My Sweetest Finley

5

We make our way out of the water and I walk over to our stuff to check my phone.

7 Missed Calls from Dad

Dad: Baby, I really need you to answer your phone

Dad: It's about your mom. Please answer.

10 New Messages from Dad

I immediately call him when I see all of the unanswered messages. My heart is pounding in my chest as the phone continues to ring. "Hey, I'm not at my phone right now please-" I hang up the phone and try to call him again. And again. And again.

I hear Eric walk up behind me, I turn to him trying to calm my breathing. "Hey, what happened?" He crouches down to meet my eyes. "Can we go? I'll try to explain in the car." He nods and takes my hand to help me up. I make my way to the car and sit in the passenger seat, watching Eric pack up all of our stuff and put it behind me in the back seat. While he was doing so, I continued to call my dad and text him, anything to get a hold of him.

Just as Eric gets into the driver's seat, my dad answers the phone. "Hey dad, what happened? Is she okay?" I can feel my eyes starting to burn with tears. "Are you sitting down?" He says after a heavy sigh. "Yeah, yeah. I'm in Eric's truck, we are on our way home," I choke out, not letting my tears fall. "Okay, I'm going to need you to breathe through what I'm about to tell you." "I know dad. Please tell me. You're scaring me," I take a deep breath, preparing myself for the worst. "Your mom has two tumors in her brain. She went to the ER this morning when she passed out from the pain of a headache." He takes another deep breath as I quickly swipe away a fallen tear. "The doctors say it's terminal." I think I stopped breathing.

Next thing I know, my phone is on the floor of Eric's car and we are on the side of the road. It's the middle of nowhere. The only people who can hear me sobbing are Eric, my dad on the phone, and some cow like twenty feet away. I wasn't very close with my mom and now I won't ever get the chance to be. "Maybe if I had been nicer and not had stressed her out so much, I could have prevented it," I choke out. Eric grabs my face, taking my attention away from the gravel. "Nothing you could have done or said could have prevented this. Do you want to go see her right now or go home and shower first?" I chose the first option, not knowing how much time I had left with her.

___

A few hours later, Eric pulls into the parking lot. I jump out of the truck before an open parking spot is anywhere close, running into the hospital. "Hi," I say to the lady at the from desk, she looks annoyed to see me. "I'm Finley Martin, daughter of Stacy Martin. Could you please tell me where she is staying?" I say in scattered breaths. "Room 205 on the third floor." She points towards the elevator and I take off running again, only for her to tell me to "Slow my roll". I ignored her, trying to get to my mother as fast as humanly possible.

When I reach her door, I hesitantly knock. My dad opens the door enough for me to walk past him. My mom has all kinds of wires hooked up to her. She's sleeping and I so badly want to wake her up and talk to her.

"She's been asleep for a few hours. They keep checking on her to make sure she wont go into a coma," My dad wraps his arm around me and I press my face into his shoulder to cry. I cry and I cry and everyone tells me it's going to be okay but that doesn't make anything better.

___

After a few more hours in the hospital, my dad didn't want me spending the night there as I kept falling asleep on the chair next to her bed. Eric was given permission to stay in the house with me, to basically babysit and make sure I don't go insane.

In the middle of us watching Spiderman, there is a knock at the door. It's almost 2 a.m. so I make Eric answer it.

It's Isla. I can only assume it was Eric who told her. I think my dad has been too distracted by me and my mother.

He lets her in the house and she makes her way straight to me. She wraps her arms around me and I'm confused because she hasn't really spoken to me in days. I thought she was still mad about me being around her brother constantly but I guess she's over it now. "Are you okay?" Once the words slip out of her mouth, I start crying again. "It's okay," she rubs my back as I continue to sob, soaking her shirt. "No, it's not okay. Nothing is okay. Everyone keeps telling me it is and it isn't. My mom is going to die and there is nothing, not one thing anyone can do to stop it." I get up and storm to my room, slamming the door.

I don't even have the energy to make it to my bed. I slid down the door and when my butt hits the floor, I curl into a ball and cry even more. I can't seem to stop crying. Everyone keeps dying on me.

I wake up to being hit by the door. "Oh shit, Finley. Why are you on the floor?" Eric squeezes into my room as I had scooted just far enough for him to be able to come in. "The bed was too far," I say as I lay my head back onto the wooden floor. Eric sits with his legs crossed in front of me. "Do you wanna talk? Or just sleep? I can take you to your bed." I nod, wanting to go to bed but not having nearly enough motivation to move.

He puts his arm behind my knees, and another behind my back. He places me onto the bed and puts the covers over me. With a kiss on my temple, Eric turns to leave but I stop him by grabbing his wrist. "Stay. Please," I open up the covers next to me. While I'm turned back to Eric, I notice my phone on my nightstand and pick it up. The brightness hurts my head but I opened the phone to hundreds of messages of people feeling bad for me.

I show Eric my phone as he sits next to me, "How did they find out?" He shrugs his shoulders. I guess things get around fast when everyone knows everyone.

I place my phone back where it was and turn to Eric. I sit up, crossing my legs. "Thanks for taking care of me and dealing with all of it," I watch my hands as I pick at my nails. Eric places his hand over mine. "I'll be here whenever you need me. No matter what," he rubs his thumb over the back of my hand, looking at me with the saddest smile. I lay down and Eric pulls me close to him, causing me to lay on his chest.

"Do you wanna watch anything?" He asks, reaching for the remote. I shrug as he opens my Netflix account. "Ooh the Vampire Diaries? Steamy romance?" He laughs and continues to scroll. He lands on Grown Ups and starts the movie.

I try and laugh at the funny parts but end up laughing at Eric more. He laughs so hard at the smallest parts. The sound of Eric's breathing, along with his heartbeat is the perfect lullaby. My perfect lullaby.

Authors Note: Sorry this chapter is short. I dont want to put too many scenes in one chapter and I felt that, that was a good place to stop. :)