Being Me (21 page)

“The doctors don’t like him to have candy,” Brandy whispers, “but how can I deny him the things he enjoys?”

“I wouldn’t deny him anything he wants, either,” I say, my eyes falling on the young boy and shifting to Chris. He’s good with the kids, and I wonder if he’s thought about having his own. I’ve never thought about kids, but after today, I’m not sure I want to be a mother. How can you love this much and have that child stripped away from you? Losing my mother was hard enough. If I lose Chris—

“You love him,” Brandy says softly. “I see it in your face when you look at him.”

My gaze lingers on Chris. “Yes. Yes I do.”

“Good,” she says approvingly as I shift my attention to her. “Sam and I see the pain that man carries around. He needs someone to hold some of it for him.”

This analysis punches me in the chest. Chris has held everything life has burdened him with all on his own since he was a teen. That Brandy sees what he hides beneath his affable exterior speaks volumes about the kind of people she and her husband are. They are living in excruciating pain, but they still see beyond it to worry about Chris. I think about how upset he was on the phone two nights before, and it’s crystal clear to me that he needs me to carry some of his load this weekend. This isn’t the time to share my inner demons with him, and not because I want to put off the dreaded event. Because now is a time for me to be here for him, to show him I love him, even if I don’t dare tell him until I make sure he knows who I really am.

Brandy points to the front of the room. “We’re being summoned.”

I glance up to find Chris and Dylan waving us forward and a few minutes later I have caved to the impossible. I’ve agreed to watch
Friday the 13th
with Chris and Dylan while Brandy and Sam have agreed to go home and get some much-needed rest.

•   •   •

Three hours later, Chris and I have curled onto the hospital lounge chair by Dylan’s bed, with Chris’s painting of Freddy and Jason propped on a roller table, when our horror flick finally ends. Dylan hasn’t stopped laughing at my yelps and complaints,
and his pleasure is music to my ears. He is such an amazing kid. He deserves to live.

Chris picks up the remote to the DVD player, turns it off, and checks the clock. “It’s eleven o’clock. You better go to sleep, Dylan.”

I grimace. “Sleep for both us, Dylan. I sure won’t be getting any myself.”

Dylan laughs and snuggles down into the bed. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

Chris and I share a look and I nod my agreement. “We’re right here, buddy,” Chris assures him and he lowers the lounge chair downward like a bed. I curl up with my back to his front and his arm wraps around me.

Dylan dims the lights with the button on his bed and I close my eyes. I’m exhausted. It’s been an insanely crazy day, full of jagged edges and twists and turns.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Chris whispers in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Me, too,” Dylan whispers, clearly having overheard.

“Me, too,” I reply to them both. It’s been a day full of jagged edges, twist and turns, and bittersweet discovery.

He is everything I am, and everything I am not. I do not remember where I begin and he ends, or where he ends and I begin. He is my Master. I am his slave. I’m struggling to remember who I was before he was. It’s terrifying to think that I could give myself to him this completely when I know he has not done the same for me. What will I be when he is gone? Do I dare stay and find out the answer is nothing? And what will he do if I tell him I’m leaving?

I jerk awake with one of the final chilling entries in one of Rebecca’s journals spinning in my mind. Sunlight beams into the hospital room, which is empty but for me, and I realize Dylan and Chris are gone.

A piece of paper crinkles under my hand and I lift it to find Chris’s handwriting.
Snuck Dylan out for secret meeting with kitchen and a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. We have to get to the
hotel and shower by ten. The nurse left you an overnight kit in the bathroom
.

