Love, But Never (30 page)

“Good.  Then it can be fixed,” Lucian breathed a sigh of relief.

“I hope so.  I’m not willing to let seven years of friendship fall because of this, but the ball is in his court right now,” Marissa took Lucian’s hands in hers and looked into his dark brown eyes.  “Seriously, dude, what am I going to do without you?”

“You are going to write me lots of letters, doll, and delay your decisions until I can write you back,” he chuckled.

“Marissa?” Aaron said from behind them. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Subtle,” Lucian whispered in Marissa’s ear before standing.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” she answered, letting Lucian help her off the driveway, as Aaron ducked back into the house.

“For what it’s worth, I think you can trust Aaron.  The way he looks at you, Ris… you can just see it,” Lucian pulled her in for a hug.

“It’s going to be slow going, but I agree.  I just hope he realizes that he can trust me, too,” Marissa pulled him closer before releasing him.  “Do you need any more blankets for the couch?” she asked as they walked back to the door.

“No, I’ll be good.  I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, watching her walk to the back of the house to her bedroom.

**

BANG! BANG! BANG!

              Marissa lifted her aching head off her pillow.  12:15…PM.  It was a good thing she’d requested the day off work, because her head was pounding and her Crohn’s was making her pay for drinking too much the night before, but not nearly as badly as she’d expected.  She pulled a robe over her pajamas and stumbled toward the door.

              “MARISSA LYNN MASTERSON!  I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”  Marissa froze when she heard the f word come from her father on the other side of the door.  It was a word he never said unless he was so angry he couldn’t see straight.  She hesitated, but knew she wasn’t alone in the house; maybe he’d be okay once he saw he had an audience.

              “Hi, dad,” she said, holding open the door as he pushed past her.

              “Don’t ‘hi dad’ me! 
Where the hell have you been?!
  Your mother has been trying to call you all morning!” he fumed.

              “I’ve been here, I was asleep and my phone has been out here,” she picked up her phone from the island to show her father.  “I must’ve put it on silent.” She started to look through her phone and saw sixteen missed calls, all from her mother.  She looked at her father with a worried expression, “What’s going on?”

              Her father grabbed her phone from her hands and heaved it against the kitchen wall, just barely missing the window, but causing a hole in the drywall and her phone to scatter into a few pieces against the tile floor.  Marissa jumped at the crash, and looked, hesitantly, at the hall to her bedroom and the couch.  She wasn’t sure if she was willing Aaron or Lucian to wake up or stay asleep.  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he said, taking a menacing step in her direction as she stepped back in response.  “Ryan had to take my
MOTHER
to hospice late last night and you weren’t there for your family.  You decided it was more important to move out and become some drunken
slut
,” he motioned to the empty beer bottles littering the island he’d backed her into, “than to
be there
for your family.  You need to move back home, Marissa.  You are turning into a good for nothing tramp on your own.  I should’ve never let you move out,” he finished.

              Marissa felt like she’d been slapped by his words as she looked up at him in horror. “
Let
me move out?” she asked.  “You didn’t have a choice.” She tried to break free from his imposing shadow over her, but he was too quick.  He grabbed her face in his hand and yanked it hard so that she had to look into his eyes.
‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,’
she silently chanted to herself, trying to draw strength for wells she thought dry years ago.
‘If I cry, I will never be free of his hold over me.’

              “Get your shit, Marissa.  You are coming home.  Your mother needs you and, obviously, you need to be brought back into line,” he said through clinched teeth.  Marissa pushed back hard from her father, but he didn’t budge.

              “Get your hands off of her!” she heard Aaron yell from behind her, Lucian flanking him.

              “Who the fuck do you think you are to talk to me that way?” her father asked, but relaxed his grip enough in surprise that Marissa was able to break free.  She scrambled to get between her father and Aaron and held her hands up to try and back her father away.  Lucian shot Marissa a puzzled look as she remembered that he’d never seen this side of her family before.  She felt her face turn red with embarrassment; her family was being exposed, again.

              “Dad, this is my home now.  I will go and visit grandma today in hospice.  I’m so sorry that she’s sick,” Marissa started, mustering as much sympathy as she could for her father, as angry as she was at him at this point in time, “I know it must be really hard on you.  But if you take a step toward me again, I will call the police.  I can’t let you treat me this way anymore.  I’m nearly twenty-one.  I haven’t lived in your house for a year.  You need to let me be an adult,” she said, more calmly than she ever imagined she could with her knees shaking as badly as they were.

              Aaron held up his cell phone.  “I’ve already dialed 9-1-1, I just have to press send, sir.  I know this isn’t the best way for us to meet, but I will protect your daughter, even if it is against her father.”

              “Fine,” her dad growled before turning on his heel and heading toward the door, looking somewhat deflated and not as menacing as Marissa knew he could be.  The screen door banged against the house, signaling his departure.  Aaron ran to lock the door and rushed back to catch a collapsing Marissa.  She dissolved into tears on the kitchen floor.  Aaron’s arms came around her and pulled her into his lap.  Lucian still looked at her, dumbfounded.

              “Ris?  Are you okay?” Lucian found his voice.

              “I’m…okay.  Can you give us a minute?” She asked.

              “Sure,” he smiled, sympathetically, before walking to the front door.  “I’m going to get some air.”

              “The bruises?” Aaron asked, quietly, after Lucian closed the door behind him.

              “Not quite,” Marissa said between sobs.  “I don’t know how I was able to say that to him.” She looked up at him through wide blue eyes.  “I don’t know why he decided to leave.  I thought he was going to drag me out of here by my hair.”  She started to tremble and Aaron’s arms tightened around her shoulders.

              “If not him…” he trailed off. “I don’t mean to pressure you.”

