival. I will come back. And then I will kick your ass." She scolded and then we heard a laugh from behind us.

Jace stood in the door with his arms crossed on his chest and a plastic smile on his face. He was dressed in khaki pants and a dark brown, full sleeved button up shirt. The sleeves were folded up and he seemed stiff.

"Um, Enie, can you give us a minute?" I stood up.

"Sure, but you gotta walk out. I really can't move."

I snickered and walked towards Jace, he gave me a small nod and walked past me and I knew to who. I turned to find him bending down to Selene and placing a lingering kiss on her forehead.

It literally hurt to see them go through what they were being served to.

Once we stepped out, Jace gave her another glance before closing the door and giving us space in the wide and white, turquoise benched hallways.

"What?" He questioned.

"You know what happens next, right?" I tried to put the facts in ease.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't make it harder than it already is, Jace."

"I'm not, Sean. Nothing that is out of the ordinary."

"Jace-"

"No!" He snapped, "She is fine. She will make it through and then we will forget that this ever happened."

"No, Jace. She is suffering from a tumor. A ball sized brain tumor, is about to be removed, surgically, from her head. No matter how hard she hides it, she knows that too." I tried to keep the pain away but I knew I sucked at it.

"You-"

"Don't, Jace. You know I am right."

"So what? I am just supposed to sit here and wait for the doctor to tell me that I lost her?" He scolded.

"Don't say it like that, Jace. She means a lot to all of us. I just want you to be sober and stable if something unexpected happens, alright?"

"Unexpected?"

"Jace, just calm-" my words were interrupted with a call in the name of Jace and it was the one voice that freaked us. Selene.

We barged in through the doors and found Selene's jaw wide open and eyes tight shut, her body was writhing on the bed and she was gagging. Suddenly her mouth shut but she still kept on gagging.

"Turn her to her right side, I'll press the call button!" I breathed and ran over her left side, "She's having a seizure."

The door opened behind us and a male nurse, dressed in blue cotton pants and half sleeves, hospital attire came in and took Jace's place.

He held Selene to her right side, while using one of his hands to squeeze in her cheeks, so that her jaw would open apart.

"Oh, God!" I could hear Jace, breathing loud behind the nurse.

"She's alright. Just let her relax." The nurse sighed as Selene, stopped suffering and dropped unconscious.

"She-she-"

"Mr. Anderson, she's alright."

"Bu-but why? Why did she -"

"Its usually stress. But in her case, it's almost unpredictable. The stress and the tumor, are affecting her. Just stay with her, while I inform your father, alright?" The nurse instructed and walked out of the room, leaving Selene in Jace's hold.

"Jace?" He looked up, but all I saw were tears and pain.

"She-"

"I'm sorry, brother."

"I know." He held his breath and dropped his head.

"Stay with her, I'll go and see for Brian and Lilly." I told him, knowing, no words went through, before I left.

Jace:

So quiet.

So soft.

Just so... painfully quiet.

I was dying with every breath I was taking. My heart was increasing the beats per minute but my lungs were losing capacity to fill with air.

"Selene, you know you will be fine. I know it too. Don't worry, please." I knew, I wasn't making any sense but I just needed her to look at me with her blue eyes and charm me with a smile.

"Selene." I, instinctively, uttered as her lids started rising.

"Who are you?" She questioned and my heart dropped.

"No, no. Selene-" I started panicking but then finally remembered how a person loses all senses, after a seizure.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. You're going to be fine. Just relax." I starred calming the both of us, while rubbing my hand in her hair and holding one of her palms with my other. Tears were spilling, rapidly, down her cheeks and her breathing laboured.

"No, no." She denied everything and anything.

"Okay, okay. You can do this." I kept on assuring us.

I sat on my knees and placed my hands around her palms that held mine tight. I could see confusion and emptiness clouding the mist in her eyes.

"Stay with me, stay with me, baby. You got this." She kept on crying, dropping her head back on the pillow. I kissed her fingers that were sneaking out of our hold.

"I am here. I love you. You're okay." I repeated.

Soon, she sighed and went back down into a slumber where she snored.

I couldn't hold it back, not anymore. I let my silent sobs, break.

My heart broke at the sight of her.

"Jace." I heard a call and realized it was Lilly.

"S-sorry. She-"

"I'm sorry, my boy." She apologized but n a groggy tone as a slight tear, slipped the brim of her left eye.

"No need." I couldn't move.