I glance at the clock and it’s 8 a.m. I can’t believe Chris and I both knocked out this hard and long on a lounge chair. I stand up and stretch and head to the bathroom, taking my phone with me in case Chris calls. On the sink, under the small bag of toiletries, is a folded newspaper I’m clearly meant to see. I pick it up and blink at a photo of me with Chris and Dylan, and Chris has scribbled,
Mark should be happy
. I frown a moment until the light bulb goes off. Oh yes, Mark will be happy. Chris and I have on our Allure shirts and they are clearly visible. I snap a picture of the paper and text it to Mark. I’ve barely opened my new toothbrush before Mark replies.
The shirt looks better on you than Chris
. I stare at the message and let out a short laugh. Huh. This is one of those off-the-wall replies Mark gives me in e-mails, and apparently text messages, where he seems more man than Master. There’s more to him than his stiff “Ms. McMillan this, Ms. McMillan that,” and I wonder if he really is the man in the journals. Somehow, I can’t see the Master Rebecca has written about making jokes like this one or ending an e-mail quoting
The Hunger Games
with “may the odds be forever in your favor,” as he once did to me. I type a reply and delete it two times and then snatch my toothbrush. Why am I fretting over a text to Mark?

A few minutes later I’ve combed my tangled mess of hair into order, and my equally brown eyes seem to make my pale skin two shades paler, which is pretty darn pale. But it doesn’t matter as it might have just twenty-four hours ago. Watching these kids and their families fight for their very lives has given me perspective on my own insecurities. It also makes me think
about how important living in the now is, how easily life can be ripped away, as it was for my mother, and for Chris’s. No matter how terrifying the ultimate decision is, I have to resign from my teaching job on Monday.

I leave the bathroom and walk back into Dylan’s room, thinking I will share this decision with Chris, to find I’m still alone. The sound of voices draw my gaze to the half-opened door where I glimpse Brandy in deep conversation with a man in scrubs and a white coat, and she doesn’t look happy. The man I assume to be the doctor squeezes her shoulder and walks away. Brandy drops her face in her hands.

I’m across the room and out the door in a quick dash. “Brandy?” Her hands fall away from her face and I see the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh honey, what’s wrong?” I wrap her in a hug and she clings to me.

“His cancer is progressing faster than expected.”

I feel as if I’ve just had my insides carved out, and Dylan isn’t even my child. How must she feel and how can I possibly console her?

After several moments, she steps back. “I need to see my son. I need to call Sam. He’s at work.”

“I’ll call him,” I offer. “You go freshen up and be with Dylan.”

She gives me Sam’s number and hugs me again, her body shaking. I look up and my heart lurches as Chris steps off the elevator with Dylan by his side. I wave him off and he quickly backs into the car and pulls Dylan with him. A silent breath of relief escapes my lips at what could have been an emotional meltdown between mother and son. Somehow, I have to help
Brandy gather her composure and be strong for her son, when I know she’s dying inside with him. And somehow I have to get Chris through this. Deep down, I am certain this is going to wrench open deep wounds in my already damaged man, and I hurt just thinking about it.

When finally I have Brandy somewhat composed, I text Chris that he and Dylan can join us. A few minutes later, Dylan ambles into the room, grinning and singing the song from
Nightmare on Elm Street
, “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, you better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix.”

Chris follows behind him, a one-day dark blond shadow on his jaw, his hair rumpled and sexy, and his eyes as haunted as Brandy’s. He’s not heard the news about the cancer progressing but he’s smart enough to assume bad news is coming.

Dylan continues to sing as he plops onto the bed. “Seven, eight, you better stay up late.”

“Enough,” I exclaim, but I am smiling at his attempt to tease me.

“Yes, enough,” Brandy agrees, laughing. “I get creeped out from that song, too.”

“You two can’t be scared just by hearing the song,” Dylan argues.

I shiver just thinking about that movie. “There’s plenty of reasons why I agreed to watch
Friday the 13th
instead of
Nightmare on Elm Street
, and that song is the top of the list.”

“We’ll make her watch it next time,” Chris promises, sitting down next to him.

Dylan pumps his fist. “Yes!” he says and laughs.

It hits me as I watch the two of them say their good-byes for
the day before we depart that Dylan and Chris both replace one horror with another. Dylan uses fictional movies and monsters to combat cancer, and Chris uses pain to combat pain. No wonder these two are bonded so tightly.