              “My younger brother.  He learned everything he knows from my dad, including his lack of respect for me.  Jared and I are starting to forge a better relationship now that I don’t live with them,” she gave him a weak smile.

              “I’m so sorry,” he breathed, kissing her forehead.

              “No, I’m sorry.  You shouldn’t be in the middle of all of this.  I have too much baggage for you.  You should probably go,” Marissa started to get up to clean up the pieces of her possibly shattered phone, but Aaron didn’t loosen his grip on her.

              “Marissa,” he started, holding her against him, “I’m not going anywhere.  I told you I want to be with you.  I told you I love you.  I meant those things and this only makes me want to be with you more,” he finished.

              “Why?” she asked, her eyes filled with wonder.

              “Because I can’t believe how strong you’d have to be to have the courage to leave that situation behind, and to choose to stay away every day in the face of that.  Most people who have been…abused…like this never stand up for themselves,” he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes.  “You constantly amaze me.” 

She gasped and tried to pull her eyes from his gaze, but couldn’t.  Marissa didn’t know how long they sat together, but she knew she needed to get up and see her grandmother.  Moving to grab her phone, she was relieved to find it in three pieces, the back, the front and the battery.  Piecing everything back together, she hoped it would work when she powered it on.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked as she hit the power button. 
‘Success!’

“I have to call my mom to see what hospice my grandma is in,” she answered.

“Do you want me to go with you?” he asked, tentatively.

“It’s probably best that you don’t…I don’t know if my parents’ll be there or…,” Marissa stopped and looked up into Aaron’s eyes.  “Do you mind?”

“Of course not, but you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll stay here until you get back?” he offered.

“Please, go home and I will call you later, I promise.  I let Tony rescue me too many times, and it cost me our relationship.  I need to start rescuing myself,” she pleaded and he nodded, reluctantly, as Marissa dialed her mother’s cell number.

“Marissa, what are you doing?” her mother answered on the first ring.

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it.  I just want to know where grandma is,” she sighed, before writing down the name of and the directions to the hospice provider her grandma was admitted to.  “How much longer?”

“Not long, maybe twenty-four or forty-eight hours.”

“Wow.” Marissa hung her head.

“Honey, she’s not herself.  I want you to be prepared.  Okay?”

“Okay, I’m headed there now. I love you.” She sighed and gave Aaron a pain expression; sure she was as pale as she felt.

“Good.  I love you, too.”

Marissa threw on the first outfit she could find in her closet and started for the door.

“Luc, I have to go, I’m so sorry.”  She pulled her friend in for what she was sure was a departing hug.  “I will miss you so much.”

“I still have a week, doll.  If you need to talk…hell, even if you don’t.  Call me, please,” his dark eyes pleaded with her as she pulled away from their embrace.

“I will.  Can you guys lock up when you leave?” she asked, and with their nodding heads, she found the courage to leave them behind to say good-bye to her grandmother on her own.             

CHAPTER 22

March 2002

              Upon arriving at the hospice house, they directed her to a small, semi-private bedroom at the front of the house.  Marissa entered quietly, her head down, as she approached the restless figure in a bed beside the window.  Grateful that she was there alone, she sank into the chair next to her grandmother’s form and grabbed the hand that was extended to her.

              “Hi, Grandma,” she whispered.  Tears sprung to her eyes at the responding gurgles from her grandmother that didn’t quite form words.  “I love you so much,” Marissa sobbed, squeezing the hand she held harder and resting her forehead on their joined hands, briefly.  “I hate this; I don’t want you to go, Grandma. But I don’t want you to hurt anymore,” she breathed.

              “I….love…you…too,” she thought she heard from her grandmother in a series of gurgles.  Marissa looked up and smiled at the restless figure in the bed, her heart breaking for her.

              “I think it’s time for your next dose of morphine, Mrs. Masterson,” a chipper voice said from the other side of the bed.  Marissa tried to wipe her tears discreetly.  “She likes when you give her some of the Sprite from the straw.” The nurse nodded to the soda can beside her bed.

              “She can sip from it?” Marissa asked.

              “No, you, kind of, have to do it like a baby bird, with your finger over the top of the straw, then you release it slowly into her mouth.”

              “Do you want some soda, Grandma?” she asked, reaching for the can.  When she saw a slight nod, she drew the straw from the can and dripped the soda slowly into her grandmother’s open mouth.  Tears started to blur Marissa’s vision as she replaced the straw into the can and saw her grandma smile.  Marissa wasn’t sure if she was smiling about the soda she was trying to swallow, or the morphine she’d just been given, as she was now less restless.

              “There’s another visitor here for Mrs. Masterson,” the nurse announced before leaving the room.

              “Okay, I’ll let them in then,” she smiled before turning back to the vessel that was once a strong, prideful woman.  “I’ve gotta go now, Grandma.  I love you,” she whispered, squeezing her hand again and leaving the room.

              “How is she?” a concerned voice asked.  Marissa saw the sad expression in Jared’s eyes as she approached him.

              “I can’t believe it’s her…just be prepared, okay?” she swiped at her tears again, hugging her brother tightly.

              “Okay,” he whispered and Marissa could tell he was holding back his own tears, trying to be strong.

I don’t know exactly how to write this entry. Or how to portray exactly how I feel. My grandma died last night. When I saw her, I just couldn’t believe how much she had gone downhill. The last time I saw her, she talked and laughed

and was lucid. Yesterday, she could barely move. She couldn’t talk, well, not intelligibly. And she couldn’t swallow. I just can’t believe I had to watch another grandparent die of cancer. I hope I never have to watch another person I love deteriorate like that again. It’s so hard. I don’t
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