Brian stood right behind Lilly, with Sean and I had never seen a man so sternly firm during a condition as such of his daughter. No tears, no emotions. Nothing.

He was standing as if he wasn't really there.

"She had a seizure. I-"

"I know. It's okay, son." Lilly gave me a small smile and walked to me.

"I-I couldn't do-"

"You really can't do anything in this situation, Jace." She cupped my face as she sat next to me on her toes, on the floor, "But being next to her, helps her. She needs calm and care. No panic. She will be okay. I know it in me." She uttered and I raised my head to find her eyes looking at the broken sight of me.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Arly. I-I- no matter my relation with her, I cant imagine how you are right now." I tilted my head at her bowed head.

"Kid, I'm strong. I have faith. My baby will fight it." She smirked but that smile was so painful. I took her shoulders and stood us both up.

"I wish I had your strength." I whispered, hugging her gently.

"Wait till you're a parent." She chuckled.

Brian:

"Stress?" I caressed the sweaty forehead of my little fragile girl. So quiet. She was so still. No smile, no brightness, no light shown off her face.

The moments of her waking up as a baby, running around with her little afro hair, visualized in my brain. Her little giggles. Joy spreading through every nerve in me through her.

My baby girl.

"Yes, Mr. Arly." The nurse wrote on the papers in her clipboard.

"What can we do?" I questioned with pain choking me.

"Anything to keep her happy. It's a difficult thing but anything that will keep her mind off of this idea of stress." He responded and I nodded.

Hours passed by, then a day.

We all sat like a cluster of sorrow blocked by our own misery. The best solution was nowhere to be seen and the only hopeful person amongst us was the one who tangled herself in plastic tubes.

I was going to lose my daughter. I was well aware.

Lily and my kids werent.

Jace wasnt.

Sean wasnt.

It was almost six in the morning and I found Lily snoring on the couch in Selene's room. I chuckled, sitting by my daughter. She smiled at her mother fixed the green hospital blanket on her chest.

"How are you?" I removed the strand of hair tickling her cheek. She smiled through her dry lips and blinked in relaxation.

"Does she always snore like that?" She looked at Lily again.

"Imagine, been married to that for twenty years." I snorted and she laughed.

"Dad." She croaked after a couple minutes of silence and empty staring around the room.

"Yeah?" I matched her eyes and she bit her lip.

"Are you scared?" This was the first time she spoke those words to me. Even when she watched me at work, or hosting a gun, she would be calm about it.

"Not at all. You?" I held her hand on the blanket. A tear slid from her left eye and she sniffled.

"Nope." She giggled and I leaned forward, placing a kiss against her forehead.

"I'm proud of you." I whispered.

"I'm not." She shook her head and a little larger amount of tears slid out of the corner of her eyes. Her pale skin caught a wave of red and eyes blinked at the water in them.

"Why?" I cleaned off the tears.

"I gave up, so long ago." She hicupped. I sucked in a sharp breath and held the lump in my throat.

"Why?" I cleared my throat.

"Because I couldnt see you guys struggling so much for something so hopeless." Her face scrunched in a sob that she held back.

"See, that's where I'm the adult and you are my baby." I pointed at her heart, "I wake up to fight, everyday for countless people I know nothing of. What makes you think I wouldnt fight for the one I win every step of my life for?" I felt my eyes heat up but I couldnt cry. It wasnt my job to show fear, it was to be a father and show that there is strength in times of misery and we could earn our win from that.

"Would you give up on me if I was here instead of you?" I threw a childish question at her that I knew would get through her emotionally unstable brain.

"Never." She cried and the sob broke like a wave.

"Exactly." I cleared her face and she cried more tears.

"Dad, I'm scared." She whispered.

"I know, baby." I raised her hand in mine and pressed a kiss there.

"But I will be okay. You gave me a good life. And that's enough reason to be brave." She sniffed up her tears and I released a small smile to her.

"Baby, there is something you should know." I sighed.

"Yeah?"

"We, um, we lied." I nodded, holding back my tears. Her eyes questioned me but no words came out, "You do have leukemia spreading in you, which is infact known as leukostasis. For helping this, they um, they need to perform a procedure on you." I felt a tear trickle down my check.

"Um, what?" Fear was evident on her.

"Pheresis." I sighed and she shrugged with a bobbing head. Panic was settling in both of us, "They have to sort of insert a catheter in you. It will help with to fix you up for chemo." I scratched my cheek and wiped a tear. She shivered and I quickly warmed both her hands.

