Us (boyxboy) ✧Book 1✧

✧ Thirteen ✧

Jamie

Damon and I didn't really do anything for our honeymoon. Instead, we just stayed in the house for a couple days. Not even having sex (for the most part, because he couldn't), just relaxing and spending time with each other. Just cuddling. Just enjoying one another's company. That was, until, Maddison called and asked us to help her clean out the attic.

Why we said yes, I still wasn't sure.

He drove us over to his parents house, and Maddison greeted us at the front door. "Thank you both, so much, honestly." She said as she shut the door behind us.

"Question," Damon raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have seven other children you could have called for this? You know...the one's who aren't supposed to be on their honeymoon."

"I know," She said sympathetically, "But everyone else I called was miraculously busy."

"Ma, it's called a lie." He rolled his eyes.

"I know!" She threw her arms out dramatically, "But you two are the only ones who I wouldn't have had to guilt trip to do it!"

"Babe, the faster we get it done, the faster we can leave." I reasoned.

He rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed. "After you." He said to his mother. She pinched his cheek and lead the way, yanking down a rickety old ladder that I didn't trust. "What in the holy hell is all this, ma?" My husband clicked the light on, and his jaw instantly dropped.

There was boxes on top of boxes stacked literally everywhere. I was almost terrified that we were gonna come across a dead body somewhere. "Everything just kinda gets thrown up here at some point or another." Maddison shrugged nonchalantly.

"Jamie, you're tiny, don't get too close to anything or you might get lost." He held on to me.

It took us a few hours to even make a dent on just one side of the room, before Maddison pulled something from a box and said, "No wonder I could never find any of these,"

"What is that, ma?" Damon looked over his shoulder.

"All of the scrapbooks from when you guys were younger!" She got a smile on her face. "Jamie, when the kids were younger, we dozens of scrapbooks all the ways from Christian's first Thanksgiving, to Corey's first Halloween! Here's even more of my scrapbooks!" She held up another one, and Damon's eyes literally went wide. "Jamie, come look at these, the boys were so cute."

"Ma," Damon cleared his throat. He shook his head and looked at me.

"What?" She looked desperately confused.

The look he was giving her, and the look she was giving him back, they were in a fight with their eyes. Most importantly, he was hiding something. He held out his hands for the scrapbook, to which she huffed and handed it over.

"What's going on?" I raised a brow at him.

"Nothing." Damon said and shuffled through the book, taking pictures out here and there. "You can look at it now." And he set it in my hands.

"What did you take out?" I questioned as he shoved them in his pockets.

"Nothing you need to worry about." And he went back to whatever he had been doing. I looked over at Maddison, and she just gave me a sympathetic look, her brows furrowing and a sad smile.

We never finished cleaning the attic. About half way through, Maddison decided that we were done, and Damon was more than happy to drive us home.

"Are we gonna talk about what happened earlier?" I said on the way home.

"Nothing happened." He said, coldly.

"With the scrapbook." I pressed.

"I don't wanna talk about it." He let out a hard sigh. "There was some pictures in there I just don't want you to see."

"Oh, come on. Embarrassing baby pictures? You seen a picture of me where I pooped in the tub, if it's anything traumatic, it's that." I tried to make light of the situation, but he didn't respond, so I stopped talking about it.

I had to wait until he fell asleep. I crept out of the bed, and went through the jeans he was wearing, but to no luck, the weren't there. Where else would he have put them? I went through all three of our trashes, but they weren't there, either. Where the hell were they? And why was he trying so hard to hide them?

I tried to retrace his steps since we had been home, but they weren't anywhere I looked. And then it dawned on me, I came in the house first, and he took his sweet time coming in. I hadn't even thought anything of it. I tossed my shoes on and grabbed my phone to use as a flash light. I grabbed his car keys and headed outside. I opened the sun visor on both the driver's side and the passenger's side and they weren't there. I went through the center console in between the seats and the glove box, but nothing. I checked the back, even the trunk. The last place I checked was under his seat. Bingo.

I propped my phone up so that I could sit the polaroids in my hand and look at them. The first one I grabbed was labeled, 'Damon's first Christmas in the hospital - 12/25/2004.' It was enough to make me sick to my stomach.

He looked miserable as he laid in a hospital bed, tons of IVs hooked into his hands. Christian was holding Cole, Colin was holding Connor, and Jeremy was holding Corey, they were all sitting around the bed. They were all super miserable.

There were four pictures in total, and they were all pretty similar, the only difference was that Damon was progressively losing his hair until the fourth one he was completely bald. He was sickly pale, dark bags under his eyes.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.

None of the pictures said what was wrong with him. But they all made me feel numb. I put them back under the seat and went back inside. I crawled back into bed, and just stared at Damon.