#.task10

The counter parts took their respective seats next to one another, Jared's hands holding hers in his lap, knees touching, their bodies shifted inward towards one another. Alice, though a somewhat naive girl, was still bright, keeping her wits about her tonight; eyes moving from Jared’s beautiful face around the small apartment room, making sure nothing looked out of the ordinary before she gave herself away. Tonight was the night, and Jared had to keep things sober this time around.

She let out a soft sigh and looked down at her legs, showing in the soft light of the loft, her shorts hugging her legs tightly. “I’ve got eyes in the back of my head,” she said, her heart aching as she did so, though she told herself not to cry. At all costs, Alice. You mustn’t cry. Jared’s head cocked to the side, his innocence showing for just a moment before he let go of her hands, obviously offended. “I know where you’re going with this, and I’m not surprised. You take me for a fool, and maybe you’re right. If… if I were wiser I would not have let myself come here tonight,” she continued, her voice shaking, as she felt the familiar lump in her throat. No, Alice, do not cry.

Looking up at Jared, she could see all the memories of the summer they spent together, all the times she could remember and some that she couldn’t. She knew his secret now and yet… yet she still wanted to be around him, be with him on more than a sexual level. Of all the times they were to have sex, she couldn’t remember a single one. Only adding to her anxiety, she looked back at her legs, ashamed that she had even come here. She had to free herself from the man, had to for her own good, before they actually started a relationship. And that thought alone made her want to cave in on herself, made it harder to breathe.

His hands, once warm, were now cold, pushing her away. Standing up he looked down at her, hurt and something on the side of amazement in his features. “You know nothing,” he whispered to her, malice and hatred in every syllable. Although she was speaking the truth, he would deny every statement; that was just his nature.

Here she was watching the summer from his eyes fade away with the winter, the changing of the times changing her as well. She wouldn’t stand for this sort of treatment ever again, not from the likes of any man or woman. She was a person and she mattered. As much as she could talk down on herself, she meant something in the grand scheme of things and she wasn’t about to let Jared steal her memory again. There was too much of that going on in her life for her to tolerate. She had this huge hole in her heart from her past trauma that she thought Jared would fill, but for some reason, he just wouldn’t fit.

Aching from her heart to her stomach, the pain moved to her very core, making her whimper out in agony before she looked up at the man she so desperately loved, but never could be with. Not on these terms.

“Alice,” he began, calmer now, looking down into her blue hues, the placidness in his frame replaced with utter regret and sorrow. He dropped to his knees and held his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth for a moment before he could face her again. “Lust can give a man so many regrets,” he defended himself, looking from his hands to her eyes once more, the pout of her lips trembling with heartache and want, the freedom she clung to making this harder as the time dragged on, the clock on the wall ticking loudly in the silence shared between the pair. She shook her head, unwilling to let herself back out of this, not again. She couldn’t be with him anymore. This was the end.

“I guess your love was only as safe as the promise you made,” she huffed, standing firm in her conviction. “You never loved me. You only wanted to take what wasn’t yours and make me out to be a fool. I’m not falling for your tricks anymore.” It was now that she let her true emotions show, the tears lining down her cheeks, make up streaking down her porcelain features.

“Alice, please,” Jared begged, taking her hands back in his own, red lips kissing over her knuckles. She shook her head although he wasn’t looking to see the reaction. “Please, it was just a one-time thing… I… well, you know how I feel.” He said, still unable to say those three words that would have tricked her once more.

“You are the storm, the wind and the waves; you break me in two and toss me away.” She sobbed, her voice cracking numerous times, stopping before her next statement to collect and regain her composure. “I fell apart, Jared. I fell apart when I fell for you, and you took advantage of that!” She tossed his hands aside, licking her dry and cracking curves as she wiped the mascara and eyeliner off her cheeks. “How can I float above the water that fills my lungs?” She asked him, not expecting an answer.

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes as well before she stood to leave his house, plans of going to a rundown hotel for the night as it was all she could afford.

“Lucy Hale, please? She was admitted here last night. I know I’m not her family, but I’m her boyfriend. I just really need to see her.” The girl was in critical condition in the ICU, and that thought alone was enough to make Vince hate himself even more for getting her nearly killed. The nurse pouted slightly, her white name tag reading Melinda in black uppercase lettering. “Please, Melinda.” He said, using her name to gain her compassion and catch her attention. “She’s hurt because of me,” he explained to her, having no trouble in taking the blame for his mistakes. The weight of the situation bore on his shoulders enough to crush him mentally and physically. She could see it in his eyes, spirits down and his body weary from lack of sleep the past few nights. The young lady sighed again and nodded her head, writing something on a Post-It note, talking loud enough so the other nurse at the front desk could hear.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you. Only family members are allowed in the ICU,” she spoke, a helpful smile on her lips as she handed the note over to him, tapping it with her pen. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said before looking back at her computer to finish a case she was working on. With a grateful smile and a tip of his head, he walked off; looking at the note once he was out of the view of the other nurse, much older and stiffer than the younger. He knew she would have never given him a chance like Melinda had, and for that, he was eternally in her debt. Looking over the directions, a little map drawn on the yellow note, he followed them into the ICU, looking for the bed with his blonde girlfriend.