“Well?” Chris asks as we step in the elevator.

It takes effort to get myself to tell him what I know will hurt him. “His cancer is progressing faster than expected.”

His head drops back, face lifting to the ceiling, and the torment in him claws at me. I wrap my arms around his waist and press my cheek to his racing heart. “I’m sorry.”

He buries his head in my hair and inhales as if it gives him relief. “I’ve been through this before, but this kid, he’s special.”

My chin lifts, my gaze finding his troubled one. “I know. I can see the bond you’ve formed with him.”

The elevator opens and he laces his fingers with mine. It’s not long before we are in the much-warmer-than-home L.A. weather, trying to flag down a cab, which turns out to be a struggle Chris doesn’t need right now. Finally, we’re on the way to the hotel and I bring up the difficult topic of Dylan’s father. “I told Brandy I’d call her husband. I think she knew talking to him would make her melt down again. Do you want to talk to him or should I?”

Chris grabs his cell off his belt. “I will.”

I watch Chris as he explains to Dylan’s father, Sam, what has happened. Chris wears an emotionless mask throughout the conversation, but he’s gripping his leg so tightly that the muscles knot beneath his dragon tattoo.

When we pull up to the hotel Chris is still on the phone, and he tosses a hundred-dollar bill for a ten dollar-trip at the driver
and waves him on. He finally hangs up with Sam when we are exiting to our floor, and the edginess of his mood is downright palpable. He doesn’t look at me, either, and I struggle with what to say or do, standing in silence as he swipes the card in the door and pushes it open.

I’m surprised when he enters ahead of me when he would normally follow me inside. I shut the door behind us in time to see him pound the wall and then press his fists against the surface. His head drops between his shoulders and I can see the long, lithe muscles rippling through his body.

I close the distance between us and reach for him. “Don’t,” he commands sharply, stilling my hand in action, his voice gravelly, rough. “I’m not in a good place.”

“Be there with
me
, Chris. Let me help.”

The depth of despair in his eyes seems to tunnel straight into hell. “This part of me is why I warned you away.”

“It didn’t work then and it’s not working now.”

He grabs me and puts me between the wall and him. “This is when I’d—”

“I know,” I interrupt. “This is one of those times you need pain to replace pain. I understand it, after what I saw these past twenty-four hours. But if we’re going to make it, Chris, you have to find a way to go there with me.”

‘There’s nothing gentle in me while I’m like this. You don’t want who I am right now.”

“I want every part of you, Chris.”

For several seconds, he stares at me, and then suddenly his fingers twine into my hair and he’s kissing me. His anger and pain bleed into my mouth, searing me in their intensity. My
hands go to his chest and he shackles them with one of his. “Don’t touch me. Not until I’m past this.”

“Okay.” Somehow I manage to sound strong when I’m shaken by just how out of himself he truly is.

“Undress,” he orders. “I don’t trust myself to do it.”

I have no idea what he means by that, but he steps back from me and tugs his shirt over his head. I pull my own tee off, along with my bra, and I reach for my pants but struggle as my hand is trembling uncontrollably.

Chris is in front of me in an instant, holding my wrist. “Damn it, I knew this was a mistake. I’m scaring you.”

“You don’t scare me, Chris. You hurt, so I hurt.”

A thunderstorm of emotions crosses his face and he drops his forehead to mine like he did on the plane. His breathing is ragged and he’s obviously battling to rein in whatever he’s feeling.

It is nearly impossible to resist the powerful urge to touch him. “Stop trying to control it, Chris. Just let it out. I can handle it.”

“I can’t.”

He steps back from me and shocks me by walking toward the bathroom. I blink after him. He can’t? What does that even mean? I hear the shower come on and I try to stay where I am because he obviously wants space, but
I can’t
. I ignore the fact that my nudity isn’t the best confrontational attire, but then he’s not exactly dressed himself.