a heart's end

Eight

Anaelle

A couple years ago in the middle of the night Donte crawled up to my window, very 1950-esque, completely losing it. I had never seen him so bewildered. He was cursing, throwing things, yelling, and sobbing uncontrollably. It was very unlike Donte, who was always very calm and collected. It honestly was the first time I was worried about him. In the following afternoon, after he had awoken from the couple hours of sleep he received, he detached his groggy body from mine.

Tears were still rolling down his beautiful face, his raw emotions looked like something I had never seen before. I have never liked affection, I am not the cuddle type, but that whole afternoon I held him as he told me stories about him and his mother, which was odd because him and his mother didn't have a great relationship. I personally have never liked his mother, but listening to him introduced a new side of her I have never known. In his stories, she wasn't bringing a different guy home every night. She wasn't puking in her toilet from constant hangovers, she wasn't crying in her window and placing those pills in her mouth like candy.

She was pushing Donte on the swing. She was in the kitchen with him, baking a chocolate cake. She was in the bed with him, telling him stories. He was reminiscing on the good, which made me think of the bad. I instantly thought his mother had passed. After an hour, he told me the doctors have found a rapid growing tumor in her left breast. She had 6 months to live, at most.

Now, four years later, she does not have a speck of cancer left.

Or so I thought.

I heard the phone vibrating on the night stand and I felt Donte move out of bed to answer it.

"Oh... hey, Dad."

Instantly I shot up. His dad has no business to be calling him, especially this early. It must be an emergency. Or maybe... no.

"What? How? I thought... no. I'm not crying, Dad and honestly does that matter?"

He was crying. Tears immediately rushed onto his cheeks. Be brave. Don't cry.

"Okay. Yes, I will. I'm leaving now." When he hung up the phone he laid his body across mine for a second. Then he started packing in a frenzy, going crazy as he threw things into his suitcase and sobbed. Thankfully nobody else was in the room to witness his breakdown. I didn't know what to do or to say.

"What happened, Donte?" I asked, even though I already knew.

"They found it, Anaelle. They found it again!" Donte was rubbing his hands over his face and I bowed my head and rubbed my face as well.

"The cancer." I whispered and when we made eye contact, I knew I was right.

"I have to go home for a few days. I need to see her, Anaelle. I need to leave in a couple hours. I still have to book a flight. Oh God." He was panicking so bad that his hands were shaking.

"What about me?" I just had to ask, I knew it would piss him off.

"You?" He scoffed, but he sounded defeated. Like he didn't want to put up a fight. He walked over to me after zipping up his suitcase and kissed my head.

"Stay here, Anaelle. I need to go alone. I'll see you Monday. I'll call you when I land."

And just like that, he was gone.

Saturday I laid in Donte's bed just like I did all day yesterday. It was raining softly and with the sound of the city mixed with the rain it was hauntingly melancholic. His roomates came and went, but they never slept in the room. I don't know if it was because I was there or they just partied to hard. One of his roomates introduced himself as Jon and told me to come get him if I needed anything. I ignored him.