Selfish ~ Trevor Jackson

What Now?

I sat there with my head in my hands, contemplating my next move. My next thought. My next sentence. My next breath. My next decision. I knew that I still wanted that drink and I knew that I couldn't bare to look at him anymore.

Not because he disgusted me, but because every time I laid eyes on him I could see him dying in my arms. Every time I looked down at his lips, I could see them pale and cold. And when I gazed upon his entire body- the fingers that tickled my daughter, the arms that held me in the middle of the night, the legs that hypnotized me when he danced, the satin skin that captured my heart, I could see it in a casket.

It was undeniably unbearable and I just couldn't look at him anymore- I wouldn't look at him anymore. Not until I could wrap my mind around the idea of the love of my life dying.

I should have remained calm when we spoke, I mean it wasn't his fault. I had exploded on him because... Well because I didn't know how else I was supposed to react. He lied to me for months about dying. I couldn't just get over it like it was something trivial, because it wasn't. I could have killed him.

That argument we had- it was bad enough for him to collapse, what if the situation had escalated any further? If I was the cause of him being in this hospital bed, then I sure as hell could have been the cause of him being in a casket.

And at his funeral I wouldn't be able to say anything besides the fact that I didn't know about his condition. That I didn't know that if I pushed his body to the point of needing an overwhelming amount of adrenaline, I could kill him. That he never told me any of that, so I couldn't stop it from happening.

I understood that he didn't want any special treatment or for me to treat him any different from the way I treat him now and I understood that he didn't want me to feel like I had to love him because of his condition, but I needed to know that he was dying.

Now Trevor was telling me that I had to decide the fate of our relationship.

I cheated. I fucked up. I know. I did something completely dispicable to someone I was supposed to love and I didn't deserve him.

But he lied too. He fucked up too. He kept something oh so important from me for months and never planned to tell me until something bad happened.

We both did something wrong. And no one is more wrong than the other.

And now all the pressure was on me to decide if we were going to stay together as if I was anywhere near emotionally stable for that shit with all these swirling emotions inside of me.

"Take as much time as you need... I'm willing to do whatever you want me to," he said softly. How was I to process all of this? I still didn't understand whatever it was that he had and I was still trying to cope with the fact that he was going to die in less than a year.

"I don't even know, Trevor," I replied wiping my eyes.

"Pray about it," he stated. I had the urge to slap him. Not that praying wouldn't help, but after all this shit he was acting perfectly normal. I shouldn't have been the only person freaking out. I shouldn't have.

He should have been just as stressed out as I was, but he was sitting in the bed staring at me like I was supposed to answer him right that minute.

"It's going to take me a while," I sighed. He nodded his head as if he understood, but I doubted that he did. "I'm just going to go get Leanni and go home. I'll have Kat bring her over to see you ever now and then."

He nodded again, "Just promise me one thing?"

"What," I said blandly.

"Call me every night before you go to bed... I know I won't be seeing you for a long time and I just want to be able to hear your voice," he responded.