Unspoken

Chapter 1

Cancer. John didn't even know how to begin to process that. His mind swirled with memories of his conversation with Isabella, and how she had proceeded the news with a tearful explanation of all the ways they would grow old together, while he stood there, holding her tightly, with a growing sense of doom in his gut. He knew, he knew, something was wrong. Cancer. One word. A scary word. A word that could mean death. A word, that for Isabella, did mean death.

Victor had Brady for the night, Isabella was asleep, and John, somehow, found himself on Pier 29 late in the evening, overwhelmed with the news she had just given him hours before. He could barely process it. Shock had set in, and he was lost. He'd been in denial ever since. "Huh, denial," he thought to himself, "I wonder what Doc would have to say about that?"

He listened to the sounds of the buoys and the boats on the water. Exhaustion. His life, what little he could remember of it, had been fraught with one hardship after another, and never being one to complain, he took the blows as they came. Sometimes they sidelined him, but he had never...never, wanted to give up; however, tonight, the emotional fatigue had hit him so forcefully, that he'd left the loft at nearly 10 pm, just to breath. He'd checked on Isabella, and he'd simply walked out.

John wrapped his jacket more tightly around him when the cold breeze blew up off of the river. The solace of the pier was something that he hadn't sought out in quite awhile. It always made him think of Marlena when he came here, and thinking of her...well, that hurt, too. It was best for him to focus on his family, Isabella and Brady, especially now.

"Fuck," he said softly, running his fingers through his hair. He'd gone over it in his mind a hundred times, looking for every possible reason she could be sick, anything he could blame it on...except for cancer. He was still trying to find ways to convince himself that it wasn't as bad as Isabella was making it out to be. Maybe the diagnosis wasn't fatal. Maybe, somewhere, there was some specialist who might have the miracle they needed. He couldn't lose her, too. He'd already lost so much. Somehow he was going to have to find the strength to get through this. If only he could stop the words from rolling through his mind over and over again. "I'm try—I'm trying to tell you...John, I have cancer."

He stepped over to the pilings, leaning heavily on the wood. Perhaps tomorrow, he could convince Isabella to get a second opinion, or to take the tests over again. Something, anything, to stave off this downward spiral he was taking into hopelessness. Doing this alone, raising Brady alone...he didn't know if he had it in him to do that. His mind filled with his son's sweet face, soft brown hair, and dark eyes. Brady was the image of his mother.

"John?" He heard Marlena's voice, and his whole body shivered. He couldn't see her now, not when he was feeling this vulnerable, but there she was anyway, stepping out of the fog and saying, "It's Marlena." The moment was so similar to her return a little over a year ago, and yet it was nothing like it at all.

Smoothing out his features, John turned to her with false joviality, "Hey, Doc. What are you doing out here this late?" She seemed to be more beautiful every time he saw her. Especially in the fog, with the lamplight shining through the loose strands of her blonde hair. Prior to last year, being in love with two people would have been something he thought impossible, but it was possible, and certainly something he'd never give voice to. His love for Marlena was his, and only his. In the end, Marlena had stayed married to Roman, and John had married Isabella. It was the obvious choice. It was certainly the least messy of their options.

Something was wrong with John. Marlena could tell almost immediately. She'd known him long enough to notice the small gestures, the flex of his fingers, and the slight wobble at the corner of his mouth, when he tried to pretend he wasn't upset. The cadence of his voice when he tried to sound upbeat, but it came off sounding flat. She stepped closer, watching him closely, and asking him, "Are you okay? You seem...you seem upset."