Keep On Walking (A Hunter Hayes Fanfiction, Book 3 of the Hardships Saga)

Chapter Seventeen

❝deathbed (pronounced ˈdɛθbɛd or deth-bed), noun
the place where someone is dying or has died.❞

Word spread quickly that Hunter Hayes' wife was lying on her deathbed. Though he tried to squash the rumours, they spread like wildfire, and soon, he was getting phone calls.

"Hello, Hayes-Lockhart Residence, this is Hunter speaking."

"Hunter, what's happened to Ryan?!"

"Naomi, she's not dying. It's just a rumour."

"But she's sick?"

"Yes. She's sick."

He'd eventually get out of that phone call, only to get another. "Hello, Hayes-Lockhart Residence, this is Hunter speaking."

"Where's Ryan?!"

"Melissa, she's just sick. Not... not dying. The rumours aren't true."

Yet more and more came through. So many people cared about Ryan. "Hello, Hayes-Lockhart Residence, this is Hunter speaking."

"Hunter, son, can you put Ryan on the phone? Her mother is worried sick."

"I'm sorry, Carter, I can't. She's resting, and no one's allowed to go near her."

"Is she really... dying?"

"No."

They never really seemed to stop. "Hello, Hayes-Lockhart Residence, this is Hunter speaking."

"Hunter? Where's Ryan? What's going on?"

"Ma, please. She's not dying."

"How can you be so sure?"

"She... she made me a promise that she'd never leave me the way Lilly did."

People came by with flowers and gifts, and both Lynette and Lucky came by with food. He accepted the offerings, but ended up eating them himself. Ryan could barely keep anything down anymore (excluding maybe a little tea, or some applesauce), and she was only becoming thinner and thinner. Hunter couldn't bear to look at her and face what he had done to her. Only her belly kept growing, and Hunter couldn't help but think that this child of theirs was sucking out the nutrients that Ryan so desperately needed.

Hunter, Lucky, and Jessie had taken it upon themselves to take care of Ryan in eight hour bursts. Jessie came in the morning and looked after her from seven until three in the afternoon. Lucky, after picking Jasper and Ari from school and kindergarten, left them at Jessie's house from three until eleven pm, and Hunter took care of her in the night time, from eleven until seven again. They were all more than worried about her. She was delirious more often than not.

Hunter got the worst of it. Her night terrors were worse now that she was delirious as well. She would openly scream through the night so much, begging Markus to leave her alone, that Hunter had resorted to leaving Phoenix at Lucky's house overnight so that he could get some sleep. Hunter listened to it night in and night out, and it drove him insane to hear her so hurt. Listening to her cry, begging him to stop, he now knew exactly what Markus had done to her on the night he had raped her, something she had never truly let on the details of. He couldn't stand it. The more she was dying, the more he died with her.

One day, it was Jessie's turn to look after her. Hunter went to the hospital to see Elle. No one had told her that Ryan was so sick, because they were scared she would get worried. Hunter was especially careful- if the virus had somehow spread to him, and consequently spread to Elle, it could be disastrous.

Ryan opened her eyes tiredly. She looked around the room for a moment, before beginning to cough violently. She sat up in bed, and Jessie came running in. "You're awake!"