Tubes were connected to her arms and her nose, down her throat and in her chest, sucking out all the blood and extra liquid that was filling her lungs. The bullet holes were covered by a chest wrapping, the girl’s mother slumped over in the chair next to the bed, a light snore leaving her mouth, hanging agape from the angle of her slouch. Vincent smiled and exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding in, his eyes now transitioning to the empty chair on the other side of Lucy’s bed. He took it, scooting the legs across the tiled floor, making as little noise as he could to position himself close to his girl. He took her hand, holding it close to his chest as he leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I’m so sorry,” he told her sleeping form, looking over her stuttering chest, her gasp for air leaving her body shaking in pain and strife. Once more, he was to blame. If he wasn’t in the arms race, this would never have happened and the girl could have continued on with her brain tumor, getting treatments and getting taken care of; now she was unable to fight, unable to combat anything. She was dying, and he knew it. If not from the tumor, from the gunshots. He started to cry, his nose running from his buildup of tears streaming down his face. “You’re sick like this winter, and I just made it so much worse,” he sighed, using the back of his tattooed hand to clean up his face, eyes already blood shot from his heavy sobs.

Lucy’s mother stirred, shifting her position in the chair in which she sat, closing her mouth with a few hums and smacks from her lips. Vincent sucked up his pain, tucking it back inside his chest so no one would have to see him break. He was Lucy’s rock, yet here he was, crumbling.

A nurse walked in then to check vitals, the nightly rounds; every hour on the hour. Vincent sat back and cleared his throat of the lump that was still developing back there, watching the nurse take Lucy’s signs and noting them down on the chart in her room. A sad pout appeared on the nurse’s full lips, about to leave the room before Vince called her back.

“Excuse me,” he called, voice cracking from the holding back of tears. “Is there any way I can get myself to see one of her doctors. I’m her brother,” he lied, looking over towards Luce’s mum. She was out cold. “I’ve been working all day, found out late that Lucy was in here, and I don’t want to wake Mum and have her crush me for waking her from slumber.” He thought that was a good enough reasoning to let him speak to a doctor; he just wanted to know her prognosis, know how she was doing without either her mother or Lucy herself knowing he had been there. That would have plagued them both. Neither knew quite what happened the night of the shooting, but he was certain they knew it was at his expense. He needed to see a doctor, and soon.

The nurse nodded and he let out a sigh of relief, relaxing a bit in his chair as the nurse left, calling in a doctor that showed up in less than five minutes. “Hi, I’m Vincent,” he introduced himself, shaking the doctor’s hand as a greeting. “I’m just wondering how she’s doing.”

“Good to meet you, Vincent, I’m Sarah. You can call me that,” she smiled, and picked up the clipboard at the foot of Lucy’s bed, looking over the stats and the counts of her blood cells. She sighed, and placed the board back. He could tell there was something in Sarah’s mind that she was battling with. There had to be nothing worse than delivering bad news.

“I’m sorry to say that she’s got two days. Just two. The tumor in her brain is growing as her body weakens from addressing the shots in her torso.” Sarah looked up into Vincent’s eyes to see how he was taking this blow. Not well.

“I’m sorry,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. “To finish, we are trying to save her. She’s a fighter; I know that from her records. However, the bullet wounds will kill her before the tumor does.” Dropping her hand, she walked over to the side of the bed, looking at Lucy’s heart monitor, the green beeping line jumping here and there as her heart struggled to keep her alive.

“Thank you,” Vincent finally spoke up, slouching back in his chair, looking over to Lucy, her blonde hair flowing around her like some fairytale princess. In his eyes, that’s exactly what she was: his princess. Tears flowed uncontrollably now, the doctor leaving him to weep in peace.

“Two more days, just two more,” he cried aloud to her, his head dropping on her chest. “I’ll stay with you until your time is up, I promise I’m not leaving you,” he managed to choke out through broken sobs, his chest heaving with the pain and guilt he felt.

She was dying, and he was to blame.

_________________________________________________________

One more day, just one more.

He stayed up all night long just to make sure she was alright, not passing until her time was up. A few times Lucy had awoken to see the pathetically weak version of Vincent, guilt ridden, eyes puffy and red from his constant crying. He was worse off than Lucy’s mother, though she seemed to already be in the advanced stages of grief. Perhaps it was because she knew from the day Luce got the tumor she was as good as gone. She had already grieved. Already cried. Already come to terms with losing the only child she had. The thought alone made Vincent’s heart ache harder, his breath constricting in his lungs, throat shrinking up as he gasped for air.

He had been forgiven. By both Lucy and her mother. He did nothing wrong in their eyes; he simply tried to save his girlfriend. That was true, but they didn’t know the half of it. He was in a game he could never win and the game-masters took away the one thing they knew would hurt him the most – the love of his life.  However, he apologized each time Lucy awoke.

“You’ve gone mad,” she mumbled with a faint smirk one of the times she was lucid enough to speak, moving her hand weakly to grasp his.

“Don’t you say that I’ve gone crazy,” he told her. “I may have lost my mind, but I’ve still got you.”

He excused himself to the bathroom, taking his hourly break to cry alone. She wouldn’t be one of those to see him crack. Not again. After his heart shattered for the hundredth time, he looked into the mirror of the restroom, blinking repeatedly to get the redness away from his eyes before returning to Lucy’s bedside. It was there that he sighed, opening his mouth to let his shaky breath leave his pout. “Love is not for me,” he said to himself, taking a vow to never love someone the way he loved Lucy. For their sake more so than his own. He couldn’t lose another the way he was losing her; he just couldn’t. He wouldn’t make it through another loss like this.

That night it was Lucy’s turn to stay awake, making sure Vincent didn’t stray too far. Even though the doctors and her mother hadn’t spoken of her impending doom, she had a feeling she was leaving this world and departing for another. She constantly told her boy that she loved him and wouldn’t want to spend this time with anyone else other than him. Each time it got a little harder to hear, but he took it, the words like daggers, cutting him deep. But he took the cutting edge, just like she was taking her death, like a pro. He smiled to her and gave her a kiss on her lips. “I love you,” he whispered back to her before she closed her eyes, coughing lightly. She turned her head to cough into her pillow blood stains over the white fabric.