"Hey, hey." She started shaking her head.

"Am i- Am I going to die?" She struggled.

"No, no. No. That would never happen." I kissed her cupped hands strongly and she shut her eyes in pain. I could feel it resonating off of her to me.

"Dad... what is going to happen to me? Please you have to be honest." She begged.

"Baby, its gonna get ugly after this. But I promise you, you will walk out with a better health in no damn time. I promise you." I nodded in assurance and she mimicked my action. I bent forward and hugged her. She held tightly to my shirt and sobbed quietly by me.

"Does Jace know?" She fisted my shirt.

"No." I murmured.

She released me and let me face her.

"I gotta let him go." She cried.

"Selene-"

"No, dad. Chemo could only make things insane. Please." She cupped her face and I sighed, "He's just a kid."

"Okay." I truly felt bad. She wasn't wrong.

He was a good man.

Jace:

I could barely get a wink the whole night. Mr. Arly forced me to go home and change up. I decided to shower up, get some basic supplies in my bag and some flowers for my girl on my way to her.

I was already out the door when my mom called me from the door. She stood in her black jeans and white shirt, ready for work. A psychologist was what my mother was.

Epic, right?

"What's up?" I pushed to the steps. My feet were vibrating in the rush to reach Selene as soon as possible.

"Your father says that you shouldnt go today." She sighed and I dropped my head.

"Seriously? Dad said that?" I felt my jaw tick as she shrugged while running her fingers through her chocolate hair.

"I get what you are trying to do. I'll be fine." I hissed.

"Jace, this is too much for you. You are only eighteen." She stopped me from turning to leave.

"Yeah, mom, so is she!" I exclaimed, "She is eighteen and she is in a hospital bed, not sure if she will wake up tomorrow to see her family. So I will be there to assure her that everything is the same and will be from the moment she closes her eyes till she comes back." I felt anger burn my brain and tears stung my eyes.

"Jace, your father is there. He says she is just starting up." She said so nonchalantly that I couldnt believe her. She was so careless about someone's life.

"Mom, we are talking about a girl who is young and unsure of every minute she breathes. What is the matter with you?" I questioned with agony burdening my voice.

"I just want what's best for you and this stress would contemplate your future. You are putting too much stress on yourself."

"Seriously mom, you learned to bring every person back from the brink but never tried on how to care for your own child." I uttered bitterly.

"Dont be harsh. I'm your mother and I do care for you. As much as I sympathize with that girl and her family, she is occupying way too much of your time. She will be fine with her family. Why dont you check your summer school schedule and let me figure out on how to make that work?" She scolded and I shook my head in disbelief before jogging out to my bike out front on the drive way.

Her attitude had always been the same but I never thought that she had so little respect for human life.

After grabbing a bouquet of freshly plucked red roses, I headed straight for the hospital. We werent exactly allowed to get gifts but I could sneak it. I knew my way around.

"Jace?" I saw my dad as soon as I walked in through the elevator to the private rooms sector. The bouquet was under my black jacket and of course I had help from a few friendly working faces.

"Hey, dad." I smiled. My face was shaking and I couldnt wait any longer to see her.

"Son, they already took her." He held my shoulder and I scrunched my eyes.

"What? No. It's only eight thirty in the morning. She was supposed to be prepped around one." I retaliated, not believing him and running to the room she was admitted to. When I barged in, I found it empty and a nurse was cleaning up the equipment.

"Where is it?" I turned to my father with tears trickling down my face. I didn't care if I looked weak or sad. I needed to be with Selene. She needed to know that I was with her though anything.

"Jace?" I heard a call and turned in the opposite direction of dad to find Mr. Arly. He was disheveled in his brown t-shirt and loose jeans. Same clothing as last night.

"Sir, sir. Where is she?" I jumped to him. He held my shoulders and looked at me with a pursed smile.

"She asked me to give you this." He pushed a neatly folded paper to me and I looked at it in bafflement. Everything was feeling cold and dark. I could hear my heart deafening my senses.

"You should go." He pushed at my shoulder at bit. It was a nudge but strong enough to show his defeat in the situation.

"Did Selene ask you to get rid of me? Because I'm fine." I raged.

"She's passed." Dad spoke with a broken heart and I shook my head.

"I'm sorry." Mr. Arly nodded, holding his tears and walking away. Leaving a shattered world crumbling down on me.

"Dad?" I whispered before dropping to my knees and falling in his embrace.