Angel (14 page)

Eighteen

“You know this doesn’t change anything, right?”

Mom had gone with the doctor to see Kiernan, leaving Jade and I alone in yet another waiting room. At least this one was private. No crying children. No old men hacking up a lung in your lap. Just me, and Jade, and silence so loud it was deafening.

“What I said in the car—”

“He’s awake, Cal. She said he’s awake.”

“Yes, she did.” It was probably the cruelest thing that had come out of the doctor’s mouth. “But did you hear what else she said? Did you understand any of it?”

“Not really.”

“She agrees that this time is worse. That Kiernan is worse.”

“Did she say he won’t get better?”

“No. Of course not. She can’t say that because she can’t know that.” And because medicine is essentially a business. One that thrives and feeds on false hope. I wanted to be a doctor, but I swore to myself right then that I would never, ever sugarcoat anything for anyone. People needed to know the truth. No matter how painful it was.

“Then neither can you.” Jade was in denial. A dangerous place to be. Instead of bracing herself for the truth, preparing for impact, she was going to be blindsided by it.

“Angel . . .” All of my energy seemed to abandon me at once. It would have been easy to let it go. To stop arguing and let Jade tell herself whatever she wanted to. But that would have been crueler than making her hear me. “I’m not saying this to upset you. And I’m not telling you not to have hope. I’m just trying to warn you that this may not turn out the way everyone wants it to. I know there’s no way to prepare for that. I’ve been trying to find a way for a year. It doesn’t exist. But there will come a time when we have to face it. And if that time came, and caught you off-guard . . . I’d never forgive myself.”

“Okay.”

Okay, my ass. I could
see
her reinforcing those walls around her heart, refusing to let my words sink in.

Mom’s return was the first blow to Jade’s barricade of denial. She staggered into the room, pale faced,
with this distant stare that I doubt even saw us sitting there. She looked . . . defeated.

I felt the emotional strike it dealt. Felt the reverberations shudder through Jade’s body.

Her gaze was fixated on Mom, horrified by what she saw, what it meant, yet unable to look away. Feeling some of that strength return—some of that strength
she’d
given me—I turned her to look at me, instead.

“Hang in there, Angel. You want to go next?”

“No.” She sucked in a deep lungful and shook her head. “You’re his brother. You should go.”

“Are you sure?” The color was beginning to drain from her own face. Maybe if she talked to him . . . “I can wait if you want to see him.”

“I’m okay. You go.”

It was a physical effort to force myself out of that chair. I was no more ready to face this than she was, but time wasn’t standing still and we couldn’t afford to waste a single second of it.

I’d only made it halfway to standing before Jade’s warm fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling me back down. “We can do this, right?”

Brushing away some of the silky smooth strands from her face, I found the ability
to smile at her. We had this weird symbiotic relationship. Each of us feeding off of whoever happened to be stronger. At the moment, that was me again. “Yeah, Angel. We can do this.”

“The open door on the left.” Mom’s voice was robotic. She pointed down the hallway behind her without even looking at me.

“Mom?”

“Go. Talk to your brother.” She continued forward toward Jade and I let her go, trusting an Angel to watch over one member of my family, while I went to check on the other.

The room was cold. Not just temperature wise, but a bone deep chill of foreboding crept over me as I stepped inside.

Kiernan was lying in one of those stiff, mechanical beds
with the stupid side railings. Like sick people were too dumb to remember how not to fall off their mattress. It’s not that I’d never seen him in one before, but this time there were cords and wires still attached to him that were normally removed before we were allowed into the room. Cords and wires I doubted deep in my gut would ever be removed.

“Hey, bro. How are you feeling?”

He struggled to sit up straighter as I crossed the room.

“I’m fi—” He took a second look at me and rethought his answer. “I’m tired. I feel really, really tired.”

He looked it, too. In fact, he looked a lot like Mom.
Defeated
. I wondered if I looked the same. But Kiernan would never really be defeated. He couldn’t be. He’d fought so hard for so long . . . No matter what the outcome, he’d already won. Each and every day since his diagnosis had been a victory. And to the victor went the spoils. In this case, the spoils might just be some long overdue peace.

“Do you want to rest? I can . . .” I hooked my thumb toward the door, but Kiernan shook his head.

“No. Stay. There’s something I have to talk to you about.”

“Okay.” I pulled up the chair beside his bed and settled in. “What’s up?”

“What you said the other day . . . at Jade’s . . . about being there for her. Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes. Of course I meant it. Where is this coming from, Kier?”

“I just . . . I need to know. I need to know she’s going to be alright. I
have
to.”

“She’ll be alright.”

His eyes met mine and though he’d been struggling to keep them open only moments before, his gaze held steady. “Swear it.”

“Kiernan—”

“Swear it, Cal.
Swear
you’ll take care of her.
Swear
you’ll be there for her. She’s stronger than she thinks, but I don’t want to leave her alone. No one should be all alone. Swear you’ll protect her. Even from herself. That you won’t let anything bad happen to her.
Swear
, Cal. Please.”

I looked into my brother’s watery eyes and saw the fear behind the sorrow. He was so afraid. My little brother was terrified, and there was very little I could do to make it better.

So I did what I could. I swore.

And it sickened me to my soul that I didn’t do it entirely for him.

“Thanks, bro.” Some of the more immediate panic eased away and he settled back onto the hard pillow. “Do you think you could send her in here? I really need to talk to her.”

“Of course. I’ll go get her. You rest.”

