One Chicago: Linstead

Chapter 13: Web of Lies

Jay was caught in a web of lies. He lied to his girlfriend, a bartender, his boss, his colleagues, his friends. Everyone he ever met, he probably lied to. The one person he rarely ever lied to was Erin, and so he told her the truth. That got him into sitting through and AA meeting. He was screwed. He knew that Erin would never truly get over this. She wasn't going to have to deal with this with him, but drinking was the only way to get over the urge for heroin. After a while, that urge for heroin was gone, but now it was an urge for alcohol.

He kept apologizing to Erin. Everyday, all the time. Everywhere. But she never truly forgave him. Days passed. Weeks. Months. He was sober. And she finally, finally, finally, forgave him, just barely. She had sex with him so he wouldn't have sex with somebody else, but it just split their relationship apart more than ever. They kept lying to each other, telling each other they loved each other, but that wasn't true. Honestly, they didn't want to be together. They just split up...and this time, they thought for good.

Erin kept their 'new apartment' as Jay moved back into his old one. Everywhere Erin looked, it reminded her of all the memories, but she didn't care.

They were done for good....kind of. A week passed and everything went back to normal. Like they had never even kissed before. Like they didn't love each other, ever. Like they just met. They weren't awkward around each other though. They were...normal.

Jay was now okay, sober, not even drinking alcohol anymore. Erin, she was getting better at her job, feeling more confident, even working things out with her mom.

Bunny was kind of different. When she admitted to Erin the real reason why she was acting different, even Erin felt sympathetic. But she wasn't so trusting so she had to see the lab work to verify. To verify the fact that Bunny had leukemia. And so Bunny was drying. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She only had months to live, if she was lucky. If she was healthy.

'I'm dying'. Those words repeated in Erin's head. She was losing everybody, everything. All the light was being sucked out of her world, it was just filling with darkness. Sure, Bunny wasn't a real mother to Erin, but she wasn't exactly not a part of her, she almost shaped who Erin grew up to be.

They went out for dinner, Bunny and Erin. They had a great dinner. Up until Erin stood up, only to have a wave of nausea and dizziness hit her. She fell to the floor and looked around until she blacked out; The last thing she could remember, the last thing she did remember was being in the hospital. The doctor told her some news that completely shocked her. It rocked her world. It shook it like a earthquake that had the magnitude of 10.

She couldn't believe what she was just told, and she thought, at first, that it would only make her world, just a little bit darker. Her news...well it was nerve-racking.