“Thanks, Cal.” Kiernan reached out and grabbed my arm as I rose to go. His grip was so weak, I wanted to grab his hand and hold it, and promise to never leave his side. “Cal? I mean it. Thank you. For everything. I know what you’ve done. I know you stepped up when Dad left. I know you gave up everything to move here. I know I put you through hell.”

“Kiernan, you never—”

“And you never once complained. You never got mad. You could have left, too. You could have gone away to college. You could have stayed at home with your friends. But you didn’t. All you’ve done for the past year-and-a-half has been for me and Mom. I know I didn’t always act like it, but . . . I wanted you to know that I know it. And that it means more than you can ever know.”

My little brother—the one human being on the planet that i
t was my duty to protect—laid in that damn hospital bed, staring up at me through tear-filled eyes. He was fighting a losing battle. I was watching him get pummeled and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I wanted to reach inside his body and tear out that tumor with my bare hands. Stand between it and him, and refuse to let it have him. Not
my
brother. I wanted to beg it to take me, instead. There was so much more Kiernan could do in this life. More than I could ever hope to. He had people who counted on him. Who
needed
him. I was nobody. Lost. Confused. Angry. Nothing. Why was it fair that I lived when he didn’t get to?

Then he did the most unexpected thing. Kiernan threw his arms around my waist and he hugged me. He hugged me with all of his strength
and he must have borrowed some of mine, as well, because my legs gave out and I sank down to kneel on the floor beside his bed. Memories of him as a snot-nosed kid, running around, driving me mad, played through my mind as he buried his face in my neck.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything
to
say. I was speechless. So I just held onto him as hot tears soaked my skin.

“You’re my hero, Cal.”

No
. His words tore through me like a razor blade. Anger welling fast in their wake. No, dammit, I was no one’s hero. I was a failure. As a brother. As a son. As a friend. I’d failed. All of them.

“You’ve got that backward, little brother.
You’re
the hero here.” A shudder that I couldn’t suppress wracked my body. “I love you, Kiernan.”

“I love you, too, Cal.”

***

When I left his room, I knew. I knew I’d seen my brother for the last time. Spoken to him for the last time. Touched him . . . for the last time.

I went straight to the closest bathroom, locked the door, braced myself against the cold porcelain sink, and I breathed. Anything more, anything less, and I wouldn’t have survived. So I just breathed. The scent of piss and Clorox filled my nose, and still I breathed. Deeply. Again and again. Reminding myself that I could.

I was going to survive this day. Life was going to go on from here. I just couldn’t see how other than one moment at a time. The first of which included getting Jade into that room where Kiernan was waiting for her.

I startled her when I stepped into the waiting room, and she stared up at me with this crushing combination of hope and dread. Her shields were up, but they were practically transparent. “How are you feeling?”

She took a moment to think that over. A range of emotions flickered over her face, but the one she settled on was, “Helpless.”

There wasn’t a more perfect word in any language to accurately describe exactly how this felt. “Yeah. Me, too. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Bullshit. She was nowhere close to ‘ready’. None of us were. “I’m ready.”

“Last door on the left.” But whether or not we were ready, this was going to happen. “And, Jade?”

“Yeah?”

“Take a breath before you open the door.”

It was pointless. I was trying to prepare her for something I, myself, wasn’t prepared for. Something there was no way to prepare for. We were all about to hit a brick wall, head-on. And we were going to do it full speed ahead.

***

“Caulder?”

I blinked and realized I’d been staring at nothing for what felt like a long time. Mom was sitting beside me and I hadn’t even seen her come in.

“Mom. Where were you?”

“In the bathroom.” All of her makeup had been washed off, but I doubted that was what made her look a million years older all of a sudden. “I called your father.”

“What did he say?” Nothing I wanted to hear, I was sure.

“Not much. He was late for a meeting.”

“He was late for a—?” That useless piece of—

“He can’t deal with this, Cal. He’s made that perfectly clear from the beginning. He can’t think about it. He can’t talk about it. Your father loves Kiernan. He loves both of you. Very much. He’s just—”

“Weak.” The man was a spineless coward.

Mom sighed. “Yes. He’s weak. He’s a kind, gentle man, but he’s fragile. He’s only trying to protect himself the only way he knows how.”

“And what about us? Isn’t it his job to protect us?”

“You’re right.” Her lips pressed into a thin line and she nodded. “It is his job. And mine. I’m sorry, Cal. I’m sorry I didn’t make a better choice for you both. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder to—”

“No. Mom. This is
not
your fault.” And I’d be damned if I’d let her shoulder his guilt along with what she already carried. “Nothing Dad did is your fault. He’s a grown man. He makes his own decisions. Kiernan and I . . . We don’t need him. We are so lucky just to have you. You’re more than enough for us. Just you.”

“Oh, Cal.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she squeezed my hand between two of hers. “I don’t say this nearly enough, but I am so, so proud of you. Of the man that you’ve become. You are so much stronger than your father. I’m sorry that you’ve had to be.”

“Don’t be. I want to make you proud.”

We lapsed into silence after that. Hands still entangled between us, we sat side-by-side. And we waited. For the inevitable. And yet, when it came, it still took us both by surprise.

It started with the high-pitched peal of feedback through the speakers in the ceiling, followed by a voice announcing some kind of medical code. The sudden flow of bodies, wearing scrubs and lab coats, down the hall toward Kiernan’s room stopped my heart. Maybe if I froze it right then, right that moment, it would never have to feel the moments that came after.